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First all-electric seaplane takes flight in B.C.

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Re: First all-electric seaplane takes flight in B.C.

#171

Post by _Microft »

WalterBright wrote: post #143
jjoonathan wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or biofuel. Plants are good at capturing atmospheric CO2 and the resulting biomass can be turned into fuel using well established technology. If it's nearly suitable for cars I suspect it's even more nearly suitable for aviation on account of the lower volumes and higher margins.

> Plants are good at capturing atmospheric CO2 and the resulting biomass can be turned into fuel using well established technology. I.e. burning coal.

Nope, that's outright wrong (and from other replies you should have learned that by now, so why keep reiterating something false?). Anyways...

The total amount of carbon in circulation is what matters because that part can end up in the atmosphere as carbon dioxide where it shows its heat capturing effects. Trees fix carbon while growing and emit it while decomposing but do not change the total amount of carbon in circulation in the long term.

Digging up carbon that has been locked away for aeons is what is so damaging. There would be nothing bad about burning oil IF that oil were produced by capturing carbon dioxide. We do not do that. We dig up loads of fossil resources and add them to the cycle.

If that explanation was too complicted, here is an easier one: fill a bucket to the brim with water, take a cup and start scooping and pouring back to the bucket. Everything is fine. Now get a second bucket full of water and start pouring into the first (material so far not in circulation is added to it). You see the problem?

If you still insist on your view with burning coal and trees being equivalent, then I challenge you to conduct the water-bucket experiment in the middle of your living room. I mean it wouldn't do no harm, right?

Re: First all-electric seaplane takes flight in B.C.

#172

Post by DagAgren »

WalterBright wrote: post #152
ben_w wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Technically correct, but about as unhelpful as saying “solar isn’t renewable because the sun will eventually go out”. Our biology and our biosphere are not adapted to the atmospheric CO2 levels we would have if we burned all the fossil fuels.

My point is calling something "carbon neutral" if it is burning wood is equally unhelpful. Nothing is gained by burning a tree you just chopped down instead of burning a tree buried for a million years - the same amount of CO2 is released.

"Unhelpful"? We have a specific problem we are trying to solve. That problem is: Too much CO2, right now. The term is obviously useful in solving that problem.

Nobody is worrying about CO2 on geological timescales. It is simply not relevant to any discussion anyone is having, or any problem anyone is trying to solve.

This isn't complicated? How are you managing to miss the point with such vigour?

Re: First all-electric seaplane takes flight in B.C.

#173

Post by DagAgren »

semi-extrinsic wrote: post #27

You can do small aircraft like this, no problem. The trouble is you can't scale it up, due to how quickly the power and energy demands go up. This thing is 560 kW and gets a range of 86 nmi; an A320 is around 40 000 kW and has a range of 3 500 nmi, while an A380 is around 80 000 kW and has a range of 8 500 nmi. Going from this DHC-2 to the A380 requires an increase in energy storage by a factor of around 14 000x, whi…

I think people aren't quite willing to face up to the consequence of this, though: This means that commercial air travel, as we know it, is going to go away. We can not afford to keep burning fuel at the rate we do for flights today, and we won't even have that fuel available at some point. And if we can not develop electric or renewable alternatives, which we very well may not, we will just have to stop doing it.

Re: First all-electric seaplane takes flight in B.C.

#174

Post by eloff »

ppf wrote: post #169
m-i-l wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The whole "carbon neutral" think is a crock. Coal is, after all, just dead trees, so coal plants run on "biofuel" and are "carbon neutral". The difference is in the timeframes for capture and replacement - with coal it is millions of years, and with wood it is years. That means burning coal releases carbon which was trapped millions of years ago, and it would take millions of years to trap equivalent amounts of car…

True, but what is a sustainable level of tree harvesting to feed the world's energy needs?

That's not possible, our energy needs are too great for that now. But nobody would seriously suggest wood (or other biofuels) be our principal energy source anyway.

Re: First all-electric seaplane takes flight in B.C.

#175

Post by SEJeff »

hoseja wrote: post #161
SEJeff wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Methane can be created via carbon capture entirely. It is in the SpaceX TODO list to create a factory to literally create metholox (methane + liquid oxygen is what they use as fuel for the new Starship / Superheavy rockets they want to use to go to mars) via carbon capture. Elon has already discussed this before. The end goal that the rocket launch is carbon neutral when you are using carbon already captured from the…

The goal is not being carbon-neutral. The goal is Mars ISRU.

