"Inspired" by gas prices...

Steve,
In my opinion, most things that do 2 jobs well do neither job good let alone better. Maybe an engine designed to run ethanol only could get better mileage. I'm purely speculating here, but change the compression ratio perhaps. Increasing combustion pressure DOES increase power and thus mileage, maybe we should look in that direction.

 

making brewing vats to ferment waste bio mass, and than solar stills to concentrate the ethanol would use up a lot of land, more so than any other alternative fuel. If you have hundreds of acres of of unused land you might be able to make enough ethanol for your family use (and at least one full time family member to tend and monitor the process). NO way that could work for the nation. If you include the value of the land it would use, the volume of biomass required, and the concentration/distillation process, it costs a lot more to make ethanol fuel.

I remember one chemical engineer told me once that he can get free land, free biomass delivered, and all kinds of tax breaks and interest free loans, all from the state of California, and he would still lose money making ethanol.

 

It costs a lot more to make ethanol than what? Biodiesel?

Why is nobody reading my posts. I keep on saying it's an idea to use your gasoline engine if the commercial fuel supply is cut off. I keep saying it's not an idea for the nation or the world. It's for 1 guy who wants to run his gasoline powered chainsaw or something cut off from.any fuel supply, as mentioned earlier. Very frustrating to have people keep on saying it will never work to solve the world energy problems...

 

I forgot about this thread...anyways CB you are right about the alcohol thing.

Just out of high school a family friend farmer had a few tons of feed corn go mouldy.
So on a lark I fermented it,built a solar still and got a whole bloody heap of alcohol out of it.

IF the engine is built for alcohol-higher compression-alcohol works well...and it worked very well in my ski boat for 2 summers.

IIRC an acre will get you 4 tons of corn and well over 300 gallons of ethanol...so with an acre or two of spare land one should be able to be fuel self sufficient depending on use.
The solar still was about 10' square...especially on a hot afternoon the alcohol would flow out of there like crazy.

Isn't distilling alcohol illegal in the US though?

 

WVH,

So is speeding!

-Tom

 

Very interesting, WVH! I can't believe you've actually done it. Cool.

I am not sure if distilling alcohol is illegal in the US. If it is, I doubt it would be enforced. Kind of like a relic from the olden days of bootleggers and moonshine or something.

Plus, nobody would ever know you were doing it.

I'd do it.

 

You can do it if you get the revenuers to approve it. Otherwise you have to keep moving your still and even that won't save you since now they can find you with infra-red detection devices.

http://www.soc.umn.edu/~samaha/bill_of_rights/case materials/miller/miller_background.pdf

 

I think it is an easy process to get a still license to make fuel ethanol, as an "experimental still". If it was for resale for human consumption, than there is all kinds of regulations, fees, taxes and inspections required.

ethanol has about half the amount of energy per gallon as gasoline, and in my old small Toytoa I get about 30 mpg, which means I need about 500 gallons per year of gasoline. For ethanol it would be almost double that, so how many acres of corn would I need to power my Toyota for a year? And my for my wife, and daughter who commutes to collage every day?

sounds like I would need about 40 tons of corn, not counting the amount of work it would be to harvest, ferment and distill it (nor the investment). what is 40 tons of corn worth on the market?

Ethnol costs about twice as much to produce as gasoline, and it puts out more pollution.

 

CB
It's not rocket science!

I even had an old fresnel lense (can imagine using many) I mounted in the top to help out.


Technically it's illegal here to make moonshine but unless you're selling it and someone complains they don't care.
At worst they'll take your still... in my case was about $50 worth of stuff.

 

Yeah, but you keep forgetting.... we're not talking about using it to commute to your office every day. Jeez. It's a way to use a gasoline engine if the fuel supply were to be cut off, just like a bio diesel brewer would. I have to repeat myself again, because you're still making this argument against ethanol, when nobody is proposing you drive your fuel hungry car with it. We're talking about running small engines here... post apocalypse style.

BTW: Ethanol costs nothing to produce other than the still and some yeast. You can use a lot of different natural plants for that if you are in a post apocalyptic world. It doesn't cost "twice as much" if there are no refineries online. Make it from plants.

 

I think it's cool that you know all of this!

Being from the state in the north that has all the same values as the south, I like it!!

 

....I thought petros worked on engine testing,then he must know about what happens when an engine's compression is raised to 14:1 and alcohol is run in it.

 

ya ethanol is a terrible fuel if for no other reason than its so wasteful to produce. If its corn they made it out of then one tank of fuel take as much corn to produce as would feed a man or one year. basically two bushels of corn go into one full tank of fuel.

 

So why use corn?

And... why would I buy a diesel engine in the post apocalyptic world when I can power a gasoline one I already own for free?

 

I don't think you can make one tank of fuel with only 2 bushels of corn, not even if it is cut to 100 proof.