When Alcohol And Airplanes Make A Good Mix

gilgsn writes "Both for the economy and the environment, as suggested in this Iwon Money article. The Brazilians use sugar cane alcohol to fuel their modification of a single engine crop duster called the "Ipanema." The company projects a 25 percent increase in revenue from the new alcohol planes and increased income to convert existing gasoline-fueled Ipanemas to alcohol. With the threat of war for the U.S. and a subsequent raise in oil prices, this might be of some interest for our general aviation."

Comments

What a pain in the @ss,

[Hawthorne01]

having to fill up the tank of a 757 using those little tiny bottles.

Cars?

[Mark4ST]

Why not cars?

Re:Cars?

[tedDancin]

Quote from article, comparing alcohol to gasoline:

"but we have some concerns of its performance in lower temperatures"

I'm not an expert in the area, but I'm guessing that it has something to do with the alcohol not producing as much heat as gasoline. I'm also guessing that it would be a complete bastard to start your alcohol-fuelled car on a frosty morning.

Re:Cars?

[shepd]

Certainly would be interesting to see what the officer writes on the ticket if you leave your gas tank open by accident...

Driving with an open liquor bottle. That's a paddlin'.

Re:Cars?

[prof187]

i'm not positive if it's the same alcohol as this, but a lot of race cars are using alcohol engines. my cousin was driving a stock car and his used it.

i imagine that the major gas companies wouldn't be too happy w/ cars switching over, so they probably have a hand in the delay

Re:Cars?

[dragonfly28]

Because although the idea is nice, the energy content of 1 liter alcohol are far less than that of a liter kerosine ie. you would need probably a 50 or more liters of alcohol to get the same energy release.

The mention that is better for the environment I'm not too sure about either: alcohol is a carbohydrate so is kerosine. Which means that when its burned it will 'leave' carbondioxide and water. The effiency of the engine will determine how much intermediate junk you get.

It is btw quite difficult to use a more volatile fuel in an engine designed for a heavier one.

Re:Cars?

[zerblat]

Actually, they already use alcohol to fuel cars in Brazil, they have been since the oil crisis in the 70's. However, then there was an alcohol crisis in 1989, so gasoline has been taking over again.

The reason why the use alcohol as a fuel in Brazil is of course the large sugar cane production in the country.

Use Google.

Re:Cars?

[bernardos70]

Yes, I am from Brazil and we do have cars that use alcohol as fuel. We had them for a long time now. These cars, while much cleaner, do waste a lot of fuel quick. However, alcohol (sold on gas stations) is cheaper than gasoline, but gasoline is still a better value. Ipanema is also the name of a car in Brazil, and it's named after Ipanema, which is an area in Rio De Janeiro. I don't, however, recall if it is a model that uses alcohol as fuel.

Re:Cars?

[apol]

Brazil uses alcohol as alternative to gasoline for vehicles since the 70's. The alcohol program (called PROALCOOL).

In the 80's a large percent of the car run with alcohol, but then the oil prices fell and the program became economically less interesting. But there are still cars running with alcohol in Brazil, and the technology of burning alcohol instead of gasoline is perfectly mastered in the country. Alcohol is also mixed in the gasoline (at 30%) used by regular gasoline cars.

Re:Cars?

[BlueUnderwear]

Which means that when its burned it will 'leave' carbondioxide and water.

True enough, burning alcohol leaves CO2, just as petrol does. However, the big difference is that growing the sugar cane to produce that alcohol absorbed the same quantity of CO2 from the atmosphere. Thus, if you consider the complete cycle (growing sugar cane, distilling, burning), no CO2 will be released in the atmosphere.

Actually, the same is true in a way for petrol, except that the "growing" part took place billions of years ago, at a time when CO2 levels were significantly different. Burning all the petrol will lead us back to the levels we had back then, which might not be so comfortable for today's life forms.

Re:Cars?

[Anonymous Coward]

Brazil uses Ethanol as fuel ( the same alcohol used at homes, and found in drinks ).

Race cars use Methanol, a poisonous alcohol that should not be drunk.

Having said that, when there was an alcohol crisis in Brazil, we imported methanol as a replacement to ethanol and our cars ( and planes ) will run the same.

Of course there were some guys who were puting fuel on beverages illegally ( because it is cheaper ) and had their clients killed ;-)

Both methanol and ethanol have higher octane than standard gasoline, so the same engine will have more HP, and that is why it is used in race cars.

Re:Cars?

[crapulent]

Thus, if you consider the complete cycle (growing sugar cane, distilling, burning), no CO2 will be released in the atmosphere.

Yeah, that is, except for all the diesel fuel burned by the farming machinery and the coal fuel burned to produce the electricity for the refinement process. Sure, zero sum it is.

This is good because it's cheap(er) for poor farmers, not because it's good for the environment.

Re:Cars?

[BlueUnderwear]

Yeah, that is, except for all the diesel fuel burned by the farming machinery

Why not run the farming machinery on alcohol or on canola oil as well? Short range of these fuels should be of a lesser issue for farming machinery than for planes or cars, so this looks like a perfect use for these new fuels!

and the coal fuel burned to produce the electricity for the refinement process.

Use wood ;-)

Re:Cars?

[Anonymous Coward]

Growing sugar cane is not so good for the environment.

Lots of land has become all salty here in Queensland Australia because of sugar cane. However if crops are rotated this effect is reduced, although not all farmers do this.

Also they burn down the cane in order to make harvesting it easier. This too is not good.

Then there are the fertalizers which they use. The water run off from the fields goes into rivers then into the sea, stuffing it up.

There is a big push here at the moment to make ethanol from the cane, in order to save the dying sugar cane industry. I just hope the farmers start to use better practices.

I think in general sugar cane/alcahol would be better than petrol as far as environmental impact is concerned, however it is not clean.

HAHHAAHAHAHAHAH OK?!?!?!?!

Re:Cars?

[Savage-Rabbit]

Stop being a git, all he was saying is that if it were possible to replace gasoline with alcohol (and perhaps hydrogen as well) there would still be a VERY significant reduction in emissions. That is assuming that the distilling and burining of a standard unit amount of sugarcane does not generate more CO2 than the same unit amount of live sugarcane plants can absorb during their life cycle. And even they can't Alcohol will still beat Gasoline in terms of emissions.
Rejecting a partial solution because it is not the definitive universal solution to all of mankinds problems is an old sport among enviromentalists but it just makes them look like fools. As for disel, there have been similar, and relatively sucessful, attempts at producing a "Bio Diesel" to whome the same principle applies as alcohol as a gasolilne substitute, the plants from whom the Bio Diesel fuel is made absorb the CO2 released by burn and processing. That only leaves burining Coal and other fossil fuels to generate Electicity which can be reduced significantly if the worlds governments were not such political cowards and too firmly committed to ensuring the interests of industry to promote energy efficiency. If you take a look at what is happening in Europe to reduce emissions from electic powerplats you will find that magical new technologies like cold fusion play no part in it. The proposed redcutions over the next 20-30 years will be reached by means of a patchwork of measures to increase energy efficiency and by burning a large number of alternative fuels to coal, gas and oil. It wont eliminate Coal, oil and gas!!! But alternative fuels and energy efficiency can still reduce our reliance on fossil fuels very significantly. The more we reduce reliance on fossil fuels the more real the become the prospect of getting rid of the political baggage that comes with constantly poking around in middle eastern politics and propping up tyrannical rulers in that part of the world in the interest of keeping the flow of oil uninterrupted. As far as I am concerned, if this works out and reduces or even eliminates (Utopia) the need for Gasoline that is only a good thing even if it is not a magic bullet.

Re:Cars?

[mpe]

Actually, they already use alcohol to fuel cars in Brazil, they have been since the oil crisis in the 70's. However, then there was an alcohol crisis in 1989, so gasoline has been taking over again.

You can add a certain amount of ethanol into the mix without needing to modify the engine at all. More than a certain amount and you need to modify timings and fuel air mixture. (Though you'd think a modern engine, especially one with fuel injection and a fair amount of computer power should be able to adjust itself.) At one time ethanol was added to fuel, prior to TEL becoming popular.

Re:Cars?

[mpe]

i'm not positive if it's the same alcohol as this, but a lot of race cars are using alcohol engines. my cousin was driving a stock car and his used it.

