Future of Commercial Airliners?

D

davidngnt211

New member
Joined
Feb 14, 2009
Messages
3
Reaction score
0
Points
1
With jet fuel running low, will there be a future for commercial airliners? Will an alternative source of energy save commercial airliners in the near future?
 
The reality is that there is not a reasonable substitute for petroleum for fueling airliners. Scientists won't "find a solution" to that problem. More reasonable solutions will be railways and ships to move people and products more slowly, and using the computer to do long-distance business instead of flying around people to do it.
 
There will be a place for bio-fuels and alternative energies in the aviation industry (most current technologies only apply to ground operations and administrative ops). Eventually when new technologies are introduced, I doubt any of the savings will be passed to the consumers. Commercial air travel will always exist, it is just a matter of who will be able to afford it.
 
There will be alternative fuels in the future, but it's going to be hard to find something other than a flammable liquid to power a plane. What's interesting about jet fuel is that further into the flight, the plane gets more efficient as when fuel gets burned, the plane gets lighter and more efficient.

You can't expect batteries to power jumbo jets yet, until lighter and more efficient ones get developed. First, batteries don't deliver enough power for a long enough duration. Second, it would be way too heavy. And relating to that, planes land significantly lighter than they take off because of fuel burn. A plane cannot land at maximum takeoff weight without significant damage. Unlike fuel, which gets burned off during the flight, a battery plane lands at theoretically the same weight as it takes off in.
However fuel cells might be feasible.
Also here's an interesting article.
http://www.airliners.net/aviation-articles/read.main?id=98
 
Jet fuel quanity is only a very very small percentage of the total amount of peteroulem that the earth uses. It is in no shortage of supply, but the cost is the major factor, as it takes away from the bottom line of the airlines. Alternative sources will be used, but not for many many years, as the cost of testing and certifiacation for use on a large scale is not cost effective yet to be used and ceritifed by the FAA.
 
Jet fuel quanity is only a very very small percentage of the total amount of peteroulem that the earth uses. It is in no shortage of supply, but the cost is the major factor, as it takes away from the bottom line of the airlines. Alternative sources will be used, but not for many many years, as the cost of testing and certifiacation for use on a large scale is not cost effective yet to be used and ceritifed by the FAA.
 
Back
Top