Kiss the Earth GREEN

Comment

Comment by Luis Garcia VA District 9 Leader on August 8, 2008 at 4:43am

I could sure cut my meat intake in half... -- Thanks Heidi & Nelson for joining our group...

Comment by bob bray on August 8, 2008 at 4:37am

Corn as fuel
now i will bore ya about corn
first corn is a 2 step process to make fuel got to get the starch into sugar .that is silly just grow sugar cane or sorghum.
second (waiting for the blast)why feed corn to cows?they poot adding one of the largest componets to green house gases.i can hear it now "but Bob i love my steak"cool i do too.But anyone wanting to raise cows needs to produce the feed on site (shipping in cow food takes fuel! ) can you say free range? then all the corn grown commercially could go to fuel. soybeans can be smashed the oil from then will burn in a diesel no refining.
yup this will make your steak cost more,but more will go to the rancher for the beef .one last point how many of you could cut your beef use in half?would that hurt you?then 1/2 of feed corn could go to making a fuel.
p.s. i did not post this so all the militant veg would have a rally point! if you want to reply to this dont blast me or beat up on those that like meat (if god didnt want us to eat animals then why did he make them out of meat?)

Comment by Heidi Hall on August 8, 2008 at 1:45am

Thanks for the invitation Luis:-)

Comment by Nelson Camus on August 7, 2008 at 11:28pm

Thank's. I feel glad with you folks.

Comment by Tony Toigo on August 7, 2008 at 10:42pm

Hey Bob, I just ran across this about Rentech in an email from Technology Review. I had no idea.

http://www.technologyreview.com/Wire/21202/?nlid=1258

Rentech synthetic fuels converted from natural gas to create jet fuel and diesel.

Thanks again, I learn something new every day.

Comment by Tony Toigo on August 7, 2008 at 9:16pm

Thanks Bob,

Short term, harvesting excess feedstock from overgrowth in forests is smart for converting biomass to usable fuels. I read a paper from UC Berkley several months ago that indicates long term biomass harvesting from forests is not sustainable unfortunately. They claim that it will most likely upset the bio eco system of the forests. Although, I would think that clearing the excess underbrush out of the forests would be a good idea to help reduce the risks of the massive forest fires that are taking place.

I do like the idea of converting municipal solid waste to effective fuels very much.

Tony

Comment by bob bray on August 7, 2008 at 9:06pm

http://www.rentechinc.com/
how about this?

Comment by Tony Toigo on August 7, 2008 at 8:48pm

Luis, I hope that this is the type of commentary that you are seeking.

Tony

Here is a direct link from the California Air Resources Board reporting on their test and findings for Omstar D-1280X Fuel Additive. This test data is from 1990. http://www.arb.ca.gov/msprog/AFTERMKT/omstar/omstar.pdf
I had never heard of this before but it appears to have been around for some time now. This additive is apparently for diesel engines only. I am not sure who invented this product.

Ethanol E85 as a fuel by itself is designed to run in vehicles that are designed with the entire fuel system being compatible for this fuel. Standard fuel system components are designed for gasoline or ethanol mixture that is much lower. Ethanol percentages this high in a system that is not designed to accommodate E85 fuel will destroy any rubber or plastic components within it. If a kit is designed to replace the existing system, it must have an additional fuel supply system (separate tank, fuel lines, etc) installed with it that is separate from the gasoline fuel injection system as I understand it. I am not certain about the actual efficacy of the kit that is mentioned but as with anything else, if there is a weak component, it will fail no matter how good the rest of the system appears to be.

One other thing to note regarding E85 is that the fuel economy for this fuel is about 1/3 less than standard 10% mix ethanol. My understanding is that the lower cost difference is supposed to compensate for the lower energy content of the E85 Ethanol.

Brazil is the largest producer of ethanol and they use sugar cane as the feedstock. Sugar cane is far superior to corn for ethanol production.

Corn is just a big no no for ethanol production. It wastes too many resources in order to produce a gallon of fuel this way. Currently, Corn is very popular in this country due to the knowledge and experience of growing it. The corn belt states have a significant lobby in DC and is the only reason why it has been so popular as I understand it. I have heard many conflicting reports about producing ethanol from corn that claim that a maximum of 25% energy yield is created after all of the elements of production are considered(1.25 gallons of ethanol for every gallon of petroleum fuel and energy equivalent input). Fertilizer and cultivation energy input for corn is significant. Additional energy is required to complete the fermentation preparation and final process. After that, the ethanol then must be trucked from the plants that have been built in the mid-west US to the larger population areas on the west and east coasts. Unfortunately, the pipelines that are used for petroleum cannot be used due to the corrosive nature of pure ethanol. So, it must be trucked which is just too inefficient to do. I have heard that the production of ethanol has a zero net yield of energy after everything. This is difficult to verify though and makes it very difficult to discern truth from fiction. From an environmental perspective, corn ethanol also unfortunately gets a bad grade. The claims are that it is responsible for significant soil erosion and for also creating large dead zones in the Gulf of Mexico from the runoff of excessive chemical fertilizers needed to get a good crop.

What seems to be so is that utilizing land that is normally slated for food agricultural production, does not make sense to use that land for biofuel production. There are better ways of growing and harvesting feedstocks for bio fuels that will prove out to be more sustainable and practical in the long run.

I have read that Switch Grass is a much more productive feedstock for ethanol that is indiginous to the US. And that it can be planted once, then harvested multiple times. This in contrast to corn reduces fertilizer and fuel requirements significantly since energy is only expended for harvest and processing after the initial planting.

