Modifying to Flex-fuel

[JeepnGreg]

heat value is energy value......well assuming you have perfect thermodynamic efficiency....which we dont....but you get the idea

[Jim_Lou]

I just spent about 20 minutes composing a long answer to the question,mentioning the characteristics of the Indy car engines when they ran alky. Just as I was going for the Post button my browser shot craps. Now I'm out of time so it'll have to wait.

But you got the important part in one sentence.

[sourpwr]

Originally Posted by CJ7Taz

I’m a little hard. I want EVERYTHING included. I want to include the energy as utilities for the farm, his personal fuel usage in his trucks and cars even if he was going to town to the barn dance. If he goes to the diner in town, I want to include the energy costs of preparing his food. That’s all part of the energy cost.

I can understand wanting to figure out the energy cost from "cradle to grave" for the production of ethanol. I think that it would be interesting to compare that to the cradle to grave cost for traditional oil -- exploration, drilling, transportation, refining, delivery, and all the ancillary costs vs prepping soil, planting, growing, harvesting, transportation, fermentation, distillation, delivery, and ancillary costs. (I'm sure that I left a few steps out of both.)

However, I think that it would be irrelevant to include the "social" costs for all the workers, managers, and CEOs whether they produce traditional oil or alternatives.

I got nothing on how to run E85 in a traditional motor.

-- mike

[jdoggmoney]

We've got enthanol plants sprouting up faster than corn around her nowadays. It's sad really, because a short time after they decided to sink all of this funding into corn based ethanol, they started learning about better alternatives. Right now, it seems "switch grass" may be a better altenative that will grow as well in this area.

In addition to the cost to grow the corn, it takes a huge amount of energy to convert it into enthanol. It also takes a large amount of water throughout the process. Some of the waste product can be recycled into cattle feed and I am sure there are other benefits such as the plant's being to produce thir own electricity, but I think we will start to see these corn plants wither up and die as fast as they've been going up.

As it is, I've been hearing from the local farmers that we are getting so many ethanol plants, that the area cropland cannot produce enough bushels to keep them all going. Yes, we will have to start importing corn into the corn growing heartland for our ethanol plants.

I don't know what it would cost to switch these plants over to use the switch grass, but I understand that it takes much less energy to convert the grass and much less water, a very valuable resource. Also the costs to grow switch grass are much less, mainly because the entire crop does not have to be regrown each year. You simply cut the grasss when it's time and it grows back without the tilling, cultivating, re-planting etc.

Time will tell and I think we will continue to produce enthanol, but the days of using corn as the main "fuel" are numbered.

[Jim_Lou]

There are plans to build an ethanol plant in southwest Missouri, and a lot of controversy surrounding them. In an article in the St. Louis paper they mentioned that the location was ideal because:

A) It's close to railroad lines and interstate highways for transporting the corn in and the alcohol out.

B) It sits over a large aquifer so there's plenty of water.

C) It's next to a huge natural gas pipeline so there's a good supply of energy to run the plant.

Well, the residents aren't happy about sucking water out of the aquifer. The plant proponents say that it will refill as fast as they can pump it, but several studies have proclaimed that to be false.

And, we're supposed to be producing an energy source here. Why should we use the natural gas that's needed to heat homes and fire quick-reacting electrical power stations? If ethanol is such a great deal, use ethanol to power the plant. The plant output will be less, but shipping ethanol is a difficult proposition anyway.

[CJ7Taz]

The little granddaughter is watching cartoons so I’ve got a couple of minutes.

Originally Posted by sourpwr

I can understand wanting to figure out the energy cost from "cradle to grave" for the production of ethanol. I think that it would be interesting to compare that to the cradle to grave cost for traditional oil -- exploration, drilling, transportation, refining, delivery, and all the ancillary costs vs prepping soil, planting, growing, harvesting, transportation, fermentation, distillation, delivery, and ancillary costs. (I'm sure that I left a few steps out of both.)

No need to do a comparison. We know oil produces more energy than it consumes. I don’t ask that ethanol produce a like amount, just produce more energy than is consumed.

Originally Posted by sourpwr

However, I think that it would be irrelevant to include the "social" costs for all the workers, managers, and CEOs whether they produce traditional oil or alternatives.

You must include everybody associated. As an experiment, we put a bunch of people on an island say the size of Cuba. We start them off with a million gallons of ethanol. They can’t import any energy in any form although they may use natural energy, solar, wind, etc. Now what happens first?

a. They sell us the excess ethanol they have produced

b. They call us to come get them because they are out of energy

c. They call us to come get them because they have polluted the island by continually burning ethanol for a marginal or no gain.

If it’s a loosing proposition, we might just as well feed the corn to the people, put them on treadmills connected to generators and burn methane from their poop .


If the experiment is successful, then we might consider using ethanol in the United States. The thing is enough has to be produced for EVERYBODY!

Well, I got interrupted. She just came in and wanted to know if there were any leftovers from breakfast. Breakfast was at 11:30 when she woke up. Nuked the leftover bacon and fried potatoes and made her an omelet. We’re having spaghetti later.

Anyway, if we are going to get off oil we have to produce enough for everybody, all those involved plus those not. That includes such people as doctors, nurses, lawyers (even though I’d rather not), teachers, merchants, Wall Street executives, entertainers, Donald Trump who seems to only buy and sell things, Paris Hilton (whatever she does), even the homeless who since they have no other value, I’ll let you use them as scarecrows. Furthermore, you have to provide enough energy for all the non-working wives and the children.

Originally Posted by jdoggmoney

Right now, it seems "switch grass" may be a better altenative that will grow as well in this area.

Sounds, like you’ve been listening to politicians again. Switch grass takes much more energy to distill. I don’t know how much of that is recoverable by burning the grass as fuel after the distilling.

Can somebody tell me how it got to where politicians mandate these thing but leave it to somebody else to figure out the HOW to do it.


I better get to fixing some spaghetti, she ate every bite and there was enough there to feed me. We just came back form the pool when I started. Swimming is hard work.

OK, I just got told I need to find her inflatable boat to take to the pool tomorrow.

[CJDave]

Do you recall the International Harvester crawler tractors that had diesel engines which started on gasoline and then switched over to diesel once they were warm and running? Yep, they had a third valve which opened into a small chamber which decreased the compression, and also had a spark plug in it AND a port which connected to carburetor. If you walked up to the RH side of the tractor, it looked like a gasser, with a magneto and spark plugs. The LH side had a big fuel injection pump and a row of fuel filters. Perhaps the true "multi-fueler of the next decade will have provisions for using everything from weed oil to acetylene to spoiled potatoes. With computerization, it would definitely be possible. There are so many myths floating around about alternate sources of energy; myths that are taken entirely as fact; that I sometimes have to shake my head.

[CJ7Taz]

Look who’s back. Where’s the moonguys?

Think we could get any efficiency out of that Chrysler turbine? Probably not.

[CJDave]

Actually, a turbine might be way more flexible since it is more of a pure heat engine. I just got a new computer with blazing fast internet which enables me to post once again without difficulty. My only problem is how to include the little moonguys in the posts?

[CJ7Taz]

Originally Posted by CJDave

My only problem is how to include the little moonguys in the posts?

Under the box you type into is a button for “Go Advanced”. It’ll take you to a new page and the moon guys are on the right. You can also hit “Quote” to get there and just delete what you quoted.

Also note, in the box under the moonguys is the word “More”. Click on it to get the full crew.