Indy cars use methanol, so it's perfectly possible to build a high performance car fueled by alcohol. One reason for using alcohol in race cars is that it it is safer in a crash, since it dosn't burn as hot. Even though the flames are less visible.

Re:Cars?

[mangu]

The energy content of ethanol is about 90% of that of gasoline.

Ethanol burns cleaner than gasoline or diesel, that's why its flame is almost invisible. The yellow color of a gasoline flame comes from unburned carbon particles (i.e. soot) heated by the flame. Also, the growing of sugar cane removes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. If the tractors and trucks used in the farm run on alcohol, and the leftover straw and tusks are burned in the refinery, ethanol can be a 100% renewable fuel.

Pure ethanol was widely used as a car fuel in Brazil in the 1980's, until lower oil prices made it economically unatractive. At one time, over 90% of the cars built and running in Brazil were alcohol powered.

Re:Cars?

[GooberToo]

Actually methanol is used as a stabilizing agent because nitro is so explosive. Currently, they use 90% nitro and 10% something else. Just so happens that methanol is still a fairly good fuel yet much more stable than nitro. It helps reprevent catastrophic predetonation.

In the past, before 90/10 was required, huge and very nasty engine explosions were not uncommon. By adding 10% methanol, the number of catastrophic engine explosions were greatly reduced. Didn't take too long for this to become the standard fuel mix.

Re:Cars?

[gorilla]

Brazil tried to convert to 100% ethanol fueled cars. It nearly bankrupted them, because there simply isn't a large enough supply at reasonable cost, so they had to import from the US.

Re:Cars?

[Karpe]

Actually, plants release as much CO2 as result of cellular respiration as they consume (plants do not produce O2 at night, but they keep producing CO2 at night). Where all that O2 comes from then? Phytoplancton. The planet lung is not the tropical forrests, but the oceans.

At least thats waht they told me at school.

Re:Cars?

[mikeee]

Well, then, clearly, the answer to global warming is to grow huge amounts of sugarcane, harvest it, and bury it in a giant pit while continuing to burn all the oil we want.

Um...

Re:Cars?

[ShooterNeo]

Quote "That is assuming that the distilling and burining of a standard unit amount of sugarcane does not generate more CO2 than the same unit amount of live sugarcane plants can absorb during their life cycle"

Check your high school chemistry, guy. If burning sugar cane released more CO2 than the plant absorbed in its life cycle, where did the extra carbon come from (hint : it didn't, and burning sugar cane releases EXACTLY the same amount of carbon as the plant originally absorbed)

Re:Cars?

[Don Negro]

The saltiness comes from years of irrigation. River water has a few mineral salts in it, picked up from the land it ran across before it got to the river. You put that water on your fields, it evaporates and leaves behind the minerals. Repeat for 50-100 years and you get heavy mineral salt buildups in your soil. Now you can't grow anything there.

It has little to do with the sugar cane. In south-east Texas and southern Louisiana, they get 60+ inches of rainfall a year, and thus don't need to irrigate. They've been growing sugarcane there for over 150-200 years.

Re:Cars?

[aprentic]

I think he's suggesting that there might be some carbon introduced during the refineing process.
For instance, in order to distill something you need to heat it up. Carbon oxidation reactions are typically used to generate this heat.

Re:Cars?

[drwho]

The saltiness comes from years of irrigation.

Actually, I have heard differently. What has happened is that the aquafer has been overtapped, bringing up brine from deeper in the earth. This is a huge problem. It's quite difficult to fix land that's been broken in such a way, though there are a class of plants called halophytes that may be able to be grown. Australia has some rather strange geology, much of it due the its absence of vulcanism (volcanos, you who would make trekkie jokes). The Australian government needs to better understand its continent or risk ruining it a lot faster than the rest of the world wrecks their homelands.

Re:Cars?

[ShooterNeo]

But heating it up just changes its form...no more carbon was added.

Re:Cars?

[monkeydo]

But hybrids still need electricity, and of all the current methods we use for generating electricity nuclear is the most efficient. Combined with the efficiency of modern gasoline engines and the dirty electricity it is quite likely that current electric cars produce more total polutants than gasoline powered. The disposal problem is not as dire as the liberals in DC would have you believe, and AFAIK nuclear power byproducts are not very useful for weapon making.

Re:Cars?

[shatteredpottery]

Octane is used as the standard by which the relative tendency of a fuel to explode (i.e. burn in an uncontrolled fashion) is measured.

There are several different ways to calculate it -- the U.S. used to use one, while Europe used a different one. I may be wrong, but I believe they use the same standard now. But, some people may remember back in the 70's and 80's when fuel (in the U.S.) had octane ratings of 102, 104 and so forth, whereas now, it's more like 87,89,92. Well, the fuel didn't change much, just the measuring technique.

Anyway, back to the question: alcohol burns cooler and slower than octane (or gasoline in general), and it is harder to make it explode, so it is given a higher relative octane number.

When fuel explodes in the engine, as opposed to burning, the energy is expended in too short of an interval for power to be extracted efficiently. We call that "knocking", observed when an engine is run on a low-octane fuel.

Knocking robs power, as there is essentially little pressure on the piston downstroke; it was all expended when the piston was at the top of its travel.

However, it is a common misconception that higher octane increases engine power. It does not. The most efficient fuel for a given engine is one that is just barely not causing knocking. After that point, the fuel burns more and more slowly, and not all of the expanding, burning gases are applied during the optimum part of the piston downstroke.

The reason more powerful engines require higher octane fuel (giving people the idea that high octane fuel is more powerful) is that things such as compression and burn temperature can be increased, turbo/supercharging can be added, etc. increasing overall efficiency. Note that the high octane fuel simply allows for a more efficient engine design, in itself it does NOT increase power!

Re:Cars?

[GooberToo]

This top fuel link should explain all your questions and more.

Please do note that I am not talking about nitroglycerin. That's an extremly unstable high explosive. That would be a death wish as it's sensitive to shock, vibration and heat which is exactly what you're going to see on race cars. What I'm talking about is nitromethane which is often simply referred to as nitro. Even still, nitromethane is highly volatile which is why they "cut" by 10%. One laste note, this is distinct "stuff" and should not be confused with NO2 either, even though NO2 does have racing applications as well.

Re:Cars?

[GooberToo]

Oh ya, nitro is also a commonly added to fuel used by internal combustion remote control cars and planes. I currently have a gallon of fuel which is 15% nitro. Higher nitro contents can be obtained. Some people even mix their own fuel for their R/C hobby.

Homer simpson

[Ledora]

Reminds me of the scene when homer hears about cars that run on the same stuff: While he is at the pump filling up his car Homer: "one for me *gulp gulp* one for you."

more news

[prof187]

and in other news, a man was sucked into the engine of a plane while on a desperate search for a "pint."

Good first step

[Anonymous Coward]

Moving from oil to alcohol is great, but I won't be happy until we see a hemp-powered Volkswagen airbus.

Fighting the Greenhouse Effect

[Professor_Quail]

This article is from Rio de Janeiro, it says that using sugar cane alcohol as a source of fuel also fights the greenhouse effect, because it doesn't produce C02 like regular fuel.

Re:Fighting the Greenhouse Effect

[Twirlip of the Mists]

it says that using sugar cane alcohol as a source of fuel also fights the greenhouse effect, because it doesn't produce C02 like regular fuel.

I'm still waiting for somebody to take the opposite approach to managing carbon emissions. Instead of restricting the production of carbon dioxide, I say we just grow more trees and other plants. Looking out my second-storey window over a parking lot, a freeway, and a football stadium, I'd say it would go a long way toward improving our cities, too.

Re:Fighting the Greenhouse Effect

[mpe]

it says that using sugar cane alcohol as a source of fuel also fights the greenhouse effect, because it doesn't produce C02 like regular fuel.

It's not quite that simple, buring ethanol does produce carbon dioxide.
But the important point is that the carbon released isn't "fossil carbon" which has been locked up in mineral deposits for a long time. Only a short time ago this carbon was previously in carbon dioxide which a sugar cane plant took in for photosynthesis.
The next result of using biomass fuels is that the crabon dioxide content of the atmosphere stays much the same. On average for every carbon dioxide you put in from burning the fuel one will be taken out bu the next batch of your crop.

