The Development of Ecologically Sound Jet Fuel 210
Roland Piquepaille writes "Researchers at Princeton University are currently working on two projects to reduce jet travel's role in global warming. The first one, a major project funded by the U.S. Air Force with $7.5 million, is focused on developing computational models that accurately simulate the burning of jet fuel, a complex process not well understood today. The second one, funded by NetJets, a company providing business jets, will help to develop new jet fuels with near-zero net greenhouse gas emissions."
global dimming (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:global dimming (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't think anybody has nearly as clear a picture of how our planet's weather as we would like. It sure would be nice. I could plan my days at the beach better and we could quit guessing about what is best for the environment and maybe get a little more consensus and action, though I doubt too much more. So are contrails in and of themselves good or bad? I don't think anyone can say.
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I mean it IS wikipedia, but still...
At any rate, I can settle this: PBS's Nova said they have a cooling effect and the temp went up after 9/11. THAT makes it true.
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We've also got a lot of action on climate change. But most of it is bad, like pumping pollution into the sky. Converting more of that action to conserving our balanced environment would pr
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Contrails are bad (Score:3, Funny)
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I wonder if our weather prediction system could be impressively enhanced by integrating our traffic patterns into the equations.
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They are actually generated in the tip of the wings and are due to the disturbance of the cold, low density, high-humidity (for that temperature) air caused by the passage of the plane.
This is why you only see contrails at high altitude (low temperature, low pressure) and then only in some days (since the air at those heights does not always contain the same amount of water vapor).
The source of this information is, unfortunately, offline: I bel
Re:global dimming (Score:5, Informative)
You should read about global dimming [wikipedia.org].
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And Totally Illegal to use. (Score:5, Informative)
Each aircraft type will have to be tested and certificated for use with this fuel.
This is very, very costly and time consuming.
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Re:And Totally Illegal to use. (Score:4, Insightful)
Exactly! I agree 100%! It's hard to do, so why even try?
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I have a hard time imagining a clean jet fuel, though. Maybe I will RTFA.
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I can see where each type will have to test and certify this, and will be costly and time consuming. I have faith in the engineers involved to consider high altitude aircraft parame
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"High grade kerosene' was the way JP4 was explained to me. I guess my job did not really need me to understand any more than JP4 is same-same as kerosene for anything I would use it for. (in no practical or possible scenario would I ever be involved in supporting or operating jet aircraft!)
But the Field M
Re:And Totally Illegal to use. (Score:5, Informative)
Nope, each aircraft engine type will have to be tested and certified. A PITA, sure - just do it once and your done.
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You are quite mistaken.
Just because an engine gets approval for use of a given fuel, does not mean you can use it in an aircraft that uses that engine.
The approved fuels for a given airframe are spelled out for that aircraft.
You would need to test against all the aircraft systems and get FAA approval for each model aircraft.
The mod would also involve placarding, air crew and ground crew
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Nope, they actually test the aircraft too. Mostly because there might be effects from the fuel, such as corrosion of the fuel hoses and the fuel tanks.
Go search for MOGAS (the Aviation term for the gas used by cars) on the Internet and read about the sorts of tests necessary for certifying a plane to legally
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Do
You're being obtuse. (Score:2)
I'm just glad that the economic impacts of global warming will be hurting the cheap-skate deniers before they hit me. Enjoy your expensive food and heating/cool!
Curses! (Score:2, Funny)
The perfect rocket/jet fuel. (Score:5, Funny)
Or in the words of Mythbuster's Jamie: "This may look like a salami, it may smell like a salami, it may even taste like a salami, but it's rocket fuel."
One of the ingredients of Russian solid rocket fue (Score:3, Interesting)
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Didn't Mussolini make the trains run on thyme?
By all means lets go ahead and do this... (Score:5, Interesting)
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Ummm.... I have an easy solution (Score:5, Funny)
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Some guys in Japan made a piloted plane that flew on 160 AA batteries: http://www.primidi.com/2006/07/17.html#a1571 [primidi.com]
Still, I'm a little more impressed by what NASA pulled off: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helios_Prototype [wikipedia.org]
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Don't get too excited (Score:4, Interesting)
$7.5 million is nothing to the military, especially the Airforce. They blow $100 of millions on customized database applications, billions on building single aircraft, and trillions on R&D for Airframes. $7.5 million is like some spare change they give to some college students to work on a project for 5 years that will end up being canned.
