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A Viable Biofuel?
natural rah writes "A laboratory in India has developed a process for making diesel fuel from an inedible plant which grows in barren wastelands. Although biofuels are mass produced and used in USA and EU, they have been traditionally derived from edible oils like soy bean and rapeseed. Using edible oils to make fuels is evidently not an option in a country like India. This fuel is "carbon neutral" (at least theoretically), has potential to make good use of barren wastelands, is clean and sustainable. Read more here -- could you have a SUV and not put excess carbon into the air?"
What is "rapeseed"? Is that what happens to soy beans in prison?
Here's more info:
c a_ rapeseed_nex.html
http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/nexus/Brassi
There are 01 types of people in this world. Those that understand binary, and me.
See also Algae (cow crap), and thermal depolymerization (just about any kind of garbage) as biodiesel sources.
If you want to change the world's energy cycles you're going to need something with at least 20 times the productivity of standard farm crops, like the UNH biodiesel-from-algae thing.
Sustainability and energy independence essay
Personally, it's not the carbon balance that worries me, its the production of lung-cancer causing and asthma-at-least-aggravating particulates. Most euro cities are "smoke free" in that burning coal has long been eliminated... but they still have petrol-burning cars spewing foulness into the air.
Just set up a VLF power transmitter network, dammit, and run cars on beamed electricity! The cancer risk from such e.m. fields is tiny if it exists at all, compared to airborne particulate pollution. Tesla would be turning at several hundred rpm in his grave if he had fitted his grave with a motor.
"Biodiesel is available anywhere in the US. The National Biodiesel Board (NBB) maintains a list of registered fuel suppliers. " - one of their FAQs
Okay, so problem solved with the whole oil/middle east issue, ya?
PS: I don't reply to ACs.
How much hemp oil biodiesel compared to other crops can you get out of the same crappy ground. Maybe we should take a realistic look at hemp oil, if we get more of the finished product out of an otherwise unproductive soil.
And besides, you can also smoke it. I think that's a GOOD thing.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
general:t ropha_curcas.html h tm
http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/duke_energy/Ja
potential environmental ("alien invader") hazard evaluation:
http://www.hear.org/pier/species/jatropha_curcas.
Source for seeds:
http://www.tropilab.com/jatropha-cur.html
Hemp and Marijuana aren't the same thing.
:)
http://www.artistictreasure.com/flier4.html
So smoke all the Hemp you want.
250 years from now, after everyone is growing and using biofuel, someone's going to accidentally strike oil and realize "we can this shit from the ground, practically for free!"
Yes. Remove the heavy engine and transmission, and refit the vehicle with a mast and sails.
Plan your trips based on the forecasted wind-direction.
>;k
Someone thought of using Jojoba seeds for biofuel. However, after giving the Jojoba plant enough water to grow fast, the resulting product was too expensive and too slow-growing.
So, I was skeptical about this plant until I read more. This plant is different. It's a tropical plant, where presumably there is enough water.
See the Jatropha curcas description and cost and photo. The Jatropha System explains the advantages.
--
U.S. Gov.: Borrowing money to kill Iraqis. 140 billion borrowed. With interest, you pay 200 Billion.
While you don't get the same mass of plant as you do with sugarcane acre-for-acre, you can process it into perhaps 10% more energy from the oil. And of course you then have less waste to dispose of after processing.
So sugarcane produces more waste and less energy.
Of course, I believe that thermal depolymerization is ultimately the way to go!
aQazaQa
Don't be so fast, cowboy! The carbon comes out of the air when the plant grows, and is put back into the air when you burn your fuel. Its a novel idea.
The key to the energy production is using the incident solar radiation (of about 1 KW/m^2 on the surface of the Earth) to effectively take carbon out of the air and turn it into fuel. There is alot of energy required to do this which be impossible for us to do today economically (except perhaps with a nuclear plant). This is why it is impractical to have underground corn fields, for example. This is also why food production on distant planets, in the future, may require nuclear power to shine light on plants for extended periods of time.
What I am particularly interested in biodiesel is if it can be successfully adapted to be used in fuel cells for higher effeciency (is there a technology where the impurities won't poison the cell).
Additionally, an adaptation of this idea could help reduce the CO2 in the atmosphere. Consider burying 10% of the oil produced over time. If the oil is mass produced, that is a lot of CO2 that has left the atmosphere.
Suddenly, the hairy finger of a familiar monkey tapped me on the shoulder. It was time.--G. T.
The fundamental problem with biofuels is that they are simply too inefficient to produce. In the U.S., at least, our cars use much more energy than we do. So even accounting for the meat part of our diet, we probably would need to cultivate about as much or more land to grow plants for fuel as we already do for human food. That's an immense amount of extra farmland, especially considering that much of the most productive land is already taken, and the drain on our freshwater supplies from farming is quite high.
Really, you want something more efficient. One scheme that I think has a fair amount of potential is pluggable hybrids, with bigger batteries than current hybrids, so you could use mostly or purely electric power for short trips. The gas tank would remain available for longer journeys, so there isn't the limitation of pure electric cars.
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
I should know, I've seen both of them on the dealer lot.
Sustainability and energy independence essay
Please disregard my previous message, for I clicked the 'submit' button by mistake. My apologies.
