pilatus_p

There are now electronic locators you can get installed on main canopies to help you find them after you chop. The website is http://www.paratelemetry.com/. As far as I can tell they need to be fitted by the manufacturer and may soon become a standard option on all new canopies. Ross

The thrust of R&D has been on making a hydrogen power plant that will provide electricity for homes and businesses, not on piping that hydrogen to homes around the country. Solving just this electricity part of the puzzle is equivalent to removing 70% of the carbon production (figure for Europe). I am driving at a solution for electricity, as used in businesses and homes. The idea of being able to pipe hydrogen around to homes would be nice, but this is not currently as important as the very real ability to use it to produce carbon-free power in power stations. In this regard, the most important transport networks that already exist are the methane delivery ones from reservoirs to the land (or from on land reservoir to power station). I think we will have to agree to disagree on your bio-fuels point. For it to work you would have to first calculate the precise CO2 absoprtion capabilities of the worlds natural decarbonisation system - the forests and the seas. Once you have that figure, you must limit world energy consumption (by all available means) by the CO2 that burning biofuels releases, so it matches this figure - and this is vastly in excess of what our current natural system can cope with. Remember - the average forest or field is designed to deal with CO2 production from normal decomposition of biomass and respiration of living creatures in and around it - low rate, low volume. Now you set fire to those creatures or biomass, or fuels derived thereof. Burning those same things is high rate, high volume and so the natural systems simply cannot cope with it. Truthfully - biofuels are not a balanced system and the net CO2 is not zero. You seem to be saying that for each plant used for biofuel, another one will be there to remove the CO2 you get from burning that fuel. But if you burn a whole tree, the one next to it will not suddenly suck up all the CO2 you just produced. It will float into atmosphere, and even if you could put that tree in a box with all the produced CO2 you just made, it would take a very long time to absorb it. Now continue burning more trees around it before it even has a chance to get started, and you see why we have an excess of CO2 in the atmosphere. Nature's CO2 elimination strategy never ran to setting fire to stuff 24 hours a day, all over the world. Limited range on electric cars? Just an idea - replace petrol stations with battery exchange centres. Roll up, pluck out the old one(s), slot in a new one(s). You drive off and they charge your old one(s) again ready for the next guy. And with that battery power coming from carbon free electricity, the car is running carbon free too. Again, Just an idea: The real prize is that 70% CO2 reduction through eliminating electricity from raw fossil fuels. This is maximum thread drift. http://www.teamtechnology.co.uk/troll.htm

OK, here's how the numbers stack up. The Scottish Hydrogen station receives 400 million standard cubic feet a day of gas from offshore platforms. 70 million of this gives a hydrogen power station producing 350MW, enough power for 250,000 UK homes every day and the equivalent of ALL THE SOLAR FIELDS ALREADY IN CALIFORNIA added together. All this in the area already occupied by the original coal fired power station. Power transmission efficiency is 95%, but solar power generation is only around 30% efficient. OK its 30% of infinity, I concede that point, but what it does mean is the need for much greater numbers of solar panels. This requires vast areas of land and - here's the kicker - consistent levels of solar radiation (good for Cali, bad for UK) The carbon dioxide reduction of this hydrogen station is 1.8 million tonnes a year, equivalent to removing 300,000 cars from the road. Now I am not saying that that makes it the better idea. I would rather see the solar-in-the-worlds-deserts solution widely applied, even though I know that installing the distribution networks to these places would be an immense task. I think we need as many energy solutions as we can get, not just one catch-all solution, and CSP may well provide a huge part of that if the world listens to these German scientists. Its likely that each country's alternative energy solution will be unique and tailored to its needs and perhaps have bits of wind, wave, solar, hydrogen, tidal and nuclear. But the upshot is, we prduce electricity without producing the carbon. So hydrogen being one of those solutions - as you rightly say, the gas distribution network already exists. It is designed for methane, it can be adapted for hydrogen. The power stations already exist, and so do the local electricity distribution networks. CSP would not work in the UK and many northern parts of europe - theres not enough sun. Because of this, plus the energy per unit area value, and the fact that we would no longer be releasing the carbon from the methane we have, hydrogen power is the more immediately applicable solution and is why it is receiving a lot of R&D attention from major global companies. This does not address transport though, I agree.The logical extension of the above argument is to find that way of making a hydrogen fuelled or electric car. If we truly want to cut greenhouse emissions, we can't keep burning methane - it releases CO2, and its reduction is the whole aim of the technology (although the use of an H2 plant or solar energy gives us more headroom to have CO2 producing cars of course...) http://www.teamtechnology.co.uk/troll.htm