Re:Fighting the Greenhouse Effect

[Mnemia]

For one thing, gasoline is a complex mixture of hydrocarbons, not just octane. Many of those other constituents produce CO when burned. For another, gasoline doesn't burn with 100% efficiency, so a number of side reactions will occur; some will produce CO as a product.

I think people are mistaken that CO2 is not a greenhouse gas: I believe that it is. It's just that the carbon in the CO2 from biomass fuels like this alcohol is not derived from fossil reserves like gasoline is. So it's not contributing directly to increasing the amount of carbon in the atmosphere.

(Note that I said directly: I think that this method of generating fuel will still contribute to a net increase in atmospheric carbon if for instance large swaths of forest are destroyed to grow the sugarcane.)

Re:Fighting the Greenhouse Effect

[TGK]

I think you rather missed the point.

"Fossil Carbon" as its called consists of carbon atoms (bonded who random other stuff) which has been effectively removed from the atomsphere by natural processes. Coal, Oil, Natural Gas: all of these represent large stocks of carbon which no longer form a component of our atmosphere.

Thus, when you burn them, you unlock that carbon from the mineral deposits and release it into the atmosphere. This results in a net gain of carbon in the atmosphere.

Using alcohol based fules the carbon you are releasing is coming from the atmosphere in the first place, not from a mineral source. Assuming a regular harvesting cycle the plants you are growing now are removing CO2 from the atmosphere as you burn off the last crop. Net result is therefore 0 (or close to it).

See, no C02 is removed from the atmosphere by digging a hole in the ground from which to suck oil. That's the key.

Re:Fighting the Greenhouse Effect

[mpe]

When it comes to the greenhouse effect, biomass has no advantage over coal or oil. See, you might as well tend forests or crops in order to sequester deliberately the same amount of carbon that you release with fossil fuels. That will work just as well as switching to biomass fuels, and will cost less.

Except that if your idea is to use forests or crops to adsorb fossil carbon you need to constantly plant more and more plants. Whereas for biomass you simply need a crop grown as any other crop is grown.

Re:Fighting the Greenhouse Effect

[Zoop]

However, you have to look at other factors to determine the total carbon implications of a fuel. The reason I oppose ethanol-based fuels and organic farming is that they require far greater destruction of carbon-sinks to supply them--i.e., they cut down lots and lots of rain forest and burn it.

Intensive farming can be done without massive fertilizer runoff (hey, Congress, lets use some of those subsidies to promote no-till more instead of merely fallow fields!) and fossil carbon requires less habitat destruction per BTU. We should be pushing for hybrids to tide us over until fuel-cell vehicles can be rolled out on a massive scale.

However, converting existing fields to growing ethanol is a good idea in the short run. For example, getting rid of organic fields to grow ethanol-producing plants in a responsible intensive manner would be a net plus. I'm just not sure it's a large-scale solution, nor will the market support it given the current first-world mythology surrounding organic foods.

Re:Fighting the Greenhouse Effect

[obiwan2u]

If this solution were to scale up, then people would be growing huge amounts of sugar cane. As with US large scale agriculture, that will require fertilizer, and that will require fossil fuel as an input (for large scale production)

From The Coming Global Oil Crises:
"The major energy inputs in U.S. corn production are oil, natural gas, and/or other high grade fuels. Fertilizer production and fuels for mechanization account for about two-thirds of these energy inputs for corn production (Pimentel, 1991)."

Sugar cane fuel in the US?

[spackled42]

Isn't sugar cane somewhat less-than-plentiful in the US? I'd imagine that that would make it a poor option for fuel up here. On the other hand, corn or other grain alcohol might be the ticket.

Re:Sugar cane fuel in the US?

[kfg]

This is precisely what Henry Ford had in mind. Alcohol produced locally from locally grown corn.

Standard Oil saw things differently however.

Henry also posited that cars should be made of plastic rather than metal and produced a plastic Model T in the late 20's. Where did he get his feed stock for making the plastic? Locally grown soybeans.

US Steel and Standard Oil saw things differently.

By the way, you can get sugar, and make alcohol from it, from beets, quite growable anywhere in the US.

One of the hurdles to pass now though is that the radical "enviromentalists" now oppose any such renewable resources for fuel. Go figure. They have the idea that every ear of corn you feed to a car means some human is going hungry.

Simpletons.

KFG

Economics will screw this up

[ooglek]

Sugar cane processing produces this distilled alcohol. That's great that is is cheaper than gasoline NOW, but what happens when the demand increases? Let's say someone builds a distilled alcohol passenger plane. Demand increases for distilled alcohol. All of a sudden, demand for distilled alcohol creates a demand for more sugar and thus more sugar cane. Sugar cane growth is limited by the land and regions it can be grown. And growing it takes some time, so there is an increase in demand and supply stays the same. Distilled alcohol prices rise above gasoline quickly and all of a sudden the whole distilled alcohol plane is starting to cost you MORE than the gasoline did.

Sure, gasoline refining takes time. And the oil it is made from took thousands/millions of years to create, and it is limited (we haven't planted future oil fields!). Growing sugar cane and letting it ferment and then distilling the alcohol from it takes time too.

Diesel cars used to be hot in the early 80's because diesel was so much cheaper than unleaded or regular. Economics screwed that up because diesel cars got to be big enough that regular gas stations (not just truck stops) started to carry diesel. That increased the gas stations cost, and thus raised the price of diesel to the same or higher levels compared to unleaded.

I don't see how, in the long run, this will save the world.

Re:Economics will screw this up

[Chicane-UK]

Diesel cars used to be hot in the early 80's because diesel was so much cheaper than unleaded or regular. Economics screwed that up because diesel cars got to be big enough that regular gas stations (not just truck stops) started to carry diesel. That increased the gas stations cost, and thus raised the price of diesel to the same or higher levels compared to unleaded.

Or in the case of the UK (where we are taxed 80% on our gasoline), our government made a big deal about getting people to switch to diesel as it was taxed considerably less than regular gasoline, and was cleaner for the environment. Then, as soon as a significant quantity of people had realised the money they could save by switching over, the government inflated the tax so that it now costs MORE per gallon than regular.

I love this country!

Re:Economics will screw this up

[dirvish]

If it burns cleaner it might be worth it. Also, it is much easier to grow sugar cane in the US than to talk Iraq into selling us oil when we run out.

Re:Economics will screw this up

[Skinny Rav]

Sugar cane processing produces this distilled alcohol. That's great that is is cheaper than gasoline NOW, but what happens when the demand increases? Sugar cane growth is limited by the land and regions it can be grown. And growing it takes some time, so there is an increase in demand and supply stays the same. Distilled alcohol prices rise above gasoline quickly and all of a sudden the whole distilled alcohol plane is starting to cost you MORE than the gasoline did.

Don't forget sugar beet which can grow in the US and Europe. I know that Poland for example produces too much sugar and world market prices for sugar are lowest ever. There are huge reserves in sugar production. And what is more important: it is not just sugar you can use to produce alcohol. Most of ethanol is produced from grain or potatoes and it is cheap.

The only problem is taxation: consumable ethanol everywhere is subject to huge taxation (that's why vodka is expensive even though its production is cheap) so you need double taxation, one for consumable ethanol, the other for fuel. But this means you need control so people don't produce fuel ethanol and sell it on black market.

Anyway, ethanol prices are not a problem. Taxation and petrol lobbies are a problem.

Raf

Re:Economics will screw this up

[mpe]

Sugar cane processing produces this distilled alcohol. That's great that is is cheaper than gasoline NOW, but what happens when the demand increases? Let's say someone builds a distilled alcohol passenger plane. Demand increases for distilled alcohol. All of a sudden, demand for distilled alcohol creates a demand for more sugar and thus more sugar cane. Sugar cane growth is limited by the land and regions it can be grown. And growing it takes some time, so there is an increase in demand and supply stays the same.

The reason the Brazilians use sugar cane is that it grows well in Brazil. Another plant used for commercial production of sugar is sugar beet which grows in temperate climates. Anyway plenty of plants can be used for production of alcohol, quite probably where the part being fermented is otherwise waste.

Distilled alcohol prices rise above gasoline quickly and all of a sudden the whole distilled alcohol plane is starting to cost you MORE than the gasoline did.

Typically passenger planess use jet A which is less volatile than the gasoline type fuels used in cars and light aircraft. Anyway if the Rusians can build a jet fighter which will run on just about anything the same technology will work with any other plane. Most likely the issue is with certification.

