Volcano Futures 284
Now that the volcanic ash cloud is easing off from Europe and airports are re-opening, it's time to look ahead a bit. The first question is, will the Eyjafjallajökull (.OGG) volcano's ash cloud visit the US? According to Discovery News, the answer is: not likely. This article also provides good current answers, as best scientists know, to other questions such as "How long will this volcano keep erupting?" (could be months), and "Will the ash cloud cause cooling in Europe?" (nope). New Scientist looks at the question of whether planes can fly safely through volcanic ash clouds — and concludes there's a lot we don't know. "Ever since a Boeing 747 temporarily lost all four engines in an ash cloud in 1982, the International Civil Aviation Organization has stipulated that skies must be closed as soon as ash concentration rises above zero. The ICAO's International Airways Volcano Watch uses weather forecasting to predict ash cloud movements, and if any projections intersect a flight path, the route is closed. But although it is certain that volcanic ash like that hanging over northern Europe can melt inside a jet engine and block airflow, nobody has the least idea about just how much is too much. After a week of losing millions every day, airlines are starting to ask why we can't do better."
.OGG (Score:2, Insightful)
The rest of the planet uses AAC and MP3, insensitive clod!
Seriously, Vorbis and Theora are not supported by default on either Windows or Mac OS X, so it's really a PITA to use those formats for 99.999% of the users.
Re:.OGG (Score:5, Funny)
Seriously, Vorbis and Theora are not supported by default on either Windows or Mac OS X, so it's really a PITA to use those formats for 99.999% of the users.
Yes, but Slashdot tends to represent the .001% of the population that knows more about installing different codecs than getting sunshine, interacting with members of the opposite sex and those other boring activities that we don't have time for.
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It's linked from Wikipedia and they only accept Vorbis/Theora.
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And if you use Winamp you will be able to play OGG files, so it's a minor problem.
And there are plugins for OGG format for Windows Media Player if you really feel the urge to use it.
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Yes, AIMP2.
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More a fault of the article submitter; they should've linked to the Wikimedia Commons page [wikimedia.org], which can play it in the browser most OS/browser combinations.
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The rest of the planet uses AAC and MP3, insensitive clod!
Seriously, Vorbis and Theora are not supported by default on either Windows or Mac OS X, so it's really a PITA to use those formats for 99.999% of the users.
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Design (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Design (Score:5, Informative)
Notice that the threat is real - the Finnish air force did get engine damage on their F18:s when they were flying through the cloud. Just take a look here: Finnish F-18 engine check reveals effects of volcanic dust [flightglobal.com]
And we must blame Top Gear [autoblog.com] for the eruption too.
Potential longer-term effects on turbine engines (Score:3, Informative)
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That said, jetplanes do operate in dusty sandy places (e.g. Middle East). Are the airborne particles significantly different in concentration and behaviour in a jet engine?
Re:Design (Score:5, Informative)
Yeah, totally. Sand particles are a lot bigger (the volcanic ash particles are around one micron in diameter), so they tend not to occur very far above ground level and are less prone to melting in the engine.
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Yes, the volcanic ash is finer and more abrasive. The former makes it tend to melt and form a glass coating on jet engine parts, the latter puts more wear on anything that moves.
I'm not sure but I think the ash also hangs around at higher altitudes and so affects the engines for the entire flight.
Re:Design (Score:4, Interesting)
Maybe we can't do better because the design of a jet engine is to suck in as much air as possible with tiny blades, compress it, then spit it out at an extremely high temperature that happens to remelt ash?
Is it safe to assume that prop planes are not affected by aerial concentrations of volcanic ash? If so, how difficult would it be for the airliner to rent/lease a fleet of prop planes for the duration of this problem? I realize that no prop plane is going to have the passenger capacity of a jumbo jet and that this is a far less than ideal solution. Still, in the face of losing "millions a day" or in terms of "it's either this option or you're stranded here", does it become better than nothing?
Re:Design (Score:5, Informative)
Even if prop planes were unaffected, no-one makes a prop plane with more than a hand-full of seats, all larger prop planes are actually turboprops which would likely have the same problems as jets.
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Alas, most prop planes are turboprops these days, so they have the same problems. The size of plane that has actual piston engines would need 50 flights just to get one jetliner worth of people home.
