Author Topic: Global warming and aviation  (Read 20018 times)

fireflyr

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Global warming and aviation
« on: July 24, 2006, 10:32:19 PM »
Global Warming :o
We, as aviators and aviation lovers should be concerned with this phenomenon and it's effects on our beloved industry.  I would like to hear what the international community represented on this board has to say about this subject.   In addition, since this is a fun medium, let's keep a light hearted attitude and not be afraid to make fun of ourselves.

 I'll start it off with a few random thoughts of my own and others;

I believe that I'm part of the solution (very small part) when I reuse my fuel samples by pouring them into the A/C tug's gas tank instead of dumping them on the ramp.  Of course, this hardly negates the effect of the gas guzzling SUV my wife drives but it's something! :-\  (we're going to replace it with something much more economical next year) |:)\

FADEC equipped aircraft (like the Diamond-Thielert diesel twin) are a huge step in the right direction. |:)\

Here in my little part of California (land of fruits and nuts-so I'm told) I'm proud to say that 70% of our trash is recycled instead of just being dumped into a land fill.   How about other parts of the country and the world?

I believe that high fuel prices are driving all segments of world industry to look for more fuel efficient options in doing business, which is good. |:)\

I believe that solar power should be more heavily promoted---my next home (2 to 5 years away) will be solar powered as part of the acquisition and construction process.  8)

Any comments out there--humorous or otherwise--about what you're doing?

Offline Zaffex

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Re: Global warming and aviation
« Reply #1 on: July 25, 2006, 12:45:09 AM »
Hmm, well, concerning the solar bit, I have been reading lately about solar dishes being proposed for use it the desert. I believe that they are far more efficient than traditional solar cells. It utilizes mirrors to focus the sun on a stirling engine. Pretty cool, I must say. More about it here -http://www.stirlingenergy.com/solar_overview.htm

I also heard of tests a long time back when they made an expeimental aircraft with an electric engine. They placed two ingredients (I forget what they were) in the wings and, when mixed together, produced the electricity for the engine. the expended fuel then flowed to the other wing, where it could be drained and reused.

After so much buzz about it in the automotive world, I've been wondering about how E85 (85% ethanol, 15% gasoline) is affecting aviation. Is it growing in availibility? Practically invisible? I've also heard that due to its high octane rating (100-something, I think), it works very well with turbochargers.

I believe I've heard of a new wave of diesel engines being tested and used in GA aircraft. A Cessna was converted to run on jet-A, and the new Twin-Stars from Diamond have diesels too.

So those are my thoughts.
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Offline happylanding

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Re: Global warming and aviation
« Reply #2 on: July 25, 2006, 07:36:01 AM »
Really interesting thread, Fireflyr!  |:)\

Okay, I'll start from the situation here. Ozone and pollution are so much high that you're supposed not to stay outside. Period. Even if traffic could be stopped for weeks if law were enforced, nobody does it, since we are the north/south hub of traffic by car in Europe. "Enjoy your summer, trap yourself in the house and if it ever happens that you encounter a breeze of air, do not let it enter into the house, since it could cause you asthma and breathing problems!".   ??? ??? You risk so much about your health, that my Dad counseled me to stop to go running during the day (have you ever heard about not practicing sport because it's bad for your health?!?).

What we do at home: I learnt from my Mom  |:)\  about recycling and we recycle whatever it's possible: from bottles to paper, from alu to oils. I had never thought about reusing the AVGAS throwing it inside the plane again, but it's a really nice idea, and will follow it, thanks!  |:)\  . I also spare on water, using it intelligently (or as best as I can): I do not let it run wild while taking a shower, or while washing dishes and never charge a washing machine (either clothes or dishes) if it's not full. And oh, I try to use the smallest quantity of chemical products to clean or for whatever reason they are to. We are far from perfect though: the quantity of trash created in this house is still a lot and yes, we have a SUV.  :-[ :P

