I challenge all you green people...?

Question

I challenge all you green people to find a mode of travel as fast as the airline industry, but which does not produce as much waste. I figured that over 890 barrels of oil are used to create enough JP8 fuel for a 12 or so hour trip by c-130 aircraft. That is a heck of a lot of oil. When washing the aircraft, a fire-hose is used and continuously left on for approximately 4-5 hours straight every night. That fire-hose will produce an average of 70 gallons per minute of water. 70 gallons per minute equals out to be 21000 gallons of water used in a five hour period. That is to wash one aircraft at one airstation around the world. So where is the solution? Should we return to the days of ship travel using the wind?

Answer 1

Airships using biodiesel might prove to be a more efficient way of transporting large bulk cargoes than aeroplanes. But they'd be slow. If you want to go quickly then you're going to need energy and that will be expensive in terms of resources.

Answer 2

Double Dare - You figure it out.

I have heard of serious work on sail powered cargo ships.

All that water to wash a plane, I suppose it cuts the weight and drag co'efficient. I hope they filter it and re-use it, have you any idea how much energy goes into making tap water?

This year I spent my holiday at Heathrow!!

Answer 3

actually some airlines are spraying down their aircraft with ethelyne glycol, to prevent it from icing over, and then recapturing the ethelyne glycol and re-using it over and over.

Answer 4

The trick is "as fast as."

Maybe Branson will put up a $50,000,000 prize for a prototype.

Answer 5

Let's just say things are going to look alot more like the 1930's for air-travel than the future envisioned by Airbus or Boeing.

High efficiency engines will allow some fraction of air travel to continue, but I suspect that some sort of high-efficiency coal will allow cruise-ships to economically move goods and services around in some large fraction of the percentage which they are moved today. But I make no pretension of thinking that we will not have to re-think ALOT of how we do business when it comes to rapid transportation.

I suspect that we could also see CAD/CAM designs for slow-moving Sailing ships or something be promoted and may even see some built but more likely you will see some hybrid cargo-carrier which is much larger, slower and having a combination of fossil-fuels and wind .

And who knows , given the renewed interest in renewable and alternative power, solar, fuel-cell or fusion might eventually pan out!

Particularly if fusion becomes practical, then all bets are off and you will see a bright day in the future where we use many times the amount of energy we currently do.

Problems currently insoluble to man (global warming, robust forms of space travel, etc) will be solved by having access to the vast energies of something like fusion power.

Answer 6

I sent an idea to nasa based on nature and it would use up pollution maybe to fast without a carry on pollution supply. I've poisted somewhere on discovery( mythbusters for one because them testing myths helped me prove the possibility I was working on. oh yeah might produce more thrust than a saturn five rocket if all was expelled at once.

Answer 7

I admit that I have no answer to this question but I do have links to lots of other vehicles that are very well designed and are much better for the environment, plus interesting info on alternative fuels:

Greener Automobiles+Alternative Fuels/Energy:

http://green.yahoo.com/index.php?q=node/... (Saltwater as a potential fuel)

http://green.yahoo.com/index.php?q=node/...

http://www.biodieselcommunity.org/gettin...

http://www.schnews.org.uk/diyguide/howto...

http://www.bnl.gov/rideshare/reduction.a...

http://www.puregreencars.com/

http://www.edmunds.com/advice/fueleconom...

http://www.store.sundancesolar.com/

http://www.batteryvehiclesociety.org.uk/...

http://www.evuk.co.uk/

http://electric-cars-trucks.blogspot.com...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEq-GbVcF...

http://autos.msn.com/home/newsadvice.asp...

http://autos.yahoo.com/green_center/;_yl...

I have lots of info that I think you will find quite helpful and enlightening:

http://ecowellness.multiply.com/  for excellent inspirational info within my blog to help not only our world and its creatures, but to also open peoples hearts and minds to many amazing wonders that life has to offer.  I also have lots of info in my blog to help fuel peoples imaginations to many possibilities that can be found only in the minds eye.

Along with lots of environmental info, amazing environmental pictures and videos (These videos show the beauty of this world and what life can be like if people take the time to appreciate life’s true beauty).

Let us all strive for a greener/brighter future by helping to create a solid foundation for future generations to build upon, so we can hand them a beautiful world, filled with never ending awe and wonders!!

Where peoples differences and uniqueness are accepted, where we all live as one, helping one another so that we can all play our own mysteriously beautiful melodies in the never ending, awe inspiring, song of life :-)

I truly have faith in humanity and believe that someday our lives and the world in which we live will truly be transformed for the better.

Answer 8

try a Maglev train.

Answer 9

I see that one person has already mentioned it but there has been some serious research into the option of Airships being brought back into operation.

Lighter than air transport was used quite a bit in the past but due to the use of hydrogen and resulting accidents, many people became scared of this option.  Also the advances in airplanes made travel much faster so Air-ships began to look like old out-dated technology.

However shipping Cargo over great distances and over water is very expensive with airplanes but could be done using an Airship.  It is faster than boat and cheaper than plane.  This would also be a cleaner solution.

The military was looking into it...  Here is a detailed article

http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/walr...

Unfortunately I believe funding for this has run out and the project was cancelled.

http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/walr...

The concept would still work but there just isn't a market or anyone willing to front the money to develop the technology at present.  

So in essense this method is as fast as air travel because it IS air-travel.  But it is not as fast as current Cargo planes.