Posted on 02/01/2011 9:14:11 PM PST by Rabin
"Two hundred years ago, this was prairie covered with six-foot-high switchgrass. Winnebago Indians lived here, and then white settlers … Now 50 wind turbines that were erected over the winter and the (VeraSun) ethanol plant, have brought new energy to a town that long lived off the ground God created with glaciers, and laid down here."
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
the borg
The thing that is screwy about this ethanol crap is, it makes us more dependent on oil. It does nothing positive about CO 2 emissions, and lowers our fuel mileage. It is a lose, lose, lose, lose and lose situation....figuring in the high volumes of water needed.
Cars don’t run on POPCORN!
Unintended consequences????? Nope! The EnviroCommies have hoodwinked the useful idiots again. It all fits nicely with their other moves to put domestic oil off limits. They complain about importing oil but that is the only alternative they leave us.
Our best hope is the illegals from south of the border complaining about the rising cost of tacos. The Democrats don’t want to lose them!
Casteau tested a boat with a vertical stack rather than sails, wind from any direction would enter the stack and turn a turbine which supplied power to the engine. It seems an improved varition of this design would be preferable to windmills.
What’s so irrational about burning your food? The Left doesn’t think so!
However these guys are on to something.
Using it as a supplemental fuel ( 5 % ) via direct injection to Increase Octane Ratings to 150 range. It allows you to turbocharge the snaught out of an engine and could make a V6 act like a diesel it has so much torque. That is a game changer. Smaller engines, less weight, it is a positive vortex at that point, everything gets better. IMHO they are dovetailing off ADI used by our Fighter Aircraft in WWII, now with computer chip control and direct injection instead of in the carburetor airstream.
But...
1.) No one has adopted it yet.
2.) No national will to embrace it
3.) If we did, could we derive the Ethanol from Waste ( of all different sources ) rather than using Corn. That is the Million dollar question in itself.
There is one large fallacy in much of the posting. Corn is not limited. Corn can be produced in an unlimited manner and so can wheat.
A drive through much of the south is through limitless acres of new forest that was once cleared and farmed. If corn production and wheat production become a problem, the land can be cleared and in production in very short order.
Corn, wheat, etc. need some kind of supplementary support if they are to be farmed, not just gathered. Farming corn eats into other resources some of which aren’t as unlimited. The question to ask is whether those resources are most wisely directed in the present manner.
Ethanol’s own octane number is 129 by the most optimistic measure (research octane) and this stuff about just a little bit of it, however fancily introduced, being able to boost a gasoline to 150 sounds like so much snake oil on the surface. To quote Scotty, “You canna’ change the laws of physics!”
Biowaste derived fuels are a fascinating topic, but so far it seems that such a process would need far more pure water than the world’s known resources can supply if it were to push petroleum out of contention as a fuel. Now if a microbe could be made that would do the job with seawater, the picture would change. I’d also hate to see that germ ever get loose into the oceans because it would rot all comers.
I know...
Read this book....
When we injected ADI, ( Water and Alcohol ) if my memory is correct it boosted the then aviation high octane of 145ish up into the 180 range in WWII. It has the effect of cooling the charge. By doing it directly into the cylinder my guess is they are taking advantage of the phase state change from a liquid to a (vapor) liquid that it reduces the temp in the chamber.
Agree with the Bio-fuel angle....
Water has a much greater heat (not talking about temperature, but heat) of vaporization than do the alcohols, if my dusty memory of college chemistry and engineering thermodynamics serves. Also it does not act as a fuel — the idea of the water is to get more work out of the charge in the cylinder. Still it would be funky to have a little bottle under the hood of a car which needs to be refilled with alcohol, pure water, or unicorn sweat to keep the engine working properly.
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