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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."
kpppppffffffffft. Like running solar power through the electric grid into batteries isn't triply inefficient itself? Guess again.
It uses recyclable materials. Yeah? Metals like steel and copper are pretty recyclable. Doesn't mean they're cheap. In fact, they've more-than-doubled in price over the past several years.The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
A person needs very little energy to move around. In fact, a burrito can get you at least fifteen miles on foot. As a civilization, we have to recognize that as the goal, and give up on the idea of cars as we know them. They're just not viable in the long run.
You're right - we'll never see a battery powered Hummer. But electric vehicles that serve the needs of 90% of the population have been in mass production (even if subsequently shut down) since 1996. All because the government of California demanded that car companies deliver them.
Now consumer demand and energy awareness are at an all time high. They're backordering SmartCars and Apteras and even high-performance Tesla Motors sports cars into two and three year waits.
And I have to say, I hope gas goes to it's true cost where it covers our involvement in the middle east. Anyone who wants to stick with their 6 liter engine after gas hits $12 a gallon is getting exactly what they deserve.
prior to the biofuels initiative or that you are against agriculture in the midwest that produces huge amounts of untreated runoff every year and has been since probably the mid 50s if not before. Remember at one point in time, before gasoline was discovered to be perfect for the combustion engine, ford considered ethenol. As it happens he chose gasoline because it was dirt cheap and they were dumping it straight into the Mississippi (I honestly cannot fathom how that must have smelled) since it was a by product. Mind you I'm not trying to justify this as a perfect circle or some other kind of historical asshatery but I find your most compelling arguement not only contrary to your final statement about global warming but also tangential to the issue.ãã Additionally, while oil will always be sold and burned off by someone else, decreasing the demand will decrease the price and also reduce the incentive for people to tap costlier reseviors.
Ultimately, prop planes and cars use the same technology, with some differences in details. One of those details is that airplanes don't have the same emissions requirements, allowing them to use leaded gas with a higher octane rating. The consequence is that they can run a higher compression ratio, and thus be more efficient.
If SwiftFuel can provide an additive that produces octane ratings on par with leaded gas, we can all jump for joy. Combined with direct injection, we could potentially see gas engines with compression ratios and supercharging boost on par with diesels.
Not a typewriter
No the deforestation is mostly for cattle ranchers and subsistence farmers.
Everything we make Ethanol from is based on soil.
All mass agriculture is based on petrochemical fertilizers. The tomatoes that you buy at the local supermarket are fertilized with oil! Oh sure, not directly...
Here's the biggest lie, though: "It also happens to be about $2 a gallon cheaper than gasoline." In reality, the true cost of both this fuel and gasoline are much much higher than what you see (or would see, in this case of this fuel) at the pump.
See, the cost of gasoline is human lives. Whatever you think about the reasons for our current military activities, we have definitely gone to war for oil. Not to steal oil, of course, but simply to increase its value. See, when oil goes up anywhere in the world, it goes up everywhere in the world, because it's a global commodity.
Interestingly, so is corn, which is where we get most of our Ethanol. While in theory we can produce cellulosic ethanol from things we would normally burn, releasing the CO2 into the atmosphere for no reason and without benefit, it really hasn't turned out to be that profitable and so it has gone largely unexplored. Of course, that corn is fertilized with oil, so when it comes right down to it, Ethanol as we use it in America today is a fossil fuel.
Really, this is the ultimate rub with all topsoil-based fuels: while through careful management it is possible to fertilize fields simply through rotation and the use of your own shit, we actually waste our humanure instead of growing plants with it. Consequently the plants must be fertilized with non-human byproducts (e.g. blood meal, bone meal, animal shit, et cetera) in the case of organic farming, or with petroleum-based products (typically, anyway) in the case of mass factory farming (the so-called "Green Revolution".) Taking this thought a step further, as we're currently not feeding the soil that our food comes from, how do we plan to feed the soil that we're going to feed our cars from? I don't know if you've noticed, but they have rapacious appetites. It might be because they weigh an order of magnitude more than a human, and have an engine under 25% efficient, but what do I know? I'm not a physicist. I could be wrong.
I found your comment unrefreshingly naive when you said "Or is it just some evil price fixing conspiracy to make their 5% profits worth more?" The oil companies are making record profits right now, vastly more than 5%. On top of that, yes, yes it is just an evil conspiracy. Keep in mind that any time two or more people get together to screw at least one other person, it's a conspiracy. Conspiracies to fuck you out of money really are everywhere. This should not be a revelation by now, either.
Anyway, one more time: The only liquid fuel technology which does not have some horrible defect that makes it at least as bad as what we're already doing is algae-based biodiesel. It still has nasty emissions compared to anything you actually want to breathe (so does vegetable oil, honestly - though it's different) but it is actually potentially better than carbon neutral.
See, essentially all the carbon plants are made of (and it is their primary building block of course) is harvested from the air. Once you separate the lipids from the rest of the algae, the remainder is useful as fertilizer, high in nitrogen. You know, so you don't need ANFO, which makes a better bomb than a soil food. Oh, it's an OK plant food, but it's no good for the soil. Without healthy soil (soil is not just some mineral dust, it is a community of living organisms AND mineral dust AND the organic but decomposing remnants of organisms past, and should be at least 60% organic material) you cannot grow a proper plant.
