The Future of Sustainable Aviation
Hawaii just celebrated our 50th birthday as a State in the Union. Just about two years after attaining statehood, Barack Obama was born in Honolulu. Today, he is President of the United States, and, thirty-seven years his senior, Daniel Inouye, is Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee. Arguably, Hawaii, then, has the two most powerful elected officials in the Nation.
Perhaps because we are the most isolated population center on Earth, we have the highest life expectancy of any state. Our weather is ideal, we are a model for racial harmony and are, truly, nice.
Like anywhere else, though, we are suffering from the global economic collapse, with politics and personality prevailing over working together for a common cause. Our unique problem is that our revenue base is almost totally dependent on tourism. We have tried, but have failed at diversifying our economy.
Most of my HuffPosts have been on energy and the environment, on Peak Oil and Global Warming. There is every reason to believe that at some point in the future, say, ten to 20 years, and, perhaps, much sooner, the price of crude oil will zoom past $150/barrel. Jet fuel will become so expensive, that tourists will stop coming to our state. Hawaii will become the first state to enter into a prolonged depression.
It's not that we have been totally asleep. In the mid-70's, studies were performed by the Hawaii Natural Energy Institute, advocating the development of next-generation aviation systems, including the hydrogen jetliner. I thus went to work for U.S. Senator Spark Matsunaga in 1979 and drafted the first hydrogen legislation introduced in the Senate. Funds for hydrogen were zero then, but last year exceeded the solar budget. The National Aerospace Plane, which was supposed to be hydrogen powered, was initiated by the Department of Defense, but today remains a black (secret) program. Why hydrogen? Because it provides the highest energy per unit weight, and can be produced from renewable sources, such as wind power, geothermal energy and ocean thermal energy conversion.
In parallel, we have long been researching the potential of biofuels, including jet fuel, from algae. Unfortunately, funding for this field has been limited and, while a few start-up companies are promising to produce $1/gallon fuels from microorganisms, specialists in this field tell me that we are a decade away, at best, and maybe never, of being competitive with fossil fuel options.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency will spend $100 million over the next few years to evaluate this field, but the reality is that we should be spending a billion dollars annually. Three-quarters of the energy used by our military goes to jet fuel.
While there are several fanciful air systems bandied about in various publications, one in particular, the Hawaiian Hydrogen Clipper, a hydrogen-powered dirigible potentially capable of flying at 350 MPH (none of the other blimps go anywhere close to this speed), proposed by Rinaldo Brutoco, President of the World Business Academy, I think shows the most promise. In particular, he sees Hawaii as the ideal lead for this effort. (This concept is mentioned in my Huffington Post article of December 18.)
There is general consensus that the following represents where the Nation and World stand regarding clean energy:
1. There has been good progress on electricity from renewables.
2. Sustainable ground transport options are in advanced stages of development.
3. Sensible next generation aviation systems have been largely ignored.
As Hawaii is the site in greatest jeopardy, with high interest from the military, it should be justifiable for Senator Inouye and President Obama to provide $1 billion/year to develop the National Hydrogen Clipper through the Department of Defense. This should become a program for international collaboration, for the whole world will soon, also, be in trouble if nothing is done about the future of aviation.
Loading comments…
Want to reply to a comment? Hint: Click "Reply" at the bottom of the comment; after being approved your comment will appear directly underneath the comment you replied to
Hmmm...not sure what this is, but let's see what happens.
HuffPost's Pick
Sustainable aviation sounds to me like an oxymoron. That said, I am no tech head.
However, what about cruise ships?
Make the holiday last and they can be powered by wind, just like Cook found Hawaii on the cheapest of all fuels - wind.
Costs absolutely nothing, is more adventurous than a boring plane ride and you get to see something of the world. Why the heck are we still using primitive, outdated internal combustion anyway?
A few decades ago, I worked for U.S. Senator Spark Matsunaga when he was advocating sails for ships. The Japanese actually built a rather large retroffited tanker called the Shin Aitoku Maru:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,951545,00.html
But that was 30 years ago. You can also try:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_Boat_Developments
But people these days would rather get there sooner, so some kind of next generation sustainable aircraft is inevitable. The best concept today seems to be Rinaldo Brutoco's hydrogen dirigible, called the Hawaiian Hydrogen Clipper, potentially capable of flying at speeds of 350 MPH, powered by hydrogen from windfarms, geothermal sites and OTEC plantships. Click on the following;
http://www.lifenotnews.com/mikeflynn/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=83&Itemid=1
For some reason, the web page came out garbled. Use:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,951545,00.html
Okay, that did not work. Just copy that entire address and transfer it to your address bar at the top and click on enter.
Aviation pollution from exhaust, and fuel dumping is a great concern. We have overstepped our safe boundaries in regard to air transportation and we need to cut back dramatically. Hydrogen airships are a good way to go.
Hey, some support. Yes, that is just one of a number of pluses for a next generation of aircraft powered by hydrogen.
HuffPost's Pick
What about coal liquefaction as a source of aviation fuel? It's too carbon-intensive and water-intensive, and produces too much mercury-laden crud to be a major part of our overall energy picture, but it's feasible and comes with a price tag that won't put aviation completely out of reach.
