Ethanol: The future is now.

[cphilip]

Not to mention the fact they cutting down Rainforests to do it.... and the top soil although there.... is fragile and doomed to errosion issues. I fear its a short term gain. With perhaps global environmental loss much higher than drilling for oil is.

[PyRo]

Ethanol and Ethanol are great alternatives to Gasoline. All engines can burn some ethanol/methanol. But it gets problematic at 10-15%.

Many/most new cars can take 85% methanol/ethanol.

For diesel, you can either use waste or virgin vegetable oil and mix it with your diesel, or you can even burn pure vegetable oil. Another option is to brew biodiesel from vegetable or animal fats/oil.

In Europe, diesle is already a minimum 5-10% biodiesel.

Wait, you can burn greese from deep fryers? Maybie it's time to get a diesel truck and start robbing McDonalds old greese.

[cphilip]

You indeed can...

You have to keep it liquid as the solids in it tend to gel. But many people are doing it. With small heaters and such. And most of them start the engine on regular diesel and then switch over to run "Greasel" after it warms up and flows. Then they purge with Diesel just before shut down.


Or, as has been mentioned. You can remove the solid waxes by catalyst and make Bio Diesel. From any oil.... including used vegetable oil. Although if its heavily used and broken down its not good fuel.

[TheTramp]

Hey, I make ethanol as well! I just don't put it in my car.

It's true that the use of ethanol will not be a cure-all to the industrialized world's addiction to fossil fuels, but it's a good place to start on the fix which we'll HAVE to find in the next 50 years.

[mcveighr]

Wait, you can burn greese from deep fryers? Maybie it's time to get a diesel truck and start robbing McDonalds old greese.

Not as easy as it sounds, you need to filter the waste vegetable oil to get the crap out, you (in NY) would need some kind of heater in your tank to keep the waste vegetable oil from gelling in the low temperatures, and you need to rig up two fuel tanks in order to start the truck on the diesel and let it run on diesel before you turn it off to get the WVO out of the lines.


I have run Biodiesel (B20) seems like a great alternative, better lubracricity, close to the price of diesel, nice smell.

[SlartyBartFast]

Sorry, this one's long.....

All of these alternate/renewable energy sources seem like a great idea at the surface, but they aren't the cure-all solution everyone has been looking for.

After the oil-crisis of '73, the government told us that we would be able to reduce our dependence on foreign oil and use biomass derived fuels. At this time it was ethyl alcohol (Ethanol). This was great news for the midwestern farmers and it looked as though the old corn belts would be revived. The problems first discovered was fuel system corrosion caused by the alcohol. Newer vehicles don't have this problem, but we aren't going to see every pump start filling E-85 and Grandma from down the street fill up her '70 Fairlane with it.

The other thing talked about a lot is electrical powered vehicles. In the grand scheme of things, if you look at the efficiencies of the power plant that is producing the electricity, transmission line efficiency, electric motor efficiency and other losses here and there you have an overall efficiency less than an internal combustion vehicle.

Yup. Electric vehicles can be worse than internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles depending on how the electricity is produced and delivered. Derived from close-by solar, wind, or hydro it is very environmentally friendly. But produced far away in coal burning plants, it can be VERY bad.

Nobody considers the MASSIVE cost of battery replacement (not mention disposal) for an electric vehicle.

Bio-Diesel is a viable solution that overall looks pretty good, but the main problem with it is its freezing point being the same as water. This requires the vehicle to either have fuel warmers, a mix of regular diesel to lower the freezing point or anti-gel added to every tank of fuel.

http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_winter.html). Inline heaters and tank heaters (electric or using the engine coolant) combined with anti-gelling agents work for most climates, and use of a blockheater works in the coldest of climates. Worst case, a two tank system allowing you to start with petro-diesel is required. (even petro-diesel needs additives to avoid gelling in cold-climates)

Technology will change and alternative fuel sources will advance, but don't plan on investing in one or another and next week going to the gas station to see every pump with E-85 and biodiesel, or 10 or more years for that matter.

