New airports security procedure (by Ryanair!)

[gus]

Hello,

www.ryanair.com/site/EN/notices.php?notice=060822-ASP-EN



Cheers.

[Tony Madge - HJG]

I reckon fuel charges are so high you have to have the pax weight as low as possible!
or
maybe the only way you can afford to fly is selling your shirt..but this is extreme

[George Carty - HJG]

Now that oil costs well over US$70 per barrel, why aren't we making synthetic liquid fuels (as the oil-starved Germans did during World War II)?

[Harerton Dourado - HJG]

Research in non-fossil fuels are being developped in several countries.

Brazil has been dealing with ethanol as a replacement for gasoline since the mid seventies. Now we are producing "bio-diesel" which is traditional oil-based diesel with the addition of vegetable-based oil.

The main concern here is how to balance the need to use land for producing food vs. land for producing fuel. Hopefully land is something we have a lot here!

[George Carty - HJG]

Yeah, that's the problem with biofuels (same as with solar power for electricity) - you just need too much land to collect a given amount of energy. The Germans of World War II (and later the Apartheid regime in South Africa) made oil from coal, but the same process could be made less CO2-emitting by using coal just as a carbon source (with the hydrogen and process heat coming from a nuclear reactor). Ultimately, the goal would be to get the carbon from atmospheric CO2.

[wolfgang]

Hi,

you are right George, here was made fuel from
coal in the 40´s, but it was very expensive
to todays standards.
Keep also in mind that coal is limited, same like oil and gas.
For use of the atmospheric carbon inside CO2,
you have to cool down the air to get it liquid.
This isn´t a real solution, because of the bad efficiency.
Nuclear power is the same, limited ressources, high costs,
high risk and no solution for the nuclear waste.
A theorethic solution is to use thermonuclear power
( Fusion ), but not before 2030.
A first plant will be completed in 2020 in southern france.
( project of the european community )
There a still many problems to solve with this hot fusion.
Cold fusion is an utopie for our lifespan.

One simple and easy solution is to use the earth warmth
in a depth of 1000 meters and more.( depending on geology )
With this you can easy heating your home for thousands
of years and generate electrical energy with minimal costs
and very high efficiency ( 90 % )
On the downside, you have to invest much money for the
drill holes.
Sun power ? yes, but to fabricate the cells you need too much energy and those cells did not have a long life time.
Also they are very high-maintenance product in the
most areas of the world ( desert )

In my opinion it seems the best the use the geothermic
energy in the next 200 years.
The relation between costs and efficiency are the best
and we have the technology to do this.
But the energy multis ( oil companies, electricity producers )will loose their supremacy, because this can be made only local and decentralized.
So we have to wait for the next revolution

Eventually from the senior citizens, because the today´s
youth are mostly missing the readiness for combat
in important affairs

Best Regards

Wolfgang

PS. For future air travel, I do not see a practical solution.
Eventually hydrogen, but it will be very cost intensive.
( you have to use liquid hydrogen )
Airbus Industries has some on the drawing boards.

It would help to keep air travel alive, if we only use
oil for this and the chemical industries.
Heating homes, driving cars and generate electrical power
must be done with other technologies.

[garryrussell]

Iceland uses geothermal heating I believe.

Of course there it is redily availiable but anyone using an alternat is something saved

Garry

[wolfgang]

Yes, Iceland
there you have the needed heat in only 10 meters depth
on some points.
For security reasons it is better to use locations
with a deeper needed depht.