You guys are doing it wrong

[Frank Lee]

No matter where you go, there you are.

[SoobieOut]

Grappling hooks fired from compressed airguns mounted in the front bumper. Sounds more like a Bond film than a Ecomodding tool.

[womprat]

Originally Posted by jamesqf

True. Plus the fact that for a lot of us, it's not really our personal fuel consumption that's the fundamental issue, it's the effects of burning petroleum. Thus if I reduce my consumption X amount by causing someone else to increase their consumption by the same amount, I've achieved nothing.

PS: Though drafting a semi should also produce a small aerodynamic benefit for the semi...

Yes I've always thought that by reducing personal consumption, one is just getting out of the way of someone who cares less. By reducing the demand, we make it easier on those who are cost-constrained in their consumption.

[dcb]

Originally Posted by womprat

Yes I've always thought that by reducing personal consumption, one is just getting out of the way of someone who cares less.

I'm not sure you meant it this way, but it comes across as "there is no point to reducing personal consumption".

By reducing personal consumption you ARE reducing demand, proportional to your percentage of the population under consideration.

I believe what james was referring to was borrowing someone elses fuel (a-la grappling hook or?).

[euromodder]

double post

[euromodder]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

I've always thought it would be quite efficient to send satellites to space using an evacuated tube and rail gun. I just don't know what kind of heat shield would be needed for when the craft exits the tube, or if the sudden impact of hitting 1atm at ~20,000mi/hr would pulverize everything. Build this gun on top of a tall mountain near the equator and you can cut it down to 0.5atm and reduce the required velocity.

How do you get the tube to remain vacuum while the much-needed opening at the end is at 1 atm, or say 0,8 atop a mountain ?
The moment the tube is opened, the air will violently rush in while your spaceship is doing 9km/s going the other way.


Space shuttles were going relatively slow until they gained altitude, air became less dense, and much of the launch weight was already burned off. It's doing some 3000mph when 25 miles up.

[redpoint5]

Originally Posted by dcb

I'm not sure you meant it this way, but it comes across as "there is no point to reducing personal consumption".

By reducing personal consumption you ARE reducing demand, proportional to your percentage of the population under consideration.

I don't believe that demand is proportionally reduced by personal reduction over time.

If the US cut consumption of fossil fuels by half, this would have the short term effect of reducing demand, which in turn would drive prices downward, which in turn makes demand for fuel in poorer corners of the world increase.

Any resource I don't use will surely be consumed by someone else eventually.

The worldwide reduction of fossil fuel consumption will not occur due to a growing environmental awareness, but instead due to cheaper alternatives.

In other words, economics will guarantee consumption of fossil fuel, and economics will eventually move us away to alternatives.

Money- The universal religion.

Originally Posted by euromodder

How do you get the tube to remain vacuum while the much-needed opening at the end is at 1 atm, or say 0,8 atop a mountain ?
The moment the tube is opened, the air will violently rush in while your spaceship is doing 9km/s going the other way.


Space shuttles were going relatively slow until they gained altitude, air became less dense, and much of the launch weight was already burned off. It's doing some 3000mph when 25 miles up.

The vacuum may be economically or physically unviable, but my idea is a seal at the end of this tube that is pyrotechnically breached at the last moment before the payload exits. I have no idea what G forces would be experienced by the payload as it smashes suddenly into a wall of air, but I suspect it would be too extreme.

FYI- At 14,000ft pressure is ~0.6atm.

Carrying fuel is so wasteful though. Something like 90% of the fuel requirements of any given orbital launch is consumed just accelerating fuel. With a rail gun setup, zero energy is spent accelerating fuel. This cuts energy requirements down to 10% of a conventional launch.

[Ladogaboy]

Originally Posted by womprat

Yes I've always thought that by reducing personal consumption, one is just getting out of the way of someone who cares less. By reducing the demand, we make it easier on those who are cost-constrained in their consumption.

Just so you are warned: I've been known to bull's eye womprats in my T-16 back home...

[GRU]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

If the US cut consumption of fossil fuels by half, this would have the short term effect of reducing demand, which in turn would drive prices downward, which in turn makes demand for fuel in poorer corners of the world increase.

I don't believe that

The prices wouldn't go down so far that the poorer people that arn't buying much fuel now would end up buying too much fuel if the prices dropped.

In my line of work, if we lose half our business, we wouldn't cut our prices in half, we would keep the prices about the same and downsize and lay off workers.

[Ladogaboy]

Yeah, you can't underestimate the cost of scarcity, too. The more limited/exclusive a product becomes, the higher the price. Especially on products that get cheaper by volume to create.