Not to mention the fact they cutting down Rainforests to do it.... and the top soil although there.... is fragile and doomed to erosion issues. I fear its a short term gain. With perhaps global environmental loss much higher than drilling for oil is.

http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel_food.html.

Then, take into consideration the large amount of farmland paid to remain out of service to boost profitability and support other farmers.

Ethanol isn't the best solution though if you consider the return on energy investment. Biodiesel from algae seems to be the best solution for biomass, but some of the newer extraction methods make the use of chaff and vegetable waste possible and profitable for ethanol production.

http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html

http://www.unh.edu/p2/biodiesel/article_biodiesel_vs_hydrogen.html

http://www.biodiesel.com/why_biodiesel.htm

A great paper on producing biodiesel from algae and a comparison with Hydrogen:

http://www.unh.edu/p2/biodiesel/article_alge.html

At home bio-diesel production:
http://home.swbell.net/scrof/ and http://home.swbell.net/scrof/Biod_Proc.html
http://www.biodieselgear.com/equipment/110details.htm

http://mysite.verizon.net/res21b05/biodiesel/index.html

http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_processor2.html

Straight vegetable oil:

http://www.biofuels.ca/

http://www.greasel.com/

[SlartyBartFast]

Not as easy as it sounds, you need to filter the waste vegetable oil to get the crap out, you (in NY) would need some kind of heater in your tank to keep the waste vegetable oil from gelling in the low temperatures, and you need to rig up two fuel tanks in order to start the truck on the diesel and let it run on diesel before you turn it off to get the WVO out of the lines.

Not really that difficult if you put your mind to it. A collegue is running his 1970's vintage Mercedes station wagon on waste veggie oil. Just lets it settle for a few weeks in a 50 gallon drum and then filters it through a sock filter. Runs a two tank system with a tank heater using the engine coolant.

You can tell which restaurants he gets his oil from if you follow too closely.

[vf-xx]

Well, doesn’t matter if it can be filled with ethanol or not. Granny’s Fairlane should probably be pulled off the street. First step to reduced energy usage and environmental protection is enforcing emissions standards with regular testing of cars to ensure they are well maintained.

And, it wouldn’t be like there’d be no petro- derived fueling stations immediately if Granny’s car can keep up with emissions standards (European testing usually requires a car meet the standards of the year it was built to be allowed to be registered).

Well I'll take offense to that. Both my father and I drive OLD cars (69 and 77 respecitvely). We enjoy how these cars drive, especially compaired to newer cars. Not to mention the sentimental value of the vehicles. I know we're not the only ones who enjoy older cars. Are you going to tell all classic car enthusiasts that the vehicle(s) that they've worked hard to rebuild/restore that they CAN'T use them anymore? That's rediculous.

Now to temper that I realize that I doubt that it will truly be an issue in my lifetime and also we aren't anywhere near a majority of drivers out there today.

BioDiesel: Sounds cool. I've even seen plans to refine it in your garage with a spare water heater. If you get that set up right, then all you need to do is pick up waste grease from your local fast food joints.

I would like to point out the other obvious solution that no one has mentioned yet: Mass transit. There are too many people driving oversized cars for day to day work and the like. I'll admit that it's far more convienent to just hop in your car and head off to wherever you need to go, but I believe it's more efficent to walk a block to your corner and nab a bus/trolly/train whatever. The major problem I see with this is our trends towards suburban life. Texas is epsecially bad about it too. People are far too spread out for this to be immedately effective. I'm sure there are ways to deal with it, but I don't know them.