Another option is to power up electromagnetic launch http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_Aircraft_Launch_System so that it provides a substantial part of the energy for the trip instead of just enabling takeoffs from short carrier runways. The rest of the trip would then be approximately ballistic or gliding flight, with minimal power assist that could be provided by batteries.
Yes, you bring up a good point. If it can be made cost-effectively, and there is no global warming problem, why not jet fuel from coal. I would think, though, that there will be two crunches at about the same time: Peak Oil and Global Warming. Together, there will be no hope for the use of fossil fuels to power aviation.
Your EMALS reference, though, is worthy of exploration if sustainable energy can be utilized...and why not? Let me know how this develops.
Climate change has clearly changed the playing field for our future. Oil shale, tar sands and other exotic fossil fuels would have come into play if there was no concern about the environment. But these green factors will almost surely dominate once that really hot summer comes along and kills a few million. This means, of course, that the combination of our pathetic cap and trade offer and the lack of public will only means that Copenhagen in December will delay the inevitable. The next major gathering should be held in Delhi during August.
I don't think emissions reductions are going to be enough.
My assumption is that we'll have to do something big about global warming. Maybe we'll be doing air capture and sequestration of CO2. Maybe we'll fertilize the oceans and manage the plankton ecology so that a lot of carbon sinks into the deep ocean. Maybe we'll put terawatts of wind turbines into the jet streams at selected times and places, to change the global wind patterns that influence the formation and development of storms, so as to increase the total amount of cloudiness and reflect more sunlight back to space. Maybe we'll put aerosols into the stratosphere to block sunlight. Maybe we'll put many square miles of agriculture under glass and have solar thermal convection towers releasing the captured heat at times, altitudes, and humidities chosen by sophisticated computer models of the atmosphere to increase global cloudiness and thus cool the earth. Maybe we'll float sheets of black plastic high in the atmosphere, or use sail-and-sea-anchor structures to alter ocean currents. Maybe we'll make gigatons of vermiculite rock-popcorn to simultaneously improve the soil, alter evaporation patterns, and have silicate rock weather into carbonate to remove CO2.
Whatever we do, it will be costly. But the price of emissions will be finite, and some emissions will continue. It may be affordable for limited uses like aviation, and it may not.
The problem again is poor EROI, which of synfuels is typically 1/4-1/5 that of petroleum. That ultimately is the reason all the synfuels schemes blow up and are essentially wards of various states.
Mass aviation isn't just dependent on the existence of gasoline. It requires DIRT CHEAP gasoline.
Synfuels are not dirt cheap. They are and will remain pricey both in dollars and ecologically.
You need to look closer at the numbers. The EROI of hydrogen from windpower is higher than oil from the ground. Go to
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3810
or
http://www.oilcrisis.com/cleveland/OilAndCulture.pdf
For some reason, the conventional attitude is that oil was so cheap and available that nothing will ever replace it for the number of people and lifestyles we currently have. If you're not satisfied with windpower fuels, you'll be shocked to find out what the EROI might be for heavy-ion fusion to electricity, methanol or hydrogen.
Hydrogen AGAIN? How many times must we explain that hydrogen is a net energy looser and we can't base our economy on things that are NOT net energy sources.
And we certainly won't save the present airline industry with it.
In fact I don't see how we can save the present airline industry at all. It's based on dirt cheap energy and the day of dirt cheap energy is over.
And we won't solve the problem with more water-car pseudoscience.
Doesn't anybody around here know how to PLAY this game?
I'm surrounded by doomsdayers in my virtual forum on Planet Earth and Humanity. Some have given up and are buying land on the Big Island with an arsenal. Others plan to hang in and enjoy life as best as they can, but have given up hope for their grandchildren. How do you plan to play this game?
For me, giving up is not an option. Let your mind wander. What if heavy ion fusion actually works.:
http://www.hnei.hawaii.edu/docs/seminars/2008/Helsley_Sem.pdf
Just talked to their leader, Chuck Helsley, yesterday, and he was very convincing. This process still uses deuterium and tritium, but our Sun and all stars have found a way to fuse hydrogen. Ah, but you say there is no ready source of free hydrogen on Planet Earth and we, already, have too many people. Just a few more challenges, but look closer at the numbers, and there, indeed, appears to be hope.
On the realistic and brighter side, my Ford, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac stocks are doing well. Aloha.
No one is promoting hydrogen as energy source. It's always being promoted as a way of turning wind, solar, nuclear, geothermal, wave, tide, and ocean thermal energy into something portable enough to power vehicles that need to go farther than batteries can take them.
Good point! And the energy payback ratio of hydrogen from wind power is higher than oil from the ground.
The problem with that theory is that with such a lousy EROI it's going to be MUCH more expensive than petroleum. Certainly not for the equivalent of
Why must it be racially motivated? Simple, really. Congress is motivated by greed and so is everyone else for the most part. If we move past greed, the only things left are logic and reason, or emotion and superstition. The greater majority of voters are not able to act through logic and reason, so we are left with the alternatives.