Other feedstocks that hold promise for ethanol production are Algae and Salicornia.

Algae and Salicornia both contain high amounts of oil feedstock as well that can be extracted as bio oil for bio diesel fuel and jet fuels etc. Many companies are working on the Algae solution but none that I know of have emerged into full scale production yet as of today. One company out of San Francisco, whose name alludes me at the moment claims that they are able to produce algae without sunlight using sugar or sugar cane as an additional feedstock. It is not certain as to whether this is truly feasible or practical due to the fact that they do not disclose how much sugar cane is required and how many barrels of oil per acre of sugar cane are produced; considering that space is required for the sugar cane and then also the algae production.

Salicornia produces a seed that can be pressed for oil. There is significant research going on for the high scale growth of Algae for bio-oil and the leftover cellulose can be then used for effective feedstock for ethanol production. Salicornia also produces significant cellulosic feedstock for ethanol and it also produces a protein powder that can be consumed by humans and fed to fish and shrimp in aqua farms that create effluence that fertilizes the Salicornia.

There is some very interesting information regarding Salicornia at the website: http://www.seawaterfoundation.org/
Dr. Carl Hodges has run this program for many years and is finally getting attention for his efforts. His approach seems compelling and potentially effective. They use seawater as opposed to fresh water in regions of the globe that have very little fresh water to begin with. This is worth a look if you are interested. It is possible that Hodges methods will become a major global effort to ease the liquid transport fuels crunch while creating healthy fish and shrimp farms in the process. When these aqua sea farms are built in regions where there is massive poverty and starvation, the farms create jobs, green land that would normally be arid and unusable, create an abundant food supply and extract carbon dioxide if you think that is important. Salicornia farming has the potential of becoming a very profitable endeavor as I understand it. It also has the ability to resurrect land that has been considered useless for any other form of agriculture.

There is another interesting situation with ethanol use coming from a company in Wichita Kansas. A man named Jonathan Goodwin coverts Hummers and Escalades there and has done quite a bit of research and development with various fuels and fuel combinations (Dual fuel) with the intent of increasing fuel efficiency and power output while cleaning up the combustion emissions output as well. Jonathan has experienced very solid results by vaporizing ethanol from a liquid to a gas. The gas is injected into the combustion chamber along with petro diesel or bio diesel fuel. This somehow increases fuel efficiency. The company has patented products that will sell as kits very soon. They are apparently only effective on diesel engine technology.
http://greenoptions.com/tag/jonathan-goodwin For an interesting read about one of Jonathan’s projects: a Hummer H3 that gets 60 MPG! Jonathan’s research and real world results are based upon the original research work of Uli Kruger.
See http://www.lincvolt.com for some info on Kruger. Also see the website: http://www.hlineconversion.com/ for more interesting information about Goodwins various projects. Goodwin’s efforts have amazed even GM’s engineers by demonstrating to them what is possible by being able to think outside of the box.

It is very important to understand that there are many ways for us to approach our current predicament and it is just as important to recognize that sometimes, even the “experts” don’t always have the answers. GM’s engineers that witnessed one of Goodwin’s H1 Duramax bio oil fuel powered creations stated that GM told them what Goodwin had accomplished could not be done. By combining the various options available to us including the Pickens Plan to displace 20% of our electricity with renewables such as wind and solar, we will be able to lower our import requirements for foreign oil significantly. Goodwin’s natural gas dual fuel research is a very good fit for the Pickens Plan and should be seriously considered for the heavy trucking transport industry. Small amounts of fuel efficiency create substantial savings with these vehicles that get 6 MPG or less. A 1 MPG increase is very substantial when considering the total number of over the road trucks that are consuming vast amounts of petro diesel fuel.

More to follow.

Comment by Mike Lindsay on August 7, 2008 at 8:08pm

Luis, There ain't no way. Corn was made for many things but fuel isn't one of them. To burn up a food source should be labeled 'criminal'. Of course, my friends who grow corn don't care what it's used for as long as it sells for $7-8.00 a bushel, cause they're spending $350-400/day watering it for about 5 months. Now that it's fallen to below $6.00 they're gonna be drinking corn whiskey. All kidding aside, it's worthless as a fuel additive. Take a good look at www.PESwiki.com and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIglWNCaAFk&feature=related These 2 sites will give you a refreshing view of what's really here and what's to come.

Comment by bob bray on August 7, 2008 at 6:21pm

E85 is about 15% less energy content than pump gas so your car will get less millage as well as less power.
yes can convert the modern car to E85
problems?
Ethanol is dry so would expect to see extra wear on the fuel pump, fuel injectors, exhaust valves
it also causes some O-Rings to shrink,dry rots some types of fuel lines.
E-85 needs a lower compression ratio to keep engine knock from destroying the piston and the cylinder wall scarring (from piston knock and the dry fuel ) this might be solved with water injection (BMW had luck with this in the 1930 )
the old air cooled vw would run fine on E-50 ,or up to 20% diesel,30%keresione
If anyone tell you that E-85 gives more power or more millage with out major work they are full of it.your car was finely tuned from the factory to burn pump gas,anything other than that wont make it better.
adding "stuff "to the tank might help one tbs of benzine per gal of diesel will make it quieter,stronger, and more MPG but it is a carcinogenic burning it is against the EPA (ask me how to test for benzine)

• First
• Previous
• Next
• Last