The Oyster’s Garter

I’m pretty sure G.I. Joe had one of these, but no one in real life. Way to go Yves Rossy !

Raise your hand if you want one! [Raises hand] The clip mentions that inventor Rossy plans on using his flying wing to cross the English Channel, and no doubt he has other such stunts in mind, but there’s no discussion of putting these things into mass production. All he needs is some kind of slingshot takeoff mechanism and we’re on our way to flying cars. Well, that and some kind of environmentally sound jet fuel. Maybe the algae people will get that going soon.

OK, I understand that we all want a zero-emissions car, but this is getting out of hand. Just this past weekend a woman called up the Car Talk guys to ask if her husband was crazy for trying to modify the family SUV into a water-powered car. Coincidentally, veteran technology query-artist Sam and her boyfriend sent me a note a few weeks ago with a YouTube video they’d found of a newscast interviewing the inventor of just such a car. To their credit, Sam, her man, and the Car Talk caller were extremely skeptical about this seeming solution to our energy and global-warming crises. And with good reason, as it turns out (for the record, a Wikipedia entry debunks the water-fueled car, too, but I thought it a bit dense).

OK, we’ll start with what the water-powered car advocates claims it will do: Generate energy from water. How? First, electrolyze the water. That will split the water into its component elements, namely, hydrogen and oxygen. Then pump that H₂ and O₂ mixture (known to the Car Talk caller’s husband as “hydroxy” and the fellow in the video as “H-O-H”, but we’ll stick with the common names) over to the engine. Now burn the gasses to move the pistons and thus move the car. The waste product will be water, once again (O₂ + 2H₂ —–> 2H₂O). Water in, water out. Perfect!

Of course, Oyster’s Garter readers are all smarty-pantses (Bet you didn’t know the plural of that word. We’re a full-service operation here at TOG.), so you’re wondering about step 1, with the electrolyzing of the water. “Where does the electricity come from?” I hear you asking. Sadly, that’s the downfall of the water-powered car. The electricity comes from the battery, of course. And where does the battery get its energy? Why, from the battery factory, of course. Well, water-powered car advocates will argue that the battery is recharged from the alternator with the normal running of the car, just like any car battery. But it takes far more energy from the battery to split the water atoms then you get back from burning the component gases (water is very stable and its bonds prefer not to break), so there’s a substantial net loss.

Ultimately, the water-powered car is not actually water-powered at all. It’s battery powered, but very inefficiently battery powered. Of course, given our current experience with fueling our cars from food, maybe it’s for the best that we don’t fuel them with water.

I’ll close with this wonderfully understated line from the Wikipedia entry:

It is theoretically possible to extract energy from water by nuclear fusion, but fusion power plants of any scale remain impractical, much less on an automotive platform.

Look, I know American has canceled thousands of flights the last few days for last minute inspections, but it’s my job to focus on the positive on this here mollusk- and urchordata-oriented electronic journal, and so here’s a positive fact: The FAA has cleared American Airlines to put WiFi on their airplanes. No word yet on fees for service, other than that there will be one (although access to AA.com will be free, so you can check schedules and delays ) or net speeds. Voice over IP will be disabled, whcih is probably for the best. Service will hopefully start on transcontinental flights by the end of the year.

Now all I need is a little more widespread access to electricity on these planes and maybe cross-country flights to visit the ‘rents won’t be such a pain in the tuchus.

In so much as biofuels are a good idea, they’re a really good idea for jets. Jet engines produce vast amounts of carbon (A gallon of jet fuel gives off 21 lbs of Co2) but there’s no alternative when you want to visit your dear old grammy who lives on the opposite coast. So the headlines about Virgin Atlantic running an actual test flight powered by coconut- and palm oil-based fuel had me gleefully reaching for the “O frabjous day!” category for this post. Alas. The 747 Virgin used to fly from London to Amsterdam has four tanks, three of which were nothing but regular jet fuel, and the fourth of which was 80% jet fuel and 20% coconut biofuel. So really the flight was 5% biofuel, which means that proportionally it flew 11 miles on coconuts, roughly from London to, err …London.

Even Virgin Atlantic owner Richard Branson himself admits that coconut-based biofuels won’t power the future air fleet. The world couldn’t possibly produce enough coconuts to fly the Monty Python troop to Camelot, let alone the entire world fleet, and the movers and shakers are starting to realize it’s probably not a great idea to use food for fuel anyway. Branson wants to extract energy from the thorny jatropha plant, which grows on non-arable land in South America., and I found a goofy company that thinks they can filter oxygen out of the air, while flying, and burn it as fuel immediately. But we all know the better answer: Poop fuel!

Nothing kills time like the Internet, and no where do I need to kill time like I do on a cross-country flight to New York. Sadly, the Internet hasn’t really been available to plane passengers, though I gather that we can expect to see a change in this policy in new airplanes relatively soon. JetBlue has already begun testing of email and IM access on its San Fran-New York routes, and American will offer full net access hopefully some time in 2008. In the deeper future, the gargantuan Boeing 787 Dreamliner is expected to provide Internet access when it hits the skies in the next year or two. Check out the Star Trek like cockpit, pictured at right (and here are some more pics of the Dreamliner, before it gets scotch and baby vomit spilled on it, of course.)

The FAA, however, has pointed out a bit of a security flaw in the Dreamliner set up: the Internet access point on the plane is hardwired in with the main navigation and control computers for the plane. So, theoretically, any passenger could hack the flight controls. I’m pretty sure this is the sort of thing Commander Adama was worried about when he said no networking the computers on the Galactica.

And you thought we had no breaking news at the Oyster’s Garter, now didn’t you? A press release in my email box says that San Diego’s major airport will now offer free WiFi throughout its three terminals. The release says download speeds will be capped somewhere between that of a dialup modem and DSL, to keep any one user from clogging the pipes with intensive tasks. Sounds reasonable to me.