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SwiftFuel Alternative To Alternative Fuels
TheDawgLives writes "PBS has an article by Bob Cringely about the best route to end our dependence on oil and reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. Instead of replacing all our expensive cars with even more expensive hybrids or electric cars, his suggestion is to use a cheap drop-in replacement for gasoline called Swift Fuel. It is derived from Ethanol, but doesn't require any modification to older cars to prevent corrosion. It can be mixed with gasoline in any amount and can even be distributed using the same network as gasoline, including being pumped in the same pipes and shipped in the same trucks. It is truly a drop-in replacement for gas, and it is real. It is being tested by the FAA for certification in propeller aircraft. It also happens to be about $2 a gallon cheaper than gasoline."
Where does the ethanol come from?
It also happens to be about $2 a gallon cheaper than gasoline for the next five minutes."
There. Fixed it for ya.
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You charge less to steal market share.
This works out very well when your costs are less than [whatever] you're replacing.
Otherwise, we call it a loss leader or dumping/predatory pricing.
You can always raise prices after you've built up some market share & brand recognition.
Bad idea, bad idea, bad idea. Why? The process is totally inefficient.
Grow sawgrass -> harvest sawgress -> haul sawgrass -> process sawgrass -> haul SwiftFuel -> store SwiftFuel
OR
solar power -> through existing electric infrastructure -> to the battery of your electric car/mower/series of tubes
This is not hard to understand. Why it continues to elude everyone gives me a headache every time I read about "alternative energy." Gasoline combustion or any similar idea involving controlled explosions are highly unreliable and expensive to maintain. It may be necessary for air travel but has no place powering anything with wheels.
Furthermore, there's no such thing as alternative energy. There are three choices when it comes to energy given our current technology: thermal, nuclear, and solar. Sawgrass biofuel is yet another pathetically short sighted delivery system for solar energy. Thermal energy is viable in only a few places in the world like Iceland. Nuclear uses finite resources and requires a lot of investment and still presents many, many environmental concerns.
Solar energy, whether directly converted to electricity with panels or used in a novel solar-powered plants, is decentralized, clean, uses existing infrastructure, and uses electricity as it's delivery medium which is the only transmission system which doesn't move even a single atom after the line is in place.
It uses recyclable materials. We've been working with it for well over a hundred years. We have the engine technology. Am I missing something?
On the other hand, there also aren't any large refineries pumping the stuff out. Provided the raw materials aren't limited, the price should DROP if it catches on and economies of scale take over.
I'm sorry to yell. But where exactly do you think coal and oil and natural gas come from?
Here's a hint: it's all dead organic material, which originally gathered energy from something that gathered energy from what original source? Yes, that's right kids! It's the sun! Revered for millenniums for a reason...
Wind generation? Another form of solar energy. No sun, no wind. Lakes and rivers? No sun, no rain, no fresh water, no lakes and rivers! Not to say you can't harness these different manifestations of the sun's energy...
Passive solar plants are already in use all over the world, and even store energy using gravity or other passive methods that waste very little energy. Many small power plants can decentralize the grid, improve efficiency since the grid is smaller, and are much more viable than millions of little ICEs.
Imagine, Wal-Mart borrows ten billion dollars to install solar panels to cover their parking lots, which stop local heating effects, decrease A/C usage in all customer cars, and provide them with another revenue stream all in one master stroke.
This is based on an economic consequence. The infrastructure of America is built around the car, and not just any car, but a car that had 60 years of dirt cheap fuel. Our cities and towns are modeled around this. More importantly salaries are also adjusted for a much cheaper transportation cost. You have several options and none of them are particularly appetizing, and none of them have anything to do with global warming. You can produce your own fuel through biofuels, switch to electric cars, or produce more oil from costly hard to access oil reseviors which represent the last of your domestic supply. Nothing else is feasible despite all the fairy farts, adament denials, and heartfelt praying that might be offered. If you don't want to live where public transportation can be possible, then do not expect people to cry for you when something clearly predictable damages your ONLY source of personal transportation.