BMW have probably invested a lot more into research into alternative fuels like hydrogen and still haven't come up with something that has us all dumping our hydrocarbon ways.
What needs to be worked on is a more novel way of taking in air and forcing it out the back, past that you need to work out how to apply external forces to aircraft. We're looking at a lot more than $7.5 mil for that kind of physics lab experimentation.
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http://www.fighter-planes.com/info/f18.htm [fighter-planes.com]
General Characteristics, E and F models
Primary Function: Multi-role attack and fighter aircraft
Contractor: McDonnell Douglas
Unit Cost: $ 35 million
Propulsion: Two F414-GE-400 turbofan engines
Thrust: 22,000 pounds (9,977 kg) static thrust per engine
Length: 60.3 feet (18.5 meters)
Height: 16 feet (4.87 meters)
Maximum Take Off Gross Weight: 66,000 pounds (29,932 kg)
Wingspan: 44.9 feet (13.68 meters)
Ceiling: 50,000+ feet
Speed: Mach 1.8+
Crew:
A,C and E models: One
B,D and F models: Two
Armament: One 20mm M-61A1 Vulcan cannon;
External payload: AIM 9 Sidewinder, AIM 7 Sparrow, AIM-120 AMRAAM, Harpoon, Harm, Shrike, SLAM, SLAM-ER, Walleye, Maverick missiles; Joint Stand-Off Weapon (JSOW); Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM); various general purpose bombs, mines and rockets.
First Flight December 1995
This Is Ridiculous (Score:4, Interesting)
Jesus, people. In our zeal to protect the environment (which I share), let's concentrate on the REAL problems please! And stop all this irrelevant noise which just distracts us from those real problems.
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Cough up these studies, please.
Nice "Straw Man" Argument! (Score:3, Insightful)
I made a valid point. Don't be an ass.
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Venus is permanently covered in cloud and has the highest albedo in the solar system. I wonder how that's working out for them... oh, that's right, it's hotter than Mercury.
Cough up these studies, please.
Eh? Venus has a much, much, much thicker atmosphere that's almost pure CO2, clouds made of sulfuric acid, and a surface that periodically erupts into huge masses of magma (no tectonic plates... it has to vent all that internal heat somehow).
By contrast, you have a planet (Earth) with a Nitrogen/Oxygen atmosphere, regular heat venting via tectonics (and vulcanism), and mostly water vapor clouds with a much lighter air pressure overall.
Methinks the albedo is the only thing keeping Venus from becoming e
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I've [proquestk12.com] already [nasa.gov] done [colorado.edu] so [nature.com].
You're the one spewing empirically disproved ideas. The last link in particular is extremely pointed, direct and concise in its destruction of your blatantly false assertion.
And you have the audacity to accuse me of posing strawmen. Go back under your bridge, troll.
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there's various holes in the global warming C02 theory.
1. other planets are also warming
2. C02 lags temp. increases
3. The hottest years on record predate industrialisation.
The idea that jet travel is a green house problem is pure, undiluted bullcrap. infact it's reading on my bullshit meter cracked the guage.
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But I was not the one making a big deal out of something that, according to their own arguments, is a net benefit, not a problem. Go figure.
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I'm sure some of the helpful bots around here will dump a few realclimate links for you. But here's my take:
1. solar influx has already been taken into account by all global warming models.
2. The CO2 lag model breaks in the present of substantial human-generated CO2, meaning we can't use it now.
3. This just indicates the modest nature of current climate change (btw, there are no true global temperature "records" preceding industrialization). It doesn't invalidate the premise that human-generated CO2 i
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And with a greener fuel, the net cooling effect will be bigger per plane. What's your point? In a cumulative system, a bigger minus is still a plus, if you'll forgive the choice of phrasing. It's not like the effects of the jet stop once it crosses the zero line.
Oh honestly.
Maglev (Score:5, Interesting)
Airport Security (Score:2, Insightful)
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One of the articles was about a jet engine research project funded by the airforce, but after reading your comment I can see clearly that they are wasting their money looking at this flying thing. Obviously what they should be doing is researching how they can lay maglev track at Mach 2.0, and have the bombs flying down the track just behind the head of construction.
