Alternate Fuel Vehicles

greenscitek@w... wrote:
> Have you ever wondered what will power landcraft,
watercraft, and aircraft when the oil is gone ?

There's a quote from a Saudi oil baron: "We didn't leave the
stone age because we ran out of stones. We won't leave the oil
age only when we run out of oil."

To answer the question " --when we start using mostly other
sources of energy than fossil fuels?"

SSPS power beams, sent down to coastal floating rectennae.
There, either baseload electricity is distributed inland, to
recharge electric vehicle power storage, or the SSPS power is
used to make H2 from sea water. THe H2 is either used as-is, or
the make distribution and vehicle fuel storage easier, the H2 is
reacted with atmospheric CO2 to make CH4 (Methane or
"natural gas").
The CH4 gas is sent through existing infrastructure to homes
and industry. At homes or fleet vehicle bases, variants of the
existing garage-housed compressors take the gas from the
household lines, and compress it into the vehicle's storage
tanks.

Note that we're still burning the same type of gas as is used
today -maybe not so good. Note also that the only CO2 released
into the atmosphere is that which originally came from the
atmosphere.

Aircraft may be powered by LEO/MEO laser stations which
recieve power beams from GEO SPS arrays. A jetliner for the
same payload can be smaller, simpler, cheaper and lighter,
since is has vastly less fuel requirements since all at-altitude
cruising is powered by the lasers (either laser thermal air
breathing engines or specific frequency photovoltaics on the
aircraft using some form of electric engine).
No fuel combustion products for most of an airplane's flight, less
than 20% of the current fuel load on takeoff (the most dangerous
part of flight, when the fuel tanks are full -possibly massing more
than the airframe and payload combined).
Power beams of similar sort can be used to push boosting
spacecraft up to orbit, or to a hyperbolic trajectory where they are
caught by hypersonic skyhooks or rotavator tethers to be hauled
up into orbit. The only reaction mass used for most of the flight is
air or water or H2.

SSPS power can also be used to push spaceplanes along
up-slanting tracks. If only pushed to mach .8, ~35% less fuel is
used on a rocket plane to reach orbit. If pushed up by a laser,
and caught by a tether/skyhook platform, then nearly no fuel is
used. Some liquified CH4 is kept aboard for go-around or
self-ferry of spaceplanes.

(No, neither the SSPS power beams nor the aircraft beams can
be taken over by terrorists of militaries to burn cities. The SSPS
beam is less powerful than sunlight in a frequency which can't
hurt an airplane or bird, and the airplane power beams can't be
focussed at anything below 30,000 feet.)