Posted on 07/30/2006 10:04:42 PM PDT by GeronL
This week we’re going to refine the argument for natural gas as a comprehensive solution to high energy prices, energy pollution, and energy dependence upon foreign producers outlined in What Bush Can Do To Get Cheaper Gas. To summarize: the solution is for Bush to allow oil & gas companies to extract the vast amounts of NG we have within American boundaries, cut state residents in on the royalties, provide tax credits for folks to run NG in their cars, and before his presidency is over the equivalent cost of driving a car will be less than $1 a gallon.Now for the refinement — of the argument, not NG, which unlike crude oil requires no refining. Seen those full page newspaper ads placed by Chevron trying to frighten you with the claim that the US only has three measly percent of the world’s natural gas supply? Whatever the Chevron’s agenda is, it’s not about telling you the truth.
The SEC makes it a federal felony for an energy company to claim gas reserves as assets if they’re not determined by obsolete technology, i.e., you have to drill a hole. Modern 3D seismic methods get a far better picture of an NG reservoir — but since you don't have to drill a hole, whatever reserves are found by 3DS, the SEC won’t allow it.
The government screws things up more — much more — by not allowing gas exploration companies to survey the offshore continental shelf of over 90 per cent of the US coastline excluding Alaska. They can survey along the coasts of Texas and Louisiana — but not Washington, Oregon, California, Alabama, Mississippi, Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas, Virginia, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, and New England.
There’s likely as much gas off the mouth of the Columbia River as the Mississippi, possibly the same with Chesapeake Bay and the Hudson River. The gas companies know there are fantastic amounts of gas off California, Florida, and much of the eastern seaboard — but the government won’t let them have it.
Gas exploration is not allowed on much of federal land — and one third of the US is owned by the Feds. On what little land they can explore, with 3DS they are discovering huge amounts in “low-permeability reservoirs” — some 460 tcf (trillion cubic feet), tripling alone current US gas reserves.
Put this all together and you have US gas reserves ten to twenty times as greater as the 150 tcf or “3 percent” of world reserves. This is enough to last the US for decades to come, even if we double or triple NG use (which we will with the Natural Gas Solution — the US currently uses some 22 tcf a year).
It's also enough to provide a lot of mailbox money for residents of states producing NG on federal land or offshore. A one-third cut of all federal royalties will overcome state residents' NIMBY (not-in-my-backyard) objections (1/3 to Feds, 1/3 to states/ 1/3 to state residents).
What NG we produce, we consume. Crude oil is different. However much more we produce, it will bid for by the world market, such as China and India, because oil is cheaply shipped by ocean tanker. (Japan buys a lot of our Alaska oil, for example).
NG has to liquefied to be shipped over oceans, a costly and dangerous procedure. The only cost-effective way to transport NG is by pipeline. NG extracted offshore just needs a few miles of pipe laid on fairly level ocean floor to hook it up to the existing pipeline network in any US coastal state. Neither the Chinese nor Indians nor other global folks will bid against it. NG is the way to achieve American energy independence.
And do so as an environmentalist’s dream, for NG burns so cleanly, reducing both CO2 emissions and air pollution. That’s because NG is 80 percent hydrogen. There are 4 atoms of hydrogen for every one atom of carbon in NG. There are only 2 atoms of hydrogen for every one atom of carbon in regular gas. Thus NG emits much less carbon in the atmosphere.
There’s a lot of futuristic talk about the “hydrogen economy,” hydrogen as an ultimate energy source. Given the same size/weight of the pressure tank, NG delivers far more energy than hydrogen: 16 pounds of NG take up the same space as 2 pounds of hydrogen. Your car's trunk isn’t big enough to handle a hydrogen tank capable of driving a few hundred miles — but it can do so with an NG tank.