It's genius! You send down the bombs, then you send down the troops to go in and secure what's left of the place and then you can send supplie
I can think of some problems (Score:5, Insightful)
(1) I can't easily believe it's more efficient. Granted, you use a fair amount of energy raising a jetliner to 40,000 feet, but it can't be that much, compared to what you need to use to keep it levitated and push air out of the way at 600 knots for hours and hours -- and a maglev train needs to do that, too. Indeed, air resistance is surely much higher on the maglev train, which has to operate near sea level instead of at the significantly lower air pressures in the stratosphere.
(2) You've got an incredible infrastructure problem. Essentially, you've got to build the entire Interstate highway system over again -- only this time it can't be just smooth concrete, it's got to be ultrasmooth, ultrastraight rails kept in alignment to the nearest micrometer along thousands of miles, in rain or shine, snow or mud or hurricane or flood, and with marvelous superconducting magnet windings all along them that have to be kept in absolutely perfect working order all the time, because you can't afford one small booboo in your levitation when you're flying along near the speed of sound 1.5 inches off the ground. I can't even imagine how you're going to switch maglev trains from one track to another while they're blistering along at 600 MPH. Those are going to be some very, very expensive switches.
Thing is, with airplanes you only need to build airports, and that's really only just laying down a big long strip of concrete and installing radar. You don't need to build much stuff between destination cities. You also don't need to lay down power along the entire route of every route they fly, because the motor goes along with the carriage.
(3) You've got an amazing safety issue. In the stratosphere there's not much you can run into at jet speeds, fortunately. But on the ground? Say a 50 pound rock falls off a rock face and dings the marvelous superconducting track, so that when the maglev train comes along 20 minutes later it hits a "dry spot" and the carriage dips down 3 inches and hits the ground at 600 knots. BOOM. You'd have to identify the passengers by DNA analysis of tiny bone fragments.
(4) Noise? I live next to a major rail line, and those things are noisy enough at 60-80 MPH. If they came by at 600, it wouldn't be possible to live within half a mile of the track. How does that square with the fact that most of the travel would be to and through major urban areas? Thing about airplanes is, except for within a few miles of the airport, you can't hear them because they fly two miles or more above us.
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Not to mention tunnels are a bit expensive [wikipedia.org]. Like $500 million or more per mile. Tunneling from LA to New York City (2462 miles by plane) would be a minimum of $1.2 TRILLION dollars.
And what happens if a train stalls? The whole system backs up... No thanks, I'll stick with the planes, thank you (and I fly around 200,000 miles per year).
ouch (Score:2)
Remember the SSC [wikipedia.org] in the late 80s? That needed a mere 50 miles or so of evacuated 6-inch diameter tunnel, in a ring, with very little in the way of switching. Cost was estimated as $14 billion 1985 dollars ($25 billion 2007 dollars) before it was canceled.
Normal interstates cost about an average of $1 million per mile to build, and we have about 55,000 miles of them. Now imagine a mere 10,000 miles, say, of evacuated tunne
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If the train levitates, there is no interaction between rail and train, and thus no noise except for the wind.
Imagine how much noise a tornado makes. And that's a mere 300 MPH wind. Now imagine a 600 MPH tornado. How close could you stand without losing your hearing?
Also this:
Subterrenean infrastructure usually costs a magnitude (if that is enough)
Not even a hair's breadth of a smidgen of close enough, when you are talking subterranean evacuated infrastructure. You might as well be talking about
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No, a maglev train can't be made indefinitely long and narrow. People won't ride in something only 1 seat wide with a 10-inch w
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the jetliner and maglev do not share the same shape.
They don't? From the point of view of
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Probably for way less than the cost of building magical maglev trains operating through vacuum tunnels, it would be possible to design and build and deploy a monster fleet of ultrasafe highly computer
SPIN Translation = Synthetic Fuel from COAL !!! (Score:5, Informative)
(1)They can operate with just about any type of chemically and thermally stable combustible fluid with a sufficient energy density having consistent and reliable combustion properties.
and
(2) They are not hampered by the well-known significant inefficiencies introduced by exhaust emissions systems such as mufflers, catalytic converters, EGR systems, etc..
