Pawnees powered by Motor fuel .
On Jan 21, 3:25 pm, "Bill Daniels" bildan@comcast-dot-net wrote:
"Shawn" wrote in message
...
Doug Hoffman wrote:
snip
Certainly the more alcohol we can use instead of imported fossil is a
good thing. But there are some negatives associated with ethanol
production and use as mogas. It likely is not the magic bullet that some
believed. The effect of E20 on clean air is strongly debated. One
*will* get fewer miles per gallon with higher ethanol content. Just ask
someone who is burning E85, if you can find such a person.
Like with diesel, people will learn to calculate what matters to them,
whether that is $/mile CO2/mile, NOx/mile, or value of their ADM
stock/mile ;-)
What I find specious is that corn ethanol has been sold as a "greener"
alternative to gasoline, when the data does not support much if any net
improvement in CO2 emissions relative to gasoline. It can improve US
energy independence, which may be more important in the short/medium term.
The coal mines can not be good for ridge soaring in the South East though.
:-(
Even if ethanol were not net-negative energy, it's still a lousy fuel since
it's already partially oxidized. If you want a fuel produced by microbes
(Bug Juice?) why not teach the little critters to produce something useful
like iso-octane or butanol? Either of those hydrocarbons can be blended up
to ~90% with gasoline without significantly changing the energy content,
octane, reid vapor pressure or required fuel/air mixtures.
Bill Daniels
Actually ethanol is not energy negative, the only reports out of
hundreds that come to that conclusion are by David Pimentel, a
professor of ecology and not trained in the field of biotechnology
engineering, and Tad Patzek at Berkeley who is funded by the oil
industry (Sounds like the same technique used against global warming
for many years. Fund a few dissenters and let the pundits spread the
word that there are negative reports).
As far as producing iso-octane and butanol, they are subjects of much
research. The organisms that can produce those are being actively
studied as well as processes to make it possible. Biodiesel is also
under active research from both agricultural commodities and algae
that use photosynthesis to produce the oil. The nice thing this is
very carbon neutral because we are exchanging C02 for the oil.
The azeotrope (a mixture that can not be spereated by simple
distillation) with water cause problems with ethanol to make it more
expensive to process and leaves it hygroscopic.
A gallon of gas does have more energy than a gallon of ethanol and you
must learn to purchase fuel at a price per energy rather than per
volume. Other than that you can treat them the same in most cases.
Just understand where each is useful and make sure you have the
correct type of plumbing, pumps and seals in your system.
Ok, back to soaring issues...
Tim
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