They also require a different fuel that probably isn't available at the large airports that are prepared for large numbers of passengers milling around.
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You mean piston-engined planes, as there are planes (and helicopters) powered by "jet-like" engines.
However, piston-engined planes went out of fashion sometime around 1960, as they are much more maintenance-intensive. And the world's air fleet is having maybe a 10% excess, and most of it is in old jet-powered planes (some of those might be forbidden to fly in passenger service in Europe and USA). And unlike words (which you can utter at a moment's notice), planes take a while to build.
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If so, how difficult would it be for the airliner to rent/lease a fleet of prop planes for the duration of this problem?
Very difficult.
There is no-one in this world with dozens of aircraft available for rent. Let alone the hundreds that would be needed to cover existing jet services. And they are no drop-in replacement: slower, less range, less passenger capacity.
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That and anyway it is not often that so big ass clouds happen. So what if air travel stops for a day or two every 20 years? Honestly it doesn't justify spending billions to R&D on how to improve the plane designs for it.
I was wondering if I was the only person who thought this whole incident is not the big deal it's portrayed as. I view this as an inconvenience at best, yet I keep hearing from various media about "dire economic impacts" and such. I don't recall the nautical shipping industry panicking like this over the fact that they can't reasonably send ships through a hurricane, and those happen much more frequently than volcanic eruptions of this magnitude. I get the impression that the rarity of this event that th
Re:Design (Score:5, Informative)
I keep hearing from various media about "dire economic impacts" and such. I don't recall the nautical shipping industry panicking like this over the fact that they can't reasonably send ships through a hurricane, and those happen much more frequently than volcanic eruptions of this magnitude. I get the impression that the rarity of this event that the airliners should be thankful for is also the very reason they are overreacting to it.
The problem is that we have become dependent on the 'ready today' ability to move people and goods around the world. Sixty years ago there was no FedEX overnight service that you could reliably depend on. The 1950s Tulip sellers in Holland sold their tulips to customers within a few tens of kilometers of their fields. Today, there are huge international shipping operations that depend on being able to ship those same tulips half-way around the world in less than 36 hours. Florists in Kenya [digitaljournal.com] are losing an estimated USD $2 million every day sitting on product that is literally rotting before their eyes.
I'm sure you can find many more examples of industry that is time sensitive and losing out due to this problem. Some examples that come quickly to mind are factories that depend on regular replenishment of components. There is a trend for smaller fabrication houses to stock only enough product to complete a fixed amount of orders. It's more economically reasonable for these small houses to stock only what they need and overnight or 2day more parts as they need them than to stock an indefinite supply. These companies are sitting idle and unable to fulfill contracts. The economic loss that potentially creates is huge. Imagine for a second the cost in lost future contracts, late penalties and loss of sales for a company who's model depends on being able to ship items around the world in less than two days. Now multiply that by all the countries that ship to, from and over europe. That's starting to get expensive.
Don't forget about all the stranded people that aren't getting their work done either. I'm staying at a hotel in Norway right now and I'm surrounded by oil industry people that are stuck here, trying to get back to the UK, France and the USA. They're trying their best to do their work, but there's only so much you can do from a lappy in the hotel loby. You can bet those folks are costing their companies some serious down time. Not only are they not doing their work, they're costing the company money staying in the expensive hotel, eating expensive food. That adds up over 7 million estimated stranded people.
Then there's the the airlines that are already hurting due to bad management, expensive fuel and a struggling economy. They have labor contracts they are obliged to fulfill. Just because their employees aren't flying and servicing, they're still entitled to their salaries. Loan and bond payments are still due even when 90% of your aircraft are sitting at an airport taking up space. You can bet every municipality that runs an airport is still expecting the airlines to pay their airport leases and gate fees even though no passengers are flying. Sum all that up and you're WAY in the red for this month.
