Ethanol: The future is now.

[Pacifist_Farmer]

http://www.earth-policy.org/Updates/2007/Update63.htm

Has anyone posted this yet.

Biodeisel is the future.

[CaptaiN_JacK]

Wow who dug up this thread?

Pacifist - My dad and I were just talking about the huge increase in ethanol plants and how it's affecting the price of grain. There's a price of corn when ethanol stops making money...if the price of grain continues to rise and the price of oil continues to drop, the ethanol industry will be in a world of hurt in the next decade.

[slade]

hah, i remember this thread.

/just helped a teacher do a biodiesel/vegetable oil conversion a few weeks ago.

[hitech]

I'm guilty of digging up this thread.

Hydrogen is the future. Why? Because when ALL hydrocarbon fuels (including bio-desiel) are burned ONLY the hydrogen is used from the fuel to produce "power". Everything else is waste. The only reason for using the other fuels is for their safety and storage features (and price). Once those problems are solved, why use something that contains a lot of unusable junk in it? All that unusable junk contributes to various pollution problems (even bio-desiel). Therefore, hydrogen has to be the future.

[skife]

you know, E-85 is great for the performance industry, higher octane for a cheaper price.

can definatally run higher compression ration without worry of spark knock.

[MicroMiniMe]

hah, i remember this thread.

/just helped a teacher do a biodiesel/vegetable oil conversion a few weeks ago.

Bio Benz? Straight WVO or they have a homebrew supplier?

/Runs B20 in the TDI

[slade]

my teacher makes his own biodiesel. we added a tank, heater, fuel lines, two solenoids, and 2 electronic switches so the car can switch between biodiesel and vegetable oil.

[MicroMiniMe]

my teacher makes his own biodiesel. we added a tank, heater, fuel lines, two solenoids, and 2 electronic switches so the car can switch between biodiesel and vegetable oil.

I'm always hearing about "teachers/professors" running and making bio/veggi cars. Not sure if its the 'statement' aspect or the economics or both.

So is it a Mercedes Benz or <03' VW or a stately beast of the 80s?

Is he stockpiling a handful of fuel filters in the trunk and tools to swap out.

Do they need the special injector nozzles to run always on WVO/SVO?

/threadjack tangent

[SlartyBartFast]

The following stement is completely false!

Hydrogen is the future. Why? Because when ALL hydrocarbon fuels (including bio-desiel) are burned ONLY the hydrogen is used from the fuel to produce "power".

I'll attribute your lapse to lack of caffeine. But, the carbon in petrochemicals is also burned to produce power.

Hydrogen + oxygen = H2O
Carbon + oxygen = CO2

Hydrogen has very little future, IMO. Current supplies of hydrogen are manufactured through the steam-reformation of natural gas. It is actually a very efficient process and is very clean in terms of production of pollutants and soot. But, for the production of the greenhouse gas CO2 it's only moderately better than directly using the Natural Gas because of the thermal efficiency of the process.

The process (simplistically):
Super-heated steam combined with natural gas produces hydrogen (in greater quantities than present in the natural gas as some hydrogen is taken from the steam) and carbon monoxide. The carbon monoxide is then burned to heat water to continue the process.

But, the only economically feasible method to attain hydrogen is through the use of fossil fuels. Making hydrogen far less than the miracle clean power source it's made out to be.

If/As clean sources of electricity are developed, the power will be best put to use replacing the dirty generating plants supplying the electric grid than supplying vehicles. [On a side note, electric vehicles in most situations actually produce more pollution than tradition ICE vehicles. Why? The electricity is produced using oil, gas, or coal and the losses from generating a producing are actually larger than the losses from a vehicle running on gasoline directly.]

There's also the slight problem of having to build the transport and distribution infrastructure for hydrogen, where the existing petrochemical infrastructure can be used for Ethanol and Biodiesel without modification.

