If there is no oil,what will fuel airplanes?

Question

The oil in the world is supposedly running out.Without fossil fuels to power everything from a lawnmower to a rocketship,what other alternatives are there for everyday transportation? Newer powerplants can use electric power in cars and other things.Somehow I can't see NASA creating an extension cord long enough to reach the moon.While hydrogen is a good theory,could it be safe enough for everyday uses? And could airplanes be adapted to handle an alternative fuel with the same amount of range and speed?

Actually,modern rockets run on a mix of hydrogen and oxygen.Much like a terrorist can make a simple bomb of the two mixed like peroxide.I meant that a a reference to the simple fact that I was curious about alternate fuel uses for todays jetliners.

Answer 1

Synthetic (man made fuels) are availible now but big oil companies wont allow them to enter the market yet. The military uses mostly synthetic fuels for its fighters or will be soon.

Answer 2

While there is no real critical shortage of fossil fuels yet, and the world reserves of fossil fuels should be adequate for the short-term future, several alternate liquid fuels are being developed for use in aviation.

There was an aerial demonstration team flying the airshow circuits a few years ago called the "Ethanol Air Force." Their airplanes were fueled by 100% ethanol, which is a man-made alcohol fuel that can be made from corn, sugar cane, etc. And while I don't see any jet engines burning used kitchen oil for propulsion, it is possible that properly blended bio-diesel type fuels could be used in jet engines.

Rest assured that when the need does arise, there will be some sort of alternate fuel source available to power aircraft of the future.

Answer 3

vegetable oils have cetane levels just like diesel fuel. They can be used as direct replacements, or even as jet fuel when the cellulose is filtered out (making it bio-diesel).
The huge majority of piston engines can run off of alcohol, but it take a slight modification to the fuel system.
As far as NASA is concerned, they could use the same things. Jet fuel and oxygen is quite a rocket fuel, and alcohol and oxygen is known as "devils brew" to engineers because of its insane powerful explosive qualities.
As far as Hydrogen, any carburated vehicle can run hydrogen gas, as proven on mythbusters, simply by holding the hose from a hydrogen tank over the intake of the carb.
It is no more deadly than gasoline, both blow up or burn fiercely, but the hydrogen would be in a compressed air canister, which is substantially less likely to leak and explode in an accident.
In my opinion, the levels of alternitive fuels that are available today would be able to sustain us in any situation. If we were suddenly cut off from oil and attacked while we were down, I have no doubt that the military would be able to sustain itself on the relatively small amount of alternate fuels we use.
After all, it would only take 500,000,000 gallons to fuel every aircraft in the airforce, navy, and marines, 500 hours each. thats a drop in the bucket. Pretty much what US civilians use in one day every day (think a little under 2 gallons a day for every American)

Answer 4

Theoretically a gas turbine can run on whiskey with a fair amount of performance similarity with aviation fuel, so we can assume that the airplanes can easily adapt to an alternative fuel.

Aviation is the most innovative of sciences, it will find a way. For centuries "wiser" people were telling us that man will never fly, but we did it and we did it extremely well. If all the oil is burned up, we will find a new sources, somewhere, somehow. Nothing is going to keep man from flying.

Answer 5

First of all, we are not running out of oil any time soon. It's just becoming harder to get at. There are untapped sources of oil out there. Political and environmental constraints are holding up access of it, but believe me, when oil gets so hard to find that only politically and environmentally sensitive sources are available, even the most bleeding heart liberal pacifist environmental wackos will go after it. Second of all, rockets don't run on fossil fuel. Third of all, there are always people working on alternative fuels. Their work will become more important as oil becomes more and more expensive and scarce. The problem is that oil is cheap and easy. It has been for over 100 years, which is why there has been no viable alternative developed. When it gets too expensive, we'll adapt. It's either that or we all become Amish. That is not going to happen.

Answer 6

Tricky. Hydrogen fuel cell is very efficient, and electric engines now make considerable power, but I doubt it will be sufficient for high-speed air travel. Most likely, it will be a bio-based fuel - after all, jets currently run on what is basically kerosene. I'm confident an biological alternative can be found.

Answer 7

i ask your self what form of airplane gas he offered, if it became into aviation gas the octane score is around the one hundred ten - a hundred and twenty section, usual motor vehicle gas is approximately 80 two-88. As his Vespa is in all probability a '2-stroke' engine, this is easily not equipped with a catalytic converter because of the fact the oil interior the gas blend would wreck it very with out delay. the reality that the cylinder compression is nowhere close to that required for aviation gas, a super kind of the flexibility produced by using the gas would be wasted, because of the fact the exhaust port on the engine would open together as the main component of the charge continues to be increasing. this would provide very severe exhaust temperatures, the port factor of the piston would soften, with the ensuing fireplace being impressive for curing constipation. Admittedly, some overall performance boost would be realised for a short term until the engine grenaded.

Answer 8

Personal, ground, and marine transport will be electric, hydrogen, or bio.

The remaining oil will be used in aircraft. Nothing else supplies the energy to weight ratio that kerosene and gasoline are capable of providing.

You youngsters out there...invent a fusion electrical generator. Problem solved! Fusion powers the universe.

Answer 9

I would imagine something like an ethanol based fuel would be the next logical step.

It's renewable because it's basically sugar based (grow lots and lots of fields of sugar cane) and it's a low pollutant.

Personally, I'd love to see a hydrogen based engine, but not sure science is able to pull it off in its current form

Answer 10

Hopes and dreams. Or maybe pedal-power? They could give all the passengers a discount....
Seriously though, It'll be a long time before fossil fuels are gone, but I think that fusion technology will be feasible someday, that will be awesome. Smaller, safer nuclear power for all!