Ethanol avoidance

[TollyWally]

Thanks Jimbo,
Feel free to expand on topics such as these at will, whenever and where ever.

[Boston]

Jim has always expressed a rather intimate knowledge of the oil and gas industry from everything Ive read of him. Its always nice having some first hand information on the subject. Glad to hear they are "not" going to be putting alcohol in diesel. Seems to me alcohol works best in engines specifically designed to burn the stuff, mixing fuels with such wildly different charictoristics just doesn't lend itself to efficiency as near as I can tell.

cheers
B

[powerabout]

Trouble with alcohol is you have to put so much liquid down the hole it displaces the air.
It really only works great on injected engines where the injector can shoot past the inlet valve like dirt track engines and older F1 style engines.

On outboards via carbs its cannot produce as much power as pump gas ( due to the restircted air flow) so very few people use it today.
Saying that it is still used on vintage racing outboards as thats what they were designed to run on and with castor oil the smell is fantastic!

PS One place it is used on modern outboards is when you run nitrous as some drag classes allow.
When you hit the button instead of adding fuel with the nitrous you add methanol to cool it down and keep it alive, you also need a special programme to be able to shut it off slowly or ka boom!

[marshmat]

Seems to me alcohol works best in engines specifically designed to burn the stuff

In general, yes. Such engines are, overall, quite similar to conventional gasoline engines but, as has been said, better performance on ethanol can be obtained with a slightly modified engine design (different fuel/air ratio, higher compression, etc.)

If we talk about fuel consumption in terms of litres / gallons, we cannot directly compare ethanol to gasoline, as the latter carries more energy for the same mass or volume.

Glad to hear they are "not" going to be putting alcohol in diesel.

Yup. It is highly unlikely that alcohols will be added to diesel fuel in any significant quantity- alcohol's properties are, in many respects, quite the opposite of what is desirable in diesel fuel. And diesels have their own, cheaper and simpler to produce biofuels.

PS One place it is used on modern outboards is when you run nitrous as some drag classes allow.
When you hit the button instead of adding fuel with the nitrous you add methanol to cool it down and keep it alive, you also need a special programme to be able to shut it off slowly or ka boom!

Where I live (Ontario), they recently had to ban NOx systems from public roads, the things having been deemed too great a safety hazard. It seems that cars so equipped crash at a much greater rate than normal cars (I wonder why...) and the systems' tendency to explode shortly after a crash makes it extremely dangerous for the firefighters to get the driver out.

[powerabout]

Imagine a toyota prius on Nox...
with a 600v dc capacitor in an accident!!

[powerabout]

I got my answer back from BRP re leaded fuel and avgas
'it will not cause any problem'
( unless you have an oxygen sensor which outboards dont have ( ok except one yam))

it did in the 60's when the lead scavengers were poor but by the 70's and the ignition systems got better the porblems were gone.

[Paul No Boat]

I drive a 99 Ford Ranger with flexfuel. I tried the ethynol E-85 a couple years ago and I hate it. terrible milage, hard starting etc. and it is not really saving us since it takes a lot of capitol outlay to produce it. But I am glad it is there should we ever run into the shortages we had in the 70s.

I am not sure I would go so far as to call it a ruse, but I think it just got hyped at a time when we were unsure what the hell the gas market was going to do.

I do like using the E-10 tho as it does keep the injectors nice and clean.

I am sure it has its place in the whole energy scheme, but it seems to me the best place to use it would be locally in Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas where they can at least lose the transport costs. Let the corn farmers burn it in their tractors and they can charge us less for a dozen ears of sweet corn.

[powerabout]

Paul no boat
I do think there is a future for alcohol but it should be 100% and engines designed or it.
I agree the financials only seem to make sense if the stuff is being used where it is made so no transport to the customer.
If a farmer cant make his own fuel for everything. truck tractor, gen set then its proof to me its not viable

[Paul No Boat]

I agree, Powerabout.

The whole new energy game will have to find its appropriate applications.
I live in a dead zone of wind and yet there are people trying to get involved in wind power. The fast food resturants are selling their french fry grease to recycle into diesel fuel but after all the transport and processing, quite possibly more fuel is consumed than produced. I say use that oil right on site and heat the very restaurants producing it.

Ethynol technology can be extreamly valuable but there might be better uses of it than in cars and boats.

Lumbermills have done this for years using the woodchips to heat and power the mills. I read 75% of the timber cut is used by the mills themselves.

[Boston]

its not 75%
I go to the mills fairly regularly for local hardwoods and these guys always have a barrel of fire to help keep the place warm
its not big deal cause they have a lot of waist squaring up the timber but still its not 75%

maybe 10 or 15%

and its unprocessed
they just slice it down to reasonable size and throw it in a barrel

works like a charm

B

[hoytedow]

It may be less than 10 or 15 % now since the advent of particle board made even sawdust useable. Another example: Aspenite.
And even the bark is sold for garden mulch.

[Jimbo1490]

Ethanol from food crops is a ruse at best, a potential food shortage disaster for poor countries at worst. But cellulosic ethanol is about to come on line in a big way . This has been working quietly behind the scene for more than a decade, now. They have achieved 3X energy balance with it (food crop ethanol is only up to about 1.5X) and that was with small experimental plants. The big production plants are promising 7-10X energy balance, and immediately competitive with crude oil, even at <$50/barrel! Since there is no paper waste/yard clipping/mulch lobby to promote it, this one has snuck up on just about everybody.

Jimbo

[Paul No Boat]

when i said mills I was thinking more about the big corporate mills US plywood, Weyerhaeuser, international paper, etc as a printer I got to visit a paper mill once that place was huge. and fast paced with silos full of scrap and mill slabs

[Frosty]

Aussie inventor program on the tely about this aussy compnay converting water to oil with some bacteria, it seemed a little difficult to cultivate and control if I remember correctly , however oil it was and it was clean and burned.

It was too much per liter at that time to be used as fuel but ive not heard anything for a while.

I suppose the oil companies would buy that up in a heart beat.

[powerabout]

I guess as OZ has found even more gas so still no takers?