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N.Y. Governor Pushing for Alternate Fuels
Aviran Mordo writes to tell us that the Governor of New York is pushing hard for the widespread availability of both ethanol and biodiesel on the New York State Thruway and 100 more locations around the state. From the article: "Costs and further details of the plan, which Pataki first sketched out in his State of the State address on Wednesday, will not be disclosed until he makes his budget proposal later this month. If the plan is approved by the Legislature, it will give New Yorkers one of the nation's most diverse ranges of fuel choices. Only Minnesota offers an ethanol-rich blend known as E85 at more than 100 stations. Likewise, biodiesel is offered at only a few hundred of the nation's roughly 180,000 stations."
E85 is offered in places here in Nebraska as well.
replacing it with NEW Folger's Crystals! (lets see if they notice the difference)
Biodiesel is blended so that it will run in current production, un-modified diesel engines.
Not really. If you've got a modern vehicle of the right type (gas for ethanol, diesel for bio-D) that was made since, say, 1980 or so, you should be good.
Ethanol rich blends CAN be iffy in carbeurated systems due to the possibility that it might degrade some components, and they're not quite as easily tuned on the fly as modern computer-and-sensor fuel injection types. Pretty much all major auto manufacturers produce cars ready for operation on straight ethanol these days, IIRC.
Bio-D has some problems with older vehicles, as well. The biggest is that the fuel is more likely to corrode some old hoses and such. Natural rubber + bio is a bad thing.
On a side note, you can actually run your own still for pretty cheap, if you have the space, and produce ethanol legally to operate your vehicle. Google around. Diesels can also be run on veggie oil with a few relatively minor modifications. Plenty of resources out there explaining this, too.
Fill in your four or five-letter word of wisdom here _ _ _ _ _.
Good catch on the subsidies part, I was going to point that out as well.
This PDF talks about the cost and efficiencies of EXX fuels. They are basically the same as regular gas.
Most of the gas in the US is refined here (about 90% I believe). So its just the crude oil that we are missing. We also still produce roughly 1/2 of our own crude oil.
Oil is just a nasty commodity. It has become so entrenched in our economy that we wage wars over it to protect our economy from inflation.
If the government really wanted to save money on oil and tons of other things, reduce the work week to 4 days instead of 5. With the exception of holidays, the roads are always backed up and its called "rush hour" when people are driving to and from work.
I would prefer 3 day weekends by default, I'm not sure of anybody else that would object, but for some reason most people work 5 days a week. I guess its habit.
For ethanol? yes. Alcohols have a much different Stoichiometric air/fuel ratio than your typical gasoline. Gasoline has a perfect burn at 14.7:1 air/fuel ratio.
:)
Alcohol, depending on the variety, usually burns somewhere between 10 and 12:1. What does this mean? Well it requires MORE fuel to create a clean combustion. Though, from what I've read more fuel may be used, but it is a cleaner burn; resulting in less emissions output. Most modern engines could most likely use Ethanol IF they had their fuel systems redone without using certain types of hoses that rot away; and by replacing the fuel pump; since most fuel pumps are set to work with gasoline and alcohol is a good bit thinner.
Alcohol also allows for better tune; engines will develop more horsepower per liter in displacement because of the higher octane effects of various alcohols. This is why there are methanol drag cars out there.
Biodiesel can successfully be used in almost any diesel engine. Some old hoses could possibly have rotted away and need replacing; but that is standard maintenance anyways. I've seen old diesel boats running it; to someone's 1982 Datsun 2.2L diesel (I think its a 2.2) that gets like 60mpg.
A great thing about biodiesel is it has a VERY clean burn. It doesnt stink like diesel motors do. For the most part, everyone says it smells like popcorn... seriously! Biodiesel can also be refined by backyard chemists. There's a guy here in Alabama, believe it or not, that sells it. He does what many backyard refineries do; he gets waste oils and gunk from local restaurants, refines it into biodiesel; uses it for himself to power his home and sells it off. He is also able to refine the waste products of biodiesel and sell them as well. Its quite interesting; and from what I can see, its an environmentalists wet dream
I was just reading about this the other day for some reason. The Wikipedia entry on the eight-hour workday is a good starting point.
Just grabbed a random link from Google
i cations/2000hours-vehicle-fleet/materials-2.html
A Testing Based Assessment to Determine Impacts of a 20% Ethanol Gasoline Fuel Blend on the Australian Passenger Vehicle Fleet - 2000hrs Material Compatibility Testing
http://www.deh.gov.au/atmosphere/fuelquality/publ
The Conclusions gives you a list of all the parts affected by a 20% ethanol/80% gasoline blend
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Ethanol is 'cheap' because of State and Federal subsidies.
If the ethanol business booms, so do State/Federal outlays necessary to support the industry. It's something to think about.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Biodiesel only works (from an energy yield standpoint) if it is recycled from used vegetable oils. Ethanol from corn is a net energy loser: takes more energy to create than you get back (not to mention that it also depletes soils that could have been used to grow food).
I don't think the glowplugs (if they even still use them) would be used. They're only to bring the system up to operating temperature. It's not going to cool much in 5min. I believe these days diesels start directly using an electric motor, and this would certainly be practical if the car has a 30kW motor-generator attached directly to the engine!