Diesel cars used to be hot in the early 80's because diesel was so much cheaper than unleaded or regular. Economics screwed that up because diesel cars got to be big enough that regular gas stations (not just truck stops) started to carry diesel. That increased the gas stations cost, and thus raised the price of diesel to the same or higher levels compared to unleaded.

In many parts of the world a major part of the cost of the fuel is taxation. Anyway the oil companies will use any excuse to raise profits.

Re:Economics will screw this up

[mpe]

Or in the case of the UK (where we are taxed 80% on our gasoline), our government made a big deal about getting people to switch to diesel as it was taxed considerably less than regular gasoline, and was cleaner for the environment. Then, as soon as a significant quantity of people had realised the money they could save by switching over, the government inflated the tax so that it now costs MORE per gallon than regular.

Then decided to go after people who used recycled vegetable oil, for "tax evasion". Good idea, turn a waste product into something useful and get fined.

Re:Economics will screw this up

[mpe]

If it burns cleaner it might be worth it. Also, it is much easier to grow sugar cane in the US than to talk Iraq into selling us oil when we run out.

Probably cheaper than bombing Iraq (and whoever else) in order to get a government the US happens to like. Especially since all those warplanes need oil for fuel and the explosives are probably petrochemical derived too.

Re:Economics will screw this up

[ragnar]

I wouldn't be too alarmed. Consider the incredible costs associated with drilling for oil and I'll take my chances with the economic side effects of distilling alcohol from plants any day. Only a select amount of regions and nations can produce oil, but it is within the means of most nations to produce to alcohol and to distill it.

Therein lies maybe the biggest obstacle. Powerful nations control the means of production and distribution of oil. If a good alternative really comes along we can expect them to resist it politically, which is unfortunate for the consumers who might benefit from the choice.

Re:Economics will screw this up

[DrXym]

The answer is to buy a more fuel efficient vehicle. Alternatively, switch to DERV or a hybrid. The government offers subsidies for both.

At the end of the day, Europe has the sense to see that reliance on oil is a bad thing which is why they're making more than token efforts to change.

Part of the problem with human beings is that they are fundamentally selfish and lazy. If a government sets up a voluntary recycling scheme for paper, cans or bottles I bet nearly everyone would still throw their rubbish in the bin! If supermarkets sell thicker reusable carrier bags for a few pence, most people will still take the 'free' thinner ones. If there are two cars of similar price, most people will buy the one that looks nicer even if it has shittier mileage. People are selfish and lazy.

In such circumstances, a government has a duty to do what is best for everyone, even if in the short term it looks like they're a bunch of swingeing bastards. Pollution, refuse, energy consumption are all serious long term problems and the simple fact is people *won't* change unless you force them to. You can sermonise until you're blue in the face, but it won't work. How many people wore seatbelts (or car companies that even fitted them) until governments mandated car safety? Some issues have to be forced even in a free economy. Taxation can be extremely effective way to institute change.

Here in Ireland we get charged 15 cents for a plastic carrier bag and now everyone uses reusable bags. It stops something like 300 million bags being tossed into landfill every year. Places like Denmark, Germany charge a deposit in the price of glass and plastic bottles with the result that people not return their glass and plastic rather than toss it out.

Where perhaps the UK is going wrong is they're using the stick in the wrong way. Taxing petrol is an excellent way to annoy people, but perhaps taxing engine size, or petrol tank size would be better. Most people don't need a 2.0 liter engine - a 1.4 is more than adequate, so tax the people who choose something which is overly inefficient for their circumstances. The same with petrol tanks - tax the cars with bigger tanks because they will typically consume more fuel. Simultaneously subsidize the more efficient vehicles, especially those such as hybrids which get dramatically better performance than petrol engines.

Re:Economics will screw this up

[mikeee]

Heh. Very clever. But there really isn't enough recyclable oil for this solution to work on a massive scale, is there?

Re:Economics will screw this up

[jonbrewer]

Diesel is a dirty fuel.

This depends upon how it is refined. If governments would disallow sulfur and other impurities, the effects on the environment would not be as great. With it's lower emissions per amount of work produced, it really is a better alternative than gasoline.

Re:Economics will screw this up

[Conare]

If the alcohol is purer it becomes "undenatured" meaning that you can drink it and you have to tax it. Ethanol used in fuels and solvents is generally "denatured" meaning there is some poison crap in there and therefore it is not subject to liquor taxes, making it economically attractive.

Re:The threat of war?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hence it's ludicrous to suggest that an American attack on Iraq will raise local oil prices.

Could you please explain what these "local oil prices" are? Oil is globally traded, if supply goes down prices go up - even if your particular supplier continues to have steady production.

What's the Fuel Economy?

[The Red Rooster]

Interesting to note what was NOT said:

There was quite a bit of comment in the article about "saving reais"... but regardless of the price comparison, notice how no explicit numbers were given for fuel economy...

The average farmer, given the information on the site, uses 70l of gasoline an hour (@ 245Reais / hour).

The alchohol plane uses 83.3- l of fuel / hour.

Meaning that the gas engine is more fuel efficient, and when dealing with jet engines, it isn't even possible to aquire enough fuel to make up for the lack of range without losing so much of the passenger / cargo space that all profit is lost.

So, while General aviation might like it, commercial aviation will not adopt it until you can give sufficient return on range to make the choice palatable.

I don't think that the savings is going to make up for the cost of switching for quite awhile, at least not in US GenAv.

My $0.25.

Well, cool, but how do you make Alcohol?

[Dion]

The only problem with running an engine on alcohol is that you need to refine that alcohol first, that is something that takes a huge amount of energy and unless you have a "green" way of doing that you are just as screwed as when you use petrol.

Yes, it's cool that you can keep flying after the oil reserves dry out, but it's not going to do anything for the greenhouse effect, it might even make it worse with all the water you need to evaporate during destilation.

Re:Well, cool, but how do you make Alcohol?

[NewtonsLaw]

The only problem with running an engine on alcohol is that you need to refine that alcohol first, that is something that takes a huge amount of energy and unless you have a "green" way of doing that you are just as screwed as when you use petrol

If you're using energy that would otherwise be wasted then it becomes quite practical (and economic).

For example, I believe that in New Zealand they're producing ethanol from dairy whey (a byproduct of some milk products).

At least some of the energy used in this production is also a byproduct of processes such as the production of milk-powder or something.

One man's waste energy is another's treasure :-)

Even without using wate energy, I don't see why it wouldn't be practical to use a solar still to perform the fractional distilation required to perform the essential separation of ethanol and water needed to get a 100+% proof fluid for fuel use.

Re:Well, cool, but how do you make Alcohol?

[anonymous cupboard]

I used to work at a chemicals site. Any site is composed of a number of individual plants, usually treated as quasi-independent financial entities and they buy and sell each-other's products.

One of the most important products is steam (reactions are both exothermic (giving out heat) and endothermic (requiring heat). One plant may produce sufficient steam to provide heating for a number of other plants. There may be a net energy requirement for the site, but it is minimal compared with that of the endothermic plants taken individually.

As a final point, remember that ethanol has a lower boiling point than water so you are not going to lose a lot of water there. In fact liquid water is one of the waste products.

Re:Yes...

[Tracy Reed]

Unfortunately, it is illegal for me to run anything other than 100LL fuel in my certified airplane without doing a bunch of paperwork, testing, and obtaining a STC (Supplemental Type Certificate) or paying someone else who has done all of that work. If I owned an experimental/homebuilt aircraft, that would be different. But those are not allowed to be used for any sort of commercial operation.

The FAA will make it very difficult...

[pongo000]

As a pilot and former aircraft owner, I can assure you the FAA will create an insurmountable obstacle for aircraft owners wishing to convert. All aircraft in the US are certified to run on certain fuel. Deviation from this certification must be made on a case-by-case basis, backed up by engineering data for each aircraft to be modified. Obviously, this can be cost-prohibitive for individual aircraft owners.

Usually what happens is a company will spring for the engineering studies, then sell an STC (supplemental type certificate) to aircraft owners wishing to modify their aircraft. (The company still controls the STC, and each aircraft must have its own STC). For instance, owners of certain aircraft wanting to burn auto fuel can buy STCs from two different companies.

