United Airlines signs deal to buy supersonic jets

[martin-w 3,252]

More than a dozen supersonic jets ordered from Boom.

 

 

[W2DR 1,860]

Who in their right mind would ever set foot on an airplane made by a company named "Boom"?  🙂

[martin-w 3,252]

53 minutes ago, W2DR said:

Who in their right mind would ever set foot on an airplane made by a company named "Boom"?  🙂

 

Do you know how many times that joke has been told in the comments section on YouTube? 600 billion times. 😁👍

I expect something original. 

[martin-w 3,252]

Interestingly   this guy will be carbon neutral. They have teemed up with a company called Prometheus fuels that make aviation fuel from the air! All they need is CO2 from the atmosphere and renewable energy.  

 

Quote

In June 2019, Boom announced its partnership with Prometheus Fuels to supply carbon-neutral jet fuel during the XB-1 test program. Prometheus’ technology economically removes CO₂ from the air and uses clean electricity to turn it into jet fuel.

 

https://blog.boomsupersonic.com/boom-announces-first-fully-carbon-neutral-aircraft-program-dee6e4115f0b

 

https://prometheusfuels.com/

https://prometheusfuels.com/mission

Edited June 7, 2021 by martin-w

[Mike A 347]

2 hours ago, W2DR said:

Who in their right mind would ever set foot on an airplane made by a company named "Boom"?  🙂

 The same people who would fly with Amelia Earhart luggage. Don’t know if that brand exists anymore, but I remember that it was among the prizes people could win on TV game shows years ago. I remember always thinking which marketing “genius” came up with that brand name?

[TheFamilyMan 280]

I agree that Boom is probably the worst name a company making supersonic aircraft should be named.  People hated SS AC for this reason - BOOM!

But there is hope!  Lockheed Martin announced this program a few years ago to develop quiet SS aircraft. I posted this info back then, where I noted that fuel costs will make this tech impractical, for that's what basically did-in commercial SS travel over 40 years ago.  But this new SS tech coupled with Prometheus tech fuels...Bring It On!  In this light, perhaps Boom should consider renaming themselves Hush.

I just hope that Prometheus tech fuels are truly feasible.  You'd think that such carbon neutral fuel tech should be front and center of international attention for weaning humanity away from fossil fuel use.

[n4gix 4,954]

Prometheus' technical explanation reads like science fiction and "too good to be true." I certainly hope its not sci-fi!

If this is really sound chemical science, I wonder just how much the infrastructure will cost to bring it into real use?

[dave2013 1,142]

Glad to see that SS passenger aircraft may be returning soon.

As far as the magical, free "fuel from the air" is concerned, well, let's just say that I'm a bit skeptical.  First of all, has the company successfully done what they claim or are they just talking while taking money from investors?  How much will this wonder fuel cost? 

Moreover, everyone does understand that CO2 is necessary for life, right?  Plant life "breathes" this gas to live.  It's not a poison.  Anyway, I'm not sure that having large facilities all over the place(and it would take a lot of them to make a viable amount of fuel from the air) stripping CO2 and water from the atmosphere to make hydrocarbon fuels is such a great thing.  I thought that we were trying to transition away from hydrocarbon fuels?

There is no such thing as "net zero" emissions.  This is happy talk to make some folks feel less guilty while they're sipping champagne on a supersonic flight to Europe. 

Let's stick to developing safe nuclear power, making electric vehicles more efficient and practical, and conservation.

Dave

[martin-w 3,252]

59 minutes ago, n4gix said:

Prometheus' technical explanation reads like science fiction and "too good to be true." I certainly hope its not sci-fi!

If this is really sound chemical science, I wonder just how much the infrastructure will cost to bring it into real use?

 

Well, the company have signed an agreement with them so they must think its viable. 

NASA have been doing it. Their device converts to methane though. 

https://technology.nasa.gov/patent/TOP2-160

https://www.motortrend.com/news/direct-co2-to-fuel-conversion-technologue/

Transforming carbon dioxide into jet fuel using an organic combustion-synthesized Fe-Mn-K catalyst

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-20214-z

 

Quote

 

Now Prometheus Fuels is aiming three new silver bullets at this problem:

 

• Aqueous CO2 electrolysis using base-metal catalysts to turn CO2 directly into ethanol;
• Separating the ethanol from the water without an energy-intensive distilling process; and
• Upgrading the ethanol to gasoline, diesel, or jet fuels using exothermic catalytic reactions, which give off heat rather than absorbing it.