He talks EXACTLY WHY the solar power->electric->battery WON'T WORK! Because it will take over a decade for electric cars make it to most households even if we outlawed all non-electric car sales today! Cars have a life expectancy of 10 years or more, which means you will see that same 2007 car that was bought last year on the road until 2017 or later. The government could even outright outlaw all gas powered cars today and still you would not see a full uptake of electric or hybrid cars for several years because people can't afford to make the purchase. Again, it is usually every 3-4 years for someone to get a different car, but not necessarily a brand new car (usually a used one), and most cars will see at least 10 years and 3 owners. This means people expect to have 10 years to save up to purchase a brand new vehicle, or 3 years to save up for a several year old used one. Any change that would be significant would need to be able to affect ALL cars at the same time, not after 10 years. This is why a fuel change that can be used in existing cars is the method of choice to change our energy usage. Yes, keep the hybrids and electrics coming, but do the thing right now which can affect ALL cars right now! And let the 10+ year solution continue to work as well.
We were all warned a long time ago that MS products sucked, remember the Magic 8 Ball said, "Outlook not so good"
There is no simple solution. Any solution that involves combustion is the wrong direction, because you will use up whatever resource it depends on in a heartbeat. That even goes for solar energy, but there are millions of square miles in deserts that could be used for power generation, since it produces no other benefit for human civilization.
In Kathmandu, they already have a fleet of operating electric vehicles, because they're cheaper, more reliable, and cleaner than oil-propelled vehicles. They are run by private businesses, not the government.
Mass transit ridership is the highest since the mid-50s (when GM was tearing down mass transit to sell more cars). Cars are as good as dead in towns and cities.
Whenever possible, build electric propulsion systems. Regardless of what becomes our solution beyond the dead-organic storage we've been using, we can have an infrastructure that uses it.
I'm sorry, hauling 3500 pounds of steel to carry one person and groceries using controlled explosions is monumentally stupid.
We need to conserve energy dense fuels for situations where they are are truly needed (emergency vehicles, long-haul transportation through sparse landscapes, aviation).
What people are upset about is that life is much less convenient when we're all not driving powerful vehicles than can carry 10 folks and tow a boat on a whim. Well, tough shit. You may have to carpool or take the bus. You may not be able to keep your own jetski in a garage a hundred miles from your lake house. These are privileges, not rights.
Algae based biodiesel is interesting, but again, we need to get away from ICEs except where they are absolutely necessary. An electric car can receive power from any source - nuclear, coal, and even biodiesel through small on-board generators. ICEs will always be addicted to one type of depletable resource - that derived from dead organic material.
Are you actually advocating that brazil not mechanize the nearly 500 yearold process of sugar cane harvest? Are you nuts? Was industrialization something you found "quaint"?
And here's the part of your argument that gives me a headache: since when were "smaller solar plants dotting the landscape" and "decentraliz[ing] the grid" considered to be "existing infrastructure?!" Either it does exist, or it doesn't. You can't argue it both ways in the same fucking sentence!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
There's been so many articles on what fuel, or what car is going to be big in the next few years. Seems to me we have had the answer around for a number of years.
I usually cycle to work in the summer, in Stockholm its quicker than driving or taking the subway, and parking is not a problem. It's easy to stay fit cycling and, provided you find a good route, probably a lot safer than driving.
There's bound to be a bunch of excuses about not having a great route to work, or living too far from work etc. But it's something to think about if you re-locate or change jobs. I have not owned a car for over 10 years, and for 9 of them i have commuted on an old city bike a got for $60. I've probably spent another $50 on maintainance in that time. Add in all the health benifits, and money saved, and it does seem to be a pretty sane option to consider.
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Starving parents forfeited their right to sympathy by having children thus dooming them (the children) to starve. Making babies without candy is basically the same as taking candy from the baby.
Electricity != Combustion Fuels
Th reason why we use combustion fuels is because the energy density is amazing. OK, so we use gasoline very inefficiently, and could double our efficiency without altering the shape and size of vehicles, but it is still a very efficient power to weight ratio.
Batteries are inefficient and costly as well as an environmental disaster to produce and recycle.
Maybe if we can make giant low leak capacitors, that would be better, but battery or capacitor, gasoline is still more stable than shorted high current wires in a car crash.