I did not change my car for an electric or "green energy" one, though. Sorry, but they have no space, no autonomy, and well, at the end they either look ridiculous. You can't use a car that goes at the same speed of a scooter and have to look for....say....alternate current parking, otherwise you have to push it home! About this, I often ask myself if they do it on purpose and if it isn't a secondary market for petrol car industry. I mean: they create the clean energy one, that's so half baked and so limited,  that you keep getting the other and won't ask about a "green option" and they do not worry about R&D costs for a clean energy CAR, since in reality they do nothing more than what you see: a loathsomeness. Hell, how many years it is now that we hear about research and development in the next generation cars, that use alternate energy, and they come out with prototypes that looks like the designer was on a LSD trip?Hell, do you really need to make a car that looks like a suppository?!? ??? is there no other way to design it? Or, a friend of mine, who is driving instructor, had the car going by natural gas. I let you imagine: he had to go every now and then to the gas supply, since he was running out of energy. You're asking for a car, not a pair of roller blades! Okay, looks like a conspiratorial theory, but I was born listening to promises of green energy cars/green energy houses/factories and whatever and I still saw no non laughable results, and no alternatives, so it makes too many years I've lost hope on seeing at least a CAR that's not a prototype, that's self sufficient, and that doesn't look ugly! I ignore what it's being made in aviation field, but if it goes like cars...., it could happen that we see a prototype that looks like a crossing breed among a Dodo, a Zeppelin and a yes!....a shadow of a plane, and will be parked on a blue tarmac with AC plugs and be careful not to use radio to much, otherwise it switches off ;) ;) . Energy in other fields....I ignore if we are so much advanced and have solar powered system: some really new houses probably do, but at home, where I am, we still run on gas. it would be interesting though. Well, we'll see what's going to happen in the next years. I'm quite cautious, since - at the end - we hear about hundreds ideas and just a really minority (or almost none) comes to life. It would not be bad to see a really working, efficient and affordable alternative to oil and specially to pollution..........
« Last Edit: July 25, 2006, 08:01:04 AM by happylanding »
I give that landing a 9 . . . on the Richter scale.

Offline Frank N. O.

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Re: Global warming and aviation
« Reply #3 on: July 25, 2006, 08:07:24 AM »
I'm not sure if the heating is natural or not since temperature studies from specimens from soil and ice shows a lot of tempereature, however it is clear that it's not good for breathing with the stuff that's sent out, both vehicles but also powerplants and other factories, however while factories and powerplants indeed have a big share of the total polution then cars are the most prevalent source of air-polution in cities, especially diesels but a particle-filter can handle that, plus modern diesels have massive amounts of torque that should make even americans happy and they can run on bio-diesel that is CO neutral since it's from rapseed oil. However if enough of that can be produced to cover fuel is another matter so it's both the vehicles and the use of them that should change for the future.

About electric cars, this doesn't look too shabby in my humble opinion.
http://www.supercars.net/cars/3528.html
200+ miles (322+ km) average range, 0-60 mph (0-96.6 kph) in around 4 seconds.
Here's a video of it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vt1AdfgcNiQ

There is however another problem with electric cars, production polution and polution from what produces the electricity for it, but again there are different ways to handle this problem.

My dream-house will have energy windows, designed with materials that suite the enviroment and with advanced electric panels on the roof and a small private wind-mill in the yard (I don't plan on living in the city but outside of it in a peaceful hillside where I can get peace to gather my thoughts so I can handle myself since I've gotten my theory proven that if I just get some peace to gather my thoughts and rest then some traffic and people when shopping in a city isn't going to stress me more than I can handle calmly).
In DK they made a demonstrator-house of wood with paper-insulation among other technologies, and this house was so tight it couldn't be measured to leak in a large test-chamber (it was fairly small, only slightly larger than a shed so it could be trucked around to show what was possible already today). Furthermore, and here's the kicker, the solar-panels could power 90% of all the power the house needed, and due to the insulation and different construction-method elimitaing cold-bridges over the windows then this house, in Denmark did not need any conventional heating system!! This technology already exist!

I also think cars today are way too heavy due to tons of electrical equipment totally unneeded for my purpose like: heated seats, heated windshield washer-nozzles, electric seat-adjustment, lit make-up mirrors in both sun-visors, automatic windshield wipers (rain-sensor), high-power stereo with tons of speakers, tons of sound-proofing making it hard to hear what's going on with the car, as well as emergency vehicles, hydralic engine mounts and balance-shafts to elimate the engine's vibration, again counter-productive for a driver, multi-zone aircondition (ok this is just for me not driving a family and if I get to USA then I would need AC, but in DK, no), lights in glovebox, engine-room, trunk, cooling glovebox, heated steering-wheel, engine-sound synthesizer (Ford Focus ST, despite having a good natural engine-sound from the Volvo-sourced Turbo-5-cylinder), electronic handbrake (Focus C-Max MPV, also european), electrically adjustable headlight level, multiple map-lights with dimmer and delayer, electronic shock absorbers, computer-controller electric power-steering with computer-orverride steering (BMW-system, part of ESP), electronic brakes (fly-by-wire brakes, no physical connection, Mercedes-Benz), 7-speed computer-controlled automatic transmissions (BMW and Mercedes-Benz) etc. etc.