Those who wish to further hydrogen as a major fuel fail to point out its lack of energy density. According to the UNH article on algal biodiesel (linked by Engineer-Poet), gaseous hydrogen (at 250 atm [3626 psi]) has an energy density of 68 kBtu ft^-3, while petroleum diesel and biodiesel have energy densities of 1058 kBtu ft^-3 and 950 kBtu ft^-3, respectively.
Biodiesel, while requiring slightly more fuel than petroleum diesel at a given distance, requires significantly less fuel than pressurized hydrogen (UNH article). Obviously, the ubiquity of vehicles running on petrol engines presents major disadvantages; it would be impossible if not ridiculous to replace current petrol vehicles with diesel engines. Though pure biodiesel can run in diesel engines, wouldn't it still produce carbon dioxide?
Yes, these models are set to arrive for the 2005 model year (which would mean cars on a lot near you). Unfortunately the only diesel engine for the Passat is the 2.0L SOHC I4, which is just plain wimpy compared to what they get over in Europe.
/real/ mid-range diesel engines from Europe arrive (ULSD required) I'm going to be a happy camper. Something in the 175-225 ft-lbs of torque range should do nicely, and still get 40-45 mpg.
Now, the V10 Tuareg gets the 10 cylinder, 3.0L beast of an engine which throws out 553 ft-lbs of torque at 2000 rpm. (In Europe, the V10 is also available on the Phaeton sedan.)
When the
MORTAR COMBAT!
It would produce CO2, yes. But the CO2 would come from the air initially, so the overall CO2 added to the air by burning a tank of fuel is zero. This is what makes it a very exciting technology as far as CO2 emmissions are concerned.
" The Central Salt and Marine Chemicals Research Institute (CSMCRI) in Bhavnagar, Gujarat, has developed a process to refine oil from the seeds of Jatropha curcas, a tropical shrub that grows well on degraded lands, is not eaten by animals, and is highly resistant to pests and disease."
so basically, if the USA were to import this, it would be the new kudzu?
don't get me wrong, i think this could be a great thing, however, what would happen if this were introduced to american soil, since it may not have any common pests? yes, we could reduce emissions by powering deisels with this biofuel, but we could also reduce emmissions by being more responsible in our choice of vehicles.
so this plant = good; this plant introduced into america before we know what it will do to our local ecostystems=bad!
Cogito Eggo Sum, I think therefore I'm a waffle
I have a friend who uses biofuels in his Jetta. He made the headlines in the local paper too.
+1 interesting at leasT
- In principle, why is it impractical to constrain the energy-production habitat to the desired species by e.g. harvesting everything in an area and re-seeding with a population grown from your best producers? This is how zymurgists keep their beer from getting contaminated too badly, it's not rocket science.
- If that's too much of a difficulty, why can't you use species with a different product (e.g. hydrogen instead of oil) and hold them under conditions which kill their competition (sulfur-deficient and in the dark)? Anything which adopts the same metabolic pathway to survive the stress periods would have the same product.
- What, exactly, is the problem with 10% efficiency when it's really, really cheap? 10% efficiency at 50 cents a square meter yields something like 1/10 cent per peak watt!
If you can point me to parts of the report which address these issues, I'd appreciate the savings of my time. ADVthanksANCE.Sustainability and energy independence essay
I bought one. It's not as economical as a Prius, but you can't get a Prius without waiting 10 months.
Sustainability and energy independence essay
My guess b4 reading the article would have to be brussel sprouts.
Tyler: You don't know where ive been, Lou. YOU DONT KNOW WHERE IVE BEEN!!
Sweet, somehow I mis-read the torque on VW's US Passat Specifications. Thanks for the info! My next car is likely the Passat TDI wagon.
MORTAR COMBAT!
Also: why the Passat then if you considered the Prius? We considered the Prius, the Civic Hybrid, and the Golf and Jetta TDIs for both myself and my wife. As you said, the Prius just isn't highly available, but the Passat is both bigger and goes down below the 40 mpg max efficiency area, where the Golf and Jetta both get around 50 mpg (for us, my Golf TDI is 2002, her Jetta TDI is 2003, so not the PD versions).
MORTAR COMBAT!
The Prius turned out to be too small, and so is the Jetta for an only car (it would be great as a second car). The Passat will carry me and my stuff and can burn biodiesel, potentially making its ecological impact even smaller than the Prius. Besides, the Passat isn't that much worse than the Prius; something like 38 MPG highway vs. 46 (and I've beaten 38 on several occasions).
Sustainability and energy independence essay
"Kokonut Pacific" grew out of Dan Etherington seeing coconuts: (1) going to waste, or (2) being exported as copra and the oil and flesh imported at highly inflated prices.
Dan designed a process he calls Direct Micro-Expelling (DME)" and a device that is essentially an overgrown calking gun -- like a 4x4 jack on a track -- that squeezes the oil out of the coconut flesh in a way much like olive oil is extracted.
Instead of coconuts and the dreams of local populations going to waste, the DME plants provide: work for a crew of people who would otherwise not be employed, a product that can be a direct replacement for imported diesel oil at a high proportion, a product that has many medicinal uses, economic benefit, hope, etc, etc.
Looking at space, radio, science and computing from a 'down-under' amateur enthusiast perspective.