Is Green Aviation Really Coming?

Interesting overview on leccy plane developments from Air & Space Magazine Aug 2018

https://www.airspacemag.com/flight-today/electricity-in-the-air-180969510/

Weight is such a killer for pure electric planes that I can only see it for very low passenger numbers on short trips. Dual power hybrids might become more practical to enable relative silence over densely occupied areas but conventional power elsewhere.

I'd rather see the effort going into the various forms of high speed trains, far better environmentally, safer and more practical for shifting large numbers of people and urgent perishable freight.

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Some time ago I heard a radio programme that suggested that because of the congestion at airports, national flights might be banned, followed by international ones just leaving inter continental flights, such is the demand for inter continental travel and coupled with the growing(slowly) availability of national and international high speed trains.

Also, I doubt that we should call electric transport 'Green'

My ebike is partially nuclear powered.

Some time ago I heard a radio programme that suggested that because of the congestion at airports, national flights might be banned, followed by international ones just leaving inter continental flights, such is the demand for inter continental travel and coupled with the growing(slowly) availability of national and international high speed trains.

 

Also, I doubt that we should call electric transport 'Green'

My ebike is partially nuclear powered.

TrTrai Might work between London and Paris , and trains Aberdeen to Newquay, but not so good between London Dublin

TrTrai Might work between London and Paris , and trains Aberdeen to Newquay, but not so good between London Dublin

From a UK perspective yes, but I suppose they were thinking on a European wide view.

Or just London centric!!!

My ebike is partially nuclear powered.

Compared with fossil fuels, nuclear is green and could become very green. That's why we are replacing the fossil fuel stations with nuclear.

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Edited July 26, 20187 yr by flecc

TrTrai Might work between London and Paris , and trains Aberdeen to Newquay, but not so good between London Dublin

Maybe time to revive the old Boat-Train option for such locations, train - fast ferry - train, except Dublin would hardly need the inbound second train!

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Compared with fossil fuels, nuclear is very green and could become very green. That's why we are replacing the fossil fuel stations with nuclear.

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Flecc, The trouble is when it goes wrong,,, it goes very wrong,,,, Very Very Very Wrong! The second problem is profit and corperate hunger for more and more profit, yet that more will never be enough so ways are then sought to do things the cheapest way possible. Unless they fully find a way to use the energy that is left until it is totaly depleted then the problem of stroage is going to be a problem.

Flecc, The trouble is when it goes wrong,,, it goes very wrong,,,, Very Very Very Wrong! The second problem is profit and corperate hunger for more and more profit, yet that more will never be enough so ways are then sought to do things the cheapest way possible. Unless they fully find a way to use the energy that is left until it is totaly depleted then the problem of stroage is going to be a problem.

100% agree

The danger is high

And also the nuclear waste

You can only dig so many holes in the ground what you going to do with it then

100% agree

The danger is high

And also the nuclear waste

You can only dig so many holes in the ground what you going to do with it then

I thought the UK was dumping the waste in the Irish sea? They tried off the coast of Spain and France but that didn't go down well with the locals...

Flecc, The trouble is when it goes wrong,,, it goes very wrong,,,, Very Very Very Wrong! The second problem is profit and corperate hunger for more and more profit, yet that more will never be enough so ways are then sought to do things the cheapest way possible. Unless they fully find a way to use the energy that is left until it is totaly depleted then the problem of stroage is going to be a problem.

It's not a problem, it's a benefit if we far sighted enough. We have around 60 years of current nuclear, after which with no sign of fusion being realised, we can switch to fast breeder reactors which use the nuclear waste. That includes all the cold war waste which is in fact the majority.

As for going wrong, that was a first generation problem, no different from all new technologies.

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Maybe time to revive the old Boat-Train option for such locations, train - fast ferry - train, except Dublin would hardly need the inbound second train!

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Unless you use Dunlaohgri (Don't know how to spell it but is pronounced Done Leery) The train from there to Dublin is the DART and very good.

I think it's perhaps a fashionable thing to say that little problems like Chernobyl, Jaslovské Bohunice, Three Mile Island, Fukushima were just "first generation problems" in the assumption that,, we can do better next try.

Man in his infinite learning retains the ability to assume that it will be better next time.

However 24,000 years it a long time to be nursing something in a barrel just for it to reach 1/2 of former potential with maybe another 200,000 years to go for it to be considered safe,, sounds like a lot of responsibility to be placed on anyone.

