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Coconut oil jet fuel matches kerosene's efficiency in engine tests

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Re: Coconut oil jet fuel matches kerosene's efficiency in engine tests

#231

Post by ForOldHack »

brainwad wrote: post #81
ghostly_s wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The existing solution is actively wreaking havoc on the environment. I don't know the specifics of this crop but generally agricultural products absorb a substantial amount of carbon when growing, so releasing some of that carbon by later burning has the potential to be close to carbon-neutral. Whilst petroleum fuels are 100% carbon negative.

There's more to the environment than the greenhouse effect. Coconut plantations would compete with rainforest in much the same way palm oil ones do, since they have more or less identical growing climates. If you want to use biofuels, use a plant that grows in low-value areas like open fields. Something like corn or sugarcane.

Brazil grows sugarcane just for this purpose, and Russia uses a weed... the Jerusalem Artichoke, grown as a weed, and made into biofeedback. I made biofeedback from both of these plants. But coconuts? That is coco nuts.

Re: Coconut oil jet fuel matches kerosene's efficiency in engine tests

#232

Post by ForOldHack »

pudgywalsh wrote: post #53
Saline9515 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure that mass air transit has a place in a post-oil society were we try to leave at peace with the planet. Not just for the carbon impact, but also for the diversity of our species and cultures. Should every Chinese and Indian visit Venice, even though it destroys the city little by little? Should we send things as futile as watermelons by plane? Of course, the market wills it so some may think that it must…

> Should every Chinese and Indian visit Venice, even though it destroys the city little by little? Should we send things as futile as watermelons by plane Who are you to dictate where Chinese and Indians can and cannot visit or enjoy delicious watermelons? If someone wants to eat a watermelon like a dirty slave that is their business and you are not going to deny them that right. This is pure insanity. China and Indi…

"dubious climate histrionics." See Dr Jamie Abarca, MD et al, to put those claims into a real perspective. Published decades ago.

Re: Coconut oil jet fuel matches kerosene's efficiency in engine tests

#233

Post by ForOldHack »

Saline9515 wrote: post #228
xp84 wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’ve got the answer with CAHSR. The only form of government that can build high-speed rail well is one like the CPC: a dictatorship which doesn’t need the consent of the governed. If we put them in charge of CAHSR they would have the job done in a couple years, but we would have to allow them to nationalize every single property in their way, by force if necessary, and cities, towns, unions, etc. would have no righ…

France has an extensive medium and high-speed rail network and is not an authoritarian state. This is purely an administrative issue. Why do HN believe that there are only two alternatives : the US and China?

France's HSR network extenda into both Germany, and into Britans rail network. California just does not really care about HSR, and I live here. I have been a fan of BART since the day it opened and will be a fan until the day it closes which will be sooner than I think. Bus systems suck too.

Re: Coconut oil jet fuel matches kerosene's efficiency in engine tests

#234

Post by snayan »

b112 wrote: post #224
snayan wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but our dairy quota system is kinda fucked imo. We've created a market where the quotas are estimated to be worth somewhere between 40-45 billion. This financialization and the fact that banks have leant heavily against the quotas is part of the reason we're unwilling to move on this aspect in negotiation imo. I'm not saying that there's not value of protecting our food supply. But, in an affordability crisis,…

That's quite cheap then. You see, the Americans are liars, as you may well know. They get upset at supply management, but they do it too . Instead of controlling production, and setting fair prices for producers, they handle it, like a bunch of nitwits, on the backend. They buy up excess milk, make cheese out of it, to artificially keep the market price high, and then store it for decades as it rots, in large undergr…

Brother, nothing in my comment did I learn from American sources as a result of this trade war. I've found our dairy cartel silly for a long time. Look at the impact of NZ and Australia removing their quota system around the turn of the century.

I just don't like how opaque the whole thing is and I don't think most Canadians have an understanding of the impact on their pocketbook.

Re: Coconut oil jet fuel matches kerosene's efficiency in engine tests

#235

Post by xp84 »

bluGill wrote: post #170
xp84 wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You still need all those things for a high speed train. The only reason it’s a little less today is that almost nobody takes passenger rail. Keep in mind these old downtown stations built in 1900 won’t be able to handle the kind of passenger counts that would “need” to be shifted from the airports, so don’t delude yourself into thinking you wouldn’t need big train stations built in the outskirts, crowded and irritati…

But your high-speed train enables a lot of things that are not really feasible to do on an airplane. speed train enables a lot of things that are not really feasible to do on an airplane. You should be thinking about a train for things where I could drive my own car but it'd be a little bit annoying to spend an hour on the road. I happened to be in Des Moines a few years ago and waiting for my airplane an announcemen…

Tbh - once you somehow figure out who's going to pay for the massive amount of construction, and the land (I know the strips of farmland MIGHT be cheap but the last few dozen miles near each place everbody wants to go get very tricky) - I agree that these sub-400-mile trips are 1000x more competitive with flying, compared to the transcontinental ones. Yeah, I'd love to hop a HSR from Dallas to Houston, or Atlanta to Jacksonvile.

I just think a transcontinental HSR would not be a popular enough trip that we can responsibly include transcontinental passenger traffic in economic considerations to justify the build. In other words, if we can only afford the build in general if we can get like 60% of NY-LA, NY-SF, etc. traffic to switch to trains, then it's going to go bankrupt.