The electric plane was probably a fuel-cell plane, it uses a fuel-cell with hydrogen where there's a process that produces electricity and water, I can't remember the details but many companies have developed running prototypes of such a thing, in DK there's even a Focus sedan running with a system like that in private ownership. Mazda used the Wankel rotary engine with good success to run on hydrogen since the seperated combustion-stages makes it easier to run on it.

Btw about E85 or pure ethanol, it has a higher octane rating and therefore it's optimal compression-ratio is higher than when running on normal gasoline, I think I read that pure ethanol has a octane-rating of around 120, not sure if that's the european RON or the US std. Danish scientists recently took out a patent on a technique to extract ethanol cheaply and easily, I think it was from garbage.

Frank
"When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return."
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Offline happylanding

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Re: Global warming and aviation
« Reply #4 on: July 25, 2006, 09:30:23 PM »
I agree with you Frank, that's a really nice car! :) (I searched the site and they say that in January 2007 they are going to sell the first ones.....) BTW, you say you're not sure if the heating is natural or not. it could well be, but it's clear anyhow that we can't keep going on mistreating Earth. it's like throwing garbage into the house we live, since at the end, it's our "biggest" home. You know, in december 2004 I spent a month in Nepal and India and when I arrived I had to spend the first two days in Kathmandu. you had to walk in the...ehm...roads having a mask in the face, otherwise at evening you would end up having breathing problems because of fumes. that's not life, and our society should understand that and find better options. Here ozone cannot be seen (instead of the black fumes of cars in Kathmandu), but as it's not normal to have to walk with a mask on the face, neither is normal to have to avoid spending time outside in Summer since it's dangerous for the health! I'm happy to hear that the technology already exists and to tell you the truth I'm already asking my parents why don't we change at least to solar panel :) and the day I will have enough money to build my own house, it's sure I will go for more ecological alternatives. Do you have any picture of the house you talk about? It would be interesting to see....
I give that landing a 9 . . . on the Richter scale.

Offline Callisto

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Re: Global warming and aviation
« Reply #5 on: July 28, 2006, 07:47:03 AM »
In the US E85 isn't "better" than plain ol' gas. If you look at the MPG of FlexFuel vehicles MPG for E85 is worse than gas. And E85 is more expensive (for now anyway), so yes it will decrease dependence on oil, but now we have to worry about corn supplies!  ;D

E85 isn't better, it's just different.

I just read an article in Popular Mechanics (Aug 2006) about 100+MPG and bottom line, the costs right now are astronomical and the cars that would be built are not up to the US's standards of "cool"

The status a SUV trumps 100+MPG car. Just look at VW's diesels. 60+ already, but there are VERY few Americans running diesels. "We" would rather deal with 10MPG to look cool.

*Note* I am not part of the "We" I own a 02 Civic Si Hatchback... I just filled up tonight and calculated my MPG... 27MPG and I wasn't driving efficiently the whole time. When I try I can get 30 easy.

Just my 2¢
And if I'm wrong with the E85, please correct me. But just as an example... 2007 Chevrolet Impala 3.5L V6 gas is 21 city / 31 hwy and E85 is rated 16/23

PS - I think cylinder management is a decent idea... A V8 shuts off 4 cylinders on cruse mode, almost doubling MPG on long highway trips.
« Last Edit: July 28, 2006, 01:52:48 PM by Callisto »
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Offline Gulfstream Driver

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Re: Global warming and aviation
« Reply #6 on: July 29, 2006, 03:45:47 PM »
I can't speak for the rest of the country, but in my neck of the woods E85 is quite a bit cheaper than regular unleaded.  However, if you figure fuel costs for a whole year, you'll spend more on E85 because of poor gas mileage.  Higher octane = worse mileage.

Hybrid cars are getting better.  Ford has a hybrid SUV (I forget what it's called, but it starts with an E  ;) ) and the other hybrids I've seen look like "normal" cars.  The thing about them is that they do better in the city where speeds are slower and the electric motor can be used.  They're pretty cool, actually.  I'd consider buying one if we weren't moving to the middle of nowhere.
Behind every great man, there is a woman rolling her eyes.  --Bruce Almighty

Offline happylanding

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Re: Global warming and aviation
« Reply #7 on: July 30, 2006, 09:47:00 PM »
Mates, I've a question for you.  ??? ???  Have you ever heard about thermic pump? How does it work? is it reliable? would it be enough to warm an house? Does it work also to rely energy? Any ideas?
I give that landing a 9 . . . on the Richter scale.

Offline Gulfstream Driver

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Re: Global warming and aviation
« Reply #8 on: July 31, 2006, 02:07:02 AM »
Is that the same thing as a ground source heat pump?  My brother-in-law has one and likes it a lot.  He's explained it a couple of times, and I'm still not sure how it works, but I'll give it a shot.