I generally agree with you about Congress, but a good part of the problem regarding a concerted effort from Hawaii to press forth on sustainable aviation is that, first, there is no consensus that this concept is worthy of their involvement. Decision-makers are focused on the reality of the present. There appears to be no one of clout with the understanding and vision to take any leadership role on this matter.
We can wonder what they were thinking, but we shall never know why the Easter Islanders cut down all of their palm trees. Perhaps in an effort to escape on rafts.
There is revolutionary new technology under development that has future implications which open new solutions to this problem.
Fractional Hydrogen can be used to power engines. Our Self Powered Internal Combustion Engine - SPICE(tm) is based on successful thirty year old technology.
Aircraft applications will follow automotive development which is already on the horizon.
The science is new and not yet in the textbooks. It will be the subject of very understandable skepticism. However, it is presently the subject of independent laboratory validation.
Rowan University recently independently validated a fractional Hydrogen system under development for large power plants. Their experiments can readily be repeated by other laboratories and doubtless will be.
These systems use water as fuel. A barrel of water can readily become the equivalent of hundreds of barrels of oil when fractional Hydrogen is utilized.
Aircraft and aerospace applications are clearly possible.
Every so often my postings catch the attention of someone who can be part of the solution. You show this potential regarding the future of sustainable aviation. Can you send me further details by either commenting on my blog of Saturday, August 29 http://planetearthandhumanity.blogspot.comm), when I replay this article, or by e-mail to hotmail.comotmail.com. I look forward to your response.
I read this http://techpulse360.com/2009/08/25/hydrogen-power-breakthroughs-continue/ and 'fractional hydrogen', as explained therein, is nonsense on its face. I followed that by looking at Blacklight Power's presentation which supposedly derives energy from a previously unknown ion (?) of Hydrogen they call a 'Hydrino'. Bunkum in my opinion. The Rowan University report is here: http://www.blacklightpower.com/pdf/BLPIndependentReport.pdf . It does not unambiguously validate the Blacklight claim and no energy is generated.
I believe that fast, sodium-cooled breeder reactors could generate sufficient energy for yet another couple of generations to overpopulate the planet, but Chuck's replies to me earlier this year seemed to indicate that we should chain a bunch of Tokamaks together following the theory that if we cannot generate a plus energy balance from one, we can make up the difference by chaining several together. I have a problem with that concept which I have heard described as 'tossing hand grenades into a trash can and trying to skim off the energy from one explosion before the next one goes off'."
"Fractional Hydrogen can be used to power engines. Our Self Powered Internal Combustion Engine - SPICE(tm) is based on successful thirty year old technology."
-Overtone
Could you direct me to a working version of your fuel production process, please? Thirty years is surely a sufficient time for development.
"The science is new and not yet in the textbooks. It will be the subject of very understandable skepticism. However, it is presently the subject of independent laboratory validation."
-Overtone
Oh. It doesn't exist. If it did you would have a functioning prototype and would not be fumbling for obscure 'independent laboratory validation', just as Toyota didn't tout their Prius based upon 'independent laboratory validation'. When you have a water-fueled Prius on the road, please let me know. I suspect you never will.
"These systems use water as fuel. A barrel of water can readily become the equivalent of hundreds of barrels of oil when fractional Hydrogen is utilized."
-Overtone
Sir, you speak as though there are operational systems of any sort which use only water as fuel and produce a net increase in energy. There are not. They do not exist because they would necessarily violate both the First and Second laws of Thermodynamics. I am reminded of Stanley Meyer's bogus water fuel cell concept.
BlackLight Power has six commercial agreements. Five of them with utilities. Rowan University demonstrated excess heat with no other reasonable explanation yet advanced beyond fractional Hydrogen.
Our own program is aimed at engines and is at a much earlier stage of development, but it is solidly based on an engine that ran at more than 80% efficiency 30 years ago. It was not realized at the time that fractional Hydrogen might have been a major contributor to the achievement..
Aloha Pat,
I must trouble you once again to use your blog to post, but I shall attempt to keep it reasonably relevant. I note that hundreds of thousands of voters seem to believe that Africa is somewhere in the Western Pacific and that in 1961, if not now, only a short plane ride will get you from there to here. I wish to point out that Africa is on the Atlantic side of the United States and you cannot get here from there; either now or in 1961. The route would have been a flight on a Superconstellation from Joburg via several refueling stops and eventually to a port of entry on the EAST coast of the US. Barack would have been traveling on a British passport, with a white mother, from a country in the midst of a war, TO a country in which segregation was still the norm. Whether Mrs Obama had landed in Florida or New York, as a white woman with a black child, it would have been noted. It is unlikely she would have been able to hop across the country and come to Hawaii at all from Kenya.
Let me more on to the idea that somehow the White house is planning, with the help of the drug companies, to kill off our senior citizens who use MOST of the medical care and spend MOST of the money that keeps the drug companies in business. It is ridiculous and racially motivated.
What is that Web of Trust-Notary icon at the top right of your comment? I noticed there was also one tc399,
Anyway, I gather tc399's response was to your comment. In any case, thanks for your active participation.
I'll change that to a picture. :-)
You must be logged in to comment. Log in or connect with
