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New Wonder Weed to Fuel Cars?
Hugh Pickens writes "Jatropha, an ugly, fast-growing and poisonous weed that has been used as a remedy for constipation, may someday power your car. The plant, resilient to pests and resistant to drought, produces seeds with up to 40 per cent oil content that when crushed can be burned in a diesel car while the residue can be processed into biomass for power plants. Although jatropha has been used for decades by farmers in Africa as a living fence because its smell and taste repel grazing animals, the New York Times reports that jatropha may replace biofuels like ethanol that require large amounts of water, fertilizer, and energy, making their environmental benefits limited. Jatropha requires no pesticides, little water other than rain and no fertilizer beyond the nutrient-rich seed cake left after oil is pressed from its nuts. Poor farmers living close to the equator are planting jatropha on millions of acres spurred on by big oil companies like British Petroleum that are investing in jatropha cultivation."
This sounds like what they are doing in more arid regions with Jojoba , which is similar in that is grows in places other plants won't, requires little water and produces an oil that can power diesel engines.
I stole this sig from a more creative user.
Allow me to be crack-pot.
This is old news, like 20 years old. Mainstream old, it's more like 5 years. Still old.
Real biofuel folk know that Algae is the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
J-plant's seeds are 40% oil. Some breeds of Algae are 50% oil by TOTAL PLANT MASS.
Not to mention it's the fastest growing plant - faster than bamboo.
Not to mention it's the easiest thing to grow (water, dirt, shit, sunlight). Just think about how much work people go through to keep it out of a chlorinated pool. What would happen if actually tried to grow it?
Not to mention you don't need arable land to grow algae - desert works exceptionally well. Beside a nuclear (pr. new-clear) power plant will let you use waste heat to keep the green stuff growing all winter as well.
Industrial algae production, 100's of hectares of 1m deep concrete pools and greenhouses. Constantly skimming fractions of the population allowing re-growth. We're talking constant production, no expensive equipment to harvest.
The man doesn't want you to know.
Theoretically it could be used for animal feed...That's part of how it was originally pitched to farmers in the South, that their cows would eat it. Well, they may nibble the leaves, but that's about it.
Goats, on the other hand, go to fricking TOWN on the stuff...They'll eat it right down to the roots, and can actually permanently clear kudzu from an area making them and napalm the best methods for getting rid of it. Considering how much goats eat, the two could form a hell of a relationship, assuming we could persuade anyone in this country to eat goat.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
a,e,i,o,u and sometimes w and y (at be if of up cwm by)
Me and several environmentalist friends have been screaming for years: "Kudzu you assholes!!!"
Not only is it a weed, it's practically a menace, damned near impossible to kill, grows over acres in a season, requires only rain as it produces its own nitrogen (no fertilizers needed) and grows almost everywhere in the USA and most other countries. It's also NOT poisonous, and actually smells quite nice (I wouldn't make perfume out of it, but at least not offensive).
Using celulostic conversion processes (like the new facility being built near Atlanta Georgia will be diing using wood from trees) it can produce massive ammounts of ethanol easily, efficiently, and most important, cheaply. It's easy to harvest and transport without complicated equipment (an industrial lawnmower would do just fine). We don't need any massive investments to start doing this TODAY. Other than building cellulostic ethanol factories, and some ethanol pipelines, we alredy have everything else (unlike corn, sugarbeets, biodiesel, hydrogen, dirtect electric, or other proposed systems)
In terms of ethanol per pound of material, it's not the best choice (some forms of algae do better), but in terms of ethanol per acre of land, or ethanol per dollar spent, I challenge you to find anything better!!!
There is no contest in life for which the unprepared have the advantage.
When people talk about how hemp is good for everything under the sun, it always reminds me of those snake-oil cure-alls hawked by travelling vendors in the 1800s. ;)
The simple facts are that industrial hemp is a useful product, and it's dumb that it's as regulated as it is, but it's not some sort of miracle plant. Its fibers make good rope, but as far as cloth manufacture goes, it's too coarse for most applications (most hemp fabrics used in clothing and upholstery are blended with linen, cotton, or silk). It's not even a standout, fiber-wise, when compared with jute, sisal, or manila -- similar strength, but hemp is more susceptible to rot. It's hardly the only replacement for wood pulp for the paper industry -- kenaf looks better, for example (whiter (less bleaching needed), higher yield, stronger, cleaner, etc). 15 gallons per acre is pretty absymal for a "next generation" biofuel; switchgrass ethanol is expected to produce hundreds of gallons per acre, and grow on similar "waste" land. Hemp oil is similar to linseed oil -- it dries on contact with air. Great for oil based paints, but not so much for many other oil applications. It also goes rancid relatively quickly, and is poorly suited to frying.
Yes, hemp has good things about it. And, wow, are they ever trumpetted from the hilltops by hemp advocates. Google search anything related to hemp products -- hemp paper, hemp rope, or whatever, and you'll be treated to result page after result page of all sorts of wild claims from sites like druglibrary.org, organic-items.com, marijuanalibrary.org, hemp-union.karoo.net, beyondpeak.com, hemptons.co.za, ecomall.com, hempline.com, webofcreation.net, hemphasis.net, and on and on. All sorts of "trippy" URLs (often, strangely, with "marajuana" in the URL, despite the invariable repeated pointing out that there's little to no THC in industrial hemp), with "trippy" sites, with crazy claims. You find very little from legitimate sources until you get way down the list, and the picture is no longer completely rosy.
Seriously -- settle down people. It's a plant, not manna from heaven.
By a scallop's forelocks!
Diesel-electric trains work this way. There's a diesel engine which runs a a constant RPM generating electricity to drive the train.
The main reason for doing it is that you don't need a gearbox. A train which had to change gears would be a real disaster.
Electric motors have mountains of torque to get the train moving and the fact that the diesel part runs at constant RPM means the engine can be highly tuned for efficiency.
I don't know if a car could work this way, but it's a thought.
If you include some capacitors in the system they could give you a huge push for a quick getaway at traffic lights, overtaking, etc. This would reduce the overall power requirements of the generator and improve efficiency even more.
No sig today...