Airplanes and Climate Change?

I will agree that fuels can always be made for existing engines even if the oil wells are starting to run dry. My point was intended along the lines of the economics of passenger flying would be affected, possibly dramatically.

 

Wow, thats cool, Great job w the rovers

Cant wait for Orion to get back to the Moon

 

Ah, that is a result of 9/11, not crowding. This is more of an effect on the East coast than the West. Out here, we've always had huge tracts of restricted airspace with all the military bases around here. The East got hit with lots of restricted airspace around DC, which makes it difficult to navigate through there.

Even around here there are a lot more "TFR"s since 9/11, which are temporary restricted airspaces for large public events and presidential visits. Those are a little annoying, since you really have to stay on top of them -- they can pop up even while you're in flight with little warning. Still, they're not onerous.

 

Thanks!

 

Hell, you can make JP8 out of forestry waste too. Making oil is certainly not a problem. We just gotta start using less of it for it to be a sustainable resource.

 

It is difficult to calculate the rate of oil production in the Earth's crust, but it is certainly several orders of magnitude slower than the rate at which we currently consume it. If by "using less of it" you mean essentially to stop using it to get down to the natural production rate, then yes, it will then be a sustainable resource. It will then also become inconsequential to the global economy. Otherwise, oil cannot be considered a sustainable resource. The same goes for all fossil fuels.

In the long run, we have to imagine a future with no fossil fuels. I don't know if that will be in 100 years, 300 years, or a 1000 years. But it's not that far off. We will likely not have abandoned flight. Liquid hydrocarbon fuels are very hard to beat for their energy density (energy per unit volume). Whatever our energy source, we can use it to create our own liquid hydrocarbon fuels, if that remains the best energy density solution in that far future. At least it provides a proof of concept that a sustainable energy future exists without fossil fuels, but with our current expectations for transport.

Right now, lithium ion batteries have about 1/20th the energy density of gasoline or diesel (or JP-8). We might find a new storage technology 20 times better, or we might not. Or we might invent a Mr. Fusion. But even if we don't come up with any miracles, we will still be able to use liquid hydrocarbon fuels to fly if we want. And we can do it with no carbon impact.

 

...Good point Warhorse, when we run out of crude oil to make petrol from we will just find some crude oil to make kerosine from?
...Tow planes have an engine.
...Why aren't we using them for regular passenger flights?
...9/11 would have been interesting with a nuclear reactor on board.
...carbon neutral I assume. ANd why did they stop using it?

 

we may be able to use solar powered aircraft in the future for small planes I imagine

as for 9/11, I was there and it was interesting enough with nothing else happening

putting a reactor on an airplane is not the best idea but they are excellent for spacecraft

as for the Nazis, well they lost, thats why they stopped

 

The biggest change was not due to 9/11, it was the restricted airspaces around airports expanding drastically over the previous decades. For the eastern half of the country, this is significant. If you became a pilot after these shifts have happened, then your view is the situation is static. If you were to experience all the successive restrictions over the decades, you can see the writing on the wall.

Is it possible that "airway rights" will one day be bought and sold like electromagnetic spectrum?

 

no because in the 1920s or so the FAA declared that all airspace above x # of feet was to be used for public and private toll free airtravel

Now if the Chinese get back to the Moon before the USA and claim the whole Moon as theirs, well that could be interesting

 

Trouble with that point, is that the same was true for the electromagnetic spectrum in the 1920s.

 

I've been a private pilot for over ten years, but I haven't ever flown in the northeast US, so I only know what I read in AOPA Pilot. Apparently there was a big change after 9/11 in the airspace out there, but I don't doubt that the big airports were encroaching on your airspace before then.