What really nixes hydrogen is a feature called “embrittlement.” Hydrogen atoms ooze their way into grains of steel and make it as brittle as glass. So you need special high-nickel steel pressure tanks and pipelines. You can’t transport hydrogen in existing NG pipelines — you’d have to build an impossibly costly additional pipeline system, or lug it in special trucks and railroad tank cars like ethanol.
Which brings me to the ludicrous rip-off of ethanol. Ethanol is carcinogenic (cancer-producing). It releases known carcinogens into the atmosphere: acetyl-eldehyde, and peroxy-acetyl-nitrate/nitrite/nitrile, three powerful eye and lung irritants.
Ethanol has only 2/3 the energy of regular gas, so you get 1/3 less energy per gallon, which means it adds 33 percent to the gas-per-mile cost of driving. But there’s also the cost of ethanol transport, which is by truckload or railroad, much higher than by oil pipeline (which ethanol can’t use because it can’t handle any water seepage like oil can).
The argument that ethanol reduces emissions is a fraud. With a modern car engine’s oxygen sensors and computer-controlled fuel injection, there’s no difference in CO (carbon monoxide) coming out your tailpipe with regular gas or ethanol.
(Ever see the 1960s anti-war movie On The Beach? Remember when Fred Astaire kills himself by breathing the fumes of his prized sports car in his closed garage? A modern car doesn't emit enough CO for this to work anymore.)
The reason I’m discussing the ethanol fraud is that Archer-Daniels-Midland and the corn farmer lobby will go nuts in objecting to the Natural Gas Solution. Hell hath no fury than folks threatened with the elimination of their government subsidy. The question to ask the corn farmers is: if ethanol is so great, how come you don’t run your tractors with it and use (far more economical) diesel instead?
Wonder, it's not leaking methanol past the rings, it's the effect from the high latent heat of evaporation of the methanol lowering the temperature of the engine below the dew point of the air being pulled into the intake port, thus condensing water inside the engine WHILE IT RUNS!
"Some" components? There is NOT A SINGLE manufacturer of electronic fuel injectors on the face of the planet who will warranty ANY of their products for constant contact with methanol. I'm looking forward to seeing your design.
Compression ratio can be increased to the neighborhood of 14:1 with streetable camshaft grinds in normally aspirated engines, but normally aspirated engines cannot take full advantage of the latent heat of evaporation of methanol. However, super/turbocharged engines can operate reliably with compressions of 10:1 and intake pressures of 20+psi gauge without aftercooling the inlet compressor system. That sounds good too, but not many people want to live with such a device for daily transportation, and even fewer could control it.
Actually, no.
Studies have been done where they've crashed cars with ful CNG tanks. Practically the only thing that survived WAS the tanks, and there were NO explosions.
The company I work for bought over 30 CNG passenger vans. We wouldn't have done it if they were unsafe.
Easy there dude, I might take offense at your unprovoked display of rude ignorance.
I'll make it simple for you, trying to use short words.
Alcohol has a certain percentage of carbon molecules per volume.
Gasoline has a higher concentration of carbon molecules for the same volume.
When Alcohol is catalyzed the percentage of carbon molecules is increased dramatically, yielding a percentage of carbon molecules virtually identical to gasoline. So, the carbon molecules are CONCENTRATED.
Byproducts are water and small amounts of propane.
The process has been known for several years, but there appears to be zero interest in developing it.
Our Gov. Org. and Industry are much more interested in our being forced to burn the alcohol directly than in creating another source of gasoline that does not obsolete many existing vehicles.
And the carburetor that was supposed to have been "kept off the market by the big three" was the POGUE.
It's so well hidden you can view the drawings at the patent office, it did not work all that well. Modern F.I. surpasses any carburetor if designed for power and economy instead of being compromised for "emissions control".
If this is still too hard for you to understand I suggest you consult a "Big Book" dictionary, or your third grade teacher.
Peer reviewed scientific studies of the problem say differently. Who am I gonna believe, somenone who talks about brewing beer, or a group of engineers??