Elon has explicitly stated in interviews that one of the benefits of the design is that here on earth, it means they can be carbon neutral. I'm just relaying what he's publicly stated already. Yes, Mars ISRU is a HUGE benefit of this design, but it also means they can make their own fuel here on Earth with nothing more than some big machinery and solar panels.

I believe his exact quote was:

""" Sometimes I get criticism for, ‘why are you using combustion in rockets and you have electric cars’. There isn’t some way to make an electric rocket. I wish there was. But in the long-term, you can use solar power to extract CO2 from the atmosphere, combine it with water, and produce fuel and oxygen for the rocket. """

Re: First all-electric seaplane takes flight in B.C.

#176

Post by Tagbert »

WalterBright wrote: post #152
ben_w wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Technically correct, but about as unhelpful as saying “solar isn’t renewable because the sun will eventually go out”. Our biology and our biosphere are not adapted to the atmospheric CO2 levels we would have if we burned all the fossil fuels.

My point is calling something "carbon neutral" if it is burning wood is equally unhelpful. Nothing is gained by burning a tree you just chopped down instead of burning a tree buried for a million years - the same amount of CO2 is released.

The carbon neutral part is when you plant another tree in place of the tree you just cut down. The new tree then starts taking up the equivalent carbon from the tree you cut down and burned. That is what makes tree farms somewhat carbon neutral. You can’t do that with coal.

Re: First all-electric seaplane takes flight in B.C.

#177

Post by seanmcdirmid »

mrpopo wrote: post #159
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, if we ever figure out fusion, we could get the enormous amount of energy part.

Ok; until then, we have to reduce CO2 emissions by 7% each year from now until we reach net zero in 2050. Even if we figured out fusion today (highly unlikely), it won't be deployed at scale by then (a modern fission reactor takes 10 years to build). So there are two choices really: progressively scale down the aviation industry, or ignore the climate crisis and let 100s of millions in poor countries die from climate…

We could actually do that using fission alone, since we have we enough fuel for 70,000 years or so, and nuclear waste is free of green house gases. It would just be very expensive up front, as nuclear plants tend to be.

Anyways, this is the way France is going.

Re: First all-electric seaplane takes flight in B.C.

#178

Post by 8bitsrule »

SEJeff wrote: post #175
hoseja wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The goal is not being carbon-neutral. The goal is Mars ISRU.

Elon has explicitly stated in interviews that one of the benefits of the design is that here on earth, it means they can be carbon neutral. I'm just relaying what he's publicly stated already. Yes, Mars ISRU is a HUGE benefit of this design, but it also means they can make their own fuel here on Earth with nothing more than some big machinery and solar panels. I believe his exact quote was: """ Sometimes I get critic…

"There isn’t some way to make an electric rocket. I wish there was."

That Musk is no Tom Swift. Tom even had an electric rifle, not just a flamethrower.

which he used to great advantage in colonizing Africa

Re: First all-electric seaplane takes flight in B.C.

#179

Post by WalterBright »

_Microft wrote: post #171
WalterBright wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Plants are good at capturing atmospheric CO2 and the resulting biomass can be turned into fuel using well established technology. I.e. burning coal.

Nope, that's outright wrong (and from other replies you should have learned that by now, so why keep reiterating something false?). Anyways... The total amount of carbon in circulation is what matters because that part can end up in the atmosphere as carbon dioxide where it shows its heat capturing effects. Trees fix carbon while growing and emit it while decomposing but do not change the total amount of carbon in ci…

Which releases more CO2 into the atmosphere:

1. chopping down a tree and burning it

2. digging up a tree and burning it

Both are the same. Calling (1) "green energy" is outright wrong. Want to be green? Burn less carbon. The source of the carbon you're burning is irrelevant.

Re: First all-electric seaplane takes flight in B.C.

#180

Post by WalterBright »

mkl wrote: post #157
WalterBright wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point is calling something "carbon neutral" if it is burning wood is equally unhelpful. Nothing is gained by burning a tree you just chopped down instead of burning a tree buried for a million years - the same amount of CO2 is released.

But the tree you just chopped down got its carbon from the atmosphere just a few years ago. That's what makes it carbon neutral. The coal (/gas/oil/etc.) got its carbon from the atmosphere in the far distant past, so from our point of view it's new additional carbon that wasn't in the system before. It can only be considered carbon neutral over a time span of millions of years, which is pretty meaningless.

> That's what makes it carbon neutral.

Nope. You're emitting exactly the same CO2.

Want to be green? Burn less. Changing your point of view won't lessen CO2 emissions. Burning less carbon will.

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