Shipping is a slightly different ball game. When you put your stuff on a boat and ship it to Norway from New Orleans (we just did this a few weeks ago), you expect it to arrive at some point in the future. You don't expect it to arrive today, or on 28 April. You expect it to arrive at some point within 6-12 weeks (that's what the shipping company quoted). If you build your business model around that type of speed, you build it very differently. You can bet that a company that relies on shipped goods over airfreight has a much bigger buffer of raw materials and product. When a boat is delayed due to hurricane, crowded port, or whatever, it has an impact, but a much smaller impact. You can bet that a steel mill doesn't rely
Re:Design (Score:5, Insightful)
I understand that this doesn't apply to live-shipment items like tulips or medical radioisotopes, but I find it disturbing how much of our economy has been reorganized into something resembling a program that will crash if there's so much as a cache miss in the name of efficiency. Then again, I'm very conservative when it comes to matters of economic robustness - the economy of Vinge's Namqem and the food supply for Asimov's Trantor are my idea of worst-case "how in the name of Christ could anyone anywhere have ever thought this was a good idea?!" scenarios.
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Well, perhaps it's time that corporate shipping planners got a reminder that if you do just in time shipping & supply with zero buffer, eventually the supply chain will blink or shut down for a week due to uncontrollable acts of nature and you'll be boned.
Perhaps this is a good time to start thinking about some of the consequences of a global economy. There are definitely benefits to buying from your neighbor, but doing business locally has it's advantages as well. I'm not versed enough in economics to fully understand the implications of switching to a more localized business model, but this may be a great time to think abou the benefits of buying locally.
There's certainly a very logical argument for buying things like food locally and that's carbon emis
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If your business model/economy can't adapt to deal with the occasional natural event, it's time to change that system to something a bit more robust or flexible.
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This is too occasional and too extreme in scope to actually be prepared for. Also it's expected to be temporary, so no reason to start turning your business model upside down for that.
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Well, those companies that are hurting financially should go to the CEOs and consultants to whom they paid $millions for bringing in this marvelous 'just-in-time' system, and ask for a refund. While they are at it, they could apologise to all the hourly-paid peon scum who argued against the 'just-in-time' system because of this very fragility.
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I don't recall the nautical shipping industry panicking like this over the fact that they can't reasonably send ships through a hurricane, and those happen much more frequently than volcanic eruptions of this magnitude. I get the impression that the rarity of this event that the airliners should be thankful for is also the very reason they are overreacting to it.
The difference is that you can see a hurricane. Weather radar, satellite images and such can tell you exactly where the dangerous winds are at any
It's simple: (Score:2)
After a week of losing millions every day, airlines are starting to ask why we can't do better.
Airlines: We want open airspace.
ICAO: Sure, you guys fund the study.
Airlines: ????
ICAO: *Profit*
Sounds pretty open and shut to me on a serious note. Red Tape at it's best.
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Oh, so now ICAO is going to profit from a study being done?
No, according to GP, ICAO is going to profit from whatever the Airlines did in "????". What happens at that step is anyone's guess (as it always has been).
Re:It's simple: (Score:4, Insightful)
Airlines: We think its safe[1] to fly our planes NOW!
ICAO: Really? Let's hear from Boeing and Airbus on what levels of ash are safe for their engines. So over to you Airbus and Boeing.
Boeing:
Airbus:
ICAO: Hello? You guys still there?
Boeing+Airbus: Uh hold on while we do a few tests...
There's plenty of evidence why the airlines aren't allowed to make that call
It's the job of the airlines to push the ICAO to let them fly ASAP.
It's the job of the ICAO to not let them fly till they know it is safe enough.
From what I've seen, the pilots and engineers don't think it's that safe. Few pilots want to find out if they're as good and lucky as the ones who did some gliding in Indonesian airspace
[1] They may think that the economic impact to them of nobody flying after X weeks could be greater than one or two plane problems/crashes.
prophet (Score:5, Funny)
I was hoping this was about a new market in futures contracts opening up.
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Oh good, something else for Goldman Sachs to get sued over: volcano-backed securities!
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Don't say that out loud, you fool - someone might actually think it's a good idea.
Our economy is incomprehensible enough as it is.
Volcanoes are Earth's pimples (Score:4, Insightful)
You geeks should probably have a clear concept of how volcanoes work. It's like a gigantic pool of molten sebum seething and swelling just under the surface of the earth. When this sebum reaches a vent or finds a weakness in the skin, it erupts pus and bacteria all over. In some areas, these "pimples" are very common. Many can be found on or near the so-called Ring of Fire.