"Second of all, fuel cells don't create MORE energy than is put into them as a fuel. One device on the planet does that, and it is called a Fast Breeder Nuclear Reactor which is not within the scope of your question. The only advantages fuel cells have over regular old hydrogen tanks are; they weigh much less, can take multiple fuel types for inputs, and are much less likely to make so big of a boom when some soccer mom who hates to drive pilots her minivan into you at an intersection.
The advantage fuel cells have is that they are TWICE AS EFFICIENT in their conversion of fuel to motive force compared to gasoline engines.
"I run my alcohol motors at 210 degrees F water temperature and do not use an oil cooler, yet I have drained enough "jamocha-shake" oil over time to float the QE2, have seen a pile of $150 each connecting rods rusted all over like junk sitting in the weather for years while they were six months old, have had to pull all the spark plugs out and ratchet engines over when they hydraulically locked due to condensed water collecting in the cylinders between hot laps and the heat race, have had many throttles lock wide open due to carburetor icing....top cylinder lubrication problems....40% of the fuel efficiency (hp/lb-hr terms)...I'm through telling my life's story.
See the bold for why you have problems. Car engines run just a bit hotter than 210 deg. F.
"If you knew ANYTHING about Thermodynamics, had a grasp of what BTU/lb content of a fuel does to fuel mileage, or understood the concept of "Latent Heat of Evaporation", you wouldn't ask such things."
PhD--Chemistry. So I understand thermodynamics and "latent heat of vaporization" VERY well.
"If you can tell me how you cold start your methanol fueled daily driver and how you keep the aluminum and steel in the fuel and induction system from producing stalagmite/stalagtite/swiss cheese type corrosion due to constant contact with methanol and its vapors.
By running the engine at a higher temperature than 210 degrees (and long enough for the engine oil to get hotter than that, as well. Methanol (actually the water, because, as I said, methanol is less corrosive than methanol) won't cause corrosion if it is vaporized away.
"I don't guess you want to know the difference between nitromethane and nitropropane, what a light touch of amyl nitrate does to both fuels, or why one shouldn't cook the water off a 20% solution of hydrazine using the kitchen stove while having a beer.
See above comment about my degree in chemistry. I suspect I understand the above better than you do.
If it's getting into the oil (as you say previously), then it's leaking past the rings. That's the only route by which it can get there. I'd like to know exactly what kind of engine you purport to be running--it certainly doesn't sound like a car engine.
""Some" components? There is NOT A SINGLE manufacturer of electronic fuel injectors on the face of the planet who will warranty ANY of their products for constant contact with methanol. I'm looking forward to seeing your design.
I was referring to carbureted engines. All the past experimental work on methanol engines has used those. CERTAINLY in a fuel-injected engine, the injectors would have to be specifically designed for methanol contact--a relatively trivial task. Methanol is NOT hydrochloric acid.
Let's do it.
As an observer, it seems you are in agreement on more things that not. I would guess 308MBR is spending his Sundays at the local drag strip running alcohol in a big block V-8 gas motor. Everything he describes is consistent with my experience doing that. Water in the oil, rusted engine parts, top end lubrication problems - generally water everywhere it shouldn't be. Looks like Wonder is relating engineering knowledge/experience on new technologies which make burning alcohol more practical. Because, as 308MBR says, we darn sure don't want granny heading to Wal-Mart with more than our god given 14 pounds of intake pressure.
The conclusion seems to be, that what it takes to get a motor to run alcohol with what we have to work with at the track today makes it impractical as a daily driver fuel. The remaining question is, is there technology on the drawing boards that would make it practical? I am not sold on these flex fuel cars. What will the engine life be? Passenger cars run at 210 or so degrees water temp. Passenger cars go on 1/2 mile trips to Wal-Mart. Where is that unvaporized water going to go?
bttt
Yeah, I came to a similar conclusion after posting my comments. What I should have more correctly said was that it certainly didn't sound like any NORMAL car engine conditions.