Re: Coconut oil jet fuel matches kerosene's efficiency in engine tests

#236

Post by xp84 »

triceratops wrote: post #160
xp84 wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You still need all those things for a high speed train. The only reason it’s a little less today is that almost nobody takes passenger rail. Keep in mind these old downtown stations built in 1900 won’t be able to handle the kind of passenger counts that would “need” to be shifted from the airports, so don’t delude yourself into thinking you wouldn’t need big train stations built in the outskirts, crowded and irritati…

> That itinerary that’s “near impossible” with fast flight becomes more impossible with trains that take 2-3x longer. No because you can actually sleep on the train and be well-rested. Even non sleeper seats are wider and can recline better on a train. On planes your sleeping neighbor drools on your shoulder and your seat reclines 5 degrees if you're lucky. Sure technically you could take a redeye two nights in a row…

You're comparing the most expensive train ticket, a sleeper car, with coach? That's insane. Sleeper car tickets are priced like the lie-flat plane seats. I experienced United's lie-flat premium transcontinental service almost a decade ago and it was a blissful night's sleep. Airlines have only improved the product since.

Compare a coach flight with the neighbor and the 5º reclined seat with coach train tickets with nearly the same setup. Maybe an extra inch of width.

Re: Coconut oil jet fuel matches kerosene's efficiency in engine tests

#237

Post by xp84 »

bluGill wrote: post #167
xp84 wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Corn ethanol is a scam and consumes as much energy to make as it “produces.” Let’s not do that either.

Nobody who had looked at it believes that. Even the well known critics admit it is energy positive. The ratio isn't very good, but it is energy positive.

Maybe slightly. But it also wastes land that could be growing food, raising food prices.

Re: Coconut oil jet fuel matches kerosene's efficiency in engine tests

#238

Post by xp84 »

fragmede wrote: post #154
xp84 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

^^^ this I cringe thinking about more biofuel ideas getting forced through. Sure, let’s all spend a ton of petroleum energy on fertilizing, farm equipment, and processing, and raise food prices by using all the land for producing ethanol-corn, and jet fuel coconuts, just to get a slightly worse petroleum replacement fuel.

There's always the air-gasoline route. That's right! With enough chemical engineering and materials science, we can extract jet fuel from air and water. You extract out CO2 from the air, and H2 from water. You turn the CO2 and hydrogen into carbon monoxide, and then Fischer-Tropsch chemistry and some other magic gets you hydrocarbons out the other end! The problem is the economics of that process can't compete with o…

NileRed, is that you? ;)

Re: Coconut oil jet fuel matches kerosene's efficiency in engine tests

#239

Post by b112 »

snayan wrote: post #234
b112 wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's quite cheap then. You see, the Americans are liars, as you may well know. They get upset at supply management, but they do it too . Instead of controlling production, and setting fair prices for producers, they handle it, like a bunch of nitwits, on the backend. They buy up excess milk, make cheese out of it, to artificially keep the market price high, and then store it for decades as it rots, in large undergr…

Brother, nothing in my comment did I learn from American sources as a result of this trade war. I've found our dairy cartel silly for a long time. Look at the impact of NZ and Australia removing their quota system around the turn of the century. I just don't like how opaque the whole thing is and I don't think most Canadians have an understanding of the impact on their pocketbook.

The concept of an entirely unrestrained market, is an illusion spread primarily from US thinktanks and sources.

Yet my point was, even though Americans spout blather about market intervention via Governments, they do it too.

Australia and NZ are bad examples. They are incredibly isolated for fresh milk competitors, and fresh cheese too. We, meanwhile, have a market 10x larger next door.

But beyond that every government manages its agricultural industry. If NZ and Australia "did well" without market supply at the front, then you can be sure they did so by bail outs, market interference, and other methods at the back end.

And those methods cause consumers money, taxes are used to do these things.

There is no open dairy market in the US. It's an illusion, as I mentioned.

Look at thr disaster of 2008. Americans did the same thing, didn't manage and regulate, then the market explodes, and they spend trillions in clean up.

That's still manipulation and market management, it's just the most disruptive, damaging, stupid way to do so.

And American have the money, and the ability to manipulate the world's reserve currency in situations like this.

We don't. We have to manage things responsibly.

I'm OK with positively modifying supply management. Find a specific problem, fix it. Improve it.

But not with tossing it.

Re: Coconut oil jet fuel matches kerosene's efficiency in engine tests

#240

Post by rangestransform »

Saline9515 wrote: post #226
rangestransform wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, we will not get to a post oil society by self flagellating like Europe, but by making sustainable options so cheap and plentiful that they displace unsustainable options. (Of course there’s some market intervention and government investment necessary to get there) One of these days, electricity will be so cheap that we can carbon capture our way back to 0C net warming and fuel flights for every Indian and Chinese…

I don't understand, you want to create a copy of Venice? The issue is not just the pollution from air travel, but also the types of consumption and ways of life that it enables. Besides ressources are not unlimited so even if you have fee energy, you still need to extract aluminium etc from the ground, and pour concrete on land to build airports and oversized infrastructure. Ecology is not just a CO2 optimization gam…

The pressing issue for mankind is CO2 in particular and not this abstract notion that we ought to be noble savages
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