After erupting, the area is still tender and prone to subsequent eruption, but a treatment of peroxide and salicylic acid can help clear it up and prevent infection.
As I was saying, just because one volcano calms down on one side of the Earth, another volcano may be getting closer to eruption on the other side (Yellowstone). If you think pimples on your face are bad, wait until you get one on your ass.
Re:Volcanoes are Earth's pimples (Score:5, Funny)
Not a completely bad analogy, but can Slashdot please give us a "Gross, -1" moderation for such cases?
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Not a completely bad analogy, but can Slashdot please give us a "Gross, -1" moderation for such cases?
First we need a "-1, Factually Incorrect" moderation.
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I prefer a Gross,+1 moderation
I don't know about that offtopic mod (Score:2, Funny)
Offtopic like a fox, maybe!
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I thought it was SID=6581?
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Finall I know what that volcano is called. (Score:5, Funny)
Anyone else hit Eyjafjallajökull [wikimedia.org] about 15 times?
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Yes.
Then I wondered how they have so many letters for 3 syllables.
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Yes.
Then I wondered how they have so many letters for 3 syllables.
Maybe they were influenced by the French.
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See also:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_names_in_English_with_counterintuitive_pronunciations [wikipedia.org]
Examples: Cholmondeley, Featherstonehaugh, Marjoribanks
I suppose Enroughty doesn't count :).
That said, I've heard another alleged Icelander pronounce the volcano name differently- she (Becca) pronounces the fjall part.
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2257 [upenn.edu]
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To this day, I still think the Icelandic language is an elaborate, centuries-long joke on the rest of us - especially those of us who try to learn it.
Space programs (Score:5, Informative)
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Were the US satellites NASA or NOAA? (Or somebody else?)
At least in the US, cutting funding for NASA will have less impact than you might think because they aren't sole [non military/intelligence] satellite operator the government has.
We need to get our feet wet. (Score:2)
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You could do it with all robots but you still can't repair and maintain them, so someone is going to be out there.
You just send more robots or remote presence systems. It'll *always* be cheaper than sending an actual person there.
Conversely -- (Score:5, Insightful)
Had they permitted a plane to fly, and it crashed, the outcry of permitting a plane to fly when we knew about the risks posed by volcanic ash...
But this wasn't even volcanic ash, it was volcanic glass, the effect would be sandblasting the engine while in operation. The safe option was to keep planes on the ground.
Fly or stay grounded - either way, whiners will whine.
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It's a sad but safe bet that the airlines weren't worried about people dying, but rather worried about them suddenly becoming litigious hypochondriacs.
Very likely that at least one person would claim that the volcanic ash gave them a horrible disease or whatever, and then, well...
Let's just say it's a good thing those planes stayed on the ground.
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was or is?
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Testable in wind tunnel? (Score:3, Insightful)
Is this testable by putting an engine in a wind tunnel, and then testing for damage at various concentrations of ash?
Re:Testable in wind tunnel? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Testable in wind tunnel? (Score:5, Insightful)
$10M is nothing when they're losing something like $200M per day.
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At $10M per and a significant fraction of that just to do a teardown and evaluation I'm not sure that anyone wants to fund that kind of research.
Until now. The airlines likely won't do it (and don't have the expertise anyway), but to Airbus or Boeing, the limits of flying through an ash cloud might just be a major selling point.
Re:Testable in wind tunnel? (Score:5)
to Airbus or Boeing, the limits of flying through an ash cloud might just be a major selling point.
Actually, it'd be far more relevant to Rolls Royce, GE Aviation, Pratt & Whitney and the like.
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Even the screens can get damaged.
So the plane manufacturer has to ask their engine supplier and other suppliers to help do some tests which hopefully simulate reality enough.
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Euhm... I don't think it's a good idea to actually run a full-sized jet engine inside a wind tunnel. Because that's what you will have to do, after all the problem is not as much the sandblasting but the melting of ash inside a hot engine. And you would have to do that for many hours on end, without melting the wind tunnel in the process.
Maybe overclockers have an idea on how to get rid of all that excess heat.
Why can't we do better? Are you fucking kidding? (Score:5, Insightful)
After a week of losing millions every day, airlines are starting to ask why we can't do better.