You are correct - hydrogen is an 'energy transport mechanism' as opposed to a source. That is, it requires energy to release the hydrogen from the methane. However, the energy required to separate the hydrogen is much less than what you claim by burning it (CO2 free) in a gas turbine. Think of it like the process that forms petrol from crude oil - yes we put energy in the form of heat and pressure into the process, and we come out with all sorts of products, one of them being petrol. But the energy we put into that process is nowhere near what we get from burning petrol. It is an energy CONVERSION process, not energy release. The release comes when you burn the hydrogen, carbon free. Yes we need to find that energy to separate it. One of the major advantages of setting an experimental plant up in Cali is that you have much more sun there than Scotland (home of the first hydrogen power station). For this reason, Californian solar power can be used to provide the energy to separate the hydrogen, and in terms of plant size, hydrogen will provide more energy per square foot than the equivalent area of solar panels. Even if solar can't be used, the carbon footprint of burning fossil fuels to run the hydrogen generation process is far less than burning fossil fuels as a primary source of power, for the same reasons as highlighted above. The technology is there, and it works. But as a business it is still developing. This developmental stage is going to cost money in real terms. As a mass power source, it will not be profitable for some time - however, we need atmospheric carbon-free energy solutions now and I for one am glad that so many opportunities exist - hydrogen being just one of them - and are being invested in. There is also a proposal by German scientists to construct massive Concentrated solar Power fields in 0.5% of the worlds desert area, which it is claimed will provide all the energy we need. You already have one in Cali in the Mojave desert. There are many options out there, and like any new technology it is a matter of time before it can be done as cheaply as the 'established' methods. Whether a person thinks that oil companies are acting out of pure financial self-interest, or genuinely have a concern for the world they inhabit, one thing is for sure: We NEED low carbon fuels NOW, and that means starting the move away from burning heavy fossil fuels in their natural state, or replacing them completely. http://www.teamtechnology.co.uk/troll.htm

Build all drive though windows at the bottom of a long ramp. Use your handbrake to allow the car to roll down it, with the engine off, as the queue advances. I'm here all day. Ross http://www.teamtechnology.co.uk/troll.htm

Just to add to the information on Hydrogen Power, looks like you guys Stateside are about to get a taste of hydrogen produced electricity ... http://www.bpalternativenergy.com/liveassets/bp_internet/alternativenergy/next_generation_hydrogen_carson.html Anybody from Cali on these boards? http://www.teamtechnology.co.uk/troll.htm

1) Does the rate of turn impact the angle and rate of dive? If you start too high and have to slow your turn, does this mean the swoop will be slower? 2) Do you have to readjust yourself every time you get a new set of landmarks, i.e. go to a new dropzone? 3) I've noticed a canopy will surge after applying full brakes for a short time. Can you swoop by coming 'straight in', applying full brakes and then using the surge? (I know I'm a bad bad monkey to be asking these questions before even taking CH1...I just love the look of swooping ) Hope the screw up you mention didn't result in any injuries! How on earth do you have the time to fit in being a cutting egde linux programmer, pinball wizard AND rack up thousands of swoops?? Ross http://www.teamtechnology.co.uk/troll.htm

Agreed. Also, look at the way people THINK about these kind of attacks. To walk up to a guy and shoot him through the head, with all the spattering bits of skull, blood and brain showering everywhere, is a much more visceral way of killing. It leaves a bigger impression on those who hear about it. With the posioning, to some people it is almost amusing, so theatrical that it perhaps becomes laughable. Squirting a little hairspray bottle of posion over some raw fish and quietly walking off. When people think of 'Russia' and 'Polonium poisoning' together, instead of the connection re-inforcing a fearful, negative image of Russia, it produces a slightly silly one. In the minds of the public then, such a killing does not overtly raise negative feeling (fear, mistrust, hate) towards the country suspected of doing it AS MUCH AS A DAYLIGHT SHOOTING WOULD. There is also the fact that, if you intend to be an outspoken critic of people known for poisoning said critics, you are going to spend a lot of your life in fear. In short - it scares the shite out of their opponents whilst minimising the foreign opinion impact, and seems so oldy-coldy-warry that its all the more deniable. Good timing with the new Bond film too. http://www.teamtechnology.co.uk/troll.htm

