Thinking about fossil fuels

By Sam Felder on March 3, 2006 4:03 PM | | Comments (3)

As I drove Jeremy to LAX last week we started talking about fossil fuel consumption. By the time I dropped him off I came to a realization that I had never before considered. Airplanes and large seagoing vessels need large quantities of fossil fuels to function. So what?

Airplanes are the backbone of the global transportation system and ships move food and products around the world. We are already seeing the impact that increased fuel cost has on the airline industry and it got me thinking about the impact on shipping. I have had trouble finding much or any writing on this subject so if you know of anything please let me know.

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3 Comments

Curtis said:

There was a time about a year ago that I was freaked out about this. I started making myself sick thinking about it. I recently bought myself a Prius and am moving on with living a normal life. But thinking about the problem less enthusiastically doesn't make the problem go away.

The model which includes a weekday business economy based on cheap flying for face-to-face transactions and easy weekend getaways is certainly threatened by an impending fuel crisis, but in reality it's a minor concern.

Feeding everyone is paramount. Current fertilizers are petroleum based, the civilized world is dependent on diesel-burning farm machinery, and we've bet the farm on a petroleum based shipping network that allows us to buy any food we want at any time of the year. Interestingly enough, Mr. Eisenhower's ingenious interstate highway system is single-handedly responsible for 10% of all fossil fuel burning; while the U.S. has 5% of the world's population but burns 25% of the petroleum. We're eggregious offenders of over-consumption.

A close second is the danger of making our planet into Venus II. We've burned about half of the "clean oil" that will be burned. Sure we should be worried about the second half of clean oil we'll burn, especially when you consider that the settling time of carbon dioxide is approximately 300 years. But the real concern is the danger of the easy fix. Tremendous strides have been made in making coal burning cleaner; but will the technology continue to improve, or will diminishing returns in the improvements coupled with general apathy lead us down a choking path?

More on the airline industry: it's going to be the hardest thing to find a substitute for. The kerosene-based cocktail we currently use is just too perfect for the application. It's second-to-nuclear power density has enabled a Boeing 777-200LR powered by two GE90-115B (that's 115,000 lbs. of thrust for each of the two engines). The plane weighs 750,000 lbs. when fully loaded with fuel at takeoff. It can be in the air 22.5 hours while travelling 11.5k miles, before landing at about half its takeoff weight. The ability to carry a light fuel to be burnt 20 hours later, is the only reason this is possible. Hydrogen is not a likely substitute. In order to carry the fuel for a long-journey, it would need to be compressed under so much pressure, that the walls of the storage tanks would need to be so thick and heavy that the plane would never get off the ground. Alas, a jet engine can still worked using nuclear material for a fuel source. There was furious research in the 1950s towards that end, but the research was essentially abandoned. How many people are going to sign up for nuclear powerplants flying overhead? Personally, I think we should earmark the remaining fossil fuel for airline consumption, though burning the fuel in the troposphere isn't the most environmentally-responsible way to burn the fuel.

My roommate at MIT studied ocean engineering, and had a keen interest in racing sailboats. I jokingly (or was it a joke?) suggested he get really good at sail-design. I suspect within our lifetime we'll be shipping via sail-power. It's not that slow. Recall the clipper-ship era.

On biofuels and ethanol, the fuels are becoming more and more efficient, but the energy balance data isn't readily available. There was a time not too long ago when the net-energy balance of ethanol was likely negative. The book-keeping is very difficult, but to really judge ethanol's merits, all of the fossil fuel burning leading to the production, processing, and delivery of the end product must occupy a line item on the balance sheet. We must do a reality-check on these fuels, and the DOE needs to educate the public on what the real balance sheet looks like, so we can proceed intelligently.

Short of nuclear fusion, there is no easy fix.

March 4, 2006 10:30 PM
Sam Felder said:

Your point about sailing is a very interesting one, and one that I had never thought about. It is interesting to think about a return to these "older" approaches as solutions to our new problems.

I do have some more questions to pose:

So talk to me about dirigiblesWhat about biodiesel

PS - Your point about fertilizer and farm equipment itself is an interested one. Are there alternatives on the food production side?

March 5, 2006 8:56 AM
Jeremy said:

I've been thinking recently about various net-negative energy fuels. I read an comment on /. regarding making biodiesel at home. Somebody complained that the electricity required for biodiesel conversion made it a net negative energy situation. But, another poster commented that its not necessarily an issue, as it depends where your electricity comes from.

In Chicago, over 70% of ComEd's power comes from nuclear power facilities. Say what you will about the safety and storage of nuclear wastes, but I still maintain that it is the cleanest mass source of power, since the only byproduct vented into the atmosphere is water vapor. Thereby, the significant majority of any electricity that I consume is green. Even if I consume more energy to make biodiesel than I would get from burning the fuel, aren't I simply "storing" the energy from a clean source? As such, maybe I'll have to get a 1981 Mercedes 300D to go along with the new MINI, eh?

Its also cool to think that I ride a nuclear train to the office.

March 6, 2006 11:21 AM

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Born in Washington, DC, Sam and his family moved to Peoria, IL, where he grew up and went to school. He returned to DC in 2003 and left for the west coast in late 2005.

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