Do we put the next batch of minor catastrophes down to Second Generation Problems in the style of Apple Macintosh. Will someone publicly apologise and say that engineers are currently looking at the situation and we are going to take steps to see that something like this never happens again: Which seems to be the fashionable phrasing used when something goes wrong today.

A friends father who was a physicist thought there would be much value in turning to Thorium with the short half life and the ability to keep using the spent Thorium until it posed little potential for harm to anyone.

Maybe time to revive the old Boat-Train option for such locations, train - fast ferry - train, except Dublin would hardly need the inbound second train!

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The boat and train option never went away you know, and is still the most economical way to get from Dublin to London,or major UK cities. .when cost of buses to and from airports are included, a bit slower, well a fair bit slower, than flights.

Unless you use Dunlaohgri (Don't know how to spell it but is pronounced Done Leery) The train from there to Dublin is the DART and very good.

..yes the DART is a lovely service,however you will be waiting a long time to get the boat from DunLaogaire ,that service is discontinued and the boats go directly into Dublin port. The coastal run from Greystones in the south up to Howth on the North of Dublin Bay is a lovely railway route

..For those if you with an historical bent, the harbour at DunLaogaire,owes its existence to a certain Capt. Blight famous for Bounty Bars.

I think it's perhaps a fashionable thing to say that little problems like Chernobyl, Jaslovské Bohunice, Three Mile Island, Fukushima were just "first generation problems" in the assumption that,, we can do better next try.

 

Man in his infinite learning retains the ability to assume that it will be better next time.

 

However 24,000 years it a long time to be nursing something in a barrel just for it to reach 1/2 of former potential with maybe another 200,000 years to go for it to be considered safe,, sounds like a lot of responsibility to be placed on anyone.

 

Do we put the next batch of minor catastrophes down to Second Generation Problems in the style of Apple Macintosh. Will someone publicly apologise and say that engineers are currently looking at the situation and we are going to take steps to see that something like this never happens again: Which seems to be the fashionable phrasing used when something goes wrong today.

 

A friends father who was a physicist thought there would be much value in turning to Thorium with the short half life and the ability to keep using the spent Thorium until it posed little potential for harm to anyone.

Actually the first generation of nuclear reactors were extremely safe and over engineered.. as they would be with names like Fermi associated with them,and cost was no object. It was the third generation , when people were trying to engineer value into them that things became sticky.

What is sometimes forgotten is that the choice of uranium as the fuel for reactors was the desire to create an amount of fissionable materials for more bombs . Had Thorium technology been developed,and there are prospects, that it may yet be, smaller non explodable reactors are feasible.

I wonder where Capt. Blight first discovered the Bounty Bar

..on the transom?

However 24,000 years it a long time to be nursing something in a barrel just for it to reach 1/2 of former potential with maybe another 200,000 years to go for it to be considered safe,, sounds like a lot of responsibility to be placed on anyone.

Haven't I just made clear that we will be using it, not keeping it? In far less than a single thousand years time there won't be any left and we'll struggling to find next power option. We won't be able to leave an energy source like nuclear waste used.

There will always be some final high energy waste of course, but as I observed recently, that's easily got rid of safely and permanently through using tectonic plate subversion.

Your comment of the threat of the non-existent second generation problems shows you are prebiased to be negative without any known foundation, so it's not worth arguing about. The case is won, we are having nuclear as the only practical backup for unreliable renewables. Hinckley Point is the start, to be followed by the agreed chain of smaller coastal stations replacing our existing fleet.

About 60 to 80 years later they'll be scrapped at end of life, probably replaced by fast breeders.

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Edited July 25, 20187 yr by flecc

Actually the first generation of nuclear reactors were extremely safe and over engineered.. as they would be with names like Fermi associated with them,and cost was no object. It was the third generation , when people were trying to engineer value into them that things became sticky.

That is not the language of nuclear power. The three nuclear accidents of Windscale, Three Mile Island and Chernobyl all concerned first generation nuclear power stations. They were built long before a third generation was designed.

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Flecc, forgive my cynicism,, it's something I acquired in a life observing man and his habits.

I'm just as cynical where man is concerned, but I also recognise the inevitable. We don't have unlimited options where energy is concerned, unless we don't mind destroying this world.

The later nuclear power stations with multi-layer computer control to minimise human error have proved very safe and reliable in countries around the world. Even the damage done by the three early nuclear accidents is as nothing compared to the immense damage that's been done and is still being done by coal fired power stations. They have been and still are the greatest threat in power production.