Tell you what. Let all the bean counters volunteer to get into a jet and fly back and forth through an ash plume until the engines fail and the jet crashes, killing everyone.
THEN ask that stupid fucking question again.
The reason nobody can say is there's no metrics for uptake by a jet and no guarantee that the ash plume is going to be consistent with whatever testbed is set up.
Honestly, losing millions a day? Do they want to invest a couple billion a year (if not a month) into testing every plausible (and some implausible) ash-to-air-to-engine-intake ratio for every commercial jetliner extant?
With various air carriers already cutting finances close to the bone, I don't think they really have the money to spend on this kind of research or on remediation methods and practices for overhauling engines on planes after scenarios like this.
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The reason nobody can say is there's no metrics for uptake by a jet and no guarantee that the ash plume is going to be consistent with whatever testbed is set up.
No. The reason nobody can say is there's been essentially zero reason to DO the controlled tests until possibly now. How often do ash clouds interrupt busy air traffic corridors? Never?
I guarantee you that if ash clouds were an every day occurrence, the limits of the technology to fly through them would be well known. Since it's rare, they aren
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Honestly, losing millions a day? Do they want to invest a couple billion a year (if not a month) into testing every plausible (and some implausible) ash-to-air-to-engine-intake ratio for every commercial jetliner extant?
I think you're confused about who "they" are.
The airlines have never been in the business of testing anything.
In this case "they" are the engine mfgs &/or the government.
Since the MFGs are saying "don't use our engines under these conditions,"
even if airports weren't shut down, no airline's insurance carrier would cover damage anyways.
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You can't live a life without risk. Nor is the avoidance of risk worth any price (otherwise we'd drive a tank at 5km/hr while wearing a helmet and a flak jacket to go to the corner store for milk.) (And then not drink the milk for fear it was contaminated.) Ask all those people stuck in the wrong part of the world whether they'd take a flight if the chance of dying was 1 in 100,000 rather than the normal 1 in 9,000,000 [planecrashinfo.com]. I think you'd find most of them would accept it as a worthwhile risk.
Also, not flying is
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It's not just the airline bean counters who are worried about this. I'm being directly affected. I was in Europe for work, and was supposed to fly back to the US last Sun. I've been stuck here since. I'm quite desperate to get back home and back to my life.
It may seem cool to be stuck in Europe, but in actuality it's not. It feels semi-prison like in that I'm stuck in a place (albeit a very nice, historical and cultural one) and unable to get home. Things are going on at work, with friends, family and
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1) The plane and plane engine manufacturers let them know what levels of ash are OK.
2) The weather people say what levels of ash are out there.
3) It is reasonable to believe that 2 < 1 in 99.9% of the flight paths.
Or
4) There's extremely little ash out there.
If they allow flights without the above, then they're not doing their jobs properly.
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Do they want to invest a couple billion a year (if not a month) into testing every plausible (and some implausible) ash-to-air-to-engine-intake ratio for every commercial jetliner extant?
That's an interesting number, I'd like to see how you come up with that number for doing research.
Personally I'd be interested in getting more detailed information about how volcano ash hurts a jet engine. We know that enough of it can cause engine failure, and at some point the ash concentration gets so small it has no effect. How small is too small? Do different kinds of ash have different effects? These are interesting questions, and if someone wants to research them, I'd like to hear the answers.
Eyjafjallajökull (Score:5, Funny)
As many people in the United States with immigrant ancestors know, the government is going to have to naturalise the volcano's name if the ashes pass Ellis Island.
Get ready for Mt. Ekull.
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prop planes (Score:2)
Just curious, would piston engined planes not have a problem with this?
Fire up an old DC-3. I don't suppose they had air-filters though? and ash is probably hard on the prop?
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I believe you're right. However, we have a few thousand people trapped here in LA. Unfortunately, neither European rail nor Amtrak have yet built that tunnel under the Atlantic Ocean.
Of course, if we build that bridge across the Bering Strait [wikipedia.org]...
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1783 (Score:5, Informative)
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You'd suspect that engine technology would develop very fast if that were to be the case...
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we have avoided something like the 1783 eruption that lasted for two years
Who said it was over? Earlier today, it was beginning to ramp up on the ash spewing again.