Wikipedia:
"Modern automotive diesel engines with electronic injection systems use various methods of altering the timing and style of the injection process to ensure reliable cold-starting. Glow plugs are fitted, but are rarely used for more than a few seconds."
Then there's the increased pesticide use, the fact that it takes more fuel to produce ethonal than you get back, and it's a giant pipe dream.
This is only true for ethanol made from corn in the US. If you go down to Brazil and make it from sugarcane you get more energy out than you put in. Also, you can burn the non-usable part of the cane to generate the energy to run the irrigation system and the refinery, which you can't do with corn.
Having a couple of fuel stops, every other one say, that produce E85 would be great and I'd run it.
First, the summary of this article is incorrect about E85. Minnesota is not the only state that offers E85. North and South Dakota, as well as Iowa, offer the alternative fuel.
Second, while I cannot link to any articles to back up my statements, it is only because the Fargo Forum charges for archived news articles. But much of what I write is passed on from an article written in the newspaper about the fuel and its overall cost.
Information about the prevalence of E85:
* E85 is a fuel which is 85% Ethanol, 15% gasoline (hence the name E85). It differs from normal (100%) unleaded fuel, as well as 85% gasoline / 15% ethanol fuel offered in North Dakota and Minnesota (and other places I'm sure, but am not positive about).
* To relate to the prior post in the thread, urban centers all along I-94 between Fargo and Minneapolis stock E85 (and I'm sure many other places as well, but I'm going by regional knowledge here). Fargo's metro area has at least nine stations that I know of that carry the fuel, spread all around the city.
* There's certainly a market for the fuel, with many car lots reporting that consumers are specifically requesting for cars that run the fuel. Many adverts in the paper have specifically included alternative-fuel capabilities as a highlighted feature for cars on their lot.
However, there are a few things that were highlighted in a Fargo Form article about two months ago that are worth mentioning:
* E85 is a subsidized fuel. Byron Dorgan has been pushing bill after bill through Congress supporting subsidies on corn grown for ethanol production as well as for ethanol fuel production in energy bills. Because of this, it is currently selling as cheap as $1.60 right now (about 25% less cost / gallon than gasoline, and is usually consistent like that). The further away from the freeway though, the higher the cost (50 miles away in Detroit Lakes, and it sells for $1.78 / gallon).
* Filling a tank with E85 will lead to lower horsepower and decreased fuel economy. In a local study done by the Fargo Forum with five different vehicles, they noticed anywhere from a 15% to a 25% decrease in miles / gallon. In addition, the article made mention that there is no current known long-term cost for increased maintenance that the fuel may cause.
* Ethanol still is a fuel which produces exhaust. While many will promote that you're only putting back into the air what the corn plants took from it to grow, this is incorrect. In the refinement process for producing ethanol, there is a lot of pollution generated from the refining process, though if I remember correctly, overall, ethanol still produces just slightly less pollution than gasoline.
* The only true advantage that Ethanol has is that it's produced in the United States, so the country does not depend foreign oil. At the same time, nobody has raised issue yet with the possibility that a bad harvest could send E85 prices through the roof.
Though New York may soon sell E85 at a gas station near you, there is currently not to much great reason to switch to it.
You link to some prototypes and say they've been used in trucks a long time?
Turbines are simply not used in trucks. They aren't used in large numbers, aren't use in small numbers. They aren't used.
The big 3 all looked at turbines in the 70s, and the problems they have (variable torque instead of variable speed) led to serious issues that transmissions would have to solve.
They were not solved (yet) and turbines are not used in trucks.
Turbines aren't even used in locomotives right now (or perhaps just very very recently). And trust me when I say locomotives (with their electric power transmission) will have them before cars do.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
In fact, the only E85-compatible vehicle sold in the U.S. that's not made in America is the Mercedes C-class (240 and 320)!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Actually you just need minor modifications to modern car. In Sweeden, the E85 mix is readily availiable, and both SAAB and Volvo is selling cars that run on both E85 and regular unleaded. The reason for these minor modification is simply the higher strain on some parts due to the octane level of E85, which is 101 i believe (as opposed to 92, 95 and 98 which are the usual ones).c .shtml .. Just click on the BioPower and it has the normal engine preformance in there as well to compare between them.
Benefits of this is of course cleaner car emissions, but also a more potent mix, creating cars that actually put out more horsepowers than with 98 unleaded. Example is the new SAAB 9-5 Sportcombi Aero, which produces above 300 BHP using this fuelmix, as opposed to about 260 BHP in their Aero edition of the car on regular 98. Also, the 2.0t BioPower plant produces 180 BHP compared to the regular 150. This link will show you the difference in engine preformance (from SAAB): http://www.saab.com/main/SE/sv/model/95_WAGON/2/f
The cars are there, the fuel is of course getting more popular, and for the driver it seems to be a boon in terms of BHP output as well.
Cheers.
One of the slowest advancing techs is rocketry (sadly). Current launch prices range from 7-15k$/kg just to get things to *LEO*.
All these calculations, and it never occurred to you that 7.6e22 Kg is about 1% of the mass of the entire planet?? Getting the stuff to LEO isn't even in the same league as the problem of stripmining the top 20Km of the entire planet's surface to come up with that amount of material....
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