Science moving backwards !

mete said:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/11/181123135137.htm
Science sure is moving backwards as us old scientists were flying paper airplanes -- no noise , easy on the ecosystem, etc, etc ! :p
Click to expand...
I like it. But as I always remind folks who drive electric vehicles here in Colorado, their cars probably run on coal. Our public electricity comes from coal fired plants, their batteries are charged by this coal, so their cars indirectly run on a fossil fuel. If they charge at home from a private solar panel or wind turbine, that's a different story, of course.

So what's the MIT plane really running on? ;)

Zieg

(I'm a radical environmentalist, btw.)
 
Most coal fired power plants have scrubber gear on the exhausts, so if those work as intended, electric cars MIGHT reduce overall air pollution. Still using "fossil fuels". Don't know about the paper airplanes though.:p
edit to fix typo
 
Last edited:
Phil in Alabama said:
Most coal fired power plants have scubber gear on the exhausts, so if those work as intended, electric cars MIGHT reduce overall air pollution. Still using "fossil fuels". Don't know about the paper airplanes though.:p
Click to expand...

Cars have catalytic converters and other pollution controls. Not sure which is better. They also dont send a 1200 lb battery into the landfill every 5 to ten years in addition to being charged by fossil fuels.
 
Even "dead" the batteries are valuable enough to recycle, its just hard to do safely. But that will come along as well. The fact is that we are making progress so fast that its hard to see it sometimes, and there is some cool work being done in Canada that hopes to convert old coal plants to "burn" iron, and then use the slow renewable sources to re-smelt the oxide. Apparently in the test plant they can get a faster fire-up than even a coal plant, which is great for the on-demand power that turbines or nukes are not as good at.
 
Not just Ion engines, since it has two stages, they are Twin Ion Engines, put some cannons on it, and its a TIE Fighter! I stole that joke, but I liked it.
 
It is, the actual tech is that they got a high efficiency transformer that can boost the voltage off a battery, and be light enough to fly. So no "new" tech, just capabilities catching up to gain new uses.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top