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If European airspace was closed for 2 years we might see a return of the era of the luxury cruise liner or even better, of the zepellin (imagine if London to Berlin took 8h but in an airship with the room and conforts of a small cruise ship).
Just the beginning? (Score:2)
Overhyped (Score:2)
Some scientist in the Netherlands has stated that the whole problem is overhyped. Yes of course it is dangerous to fly through an ash-cloud within 100 miles from the vulcano, but after some days (and that is what we are talking about) most of the big particles in the cloud have fallen to the earth, and the rest has been deluted to such an extend that there is no acute danger. Planes also regularly fly through other dust clouds (from deserts) and that too is not a reason for planes to be grounded.
It looks li
Conclusions from googling.. (Score:3, Interesting)
From what I can tell via google,
- Ash melts at 1100 degrees, below operating temperature of jet engines, and fuses into the engine
- Windshields can be abraded so badly you cannot see out of them
- Ash is dry and doesn't show up on radar, so new sensors are needed so pilots can discover it
- There are no standards for how much ash is allowed or how to test aircraft against it.
- Possibility that propellor planes and helicopters are safer
So my conclusions for now are:
- Need better rules, and government should pay for the experimentation
- Need better intelligence, so we can be sure a route is safe
- Need to examine flying propellor planes slowly at very low altitudes below the ash
- Nobody has thought about ash bothering ground transportation. Does it?
- Need alternative transportation
o Trains, buses, boats
o Slower aircraft.. hovercraft or balloons? (they still have engines though)
o Need a closed engine design. (chemical or hydrogen powered electric closed engine?)
o This is a common problem, more needs to be done for global transportation security. I even found a volcanic explosion in Japan yesterday at the ash advisory center, though it is not in the news at all.
http://ds.data.jma.go.jp/svd/vaac/data/TextData/20100420_SAKU_0403_Text.html [jma.go.jp]
Links:
http://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/412103-ash-clouds-threaten-air-traffic.html [pprune.org]
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/apr/15/volcanic-ash-bad-for-planes [guardian.co.uk]
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?threadid=2055888944 [boards.ie]
http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/VAAC/vaac.html [noaa.gov]
Prediction (Score:2)
They resume flights. Things appear perfectly normal. In a few weeks time, small numbers of engine failures and instrument and control failures start happening, apparently randomly. It is said to have no relation to the dust. It is very hard to track down the cause, or tell if its unusual for some reason, or just statistical noise, because the planes have been flying all over the world, not just in the affected areas. A few weeks after that, we have three or four total engine failures at once over buil
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That seems unlikely. Maybe I'm just naive but I'm pretty sure they will have thorough inspections of the engines after flying through the ash clouds. Not doing so could be catastrophic and I doubt any airline would risk it (not to mention they are supposed to do a lot of inspections before flights anyway).
Why can't we do better? (Score:2)
We can. It's called not putting your eggs in one basket and developing high speed rail.
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Global warming and volcanoes are related.
What's your source for this?
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Volcanoes have nothing to do with global warming. It was all the cavemen driving around in the massive dinosaur guzzling SUVs that ended the last ice age. Everyone knows that.
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Global warming and volcanoes are related.
What's your source for this?
Google. Try it yourself, sometime. It would take about as much time as the post you wrote to get started.
Here's some links (Score:2)
Here's a few for you.
CO2 output from volcano's have not varied wildly [scienceblogs.com] meaning their effect on Global temperatures is minimal.
CO2 from eyjafjallajokull vs CO2 from Europe's airline industry. [gizmodo.com]
I guess these aren't the citations the OP was looking for.
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Gizmodo should really update their article since their source has been forced to recant.
http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/2010/planes-or-volcano/ [informatio...utiful.net]
(Do note that the graph still doesn't fully reflect their actual text from yesterday's update)
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Global warming and volcanoes are related.
I could have sworn it was pirates.
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The real question is do volcanoes cause pirates or do pirates cause volcanoes?
Re:Can we cover the volcano with a slab of concret (Score:4, Insightful)
Hmm, it already melted through 100 miles or so of mostly solid rock, so we are going to stop it by putting a few feet or tens of feet skim coat of far weaker material with a lower melting point?