The CO2 collection step still requires a large air-to-water contact area like a cooling tower. But rather than trying to chemically isolate pure CO2, the electrolysis step can happen with just 2 percent CO2 in water.

The electrolysis step employs sheets of graphene covered in carbon nanospikes doped with copper nanoparticles. This anode's intense folds and spikes help reduce the CO2 to CO and then grab hydrogen from the water to form ethanol at a 63 percent Faradaic efficiency (the number of electrons that end up in the ethanol) with 84 percent of the CO2 becoming ethanol.

Ethanol then gets separated from the water via carbon nanotube membranes that are highly selective for alcohols while rejecting water (I have friends like that). Minimal energy is consumed in this step.

 

Upgrading from ethanol to complex hydrocarbons involves novel but inexpensive zeolite catalysts involving indium and vanadium (InV-ZSM-5). The reaction takes place at atmospheric pressure without added hydrogen, and the process can tolerate water in the intake stream. It occurs at elevated temperature, but the overall net reaction produces its own heat.

The resulting CO2-based crude stock contains no sulfur, benzene, heavy metals, or other impurities that petrochemical refiners must contend with. A third of the resulting liquid hydrocarbon mix includes chains of five carbons or more, and the calculated research and motor octane numbers are 105.7 and 90.6, respectively. The entire process can be operated with (clean) electrical input only and can be turned on and off quickly to match intermittent renewable energy supplies.

 

 

Edited June 7, 2021 by martin-w

[W2DR 1,860]

3 hours ago, martin-w said:

 

Do you know how many times that joke has been told in the comments section on YouTube? 600 billion times. 😁👍

I expect something original. 

I don't do "You Tube" so it's original to me.

[martin-w 3,252]

37 minutes ago, dave2013 said:

As far as the magical, free "fuel from the air" is concerned, well, let's just say that I'm a bit skeptical.  First of all, has the company successfully done what they claim or are they just talking while taking money from investors? 

 

See the article in Nature and other links above. I recall this has been regarded as feasible for something like 100 years. 

 

37 minutes ago, dave2013 said:

Moreover, everyone does understand that CO2 is necessary for life, right?  Plant life "breathes" this gas to live.

 

We've put plenty of excess carbon into the atmosphere.  Half the C02 we have emitted since the early 1800's is still in the atmosphere, the rest is in the ocean. This process takes it back out. Or put another way, the CO2 they take from the atmosphere gets put back in by the engines. 

 

Quote

 I thought that we were trying to transition away from hydrocarbon fuels?

 

We are. But we can't do supersonic flight or even medium haul journeys without jet engines currently, This way the CO2 they generate can get taken out again for the fuel manufacture. Pretty much. 

Edited June 7, 2021 by martin-w

[martin-w 3,252]

1 hour ago, TheFamilyMan said:

I just hope that Prometheus tech fuels are truly feasible.  You'd think that such carbon neutral fuel tech should be front and center of international attention for weaning humanity away from fossil fuel use.

 

There has been a lot of interest and research into the process over recent years. 

[dave2013 1,142]

5 hours ago, martin-w said:

See the article in Nature and other links above. I recall this has been regarded as feasible for something like 100 years. 

I should have been more specific.  I mean doing it on a large scale, big enough to provide ample fuel for jet aircraft.

It's one thing to do something in the laboratory or on a very small scale, but a whole other ballgame to scale it up enough to produce millions of gallons of fuel per year.

Anyhow, I'm all for it as long as it doesn't end up having adverse impacts on the atmosphere and doesn't use more energy than it produces, like ethanol production which is a scam IMO.

Dave

[Fielder 3,712]

Believers will invest, looking for another opportunity like early Tesla!

[Ray Proudfoot 9,032]

Concorde was never too loud. It stayed within the noise limits set by the US authorities when departing JFK. I have no knowledge of departures from Washington. The Canarsie departure off 31L at JFK was very challenging but with judicious application of the throttles the noise limits were rarely breached.

As for Boom. Well there are no reheats so noise levels will be lower but it will be interesting to see how much runway is required to get 70 pax airborne given it also has no flaps.

Concorde’s slower relation 60 years later. 215mph slower and with fewer pax. Progress? Hmmm.