The Amazon is on the verge of collapse, Brazil is about to become an incredibly shitty place to live (aside from the Favelas, which are already incredibly shitty.) Topsoil-based fuels
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
If you was a farmer, would you be growing dent corn or regular corn? If you answered dent corn or I don't know, then you most likely wouldn't be growing food. The vast majority of corn grown is dent corn which isn't use for food except maybe starches and animal feed.
On another note, Farmers usually plant 20,000-60,000 (Even as high as 80,000) corn plants per acre. Typically, 35 - 40k is common, at least in my area. With a 40,000 plant population, you are going to get around 200-210 bushels of corn which translates into about 28 tons or 25 metric tons (tonne) per acre (65% moisture). Now, according to this site, you can get about 5.2 metric tons of switch grass per hectare (around 7 acres). So that is around 175 tonnes for corn compared to around 5 tonnes for switch grass. You don't need to plow and seed switch grass, I assume it is the typical 2-3 cuttings a year like with hay though so some bailing and repeated cutting passes would probable make up for the plowing and seeding and it would probably be equal in fuel usage because fuel rate is calculated by PTO work.
Now the interesting part, you get around 28% product above what it costs to make the ethanol (the article says 25%) with corn. With the switch grass, you would get around 540% (per the article). Now the article is considering using the pulp as fuel for the refining process with switch grass but I assume that using silage from the corn crop could produce similar results if it wasn't ground up and left in the field. But you would likely gain around 49 tonnes of potential energy using the corn compared to 28 tonnes of potential energy going with switch grass in it's place. Now assuming the end product is going to be worth the same amount and the costs would be adjusted to reflect this in the pricing which means it would be better off to plant the switch grass on marginal lands in flood planes or other non-tillable and poor producing lands. Specking Soybeans in it every so often could possible take care of the nitrogen problems but a lot of the low lying marginal lands are already run off filters for existing crops which means they get carryover from fertilizers already in use.
I really don't think it would be beneficial to plant that instead of an existing crop unless the land is already so poor that it doesn't yield right on existing crops like corn. I don't see too much difference between silage and switch grass so an added benefit of planting corn might be a small amount of usable cellulose material that could be sold in addition to existing crop prices. You wouldn't want to do it every year but every other or maybe even every 3 years in between the last rotation might be a considerable source of product. It would take some work to store it but you might get about the same amount of material as if you harvested switch grass. There should be about 1 ton of silage ( metric tonne) for every 5 or 6 or so bushels of corn which translates to around 40 tons (about 36 tonnes) per acre (280 tons and 256 tonnes per hectare) which surprisingly is more then a crop of switch grass and is currently a by product tossed on the ground (it serves more of a purpose then waste though).
It's not just plastics, lots of things depend on ground-sourced chemicals that are extremely uneconomical to make from plants. I always stay out of oil debates because there's a temptation to repeatedly scream "OIL IS NOT JUST FOR CARS!". I'm biased though, being a pharmaceutical chemist. Everything I handle every day is sourced from oil, and it's only going to get more expensive. Ethyl acetate would be a rare exception, but for the fact that it's made from inorganically-sourced ethanol! How's that for irony.
I am one of many. My idea is not unique, nor do I expect my voice alone to sway you. I speak in a chorus of opinion.
I'm reminded of an experiment someone did a while back (don't care to find the link), where people were allowed to play a gambling game where you could see you winnings and everyone else's. The game was rigged of course and set up so that the player would win some, but could also see that other people won less or even lost and some people won more. At the end of the game, they were given the option to reduce the winnings of the top winners and give it back to the "house", but it would cost the player a smaller percentage of their winnings. An overwhelming percentage of people (75% or something) chose to reduce the winnings of the top winners, even though it did not benefit them at all, and even actually cost them some of their own winnings. Maybe it's human nature to want poverty over prosperity as long as everyone suffers equally.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
Here may be an explanation (it is the study I mentioned in the post above... and PDF warning): We design an experiment where subjects can reduce (âoeburnâ) other subjectsâ(TM) Money. Those who burn the money of others have to give up some of their own cash. Despite this cost, and contrary to the assumptions of economics textbooks, the majority of our subjects choose to destroy at least part of othersâ(TM) money holdings. We vary experimentally the amount that subjects have to pay to reduce other peopleâ(TM)s cash. The implied price elasticity of burning is calculated; it is mostly less than unity. There is a strong correlation between wealth, or rank, and the amounts by which subjects are burnt. In making their decisions, many burners, especially disadvantaged ones, seem to care about whether another person âdeservesâ(TM) the money he has. Desert is not simply a matter of relative payoff. To bring this back on topic, I fear that the REAL motivation behind some (not all) of th environmental concerns are part of this. How often do you hear the argument that drilling for new oil would "line the pockets of big oil CEO's"? So what? Why do I care if some big oil CEO if it will save me and everyone else $0.25 a gallon? I still end up ahead! What difference does it make if someone else ends up further ahead than I do? I understand that there may be legitimate environmental concerns, then why bring up how much money someone may make?
Anyway, the GP post is upset that even though workers will be better off, and environmental concerns are addressed, the "haves" will do better than everyone else.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.