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OK I just watched this video, and I hear beeping during the spiral turn! I know your secret!! http://www.skydivingmovies.com/ver2/pafiledb.php?action=file&id=5061 Only kidding - I guess having audibles helps with accuracy, but can it still be done on pure gut feel? Ross http://www.teamtechnology.co.uk/troll.htm

Hey I still like the airship idea. One of those cool ones like in 'View to a Kill' - 15 skydivers set themselves up on the stairs, MayDay comes along and punches a button ... the stairs go flat and away you go. Might slow lift turnaround at DZ's a bit. Climb to altitude might be a bit slow. But you can probably fit about 100 skydivers in one and serve them all first class food. Steak, chips and skydive with the MayDay stair exit. I vote for that. And dude, cheer up. Its winter here too. Catch a movie. Have a curry and a beer. Buy a pet. Don't be sad Ross http://www.teamtechnology.co.uk/troll.htm

Cool! Thanks Drew. Does harness input really have that large an effect on turning the canopy? I have only experimented with gentle rear riser turns so far (yes I know, naughty boy) as alternatives to using toggles and it seems incredible that shifting in the harness could produce a spiral. How exactly is this achieved? To yourself and other swoopers - Vectracide etc - how did you go about learning the swoop? I have taken a peek at the BPA manual on HP landings and it gives lots of good advice. The part that confuses me is: Once you begin to try your swoops for real, how do you manage to eyeball your altitude correctly so that you don't end up either being too high, or too low and walking away with your teeth full of gravel? The manual suggests practising with altitude, but this will not give much 'gut feel' practise for where you are in relation to the ground. Is this easy to learn, or are swoopers just wizards (or white witches, just to keep the conversational gender balance)? EDIT TO ASK: Mods, please can we move this to the swooping and canopy control board? Many thanks. Ross http://www.teamtechnology.co.uk/troll.htm

It IS depressing I agree, but on the other hand its pretty exciting to be part of the solution. Discussions like this can raise ideas and alternatives which, crazily enough, just might work. Have you also heard of Syngas? The world has a lot of coal still left because we switched to oil as our main power source sometime around WWII. Methane can be made by passing a flame through a channel drilled into a coalface - the gas emerges at the other end of the 'tube' - so where we have coal, we have natural gas. I know this won't totally solve the problem, and theres still the issue of using it in a carbon free manner, but what I want to get over is that we are trying very hard to find solutions - and I believe that we will. "Needs must when the devil drives" as my dad always used to say. Ross http://www.teamtechnology.co.uk/troll.htm

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Hi Billvon The theory seems sound, but the reality would be quite different. You're presuming a 1:1 relationship for the whole system, as in for every molecule of CO2 produced there is enough plant life around to convert it back to oxygen. The biogas in your example has come from landfill and cattle and this is being produced in a concentrated way. It is then being burnt in a concentrated way too - something that the Earth's natural resources are not designed to deal with (to respond to the poster above - yes deforestation is a major contributor here). You are also referring to a highly local system, when in fact what we have is a massively distributed one. CO2 evolved by combustion climbs high into the atmosphere. It is distributed globally by air currents and it is up here that it does its damage, preventing heat energy from escaping into space. If you can somehow have 'collectors' at ground level for the CO2, they would need to be massively efficient and filter an absolutely vast amount of atmospheric air continuously - in themselves consuming massive quantities of energy. For the theory your present to work, you must limit global production of CO2 to the level that the established natural systems are able to cope with. Aside from the question of 'would landfill gas be enough to supply the world with power' (our platform alone produces 300 million standard cubic feet of gas a day and this provides only a fraction of UK usage) which I suspect would be no, there is also the fact that the amount of landfill / biogas being burned (the 'unnatural' step in the chain) versus the amount of plants available to convert it are vastly out of proportion with one another - again, our demand would outstrip the natural system's ability to control it. If we produce methane in enough quanityt to provide our energy needs, it will always outstrip natures ability to neutralise it - which is why we are n the position we are in now because the earth's natural regulkation sustem evolved to cope with what it already had. The widespread evolution of greenhouse gas is not something that earth is designed to cope with, though I would be happy to see the world covered with plants and trees! I volunteer Slough in England as a good place to start