Ethanol Prices Collapsing

Discussion in 'Boat Design' started by Ike, Oct 20, 2014.

  1. Timothy
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    Timothy Senior Member

    The petro age is ending. Welcome to the solar electric world. Soon there will be little or no demand for fossil or bio fuels. The global warming folks are gaining political traction by the day and are about to demand, and get legislation that will at the very least limit new fossil fuel extraction. The smart money is about to get out of the business . Companies and countries that are betting their futures on oil gas and coal are in for a rude awakening. Solar is already cheaper than fossil fuels and is about to get cheaper still. Countries with cheap oil will lower their prices to retain their market share, but as the solar infrastructure is developed and electric cars and public transport become the norm. there will be a point when their production and shipping costs will exceed the price they can charge. Forget fracking. Tesla has proved that electric cars are viable. No need to incur the expense and pollution shipping oil coal and gas all over the world. No need for carbon taxes or trading schemes. Oil will no longer be a factor in global business or politics. Every country will have access to cheap power. The playing field will level. It is time that any one who manufactures or designs anything should be considering what this new world will look like.
     
  2. rowerwet
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    rowerwet Junior Member

    Kind of scary that there are people who believe this, of course they probably believe government can do everything else also just by passing a law. It will be fun to watch the collection of fools that mandates themselves out of the world market this way, unless you live there...
     
  3. Ike
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    Ike Senior Member

    Study your history. Go back and look at what happened just be for WWI to the navys of the world when oil suddenly became the go to source of energy. There were a lot of people who lost their shirts because they didn't want to convert from coal to oil.

    A good book on this is Dreadnought http://www.amazon.com/Dreadnought-Robert-K-Massie/dp/0345375564 about the British and German navys. There were people in the British Navy who thought oil was a passing fad.

    We are going through the same kind of evolution now. Alternative forms of energy are going to become the main source and fossil fuels are going to fade.
     
  4. hoytedow
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    hoytedow Carbon Based Life Form

    No matter what the fuel, the machinery still needs lubricants. Petro is here to stay.
     
  5. powerabout
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    powerabout Senior Member

    Re ship emissions, the imo regulate globally and the usa like many countries also have local rules that they enforce.
    Sox is regulated in many countries, when in those waters the ships swap to low sulfur fuel.
    Ships burn for a large part what the refinery cant sell anywhere else, thats going to make for one giant toxic waste problem if they convert to another fuel.
    Ships beat any other form of transport per ton for emissions by miles.
    The sox issue is expensive to solve.
    The usa is builing its first lpg jones act box ship right now.
    There are at least100 vessels offshore now that are 100% lpg and many more that are conversions with pilot ignition, fixes cost and pollution in one fell swoop.
    Other than nuclear there is no fuel source as dense as oil, solar and wind are a joke as a replacement but can certainly take a few percent of the load.
    Fossil fuel although finite has no replacement in the world we live in now
     
  6. powerabout
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    powerabout Senior Member

    I think the reason to add ethanol to fuel was to ween the usa off imported oil and nothing else.
    Would be way smarter to use lpg but as the usa has no energy plan...say no more.
    If you could make ethanol cheaply and everywhere ( as little to no transport required) and use it at 100% you would have considerable savings.
    As soon as the usa is a net energy exporter then dump the ethanol
     
  7. powerabout
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    powerabout Senior Member

    Sad really,
    Changing to reality did you know that when the artic ice cap melts there will be no rise in sea level as the ice is already displacing its weight in the water and it will take up less volume as a liquid
    another inconvenient truth.
    ( ok down south its on the land so it will add to the volume)
     
  8. daiquiri
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    daiquiri Engineering and Design

    The hydrocarbon-based fuels are not found only under the Earth crust. Pumping it out is simply the most convenient way of production, in the current social and economic framework which makes the world go round.

    But the fuels can be obtained via technological (electrochemical) processes too. A lots of efforts are being focused on the development of ways to produce carbon-neutral fuels, like the so-called solar fuels:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon-neutral_fuel
    http://www.solarfuelsnetwork.com/about/
    http://www.solar-jet.aero/

    Basically, we have a huge bright nuclear reactor working 24/7 at just 150 million kilometers form the Earth, and sending us more energy in one hour than the humanity uses in one whole year. The only problem we have to solve is the storage of that energy, and that's where the projects like Solar-Jet are aimed at. The idea is to use that enormous energy to produce hydrocabon-based fuel, which can be used by the existing IC engines with very little modifications required. So once we have resolved the problem of conveniently transforming the solar energy into chemical energy, the problem of fuel supply will have been solved for many decades (or centuries) to come. It will buy us the time necessary for developing other, more advanced methods for production of energy (like controlled fusion).

    And once we manage to develop a suitable technology, guess which area of the planet is going to have have the biggest potential for using the solar radiation? Make your guess... Looks like the Middle-East will be on the front pages even in the future, unless the humanity changes its warrior mindset.
     
  9. hoytedow
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    hoytedow Carbon Based Life Form

    The Sun, in concert with Earth's ecosystem, is constantly creating new carbon based fuel. If we don't burn it to our advantage, it will either light off on its own or we will drown in it. Slight exaggeration, I know.
     
  10. FAST FRED
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    FAST FRED Senior Member

    >I think the reason to add ethanol to fuel was to ween the usa off imported oil and nothing else.<

    NOPE , it was claimed at that time the reformulated fuel would help lower smog , acid rain and other air pollution.

    The fun is they regulate by Zip code , summer & winter , so fuel across the street may have to have a different formulation, storage and delivery trucks .\\

    And of course Ethanol is a looser , using more energy than it produces.

    Do you think the farmers or Air Police care?
     
  11. sdowney717
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    sdowney717 Senior Member

    The petrol age is never ending. It may change if fusion power such as Lockheed claims their engineering breakthrough design really happens. Oil usage goes into everything. And more people worldwide, if their living standard raises will use more oil.

    I was impressed with the latest fusion power news. This goes to the militray then civilian. I read 20 years to common usage of fusion power.
    These people are saying military vehicles will have fusion reactors. I do read the competition (ITER) is upset and what about radiation shielding?

    http://www.zmescience.com/ecology/renewable-energy-ecology/lockheed-martin-cold-fusion-21102014/
     
  12. Village_Idiot
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    Village_Idiot Senior Member

    CSX trains claim they move one ton of cargo 400-450 miles for every gallon of diesel burned (they are using backwards math to interpolate tonnage/mile in terms that layman folks can understand).

    The inland barge industry in the U.S. claims much greater efficiency than trains, which in turn claim much better efficiency than trucks (the most common tranport mechanism in the U.S.).
     
  13. Village_Idiot
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    Village_Idiot Senior Member

    Evinrude's entire line of outboards are two-strokes. All of the sub-40hp Mercs are Tohatsus (40-60hp Mercs are made in China, above 60hp Mercs are made in USA). Larger Tohatsus are made by Honda.
     
  14. powerabout
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    powerabout Senior Member

    and all ships that move the most tonnage of freight per unit fuel are 2 strokes, when they use LPG the pollution will be so low land transport will be attacked as the most polluting
     

  15. powerabout
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    powerabout Senior Member

    how come the rest of the world can do the above without ethanol?
     
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