NOTE: Modern Jet fuels are hydrocarbon BLENDS. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jet_fuel [wikipedia.org]
These blends are created as cheaply as possible to meet specific fuel properties and standards, including their energy content, and intended use: http://www.csgnetwork.com/jetfuel.html [csgnetwork.com]
There have been many well-intentioned pushes for "replacement" Jet fuels, including a "safer" version which was intended to reduce fire balls when Jets crashed, but it was a flop as it introduced safety concerns as the 'safety' additive increased the possibility of a flame-out (it basically made the flash point of the fuel higher and reduced the flammability of jet fuel mist) and it cost way too much for little if any margin of safety it would have introduced. (Most people in jet crashes do not die from a fireball of jet fuel, but from actually hitting the mountain, crashing into the ground/ocean, or basically some form of 'Aortic Dissection' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aortic_dissection [wikipedia.org] )
I say that this is really a SPIN and a PR campaign.
Everyone looks good waving the environmental flag, but when compared to boats, trains, and trucking, jets are NEVER environmentally friendly. (Jets have to fight gravity continuously when moving goods and people = INEFFICIENT)
TFA ( http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S18/96/92S56/index.xml [princeton.edu] ) is a Press Release about research into processing "Biomass" into Jet fuel And, oh ya BYW, COAL!! THAT'S RIGHT, COAL!
We are talking about fuel from "other than" OIL Sources = SYNTHETIC FUEL (AKA SynFuel), specifically SYNTHETIC "JET" FUEL. http://www.syntroleum.com/pr_individualpressrelease.aspx?NewsID=907157 [syntroleum.com]
This really has EVERYTHING to do with the price of oil being SKY HIGH (pun intended): http://www.peak-oil-news.info/new-synthetic-jet-fuel/ [peak-oil-news.info]
Everyone knows that Aviation drinks fuel of any kind faster than other transportation types (when you realize the efficiency ratio of Distance traveled with quantity of cargo compared to actual fuel used per unit cargo (person, metric ton, etc..) for that given distance)
We are talking about stirring up money to get more research into the conversion of Coal into Synthetic Jet fuel (and other fuels) and we'll get to work with biomass too.
Oil is so expensive these days it is becoming just as cheap to chemically engineer/create (from scratch!) synthetic Jet Fuels from Coal. (which the US still has hundreds of years worth)
Why expensively pump it out of the deep ocean, or the middle east, and then transport around the planet (BYW, they use ships for this because of their efficiency, not jet aircraft) when you can just dig up some local Coal or Bitumen Tar Sand deposit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tar_sands [wikipedia.org] and make your own synthetic fuel.
(Now observe the pollutants released and the energy required during the "upgrading" of Coal/Bitumen into the new Synthetic Jet Fuel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upgrader [wikipedia.org] )
FYI: The Germans made Synthetic Jet Fuel during WWII because they had Coal but not so much oil...
Flying planes on snake oil and magic beans.... (Score:2)
From the article:
Right, so coal is "at least as harmful" as oil. But it's OK, because using it in a 50:50 mix with biofu
Fred Dryer? (Score:2)
No crime at Princeton will go unsolved with Hunter [imdb.com] on the job!
Wasn't he [imdb.com] the guy that starred in the mostly-lame 80's cop show Hunter [imdb.com]? Nice change of careers from washed-up actor to Mech & Aero Engineer at Princeton.
Jet Fuel is Irrelivant (Score:2, Informative)
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Re:New Computational Models? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:New Computational Models? (Score:5, Informative)
Consider a smaller car, then (Score:2)
There are already cars that run on 3 litres diesel / 100 km. The VW Lupo 3L comes to mind, for example, and that wasn't even a hybrid or anything. Just plain old internal combustion engine.
Want something with a bit more power under the hood and acceleration? Toyota claims 4.2l/100km on the highway for their Prius. Or a Honda Civic Hybrid claims 4.3l/
Tanks indeed. (Score:2)
Spent a few weeks there and didn't see a single Prius. Compared to the gas guzzlers you see over there, anything is more ecological including 50 year old jet planes.