At any rate, the bottom line is that the conversion to alternative fuels in production aircraft (at least in the US) is extremely prohibitive, thanks to the FAA. You can read more about the hoops that have to be jumped through here.

Re:The FAA will make it very difficult...

[gotih]

what about "experimental" aircraft. a friend of mine is working on his pilots license so he can build his own plane from a kit (which is then considered experimental). my understanding was that since this plane is experimental it is exempt from certain regulations including the one about fuels -- he can use a car engine and use gasoline.

...or does he have to buy this STC?

Re:The FAA will make it very difficult...

[Chagrin]

Exactly. The Experimental classification is designed for new ideas (like these engines) in order to ensure that innovation continues in the aircraft industry. As the alcohol engines prove themselves the FAA will assuredly approve them for other uses.

Nothing new.

[dr.Flake]

is this news ???

As far as i know methanol is a very popular "gasoline" in Brazil. All those beetles run on it!

Using bio-mass, be it seeds, manure or plant rests, is nothing new.

We even had a robot using bio mass as a source for electricity yesterday !!

So fly a plane with it, wow!! just like those little remote controlled airoplanes.

Post a new story when it runs on water.......

Re:Nothing new.

[NewtonsLaw]

As far as i know methanol is a very popular "gasoline" in Brazil. All those beetles run on it!

Boy, if you don't know the difference between ethanol and methanol then you'll never get work as a bartender ;-)

But seriously -- ethanol tends to created from biomass reactions, whereas economic methanol production usually relies on the fractional distilation of more complex hydrocarbons such as light crude.

Re:Is it really cheap without gas?

[NewtonsLaw]

How much gas is required to grow and harvest sugar cane --- if gas prices shoot up, wouldn't cane prices (and virtually everything else) as well?

Well duh! You'd run the harvester and other associated equipment on alcohol or other bio-fuels too!

Actually, there are quite a number of bio-sourced fuels that can be used as easily (or more easily) than ethanol.

I believe methanol can be made from celulose (as opposed to cracking it from more more complex hydrocarbons) and fuels such as rape-seed and other oils make a dandy biodiesel when processed properly.

For some light humour, check the articles that result from this search on the BBC news site where some Brits are dodging massive taxes by running their cars on cooking oil.

Interesting points...

[phunhippy]

"It even has a bit more power than the gasoline engine, but we have some concerns of its performance in lower temperatures."

No Problems! Thanks to us STUPID humans, with global warming we'll be able to use this as a fuel source across the entire planent in just 50 short years!

Re:Is it really cheap without gas?

[BlueUnderwear]

How much gas is required to grow and harvest sugar cane

Couldn't the farm equipment run on alcohol as well?

same old story

[tanveer1979]

oil lobby .. as long as it is stront it will oppose alcohol, fuel cell etc.,
There is a oily extract from a tree which can be used to make a diesel like fuel with better properties than diesel. But no widespread use coz this will hit the oil lobby. Brazil had no option. they couldnt afford gas.. so they embarked on alco. and this really helped the balance of trade. Unless legistlators insist on regulations that make use of alco. compulsary.. this wont take off.
btw in india the govt has directed that by 2003 all gasoline will have to have a 5% alco mix, then engine modifications will be done and this increased to 25%, this way dependance on OPEC will be lessened. When this happens in US, the exessive middle east meddling will thankfully reduce coz then the govt wont have much interest in that area. Rather that stupid lobbying with OPEC and giving them concessions govt should make all alternate fuels tax free and cars and vehicals using alternate fuels and electricity totally tax free, this will ensure self sufficency in energy

Re:same old story

[mikeee]

Or maybe there's no wisespread use 'cause there aren't that many trees?

Remember, folks, we use a lot of oil. Alcohol and tree sap and cooking oil are all well and good, but trimming oil usage by 3% may not be worth the trouble.

Engines and Efficiency

[pyman]

I remember chatting to an engineer friend of mine about engines and efficiency of fuel use.

Apparently modern internal combustion engines are only about 3-5% efficient. Ie they only extract about 3-5% of the potential power of each unit of fuel consumed.

On the other hand, steam engines were developed so much over the last century that the most modern steam engines could haul 1 ton approximately 3 miles, on a teaspoon of coal. Thats right, 1 teaspoon!

Seems to me the best way forward is to work out more efficient uses of petrol for powering engines, so we use less fuel, rather than investigating different energy sources.

Re:Engines and Efficiency

[DGolem]

(My first Slashdot post)

My favorite alternative to internal combustion engines is fuel cells. With all the explosions and moving parts jamming up and down ICs get the low 3-5% efficiency rating from stuff like heat and vibration loss. This also causes them to wear out quicky and with the need to keep the moving parts oiled they get pretty filthy too.

(Note: It's been awhile since I've read about these so correct me if I'm wrong about anything) So here's what I know about fuel cells for those who have never heard of them, as I understand it, there are no moving parts, kind of like a battery (this isn't counting stuff likes tires of course). It also makes zero noise like a battery so it would make as much noise in a car as a battery powered car would. So I without the movement I don't think there's a need to lube it with oil and they probably last a long time with very little maintenance since they're not vibrating, grinding, and heating up/cooling down all the time. And I think they're smaller too which means you can design them for easy maintance I.E. you don't have to take the whole engine apart just to get to a fan belt. In fact, I don't think it needs a cooling fan either because there probably wouldn't be much in the way of heat output. For fuel they can take pretty much anything rich in hydrogen which is the most abundant element on the planet. This means there are many types of renewable fuel to choose from. The way the engine gets it's energy is it takes two different molecules, strips their electrons for power, and combines what's left over. What you end up with as output is pretty much pure water (no pollution!). So with the lack of moving parts and excess heat and the superior method for energy transfer I've heard of fuel cells getting up to 60% efficiency.

The only problem with fuel cells right now is they are difficult to mass produce since they haven't been as researched as much as ICs and are therefore pretty expensive. Plus if cars were to use them you'd have the problem of readying every gas station in the country all while maintaining support for gasoline for every person in the country who still owns a normal car. Canada has some buses using them though. I think someone (the mayor of Toronto maybe?) even drank a glass of water out of the tailpipe when they first introduced the buses just to show how clean they are. Instead of just dumping the water out the back maybe cars should have water fountains built into the dashboard :).

Anyway http://www.fuelcells.org/ has more info. (Sorry it's not linked it seems the html isn't the version I'm used to.)

Re:Engines and Efficiency

[MtViewGuy]

There's only one problem: steam requires water out of the wazoo to work.

Why do you think the railroads in the western USA--where finding water for steam engines proved to be a major challenge--bought diesel-electric locomotives en masse from 1940 on? After World War II, the railroads switched to diesel-electric locomotives because it allowed the railroads to eliminate costly watering and oiling/coaling stations along mainlines.

Sugar cane to make "biodiesel" instead?

[MtViewGuy]

I think using sugar cane to make alcohol fuel is the wrong fuel to make.

The Brazilians should make biodiesel fuel from sugar cane instead; that means the entire sugar cane plant can be use to make the fuel. Unlike regular diesel fuel, biodiesel fuel has no particulate emissions, no sulfur-compound problems, and with the right engine design burns very cleanly. Biodiesel fuel mixed with JP4 jet fuel actually burns much cleaner than straight JP4 on jet engines, with almost no soot in the exhaust.

Re:Sugar cane to make "biodiesel" instead?

[Vasilis Vasaitis]

I think using sugar cane to make alcohol fuel is the wrong fuel to make.

The Brazilians should make biodiesel fuel from sugar cane instead; that means the entire sugar cane plant can be use to make the fuel.

Actually, that would make no sense at all and would clearly be the wrong thing.

The Brazilians don't cultivate sugar cane to make alcohol from it. They cultivate it to make sugar. It's a very profitable product, so much that Brazil ends up importing other products that could easily be cultivated on its lands, only because everyone plants sugar canes.

Of course, apart from extracting the sugar, they've done their best to make full use of the plant, so there are a few byproducts. The most important of them is alcohol; there results to be so much of it that they ended up finding new uses for it (alcohol-powered cars, now planes). But it's still a byproduct, very unimportant compared to the sugar produced. So destroying the sugar production (and the other byproducts) only to produce biodiesel instead of alcohol would simply be absurd.

Re:Sugar cane to make "biodiesel" instead?