Even with a hybrid, you still got gasoline.
The answer, I think, has to be a clean burning fuel, maybe some form of alcohol. Seriously, in new england at least, we loose every leaf on most of our trees every year. If we were to rake that all up, press the oil out of it and ferment the available sugars, that may be some real energy for combustion.
Wind turbines in every house. Solar panels on the roofs. DC appliances. LED lighting. solid state refrigeration. symbiotic appliances, i.e. refrigerators that extract heat and aid the the devices that produce heat. Like a water heater that is aided by the hot side of the peltier device of the fridge.
If the workers don't deserve more of the profits, why don't you try getting on without them.
As seems typical in discussions about ethanol or like fuels many are missing the point.
bio-fuel technology in the current state of the art is NOT a replacement for fossils fuels nor can it be. The reason is simple , it takes more energy to produce a gallon of ethanol then you get by burning it.
However, if you view it as a storage mechanism, ( like a battery ) and realize that it can be easily substituted into our existing infrastructure it starts to make sense.
Energy problems come in two flavors. Energy supply and energy storage/delivery
ethanol is a good solution to a storage/ delivery problem. It is not even remotely a solution to the supply problem.
However, it is impractical and costly to retrofit most vehicles with a replacement energy source ( geo thermal? Solar? Wood? ). Not that cars can't use any of these thing, but they currently don't and the work needed to make them do so is years away.
However, if we use solar, wind, geo-thermal what have you to produce ethanol we can power our cars indirectly from wind/solar rather then fossil flues.
This process is highly inefficient, but it is better then nothing and could reduce or eliminate the use of fossil fuels in a much shorter time then any other option.
As such I think it makes a nice intermediate step even if it isn't the final solution.
âoeTolerance applies only to persons, but never to truth. Intolerance applies only to truth, but never to persons.
One correction to parent, unleaded gas autodetonates at lower compression ratios. Meaning detonates due to pressure/temperature without spark. A related phenomenon that is most likely to occur is knock.
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
The reason european countries pay so much for gas is because there is about a 300% tax on the stuff... Oil costs the same amount everywhere. It's all traded on the same markets. Exxon Mobile sells a barrel of oil for $137 whether it was pumped out of the ground in Texas, Alaska, Venezuela, or Iran. It doesn't matter where the oil came from.
The only thing that effects the price besides the market price of oil is local taxation/subsidies. In China and India for example, the government buys that $137 barrel of oil, and then sells it to consumers for like $10/barrel. Sure the government loses money on this but they figure they'll make it up in economic growth. In Europe, they take that $137 barrel of oil and add a 2-300% tax so now the oil costs $270-400. hence the $8-9 price for a gallon of gas.
Ummm, has anyone looked at what this magical fuel is really? It can't be purely ethanol with the claims they are making. I realize you guys are having a good time getting wound up about the bio-fuels debate, but has anyone questioned the actual fuel itself? Their web page is remarkably less than informative.
I see so many comparisons to oil. But it is really just a form of capturing solar energy. What is more efficient, plowing under the farmland and putting a solar plant on it, or planting crops and burning them to extract power? We shouldn't be tailoring the "fix" to match our current needs. We should find out what is the most efficient, and steer our needs toward that. Our needs are not fixed. We need energy, whether that's a flammable liquid or electricity is a question of storage, not generation. We can always convert later (at a loss), but should be generating that which is best. The other thing to keep in mind, is that there isn't going to be one solution. Perhaps on the best farmland, the choice should be to raise corn. For the questionable lands, raise switchgrass. And for the areas where nothing useful can grow, put the large power plants. Sprinkle wind farms over all of it. Hydro (rivers, damed lakes, and tidal) and geothermal where appropriate, and nuclear to make up the difference. Get some mass energy storage (temporary hydro in the form of high-altitude lakes, flywheels, electrolysis at off times to burn the H2 in peak times, or whatever works) to even out the variabilities in solar and wind, and all our problems are solved. Coming up with the solution is easy. It's just implementing it that is hard (and expensive).
Learn to love Alaska
I'm guessing that he's talking about having smaller plants tie into the existing grid.
In this case, the grid exists, the solar plants would be new and distributed.