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Haven't I just made clear that we will be using it, not keeping it? In far less than a single thousand years time there won't be any left and we'll struggling to find next power option. We won't be able to leave an energy source like nuclear waste used.

 

There will always be some final high energy waste of course, but as I observed recently, that's easily got rid of safely and permanently through using tectonic plate subversion.

 

Your comment of the threat of the non-existent second generation problems shows you are prebiased to be negative without any known foundation, so it's not worth arguing about. The case is won, we are having nuclear as the only practical backup for unreliable renewables. Hinckley Point is the start, to be followed by the agreed chain of smaller coastal stations replacing our existing fleet.

 

About 60 to 80 years later they'll be scrapped at end of life, probably replaced by fast breeders.

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... Flecc, is this your area of particular expertise, many of the waste product elements from a uranium reactor are radioactive, but not fissionable. Many with extremely long half lives. They are therefore waste. They are not amenable to neutron activation,and may not be sitting in the sequence where energy can be extracted ...

Your use of the word " unreliable renewables " is actually a highly emotive and telling phrase.... . The tides , the sun ,the wind ,the ocean currents ,are very reliable in the longer term. What you really meant to say was dispatchable.

Edited July 26, 20187 yr by Danidl

... Flecc, is this your area of particular expertise, many of the waste product elements from a uranium reactor are radioactive, but not fissionable. Many with extremely long half lives. They are therefore waste. They are not amenable to neutron activation,and may not be sitting in the sequence where energy can be extracted ...

 

Your use of the word " unreliable renewables " is actually a highly emotive and telling phrase.... . The tides , the sun ,the wind ,the ocean currents ,are very reliable in the longer term. What you really meant to say was dispatchable.

Renewables, long half life, nuclear, waste, fossil, it’s all irrelevant.

The only fact is that in a world with a population which is expanding out of control and a world which growing increasingly sophisticated, the demand for energy is going to exceed anything that can be produced by windmills, fields full of solar panels or tidal dams. At present, there is no option other than nuclear power, unless we want to switch off our computers, smart phones, TV sets, and other “modern gadgets”.

If you feel so strongly and want to be powered by windmill, you should set us all an example by shuting down your computers, turning off your smart phones and any other internet enabled device. Then try and communicate to this thread by some alternative means.

It really doesn’t matter about storing toxic nuclear waste for 200,000 years. The population expansion rate, if it continues to follow the precise & perfectly constant rate since the dawn of time, will mean that most of the population will either starve or die in food riots within the next 100 years anyway. Forget everything else. Population expansion dwarfs every other threat to mankind.

Edited July 26, 20187 yr by tillson

... Flecc, is this your area of particular expertise, many of the waste product elements from a uranium reactor are radioactive, but not fissionable. Many with extremely long half lives. They are therefore waste. They are not amenable to neutron activation,and may not be sitting in the sequence where energy can be extracted ...

Of course, and why I mentioned in the following post that the remaining waste can be safely dealt with using tectonic subversion, which I've mentioned before as you know.

Your use of the word " unreliable renewables " is actually a highly emotive and telling phrase.... . The tides , the sun ,the wind ,the ocean currents ,are very reliable in the longer term. What you really meant to say was dispatchable.

Not so, I used a term that all will understand, certainly not the case with dispatchable, which is incorrect anyway since it refers to the substitutes switched on when renewables are not available. A renewable not being available when we need it means it's unreliable! The longer term is an irrelevance where electricity supply is concerned, it's very much an on-demand necessity in our world.

The only really reliable renewable is tidal, the very one the authorities generally won't consider due to the immense construction costs of barrages, so I largely discount it.

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Renewables, long half life, nuclear, waste, fossil, it’s all irrelevant.

 

The only fact is that in a world with a population which is expanding out of control and a world which growing increasingly sophisticated, the demand for energy is going to exceed anything that can be produced by windmills, fields full of solar panels or tidal dams. At present, there is no option other than nuclear power, unless we want to switch off our computers, smart phones, TV sets, and other “modern gadgets”.

 

If you feel so strongly and want to be powered by windmill, you should set us all an example by shuting down your computers, turning off your smart phones and any other internet enabled device. Then try and communicate to this thread by some alternative means.

 

It really doesn’t matter about storing toxic nuclear waste for 200,000 years. The population expansion rate, if it continues to follow the precise & perfectly constant rate since the dawn of time, will mean that most of the population will either starve or die in food riots within the next 100 years anyway. Forget everything else. Population expansion dwarfs every other threat to mankind.

Bill Gates would be proud of you!