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The south isn't the flood of SUVs and pickup trucks people make it out to be. I drive a 11 year old V6 mustang and my last tank of gas, I got about 27-28 mpg. There's plenty if prius's (how do you pluralize that?) running around as well as small hondas and other efficient cars. There's more trucks here, but I can say from living here that the number is going down and it was never as big a proportion as other people make it out to be.
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1. Let's all stop pretending that air travel is soo economic and environment friendly.
Depends from where to where (Score:2)
On one hand, you're indeed not going take a train or drive a car across the Atlantic. That much is obviously true.
On the other hand, flying across the USA or Europe is a whole other thing. I always wondered why don't more countries build their own equivalent of the French TGV (really fast train, basically.) When you consider what joke flying always was, and only got worse, you don't even need _too_ high speed to reach your destination faster than with an airplane.
Just
Re:New Computational Models? (Score:4, Funny)
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Judging from your comment, I have a hard time believing your own supposed superiority.
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And I raise you an artery and two lymph nodes.
Sheesh, and YOU of all people throwing out the whole "dumb people" line. Hah!
Let's not forget this Super Genius (ala Wile E. Coyote) line of yours:
"I'd sure they could do something about those people (possibly involving gasses) and really make the world a better place."
'I'd sure they..." WTF? Where did you learn Engrish? 'All your base belong to us!' style of 'Skool of Interweb Riting'?
As for the gassing these dumb people to make the world a
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I suppose you did not get much exposure to Monty Python or Second City TV.
Oh well, your loss, not mine....mod as you will, I have Karma to Burn(tm), baby! Let 'er rip!
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Who hasn't noticed the 9-5 suit wearing office junkie driving their SUV in peak hour to the city then complaining about the hour(s) travelling time, the cost of fuel and parking?
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Re:Hopefully this works. (Score:5, Informative)
Near-zero net emissions. The fuel itself releases CO2 when burned, while the plants from which the fuel is derived pull it right back out of the air for the next batch of fuel.
Re:Hopefully this works. (Score:4, Insightful)
If they're using 50% coal and 50% biomass won't the result will still be a hydrocarbon? In which case their actual CO2 emissions will be pretty much as normal, with around 50% of those emissions theoretically offset in the process of growing the biomass in the first place.
It's certainly not going to be anywhere near zero emissions unless they're proposing some way to filter the CO2 out of the jet exhaust.
Even a 50% reduction in net warming using this method seems unfeasible, because emitting greenhouse gases up in the stratosphere causes more net warming than emitting them on the ground, i forget the exact factor, I thinks it's estimated to be around 50% more. And that's still ignoring the fact that putting human beings and industry into competition for limited arable land resources is a horrible idea in the first place.
Maybe this is serious research and I'm just missing some important point, but it sounds horribly like airline industry FUD to me...
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So don't expect CO2 sequestration to be the climate change saviour. The use in oil production is still limited to certain field geologies and crude t
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That makes sense so it's possible that I've been misled a bit on this point. I really do not understand how it can stay down there. I've got mixed feelings about huge penalties - things got extremely weird with climate change issues when economists got involved and tried to work out how to make money out of it. You don't just want to shift industry offshore to carbon tax havens or give the nuclear people so much of an
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Don't worry, if that happens we'll just implement radiation taxes!
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You know, what planes used to run on. Of course, we will have to stop using jets...
That'll mean taking longer to get from point A to point B, using less people etc. But I'm sure none of us will mind, what with the development of remote communications devices, soon all that pesky business travellers will be able to stay at home! (And go yachting remotely as well, sham that...)
Planes were in the air before jet fuel was created, and I'm sure they can keep going after the rock oil i
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Jet fuel has an energy density of 40 to 50 MJ/kg, hydrogen has 120 to 140, so I think you're on to something the
Hydrogen, lots of potential and a pain in the ass (Score:3, Informative)
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Alternatively, one could say that my car gets 125 miles per gallon per passenger when carrying four passengers. It just makes planes sound better (they're only off by half this way, instead of an order of magnitude).
It's still quite a feat, given the power requirements of flying and the HUGE savings as oppo
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Re:In Soviet Russia... (Score:4, Funny)
This is confusing. I think we need a Venn diagram I think...
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