Car-Plane, Road Plane or Flying Car...

Twenty two years ago, a modern day flying car was built and operated by a certain Canadian engineer. He revealed that such an idea need not be a concept and flew his M400 at an altitude of 20 meters. Catering to modern day transport dilemma (a growing concern even in 1989) he opined that a vertiport shall provide solutions to urban transport. This is at the cost of rising petrol prices, ear tearing noise levels, safety risks, low fuel economy and a whopping initial market price of one million dollar a car. Paul Moller's Skycar never became legal and imagining someone paying a million dollars on a flying experiment, they would rather spend that on a McLaren.

 In 2004, BBC published an article titled 'Flying cars swoop to the rescue' deriving an alternative use of the car- plane. A resourceful piece from the article - "When you try to combine them you get the worst of both worlds: a very heavy, slow, expensive vehicle that's hard to use," said Mark Moore, head of the personal air vehicle (PAV) division of the vehicle systems program at Nasa's Langley Research Centre in Hampton, US. NASA aspired to develop sustainable means of smaller capacity planes. They aimed to develop technology such that small sized planes would fly as silent as a motorcycle, by 2009. All of this is indicative of efficient alternative source of dual passenger air travel.

Flying Cars of the Past, Present, and Future

 Today, after decades since the thought of a car plane conceptualized and watching Chiity Chitty Bang Bang, a tech firm, Terrafugia, based in Woburn, Massachusetts is on the way to selling its first commercial road plane - Transition. With tests already taken place, this is no concept and aims to go on sale by end of 2012. The model aims at promoting air travel and specifically to those who wish to acquire a pilot’s licence. As the name suggests the model would work as an airplane and an automobile, hereby a pilot would not have to change vehicle during flight or on road. No wonder, already 100 Transition models have already been booked. Overlooking fuel economy of 14.9 kilo meters a litre on land and a range 643 kilo meters in air, companies must pay strict attention to safety measures. 

Transition

 Development in the field of safety standards in air travel, automobiles or "flight-mobiles" in the twenty first century is largely going to advance through sensor technology. We must realize that even though these vehicles are designed to run on petrol, personal air transport is proving to be take form in a big way. The American companies have paved the way and found a practical solution to an alternate source of transport. Hopefully such engineering marvels sustain and are seen in significant numbers in a year from today.

Second Generation Biofuels – Economists and Politicians

In a continuation to the previously mentioned entry about second generation biofuels, over here, I have attached two pages from the same report. 

It highlights a direction for economists and politicians who could take steps towards making biofuel more readily available and acceptable at mass level.

Second Generation Bio-fuels in Switzerland

Earlier this month I was given a synopsis report of Future Perspectives of 2^nd Generation Biofuels. It is a study conducted by Centre for Technology Assessment in Switzerland. Here, I read an interesting piece on various types of 2G or second generation biofuels. It is interesting to learn how science and research is progressing and looking at new and rare means to launch alternative forms of biofuel.

The first thought that struck my mind was really to understand what first generation bio fuels are. It is the conventional production of biofuel through sugar, starch and vegetable oil. There are limits to its contribution as an alternative fuel, as after a certain point it proves a threat to biodiversity and food crops. Also, the economics does not make much sense as it is not very cheap in comparison to oil.

This might look right from the textbook. I hope the accompanied images make this entry an interesting read. The various sorts of second generation biofuels include –

Slurry and Manure – Achieved from raising livestock, this material is very cheap to procure. It is economical and technically possible to produce and is available in large quantities across Switzerland. The country produces 0.1 petajoules of biofuel and has a potential of over 21 petajoules. As a whole, the potential capacity is equal to energy obtained by burning 716,000 tonnes of hard coal.

Organic Waste – Three quarters of organic waste in Switzerland is used to produce energy, 89% in refuse incineration plants and 11% in biogas plants. The only drawback of organic waste as a source of biofuel is that it requires specific plants and technology to process.

Fallen trees – Fuel can be produced through felled round timber, sawmill waste or other timber demolition waste. In 2007 2.2 million cubic meters of total felled timber was used to produce fuel. In the near future this number would rise to 3.1 million cubic meters in Switzerland. Also, the country has a potential capacity of 1.2 million tonnes of waste wood to produce fuel from the existing 1 million. The specific drawback of timber from demolition waste is rigid usage and processing requires large plants with appropriate filters.

Straw – As a raw material, straw is found in small quantities as a whole, across Switzerland. In 2006 the Swiss straw crop amounted to about 58,000 tonnes. It is found in the form of manure in farms and can be directly used to produce biofuel.

Exotics – Miscanthus, a plant which is efficient in photosynthesis and thus highly productive is found largely in the USA. In Switzerland, the climatic conditions make it capable of growing Miscanthus. Once sown, the plant can be used for 25 years. The only drawback is that it has limited flexibility in cultivation.

Miscanthus

Finally we must realize that biofuel is a major potential fuel in automobiles. It is mentioned in the report that “increased vehicle efficiency could substantially improve the outcome for biofuels” also “for efficient vehicle technology to be able to help biofuels to replace a substantial proportion of fossil fuels, lower fuel consumption must not be (over)compensated by more frequent and longer journeys.