Somehow, it takes heat from the ground in the winter (below the frost) and pumps it into the house.  In the summer it takes heat from the house (thus cooling it) and dumps it into the ground, where it can be "stored" and used in the winter to heat the house.  It's supposed to do a pretty good job. 

Behind every great man, there is a woman rolling her eyes.  --Bruce Almighty

Offline Callisto

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Re: Global warming and aviation
« Reply #9 on: July 31, 2006, 02:45:18 PM »
I can't speak for the rest of the country, but in my neck of the woods E85 is quite a bit cheaper than regular unleaded.  However, if you figure fuel costs for a whole year, you'll spend more on E85 because of poor gas mileage.  Higher octane = worse mileage.

Actually after I posted my thread I drove by the only station that sells e-85 around me and it was cheaper $2.89 and regular was $3.19. I was wrong about that... oops!
AND I didn't know higher octane = worse mileage, I get better gas mileage with premium than regular (not much, but 2 or 3 MPG)
I guess I don't know much about gas.  :P D'OH!
Thanks for the correction GS

Hybrid cars are getting better.  Ford has a hybrid SUV (I forget what it's called, but it starts with an E  ;) ) and the other hybrids I've seen look like "normal" cars.  The thing about them is that they do better in the city where speeds are slower and the electric motor can be used.  They're pretty cool, actually.  I'd consider buying one if we weren't moving to the middle of nowhere.

I agree! The first (mass produced) hybrids in the US were the Honda Insight, and first gen Prius. Both very ugly, but now car makers are "just tossing in" a battery and a motor into regular cars. Ford Escape, Honda Accord and Civic, Toyota Camry, etc.
http://autos.msn.com/advice/article.aspx?contentid=4024086
http://autos.msn.com/advice/article.aspx?contentid=4023397
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Offline spacer

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Re: Global warming and aviation
« Reply #10 on: July 31, 2006, 09:04:53 PM »
Is that the same thing as a ground source heat pump?  My brother-in-law has one and likes it a lot.  He's explained it a couple of times, and I'm still not sure how it works, but I'll give it a shot.

Somehow, it takes heat from the ground in the winter (below the frost) and pumps it into the house.  In the summer it takes heat from the house (thus cooling it) and dumps it into the ground, where it can be "stored" and used in the winter to heat the house.  It's supposed to do a pretty good job. 



If this is what I'd been considering...  here's how I understand it.

The ground below the surface is a steady 60 deg F at a particular depth, which can be useful in both winter and summer and can really cut the heating/cooling bills if used properly. A simple rig would be a big radiator (or two, or more) sunk to this level, with air pumped through it to warm or cool. In addition, during the winter
you can build a simple thermosiphoning water heater and/or a similar heater for the air.
Most of what I've read on these subjects came from Backwoods Home Magazine
http://www.backwoodshome.com/index.html
A bunch of their articles are available online, and they have great anthologies as well. Lots of great advice and articles on energy efficient living, mostly due to their
concentration on backwoods/off-the-grid living.
Ah, nice place out in the boonies, grass strip and a simple quonset hangar... Yeah, that's for me!

Offline Gulfstream Driver

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Re: Global warming and aviation
« Reply #11 on: August 01, 2006, 03:46:55 AM »
Higher octane gas burns more efficiently, leaving fewer emissions.  But, because of this, it sucks the gas out of the tank faster.   ;)  Gotta love physics. 

If you're getting better mileage with premium, would your car be designed to run on it? 
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Offline Zaffex

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Re: Global warming and aviation
« Reply #12 on: August 01, 2006, 02:30:27 PM »
That's another thing about E85, the poor mileage. However, I think by using a turbo you can improve your mileage and get more Power! Saab was featured in a Popular Science article with a car that can sample the fuels used and adjust the turbo to produce more or less pressure. So if you're running on E85, the turbo will boost the pressure, but if you're running regular unleaded, it will back down the pressure.

happylanding brought up another good point earlier on, that being what we as individuals can do. Obviously we can make a big impact if we are more conservative in our resouces. Simple stuff like turning off the lights when leaving a room, carpooling and making car trips count (we live about fifteen minutes from everything, so we need to have a real good reason for going into town), bumping the thermostat up a couple degrees in the summer and a couple down in the winter. It's important to try and stretch what we've got.
"You know you're a redneck pilot when you think avgas makes a good cologne."