[MtViewGuy]

NOx contributes to acid rain and the formation
of ground ozone. Not good.

I would have understood your concerns in the past but today's emission control systems found on diesel cars sold in Europe have pretty much eliminated the NOx pollution issue. The only reason we don't see it in the USA is the fact Diesel #2 fuel sold in the USA has too high a level of sulfur compounds, which will destroy diesel exhaust emission controls since the compounds act like sulfuric acid (anyone who's taken high school chemistry knows how strong sulfuric acid can be). However, with the EPA mandating soon that sulfur compounds cannot exceed 80 parts per million (this is the current California Air Resources Board standard), we can apply truly modern emission controls on diesel engines and it'll likely meet the tough Ultra-Low Emissions Vehicle standard.

Re:Sugar cane to make "biodiesel" instead?

[Karpe]

Ahem, not only that, but the "smoke" resulting from such engines would smell like french fries! Hmm.

Re:Sugar cane to make "biodiesel" instead?

[jonbrewer]

The Brazilians should make biodiesel fuel from sugar cane instead

No, they shouldn't.

Biodiesel is a lipid. A lipid is a glycerol with three fatty acid chains attached. We've all heard of such lipids as Soybean oil, Corn oil, Canola oil, and Peanut oil. But has anyone ever heard of "Sugar Cane oil?" No, because it isn't efficient to turn sugar cane into a lipid.

Sugar cane produces sugar (CnH2nOn). It is efficient to turn this into alcohol, which will power a gasoline based engine.

Just as you don't put diesel in a gas engine, you don't put gas in a diesel engine.

The Brizilians have it right, and should not be making biodiesel from their sugar cane.

Re:The threat of war?

[Dusabre]

The US is in a global economy. Tiny turbulations around the world can change domestic prices. For two very simple reasons: 1) Oil moves around the world. If Europe is paying $50 a barrel, then Texas is going to export oil to Europe, not sell it domestically for $25; 2) A tiny change in supply can cause a huge change in prices. Industries and economies are locked into rates of consumption that cannot be changed easily. They simply have to have the oil and will therefore start bidding wars for it. Knocking out 5% of US imports would screw the economy.

For more info: CSIS report on US Use of Energy and Energy Imports

War will raise prices.

Re:The threat of war?

[zeno_2]

Actually it looks to be about 21% of our oil comes from the Gulf, and about 50% is produced in the U.S.

http://www.api.org/webfaq.htm

Re:The threat of war?

[e8johan]

Ok, there is no 'local oil price', since if the oil from the Gulf would be stopped by a war the non-US world would need oil from somewhere else (pehaps even the US) and prices would go up (since the non-US world would be prepared to pay a higher price).
As for you arguing that since the US is not affected it is OK to attack Iraq is *very* short sighted. I wish that Bush (and his followers) would see that their *allies* (within NATO) do not want this (just ask France), and their friends (through Partnership for Piece) do not want it either (just ask Russia). Never in the history of UN, a war, just to be on the safe side, has been sanctioned, and I hope it never will.
The September 11th attack was a cruel terrorist attack on civians, but the US must see why they are picked as the target. Both the current Bagdad regime and the Talibans are (at least partially) the creations of CIA. The Talibans fought the USSR and were supported by the CIA, as was Saddam was supported in the war agains Iran as Iraq was deemed to be a smaller threat. By these kind of operations the US create instability in other regions of the world, and now some fanatics want to bite back.
An important note: I do *not* support any terrorist activities, I'm just saying that there is a reason to why people become terrorists (desperation, lack of influense, abuse, etc) and maybe one can try to work in that end instead of bombing everyone not liking you (which leads to more people not liking you).

Re:The threat of war?

[Shalome]

It's not the actual decrease in oil production or shipping from Iraq... it's the perception of supply and demand that allows Big Oil to raise oil prices whenever there's a disturbance in any Middle Eastern country. Few consumers question this, since the perception of a disrupted supply makes Joe Sixpack believe the inflated price is understandable and even reasonable.

Ever since the oil crisis of the 1970s based on Middle Eastern problems, people believe all our oil supply comes from there. In reality, the US stockpiles barrels of oil that can be released at at any time. We also have deep wells in the US that are not currently in production mode. It's political lobbies from Big Oil that control and/or allow for a lot of the fluctuations in oil prices, not actual supply-and-demand economics.

Supply-and-demand economics really kinda went out the window during the 90s.

Re:The threat of war?

[MtViewGuy]

I'll give you the main reason: Iraq has missiles that can reach Dharhan, Saudi Arabia's main oil terminal on the Persian Gulf coast.

I don't want Saddam Hussein to launch a missile armed with a nuclear warhead and that missile destroys the Dharhan oil terminal--it will cut off a huge portion of the world's oil supply until a replacement oil terminal is built, which could take up to three years to build. Meanwhile, the price of a barrel of oil zooms to US$90/barrel, something nobody wants.

Re:I sorry ladies and Gentlemen

[Flounder]

They're still waiting for that shipment of lemon scented napkins**.

** Please consult page 42 of your Vague Joke Reference Manual

Re:That's really stupid

[anonymous cupboard]

You have come up with the biggest real reason: the lower calorific value of ethanol/methanol against JP-1 (the normal Jet fuel) and certainly against the high-octane stuff loved by piston engined aircraft.

As regards the politics, well yes, the slash and burn land owners are behind this but it is always a good idea to have locally produced alternatives that don't require oodles of foreign exchange.

insightful (was Re:Good first step)

[Anonymous Coward]

This is one of those comments that counts as "funny" until you think about it harder, and then it moves towards "insightful." God, why don't I EVER have mod-points when I really want 'em?? Anyway, hemp-derived methanol not only gets rid of CO2, it provides a way of processing human sewage profitably and cleanly AND it could compete in a truly-free market with either petrochemicals or ethanol, were it not for the tax-and-spend war on (some) drugs.
me

Re:insightful (was Re:Good first step)

[ch-chuck]

googled this:

PYROLYSIS is the technique of applying high heat to organic matter (ligno-cellulosic materials) in the absence of air or in reduced air.

The process can produce charcoal, condensable organic liquids (pyrolytic fuel oil), non-condensable gasses, acetic acid, acetone, and methanol. The process can be adjusted to favor charcoal, pyrolytic oil, gas, or methanol production with a 95.5% fuel-to-feed efficiency.

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-

Needless to say, DuPont and ShellOil are quick to point out that a hemp farm turns all widdle children within a 100 mi radius into raging, deliquent, homocidal maniacs.

Re:insightful (was Re:Good first step)

[jonbrewer]

AND it could compete in a truly-free market with either petrochemicals or ethanol, were it not for the tax-and-spend war on (some) drugs.

It's perfectly legal to grow hemp engineered without THC. It's just not as fun. :-)

Not new

[GarrettZilla]

There have been airplanes in the U.S. running on corn ethanol since at least the 70s. Max Shauck, a math professor at Baylor, was flying airshows in an ethanol-powered Pitts in the 80s and flew across the Atlantic in a Velocity powered by 100% ethanol.

Ethanol could be a big win. It would stabilize the market for corn, generate lots of cheap protein from the corn byproduct, and is cleaner. Alcohol has much less energy in it than gasoline, so aircraft range would be significantly reduced.

But, it just doesn't seem economically viable to put this into production, especially through the FAA's lengthy (=pricey) certification process.

Aero diesels are starting to hit the market finally. Biodiesel is probably a better idea in the short run.

Earth, not War

[squaretorus]

. With the threat of war for the U.S. and a subsequent raise in oil prices, this might be of some interest for our general aviation /. wavers in its eco stance. However, it pisses me off to read statements like the one above making out that the main reason to consider alternatives is the threat of war in the gulf.

The war in the gulf will be about PROTECTING the oil, not threatening it. Thats what the last gulf war was all about.

Global warming and a million other 'bad things' are a much weightier and more pressing reason to get excited about this stuff.

The US is seen as the environmental bad guy by most of the world. A couple of timely bits of legislation enforcing the use of these types of technology in certain minority (followed by majority) uses would shift the emphasis enormously.

Ban the sale of new 2-stroke petrol engines, and watch these alcohol babies take off. No duties on 'grown' fuel would push this further.

