<story><title>Carbon fibre makes Australian debut</title><url>http://www.csiro.au/en/News/News-releases/2017/Carbon-fibre-makes-Australian-debut</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>nullsandwich</author><text>Currently, Boeing can not replace the 737 with a Carbon Fiber plane because there isn&amp;#x27;t enough Carbon Fiber produced on earth to keep up with the production line completing three aircraft a day.  However, if enough Carbon Fibre could be created to logistically allow Boeing to move away from aluminum I am sure you would see a whole new level of demand for Carbon Fibre.  Needless to say, the Carbon Fibre created would need to met Boeing spec, as Carbon Fibre does not have a single global quality standard, unlike aluminum (thank you WWII).</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Gravityloss</author><text>The traditional carbon fiber production process uses polyacrylonitrile (PAN) and is very energy intensive. It is also slow.&lt;p&gt;There is a big push for new production processes &amp;#x2F; material sources.&lt;p&gt;Here&amp;#x27;s an example of technology using cheaper and less energy intensive acrylic instead:
&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;phys.org&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;2016-03-ornl-low-cost-carbon-fiber.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;phys.org&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;2016-03-ornl-low-cost-carbon-fiber.htm...&lt;/a&gt;
Or a plasma method making it from PAN but faster:
&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.youtube.com&amp;#x2F;watch?v=SLmU0BmLmFE&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.youtube.com&amp;#x2F;watch?v=SLmU0BmLmFE&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;So there is potential for large drops in price and increases in supply in the future. 
Probably the wind energy market is driving this.</text></comment>
<story><title>Carbon fibre makes Australian debut</title><url>http://www.csiro.au/en/News/News-releases/2017/Carbon-fibre-makes-Australian-debut</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>nullsandwich</author><text>Currently, Boeing can not replace the 737 with a Carbon Fiber plane because there isn&amp;#x27;t enough Carbon Fiber produced on earth to keep up with the production line completing three aircraft a day.  However, if enough Carbon Fibre could be created to logistically allow Boeing to move away from aluminum I am sure you would see a whole new level of demand for Carbon Fibre.  Needless to say, the Carbon Fibre created would need to met Boeing spec, as Carbon Fibre does not have a single global quality standard, unlike aluminum (thank you WWII).</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>JumpCrisscross</author><text>&amp;gt; &lt;i&gt;Carbon Fibre does not have a single global quality standard, unlike aluminum&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Carbon fibre also has many more degrees of freedom than aluminium. Not all of these degrees and their interactions, &lt;i&gt;e.g.&lt;/i&gt; this arrangement of fibres with some other resin cured at that temperature, are well understood.</text></comment>