Offline Callisto

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Re: Global warming and aviation
« Reply #13 on: August 02, 2006, 06:02:02 PM »
Higher octane gas burns more efficiently, leaving fewer emissions.  But, because of this, it sucks the gas out of the tank faster.   ;)  Gotta love physics. 

If you're getting better mileage with premium, would your car be designed to run on it? 

Physics you say? Well if I didn't sleep through those classes I would have known that!  ::)

My car is a Honda Civic... 2.0L - I4 I can't imagine it needing Premium gas... I switch off between regular and premium, I've always noticed a few MPG better with the good stuff. Maybe I just need to be more sientific and take all conditions into account. Highway time vs city time, temp, how heavy my foot is, etc  ;D

Thanks for the info.
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Offline Frank N. O.

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Re: Global warming and aviation
« Reply #14 on: August 02, 2006, 08:19:46 PM »
I can't quite make a long post atm but let me just say this: Don't oversimplify, engines are different and some engines can work with higher-octane gasoline and others wouldn't make a difference, it depends on the fuel-system/engine management and how strong the engine's made. To my knowledge then the higher the compression the better the combustion but there are drawbacks that makes it hard to use high compression at least on production engines, I think one of the problems, besides the problem of weak cheap engine-parts there's something about gasoline vaporising too early at high compression so it won't combust or something but there are ways around that. There was a special super-high compression Jaguar V12 that had something like 14:1 compression. Btw, ethanol has a higher octane-rating that gasoline so a Otto-cycle engine running it would be better with higher compression.

As I said btw, I'm not sure if the temperature changes globally are man-made either completely or partially, but it is pretty clear that there is too much polution, especially in the cities from cars since you can smell and breathe it. However using cars better would also improve it. Not all people need to use the car as they actually do. I used the Orion to drive to the student-class in down-town Odense which was a 14.5 km trip back and fourth and I felt bad, even though bus-rides weren't that nice and I didn't walk that well and I couldn't ride a bike that more than one day in a month due to my health but then I heard some classmates that said they drove a car for 2-3 km and they did not have health problems. My old Orion could do 14.5 km/l with Shell V-Power, up from 13.5 with normal 98 RON (it was designed to run on octane 98 RON and had valve-chime despite changed ignition-timing when forced to run on 95 which 80% of all cars in DK run on).

The basic problem, with many things is that one has to look both at the details and the broad picture to make improvements overall but few can do both. It's no good to get a good car if it's not used the right way or mainaned so it can function as designed (modern direct-injection engines won't work well with dirty gas/diesel like US has, chip-tuning the engine with pre-made chips increase polution to a level few will believe, an example gave 20 extra hp in a Peugeot diesel, but increased polution from the engine by 300% Three-Houndred!). Using more power on the road due to more stress and more insulation making it harder to feel the car's going faster than your old one also uses more fuel. All the tons of electrica equipment that's in the car also weighs it down and needs a bigger generator which again sucks fuel. I do know that some people use these things but as I wrote above, all things go into the equation, including production and material costs to produce these cars.
I read that cars are no longer being made in foreign countries because labour is now so low down on the expenses list that it's no longer a place to save money (at least for german cars).

With all the cell-phones and iPods and what-nots then there must be an increase in the use of batteries and non-rechargable batteries will definately be a big souce of garbage and even with rechargable batteries then there's a bigger need for electricity and fusion-powerplants are still not possibly so it's dependant of coal-powerplants and that's also a big source of polution of the breahing air.

Hmm, this got to be a long post anyway. Well I hope I helped with the little knowledge I have. While things have to be done then one should always research what the consequences are and look at both details and the big picture, look both at the present and the future (for example, buying a old house will be cheaper than building a new one now, but the running costs will be higher and even expensive modifications will not necessarily make the house as efficient/comfortable as a new-built house, for instance with the ground-heat-circulation system and maybe solar-panels for extra and free electricity (well, free apart from the purchase costa and maintanence but I doubt it's that much compared to the alternative)).

Edit: Wow, I just looked and this is even longer looking in the thread than here in the typing window. But I got an extra bit of info that I forgot: Otto-cycle = 4-stroke spark-ignition engine, normally known as a gasoline engine. And octane-rating normally also tells how fast the fuel burns, when the Orion's CVH 1.6 Carburator engine ran on 98 it's ignition was set to 12 degrees before top point, for 95 it had to be set to 6 degrees. Ethanol is around 120 RON perhaps? I think I read that somewhere. Another thing is also that the stuff used to get the octane level up over 95 is actually hyper-poison! Or at least what they used to use, one drop could permanently ruin an entire underground water-supply.

Frank
« Last Edit: August 02, 2006, 08:23:20 PM by Frank N. O. »
"When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return."
— Leonardo da Vinci