Plant based fuels are simply the best most efficient way to harvest solar energy. I'll agree that corn is undoubtedly a dead-end as corn based Ethanol is viable only because of ridiculous subsidies. But, numerous alternatives exist including using plant waste and grasses for ethanol production and algae for biodiesel.

[slade]

I'm always hearing about "teachers/professors" running and making bio/veggi cars. Not sure if its the 'statement' aspect or the economics or both.

So is it a Mercedes Benz or <03' VW or a stately beast of the 80s?

Is he stockpiling a handful of fuel filters in the trunk and tools to swap out.

Do they need the special injector nozzles to run always on WVO/SVO?

/threadjack tangent

for him its both a political and environmental statement as well as economics. the political statement can be summed up by his bumper sticker: "my car runs on foreign oil" with "foreign" crossed out and "vegetable" written in. and as far as cost - he gets vegetable oil free from the school cafeteria, he hasnt paid to drive his vehicle for quite some time.

its a 1987 mercedes 300D.

no he doesnt stockpile filters, and no he doesnt need special injector nozzles. thats why he has the vegetable oil tank in the trunk with the heater. the reason hydrogenated vegetable oil is bad for you is it has a high melting point and clogs your arteries more readily. thats the same reason its hard to run in a car, because unless its very warm out, the tank is going to have solid vegetable oil in it. and if you turned the car off when you were running vegetable oil, the fuel lines are going to be solid. so he has two solenoids and two tanks, so he can switch back and forth between vegetable oil from the trunk and biodiesel from the tank. he starts the car on biodiesel, then switches to vegetable oil when the tank is warm, then back to biodiesel when he turns the car off.

[Lohman446]

for him its both a political and environmental statement as well as economics. the political statement can be summed up by his bumper sticker: "my car runs on foreign oil" with "foreign" crossed out and "vegetable" written in. and as far as cost - he gets vegetable oil free from the school cafeteria, he hasnt paid to drive his vehicle for quite some time.

its a 1987 mercedes 300D.

no he doesnt stockpile filters, and no he doesnt need special injector nozzles. thats why he has the vegetable oil tank in the trunk with the heater. the reason hydrogenated vegetable oil is bad for you is it has a high melting point and clogs your arteries more readily. thats the same reason its hard to run in a car, because unless its very warm out, the tank is going to have solid vegetable oil in it. and if you turned the car off when you were running vegetable oil, the fuel lines are going to be solid. so he has two solenoids and two tanks, so he can switch back and forth between vegetable oil from the trunk and biodiesel from the tank. he starts the car on biodiesel, then switches to vegetable oil when the tank is warm, then back to biodiesel when he turns the car off.

At one point was fairly common practice to start off gasoline and run off kerosene once warm(or was it backwards?)

[slade]

At one point was fairly common practice to start off gasoline and run off kerosene once warm(or was it backwards?)

well, which was cheaper and which was easier to burn?

[Lohman446]

well, which was cheaper and which was easier to burn?

It was cheaper to run kerosene but you could not start on kerosene The engine would run either at temperature

[slade]

It was cheaper to run kerosene but you could not start on kerosene The engine would run either at temperature

so then of course people would start on gas and switch to kerosene.

that makes sense, i remember now that kerosene burns very slowly for a liquid fuel.

i was thinking if it burned easier, people could start with it in cold weather; I know that now companies change the formula of gas in the winter so engines start better, unfortunately i cant remember the chemical formula of what they add and why

[SlartyBartFast]

so he can switch back and forth between vegetable oil from the trunk and biodiesel from the tank.

a collegue runs his Mercedes in the same manner, but uses petro-diesel in the primary tank.

Biodiesel and petro-diesel also have problems with gelling at low temperatures. Winter petro-diesel is No. 2 diesel mixed with No. 1 diesel (or even kerosene).

High percentage biodiesel might work year round in southern climates, but more northern users are limited to lower percentage biodiesel in the colder months or must resort to using additives.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerosene

http://www.howstuffworks.com/question105.htm