Whatever happened to...
 

Algae for fuel, for instance. It was all the rage for a while there. :confused:

Corn has more lobbyists.

Reality crept in.

There is a college that still makes it out west off coal fired exhaust.

Non $4 gas sorta put the damper on it, oil companies own all the patents so expect it to come out if we run shortages

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.col...493dd.amp.html

https://www.sciencedaily.com/release...1213115453.htm


We are in the maybe tomorrow mode

It is still out there on the research level. However, diesel is too cheap for it to be commercially viable.

algae
 

There appears to be a reluctant,however shifting awareness that,electrification of much of industry offers such available 'thermal' efficiencies,that liquid fuels of all stripes will simply be unable to compete,and would be a failed business model to pursue.Folly.
If capitalism reflects the best thinking,and Wall St. values Tesla Motors above GM and Ford combined,or Volkswagen Group en toto,etc.,then it appears that the smartest guys in the room are staring straight into the face of all 'fuels' as an eclipsed,superannuated technology (industry),heading for the dustbin of history.

I don't see electric being able to fly a plane to a different part of the world any time soon.

Balloon slowly floating off wind power?

3 week flights in only one direction?

soon
 

You wouldn't have been able to go to a gas station anytime soon in 1909 either.The short-term strategy for commercial aviation is bio-fuel,and net-zero carbon.
Inverting the question leaves us with the bigger issue: does anyone really need to fly? Covid-19 ought to have the world asking that one.

Since most companies only give employees 1 to 3 weeks off per year, yeah you kind of need air travel.
The government can't tax home made fuel, so that was never a long term option.
Also in 1909 it was just about the height of the coal fired steam engine age, using coal gas for lighting, coal for heat, ect. Oil and natural gas was about to become the clean alternative.

I have seen something about tests with algae to decrease the saline concentration of a byproduct of sugarcane ethanol brewing, and those algae were also meant as a biofuel feedstock. Didn't have any update about that in the last 2 years.

Oil is cheap and plentiful and most people are not really worried about carbon emissions. I thought it showed great promise. There may be a place for it someday but priorities will have to change.

If people really cared about CO2 emissions they would:
Drive an electric, if electric wasn't a viable option then they would drive a small diesel car.
Never use air travel.
To include consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables that are flown in from afar.
Have solar panels, not excuses.
Not be overweight, I'm sorry but I can't help but laugh at "glutinous environmentalists".
Grow some of their own food, even if it's just one kind of herb, a spice, a single tomato plant, ect.
Not use natural gas or propane.

IIRC, too much energy required to separate the oil and water.

AeromodelerII

https://inhabitat.com/wp-content/blo...eller-II-8.jpg
https://inhabitat.com/hydrogen-wind-...modeller-ii-8/
It is would be as long as a football field with a cabin the size of a studio apartment.

Fuller's Cloud City

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_6-Z6uM2cR...tured+1968.jpg
http://hoolawhoop.blogspot.com/2011/...mispheres.html

If you inject a hotel into the jet stream you only need to fly up and down. Of course, in each hemisphere it's only one way.

Vodka from the air:
www.pressherald.com/2020/04/26: Boxed wine and vodka made from CO2 That's the the green future of booze.
www.sciencemag.org/news: Ammonia—a renewable fuel made from sun, air, and water—could power the globe without carbon
www.hellenicshippingnews.com: Cross currents: Big oil and the energy transition in Oil & Companies News 23/04/2020

In the end, going all-electric might not make so much sense at all. Either biodiesel, ethanol or biomethane provide a better opportunity to close the carbon and nitrogen cycle than leaving raw materials rotting away venting methane and other compounds directly to the atmosphere.


Sure it's more complex when it comes to aircraft with a pressurized cabin, but with smaller piston-engined aircraft it's often easier to keep control of emissions. The problem is more bureaucratic than technical. On the other hand, in some regions air travel is actually more cost-effective and with lower emissions than other forms of transportation.


I have already considered to install a roof-mounted wind power generator in my grandma's house, as it would be presumably easier and cheaper to make one repurposing an alternator.


Just like the Victory Gardens during WWII? I have already considered trying something similar, even though it's not so easy to implement in a small apartment. Well, maybe if composting toilets were more widely accepted, it would've been an excuse to try growing some berries, herbs and spices.


I'm not unfavorable to natural gas in an engine with multi-port sequential injection, plus it can eventually be replaced with biomethane.

Absent hydrothermal or tidal power and bio-char, then yes.
Bucky Fuller: "Tracked to trackless, wired to wireless"
Figure of speech, I presume; but I'm greatly in favor of indoor windmills. Would y'all like to know more?

Be wary of attaching a mast to the wall of the house, the vibration might turn the wall into a drum-head or perform an unscheduled disassembly.

Consider a vertical axis with a tuned mass vibrational damper. Here's a link to some of the good work of fellow ecomodder-er, Julian Edgar:

www.autospeed.com:Mounting big driving lights, Part 2
Put the rotor above a skylight opening and a battery/controller box inside out of the weather.

Oh the ATF is gona love technology that can synthesize alcohol from air.

Bio methane can easily be used by industrial producers, such as glass, concrete, roads, none left for us proletariat.

Yes, air travel is more complex than it is made out to be. People that are against air travel should actually be campaigning against travel altogether.

Yes, flying is massively wasteful way to get from San Diego to LA but it is the ecological way to get from San Diego to NYC or Tokyo.

Air travel is more energy efficient than driving for long distance travel and way more efficient than ocean liners for transoceanic travel.

The paper below puts driving at 4200 BTU / passenger mile while flying is 2000 BTU / passenger mile.

It seem counter intuitive until you realize that planes are a form of public transportation and one that operates at near max capacity. A 777-300 ER carries 365 people and 7120 cu ft of cargo and takes 6 hours to get from SAN to JFK.

To move the same number of people you would need 91 sedans (with 4 to a car) + 2 semi trucks. That 2793 mile trip is going to take 3-5 days.

Quicker to fly / Cheaper to fly / Less energy intensive to fly.

https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitst...=1&isAllowed=y

I was considering some places in Amazon where access is easier by boat or aircraft than by Jeep :D

The usage of regular unleaded gasoline for aircraft in Brazil is illegal, even though it happens quite often. Well, considering not only that unleaded gasoline and ethanol can be used in engines fitted with catalytic converters, which are absent on small aircraft even when they're dedicated-ethanol such as some versions of the Embraer Ipanema cropduster, it's also worth to notice the low compression ratio which most of the Lycoming and Continental aircraft engines feature wouldn't be so troublesome with regular unleaded gasoline.

On a sidenote, for some crops it's better to rely on cropdusting by aircraft due to the lower compactation of the soil.

Notes: I was under the impression that per seat mile, fuel consumption of modern aircraft high bypass engines was competitive to cars. 747 aircraft claimed 20seat mpg with 40 year old engines.

Having a STC for auto fuel in my 50 Piper Pacer, preignition was the most detrimental hazard followed by alcohol eating the rubber hoses. The difficulty with auto fuel is the variable octane batch to batch and the mass of odd chemicals added to the base fuel all of which is not posted on the pump. With a $30,000 USD replacement cost, you get careful really fast.

I remember seeing reports claiming an even better seat MPG for them.


Besides getting the STC, doing an overhaul of the entire fuel system is a desirable preventive measure. When it comes to variable octane batch to batch, sometimes there is an increase on the lead content of AvGas in order to keep the octane rating constant batch to batch. I'd much rather trust on ethanol.