[Southpaw]

Captn You being from MN you should be awair of the St. Paul ethnol plant. A link to some of the problems http://www.ci.stpaul.mn.us/depts/att...ept010207.html Guess what happened It CLOSED Because it continusly lost $$ even after using old soda instead of corn. If any of the current solutions would work they would be doing it. I also think that people have a misguided idea that only gas/diesel is made from oil and that is simply not true. That fuel efficent Speck of a car is made from plastic and guess what they use to make plastic. I would also like to see any battey powered car drive 20+ miles when it is -30 or pull my 26 foot 5th wheel up a moutain.

[Rooster]

"hmmm So where are we going to grow all this corn?? I just do not think that we can easly grow corn as fast as we would need to make ethnol a viable fuel sorce over 10%-20% as a blend."

The government pays farmers not to farm through the conservation reserve prgram. It was done in the name of conservation, but the real reason was to control production and keep prices somewhat stable.

Hydrogen powered cars are a reality, but the same problem affects them as affects ethanol powered cars as well a biodeisel, there is no infrastructure to support them. The infrastructure for gas production exists, and will be used until we run out of oil or it gets too expensive to buy.

[Southpaw]

The problem with Hydrogen is you have to make electricity and a lot of it to seperate the hydrogen and the oxygen. Where do we get a majority of the electricity in the US? If there was a real good answer we would be doing it instead of building H2 and all the other SUV/Trucks.

[cphilip]

Well it does matter. Environmental trade offs do matter. We should not lean to do something thats so environmentaly destructive and non reversable in favor of a cheap quck fix. And no we have not found all oil supplies and identified them and alternatives also need to be non destructive if possible. Cutting down rain forests is NOT an answer for this problem. Its counter productive to the solution.

[SlartyBartFast]

Well it does matter. Environmental trade offs do matter. We should not lean to do something thats so environmentaly destructive and non reversable in favor of a cheap quck fix. And no we have not found all oil supplies and identified them and alternatives also need to be non destructive if possible. Cutting down rain forests is NOT an answer for this problem. Its counter productive to the solution.

Nobody said you nave to cut down rainforests. There's plenty of farm land out of production, HUGE deserts were you can grow algea in ponds, AND enormous amounts of biomass waste that could be used instead of thrown away.

And, quite honestly, it doesn't matter how the various solutions stack up against drilling. The alternate solutions are CO2 neutral, which is a huge positive, and the number of new wells is going to tail off very rapidly. Petroleum is going to be needed for uses more critical than driving around.

[SlartyBartFast]

Well I'll take offense to that. Both my father and I drive OLD cars (69 and 77 respecitvely). We enjoy how these cars drive, especially compaired to newer cars.

Well, if they're stinkers belching smoke and pollution they should be removed from the road. But if they are well maintained and can still meet the pollution specification of the year they were built or some mandated minimum, then you truly are an enthusiast and should be able to keep driving them.

If you paid attention to the quote you used, you'd see that I'm not advocating the scrapping of good vehicles.

[SlartyBartFast]

Hydrogen powered cars are a reality, but the same problem affects them as affects ethanol powered cars as well a biodeisel, there is no infrastructure to support them. The infrastructure for gas production exists, and will be used until we run out of oil or it gets too expensive to buy.

Hydrogen is a really dumb solution currently. Most of the hydrogen today is produced using steam reformation of natural gas. For driving a vehicle, you'd be better off just using the natural gas directly. And then you're just replacing one non-renewable resource with another.

Ethanol and Biodiesel suffer NONE of the infrastructure problems of Hydrogen (except perhaps for limited production facilities). THe main drawback to their increased use is the fact the public is blind to the real costs of using oil and depending (becoming subservient to) foreign oiul sources. So, oil cost is artificially low (due to direct and indirect subsidy) and the alternatives can't compete.

But when it comes to infrastructure, the COMPLETE infrastructure for the distribution and sale of Ethanol, Methanol, Biodiesel, and all belends already exists. They use the same trucks. pipes, ships, tanks, and pumps petroleum fuel does. Hydrogen on the other hand would require hundreds of billions in infrastructure to be built.

Found another interesting alternative: BioOil http://www.dynamotive.com/