Re:Earth, not War

[Captain Large Face]

The US has a bad reputation for all things environmental for a good reason! The fact that George W. Bush abandoned the Kyoto Protocol and pushed for oil drilling in Alaska as two of his first acts in office doesn't inspire confidence.

What makes you think that the US Government will legislate the use of biomass fuels? The influence of the oil companies in US politics is too great.

After all, why do you think the US is so keen to invade Iraq? I won't deny that Saddam Hussein is unstable, but I reckon the 112 bn barrels of oil Iraq is sitting on provides the ultimate motive. IMHO, The US will push for a US-friendly leader to ensure US oil companies receive drilling rights to continue the cycle of money.

Re:Earth, not War

[taxman_10m]

The US has never been behind Kyoto. It was a loser in the Congress way before Bush got into office.

If all we wanted was oil then why not seize the Saudi oil fields? That would be a cake walk since we already have troops right there.

Let's listen to Europe for our foreign policy. What's that Mr. Chamberlin, peace in our time? Hey France, has Hitler reached the Maginot Line yet?

Re:Earth, not War

[Captain Large Face]

If all we wanted was oil then why not seize the Saudi oil fields?

US oil companies already have excellent access to Saudi oil fields, from which the profits are split with the Saudi Royal Family. This profitable relationship enables the US to ignore the human rights abuses in Saudi Arabia, which are exactly the same as seen in Afghanistan under the Taliban.

Re:Earth, not War

[Peyna]

Besides, the Iraqis will probably just set fire to the oil fields again, thus creating even a greater environmental disaster, and destroying the oil anyway.

Re:The threat of war?

[Savage-Rabbit]

It may interest you to know that only about 4% of American oil comes from the Gulf, let alone Iraq. 80% is produced domestically and most of the remaining comes from South America and Africa. Hence it's ludicrous to suggest that an American attack on Iraq will raise local oil prices.

Hmmm.....

This is from the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy

Darn treehuggers? Well, this link is even more interesting they are the EIA (Energy Information Administration), their Website is even labeled "Official Energy Statistics from the U.S. Government" coool!

Check out figure 51, a little more than 20% imports...

A simple Google search seems to indicate that most people seem to quote between 50 and 60% net oil import for the US and not 20%. Domestic US supply is on the decline and imports are on the rise. I also think that a little more than a quarter of the US imported oil comes from the Gulf Region or other middle eastern sources.

Re:The threat of war?

[mpe]

Could you please explain what these "local oil prices" are? Oil is globally traded, if supply goes down prices go up - even if your particular supplier continues to have steady production.

Also oil is always priced in US dollers. Which adds currency traders into the mix. Traders can also be influenced simply by possibilities.

Two for one - slop and alcohol

[SgtChaireBourne]

Supposedly the slop left over from the fermentation process is more nutritious for pigs than the unfermented corn. Plus pigs like it better. But this is just rumor, I haven't personally checked for nutritional value or flavor.

Other than that, I think you might have mixed up your radicals.

Prices have no bearing on supply costs

[SgtChaireBourne]

Venezuela, Russia, Norway produce a lot of oil. But a Gulf war could raise the prices of oil, even if a negligable percent comes to our country from there. It would be the "because-we-can" increase that you see right before weekends and holidays.

Textbook makers have done price increases when there are wildfires in various parks and nature reserves, even the ones where no timber/pulp is harvested. The bookstores get in on the action too. When the price goes up, they go and reprice whatever is in their stock room and on the shelf. Why not oil, too?

age problem

[kipple]

surely you'll have to be 21 to drive an alcohol-propelled engine. or maybe will they lower the drinking age at 16..?

[just kidding]

You won't see this for a long time here...

[Andy Dodd]

In the US, it takes a LONG time for an engine to be type-certified.

As a result, except for jet engines, most engines in use in aircraft today are designs that are decades old. (Lycoming, Continental, etc.)

It's already bad enough that the FAA requires you to get your aircraft recertified on a plane-by-plane basis to use automotive gasoline, which doesn't necessarily require engine modifications.

Using alcohol in an aircraft *will* require engine modifications because alcohol is highly corrosive. (Take a look at automotive FFVs like the Dodge Spirit FFV - Anything that comes in contact with fuel in these vehicles is insanely expensive because it must be unusually corrosion-resistant to survive when alcohol is used as a fuel.)

Ethanol might be less of a problem than methanol, but considering that even simply using *unleaded gasoline* is a major certification hassle, alcohol is a LONG way away from being a fuel source for aviation in the USA.

Multiple fuel sources

[Alan Cox]

There are lots of other possible fuels. There was a bit of a stink recently (in both senses) about people who were running diesel vehicles on a mixture of cooking oil and methanol. Apparently it works very well, far too well for the fuel tax people to be happy about 8)

[For those thinking fuel tax ? - the uk puts most of the cost of roads onto the fuel in taxes since not everyone has a car and the people who drive more do more of the wearing out]

Re:Cars? -- Alcohol vs. Gasolene

[StressGuy]

There are a couple of issues. For example, alcohol is more dense than gasolene and has less thermal energy per unit volume. Simply put, cars and especially aircraft won't be able to go as far or carry as much fuel. On the other hand, the "octane" rating for alcohol is pretty good as compared to gasolene (which is particularly good for aircraft). A few years back, during the gas crisis, some of us were tinkering with this. Now, this was before the days of computer controlled damn-near-everything in cars so it's probably a little dated. Basically, the mod was relatively simple. Adjust the timing, re-jet and shorten the float arm on the carb to adjust for the density of the alcohol, and plan on at least replacing the piston rings when the alcohol cleaned all the built up carbon off the engine cylinders.

Alcohol does burn pretty clean and you can get good power from it, but it's not a totally free ride. It's not pollution free either. I believe formaldahyde is a by-product of methanol combustion. Maybe some of you chemist out there can confirm. However, production of methanol fuel can be more environmentally friendly. For cars, I think I would be more in favor of a methanol fuel cell, but even that is not pollution free.

Re:The threat of war?

[MtViewGuy]

Unfortunately, given the way Saddam Hussein operates (he's a Stalinist paranoid, more or less), now that the US Congress has approved the resolution Bush wanted, Hussein is not above bringing the world down with him if Bush does decide to attack Iraq. What better way to do a Goetterdaemmerung-style finish than to destroy access to the largest oil supply on this planet for a few years and cause untold economic chaos.

You can mod me down all you want but given Hussein's history against his neighbors and his own people (even his own family!), this very possibility is no longer a far-fetched fantasy.

Ipanema -- "...and when she passes..."

[websensei]

"...all the people she passes go 'aahh'."
heh. the plane from ipanema.

old vegetable oil

[Martin Spamer]

It even possible to run engines on used vegetable oil.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/2117616.stm

and yet...

[avdp]

And yet somehow Europe is MORE dependant on middle-east oil than the US is! Don't worry, I am not claiming that Bush and Iraq is un-selfish, or not oil related. If European lacks the oil they need their economy will be affected. And THAT will screw with US' economy as well.

Re:Earth, not War: Ah the usual suspects BIG OIL !

[Captain Large Face]

If Iraq was only about getting OIL for the sake of BIG OIL then couldn't we simply lift sanctions instead of going to war?

Not with Hussein still in charge. There's no way he's going to let the United States drill Iraq for oil.

In defense of the FAA.

[StressGuy]

Speaking as one of those people you would have to approach to get that STC, I would have to agree. It will be a difficult process. However, this is only because I can think of several issues that would have to be addressed just off the top of my head. For example, fuel sensing systems, fuel delivery systems, engine modifications, weight and balance, flammability, static strength, dynamic structural stability (especially if we are talking wing tanks), sutablilty of the seals, bladders, etc. I could go on.

The safety requirements for any aircraft must be high. As a result, modifications to original type design must not be taken lightly. I know it's a pain, but I also know that the first time one of these falls out of the sky the public will be all over the FAA and the engineers that approved the mod.

Energy density - alcohol vs gas

[YrWrstNtmr]

While research into an alternative to gasoline is a good thing, let's not lose sight of why gas seems to be so prevalent in power plants.

If alcohol is less energy dense than gas, to perform a certain task (carrying 1000 lbs 500 miles @ 140mph), you need more alcohol. In aircraft, there is a hard limit of how much heavier you can make the cargo (people, fuel, cargo). Take off weight and safety reserve is nonchangeable without a large change in aerodynamics and engine technology.
So, to accomodate more fuel, you carry less cargo. Less cargo per trip = more trips to perform the same task. So, you may well end up being less ecofriendly than the gas.

