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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."
having to fill up the tank of a 757 using those little tiny bottles.
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
Why not cars?
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."
and in other news, a man was sucked into the engine of a plane while on a desperate search for a "pint."
My other sig is an import.
Moving from oil to alcohol is great, but I won't be happy until we see a hemp-powered Volkswagen airbus.
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.
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.
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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.
There are 10 kinds of people, those who understand binary and those who don't.
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.
-- To dream a dream is grand, but to live it is divine. -- Leto ][
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.
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.
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.......
Why are other peoples sig's always more witty ???
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
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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
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.
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.
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).
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.
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