"EnergyGuruLovins"? My goodness! That man must really be in love with himself!
So if RMI was in its "second year" of a "three-year effort" in 2006, shouldn't they be done about now?
I love the idea of the "ultra-light" tank. I can see Amory now: "Well, the first thing we need to do is remove all of that heavy uranium armor, because like everything associated with nuclear energy, it is inefficient and wasteful, and eventually all of the uranium will be used up. We'll replace it with light-weight carbon-fiber materials made by my company in Colorado."
Although it's nice to see that the Pentagon is listening so closely to his "advice":
Air Force considering building nuclear plant
Go Amory! I have no idea what you're doing, but I like the results.
Gezz ... solar power ... hydrogen hypercars ... "soft energy paths" ... will that guy ever be right about anything?
I love this blog and am passionate in support of nuclear power. But I think this particular post goes a bit too far. The 787 is still a SWEET plane. And carbon fiber components is an engineering idea whose time has come. I would be very surprised to hear if the 787 reduces its range in any significant way.
Jay:
I hope you are right. There are, however, certain risks that need to be understood when making dramatic design changes. One is that projected weight savings might be difficult to achieve, and, if they are, then the projected fuel savings and range improvements might also be a bit less than advertised.
I have been an advertising and marketing skeptic since taking Semantics in 10th grade. I will never forget what I learned from Ms. Page, especially that assignment that required us to carefully watch and read commercials for a three week period.
Remember - the Dreamliner is still just a dream - no commercial versions have yet flown. It will be a few years before all the bugs have been worked out.
Update on the Dreamliner from comment posted at ClimateAudit.org:
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=6...#comment-
348157
"I found this interesting recent news item on models vs reality at http://www.dailyfinance.com/2009...87-safe-to-fly/
"Think of the billions Boeing has spent on their models, and they still don't have it right!
'Specifically, Boeing found that portions of the airframe — those where the top of the wings join the fuselage — experienced greater strain than computer models had predicted. Boeing could take months to fix the 787 design, run more ground tests and adjust computer models to better reflect reality.'
"If realclimatescientists ran Boeing, they would defend the "models", built the plane, kill thousands, bankrupt Boeing and blame Steve!"
I find it highly instructive that models in aerostructures, climate and finance have been used to support projections and policy actions that do not reflect reality.
See chart 3 for IPCC model variance from real-world data:
http://www.heartland.org/bin/
med...rd_Maccabee.ppt
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