A dragster engine has HUGE temperature gradients everywhere, causing water (and methanol) to condense in lots of places and cause corrosion. A NORMAL car engine comes up to temperature slowly, and the temp gradients aren't anywhere near as bad.
As long as the methanol stays in the vapor phase, it isn't going to corrode anything (boiling point of methanol = 65 deg C). Some small amount may condense on engine shutdown, but I doubt it would be enough to cause any significant damage.
I remember when gasahol (Methanol/gas blend) first came out, car enthusiasts all decried the long term effects; corrosion, oil wash off the cylinder, water in the oil, etc. The only negative effects I have ever seen conclusively tied to gasahol was damage to two stroke engines, in particular, higher performance 2 strokers.
Would you anticipate any decrease in 4 stroke passenger car engine wear from running E-85? Based on my experience running alcohol in racers, I am skeptical. In particular, very short runs, short stop, short run - like a soccer mom going from one strip mall to the next running errands.
Overall, yes--because it will run significantly cleaner. Short runs, no. But then, short runs are problematic even for gasoline engines (i.e. they absolutely maximize wear). The oil doesn't warm up enough to drive off the water that condenses (from the combustion of gasoline).
The reason I like a "methanol economy" is that methanol can be produced very easily from our huge stocks of coal as well as ANY carbonaceous waste (garbage, ag byproducts, etc., etc.) and is a stable liquid fuel that can be phased into our existing transmission infrastructure.
I also like the idea of diesel, provided they can get the NOx emissions issue resolved. I have read about microbes eating algae and producing an oil as a waste product. A diesel fuel can be readily made from virtually any oil provided a little methanol and lye. I also like the idea of such a widely variable and easily tunable power band you can get from a turbo diesel. You can switch from MPG to MPH mode without shutting the engine off.
I think you must mean BIO-diesel here. I wasn't aware that there was a problem with NOx emissions for diesels--I thought their problem was "particulates" and a lack of "low-sulfur" diesel fuel to run the newest engines (which bio-diesel certainly fixes).
But it'll take something like that "algae" process to provide ENOUGH "bio-oil" to make a dent in US fuel needs--soybeans just ain't gonna cut it.
I wonder if a diesel engine could be run on methanol???
I don't think so. Methanol has very high octane rating, 140-150. Diesel fuel has a cetane rating. Octane ratings refer to the slowing or controlling of the burning of gasoline. Cetane ratings refer only to the ease or speed of the ignition of diesel fuel. High cetane numbers mean that the fuel will ignite with relative ease or that it ignites well at low temperatures. Diesel = fast burn. Methanol = slow burn.
It appears to be "difficult but not impossible" to use the alcohols, with a bit of added human ingenuity:
http://www.saeindia.org/Home/alcoholindieselengines.html
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m3165/is_n9_v27/ai_11320815
Interesting. Looks like the alcohol is vaporized and compressed with the air charge and just a little diesel is injected after compression to begin the combustion. Many performance diesel engines today inject water, water/alcohol, propane or nitrous in the intake manifold as a means of supercharging the air with oxygen and other combustibles. This is done so you can burn more diesel and generate more power with lower exhaust temps. Whereas the article you linked is looking to achieve economy.
The first diesel farm tractors were hybrids as well. You started the engine on gas and then switched it to diesel after it was running and warmed up on gas. It did not burn the fuels together though. The reason they did this was because they did not have an electrical systems that could crank start a diesel due to the high compression ratios.
Yup. "Next-door-neighbor" farm had a bulldozer of that sort. Start it up on gas, quickly switch two levers, and run on diesel. The "boom" on switchover was always fun.
Yeah well, that's a bug we're talking about.
I miss my old bug. I used to be able to fix anything with a paper clip and string, without even shutting it off. Brilliant car, if only it had A/C.
I dropped the engine one time with a wrench and a floor jack, in about 20 minutes. (Had to change the clutch.) It took me almost 3 days to do the same with a Ford van, using hand tools.
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