If using alcohol turns your 4 place into a 3 place, you might not want to do it. Or if it means you can only dust 2 fields/day instead of 3.

i may well be talking out my ass, and alcohol as a fuel blows gasoline away. But don't automatically assume that 1 is better than the other simply because "is't not evil gasoline". Figure in ALL the parameters.

Re:Energy density - alcohol vs gas

[YrWrstNtmr]

So, using your figures, we have 10% less range with an alcohol engine. This is VERY significant in aircraft.
OR, we bump up the gas tank size by 10% to achieve the same range. Ergo, we have x% less cargo capacity. Lift capacity (max TOW) for a given airframe is pretty much a hard limit. Again, very significant.

I'm not saying it is necessarily bad. But all factors do have to be accounted for.

Re:The threat of war?

[Savage-Rabbit]

It may interest you to know that only about 4% of American oil comes from the Gulf, let alone Iraq. 80% is produced domestically and most of the remaining comes from South America and Africa. Hence it's ludicrous to suggest that an American attack on Iraq will raise local oil prices.

Let me explain again. He claimed 80% of the USA's oil production is DOMESTIC. 100% total - 80% US domestic=20% imported He then went on to claim that of these 20% that are imported only 1/4 come from the gulf. Which supposedly is the reason why Bush wants to go to war in the Gulf, not for the USA who does not need gulf oil, and supposedly hardly imports any, but for the USA's unfortunate allies.

The reason I cited those figures is to show that domestic production DOES NOT satisfy 80% of the USA's oil consumption like he claimed but rather only c.a. 45% according to those EIA figrues an that another 45% are or rather were covered in 1996 by imports. Today, unless things have changed in the US Domestic Oil industry, imports should outstrip domestic production by a good margin.

....fairly close to that 50-60% you don't seem to want to know about.


I never denied that around half of the USA's oil consumption is covered by imports, I tried to prove it.

Re:sugar cane alcohol

[3waygeek]

Actually, it's probably closer to Bacardi 151...

They have the technology

[ssajous]

I have a BS in environmental science and I wrote a paper on Brazil's use of alternative energy. They really got slammed by the the oil embargos of the 70s so they turned to Ethanol to fuel a lot of their cars, since they are by far the largest producers of sugar cane which is used to produce ethanol.

"According to the Renewable Fuels Association, about 40% of the cars in Brazil operate on 100% ethanol. The remaining cars run on a blend of 22% ethanol (78% gasoline). Brazil consumes nearly 4 billion gallons of fuel ethanol per year."

Which is pretty significant because Brazil is the 3rd of 4th largest economy of this side of the planet.

Re:That's really stupid

[mikeee]

And, in fact, the use of methanol in the US has been supported heavily by ADM, the agricultural/distribution sorta-near-monopoly.

Flammability?

[poot_rootbeer]

This is not September 11-related flamebait. It is a serious question.

What would happen when a jet with full tanks of alcohol fuel crashes into a skyscraper? How would it compare to the same plane with a similar amount of jet fuel? Would the fire burn longer? Hotter?

Sugar cane harvest

[Fizzlewhiff]

Harvesting a field of sugar cane is quite messy. I'm not sure of all the steps required but one thing they do is torch the fields to burn off the leaves leaving just the cane. This produces a hell of a lot of ash and smoke. Living in South Florida where some sugar cane is grown I've experienced the effects. The upside is the smell of caramel as the crops burn (which always made me crave apple pie). The downside is having to wash your car more often and the sneezing if smoke irritates you. For me the aroma offset everything else but the ash residue sucked if you had a dark colored car.

energy budgets of alcohol and biodiesel

[drwho]

The problem with alcohol and biodiesel is that they require an energy-intensive chemical process to convert from their ground (naturally found) form (sugars/starches/oils) to their consumable (alcohol biodiesel) state. This causes expense in the $$ and energy budgets which render them less practical when petroleum products have a low price.

An alternative is to use the oils from certain plants (rapeseed, soy, etc) directly. The reason why this isn't more popular is that the diesel engine needs to be modified. This is about $500 from http://www.greasecar.com. You get dual fuel tanks so you can still burn diesel, so supply isn't as difficult of a problem. Personally, I think it's worth it and when I can get a decent diesel (VW Turbo Diesel Wagon) I'll have it done.

maybe i'm wrong but...

[chainsaw1]

I figured that the brazillian cropduster was a piston-powered plane (prop). Most airplanes in use in the US are turbine/jet. I think a jet/turbine would be more sensitive to using alcohol because it's thrust would be affected by less gases being produced at ignition.

C2H5OH + 3 O2 -> 2 CO2 + 3 H2O (5 produced + heat)

C15H32 + 23 O2->15 CO2 + 16 H2O (31 prod + heat)

Even if we take the net molar difference between reactants and products (assuming fuel is not gaseous), alcohol's 2 moles of gas produced is still outweighed by kerosene's 8. The heat produced by the alcohol reaction would have to be much hotter (I don't think this is true) or we'd have to pump in much more fuel/second to achieve the same results. This correlates to 4x fuel consumption for alcohol engines. This may not matter as much to a local flight (cropdusting, joyriding, etc.), but many long trip commuter planes may find fuel load a hinderance (and thus you'd have more layovers, etc.)

Feel free to shoot holes in this arguement if you see them...this is off the top of my head...

--i use EtOH because it's the largest biologically produced alcohol I could think of

--I figured on complete combustion in a jet because of the much more massive amounts of air flowing through than in a typical piston engine

--I know kerosene isn't exactly a 15 carbon hydrocarbon, it was a guesstimate.

Starting alcohol-fuelled cars

[zanderredux]

I used to own an alcohol-fuelled car myself, here in Brazil. In fact, any attempt to start such car on cold mornings (consider 15 Celsius as cold for Brazilian standards) was enough to make you feel frustrated. Therefore, Brazilian cars used to have this small gasoline tank which stored about 1 1/2 litres of gas which was used during engine startup. Every time you start up your alcohol car, the ignition pumps a small amount of gas, enough to make it run and no more gas is pushed into the engine until you have to go into the ignition cycle again.

Electric cars are more efficient than gas

[Spamalamadingdong]

Combined with the efficiency of modern gasoline engines and the dirty electricity it is quite likely that current electric cars produce more total polutants than gasoline powered.

I doubt that. Electricity increasingly comes from natural-gas fired gas turbines, which are both very efficient (upwards of 50% for combined-cycle plants) and very clean. Then there is the fact that electric cars have neither throttling losses nor idling losses.

The disposal problem is not as dire as the liberals in DC would have you believe, and AFAIK nuclear power byproducts are not very useful for weapon making.

s/not very useful/almost totally useless/ and I think you have it right. The paranoia promoted by anti-nukes that every power reactor is a bomb or can be used to make bombs is pure propaganda. Still, the American (hell, European too) public is so ignorant that they can't understand that significant quantities of Pu-240 and Pu-241 effectively prevent plutonium from being used to make bombs, and modern reactor fuel cycles yield spent fuel that's just loaded with them; bomb-grade material is made on very short cycles for the express purpose of reducing the load of those isotopes, and some Russian Pu has even been isotope-refined to reduce the concentration still further. This is not something that even Saddam Hussein could do; he has his hands full just trying to concentrate U-235. Your random terrorist group couldn't avoid getting killed by the residual radiation, let alone set up an isotope purification operation to make bomb-grade plutonium. Last, if the idea is to make a dirty bomb, there are a lot of poisions which are just as toxic and a lot easier to steal and transport. This whole issue is largely a distraction.

90%? Try 73%.

[Spamalamadingdong]

Askjeeves says 115,000 BTU/gallon for gasoline, 84,000 BTU/gallon for ethanol.

An engine running on ethanol can have higher compression than a gasoline engine and can thus have somewhat higher thermal efficiency, but this is not possible for dual-fuel engines.

All of this becomes moot if you employ alcohol (either methanol or ethanol) in a fuel cell. When you consider that a huge fraction of all domestic trash is paper and paper is just polymerized sugar, the amount of fuel we are just throwing away becomes apparent. Someday you might ferment yesterday's newspaper and your junk mail to run your mini-commuter car.