Re: More Infor on BioDiesel

|That's it!
|
|We should eat beans and capture it for our countries!
|
|Splendid idea, instead of taking a bubble bath with my reserve of methane
|from eating beans tonight. I shall go to the convenience store, get a bottle
|of soda, and harness both the anal and upper G.I. methanes and ship it to
|whomever it may help.
|
|Refinish King

One of the complaints that the Greens had about cows was that
they produce too much methane. How can we harness this?

In article <[email protected]>, austin@ddol-
las.fsnet.co.uk says...
> Subject: Re: More Infor on BioDiesel
> From: Austin Shackles <[email protected]>
> Newsgroups: misc.survivalism, alt.fan.landrover, rec.autos.4x4, uk.rec.cars.4x4
>
> On or around Sun, 16 May 2004 11:08:40 -0300, Chris Phillipo
> <[email protected]> enlightened us thusly:
>
> >Wind farms in the ocean, tidal force hydroelectric, and geo thermal are
> >all more economically viable. Hawaii has the potential to be the USA's
> >new Texas. Of course the Texan's that run the goverment won't let that
> >happen in your lifetime.
>
> Tidal power has a lot of potential but there are relatively few sites where
> it can easily be exploited. geothermal is very good in places like Iceland
> where it's easily tapped. NZ is another such, as well as Hawaii as you say.
>
> however, the people doing the research I quoted address other possibilities
> like wind power, and conclude that you'd need a couple of decent-sized
> states covered in windmills.
>


The key is and always has been to diversify, use all these methods where
they are appropriate. Right now the major investors in these technoligy
are the members of OPEC, they see the future and the USA will be screwed
once again.
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Remove "X" from email address to reply.

Chris Phillipo wrote:
>
> In article <[email protected]>, austin@ddol-
> las.fsnet.co.uk says...
> > Subject: Re: More Infor on BioDiesel
> > From: Austin Shackles <[email protected]>
> > Newsgroups: misc.survivalism, alt.fan.landrover, rec.autos.4x4, uk.rec.cars.4x4
> >
> > On or around Sun, 16 May 2004 11:08:40 -0300, Chris Phillipo
> > <[email protected]> enlightened us thusly:
> >
> > >Wind farms in the ocean, tidal force hydroelectric, and geo thermal are
> > >all more economically viable. Hawaii has the potential to be the USA's
> > >new Texas. Of course the Texan's that run the goverment won't let that
> > >happen in your lifetime.
> >
> > Tidal power has a lot of potential but there are relatively few sites where
> > it can easily be exploited. geothermal is very good in places like Iceland
> > where it's easily tapped. NZ is another such, as well as Hawaii as you say.
> >
> > however, the people doing the research I quoted address other possibilities
> > like wind power, and conclude that you'd need a couple of decent-sized
> > states covered in windmills.
> >
>
> The key is and always has been to diversify, use all these methods where
> they are appropriate. Right now the major investors in these technoligy
> are the members of OPEC, they see the future and the USA will be screwed
> once again.
>

Another interesting fact is that as of the year 2004 80% of the mineral
rights to minerals under the United States. Mineral rights also include
petroleum deposits as well as coal. The United States has the largest
total of BTU's of fossil fuel on the planet earth. Most of it is in
coal, oil shales, and tar sands. In fact I read somewhere that the
United States has something like 38% of the world know deposits of
fossil fuel deposits.

Another place that could be exploited for Geo Thermal energy is Yellow
Stone National Park. Magma is only 5000 feet under the surface. 5000
feet is nothing to drill these days. Drill down to the magma (it is not
under pressure at this time as it would have broken through to the
surface) pipe down water and pipe back up steam to run through your
turbines.

Of course the tree huggers will never let that happen.

The Independent

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In article <[email protected]>, R. David
Steele <[email protected]/OMEGA> wrote:

> |> >But you are certainly right about "bio-diesel" not being a reasonable
> |> >substitute
> |> >for petroleum. It's a laughable idea: The fellow here who offered the
> |> >idea is
> |> >not real fond of arithmetic or careful research. He just skims a couple of
> |> >web pages and goes off the deep end...
> |>
> |I'm have not and have never said bio-diesel would replace petroleum oil
> |derived diesel fuel. We use 178 trillion gallons of petroleum products
> |per year in the United States today. The most we can hope to replace
> |with Bio-diesel under the most favorable conditions is about 2 to 5%.
> |
> |May be with a crash program that would convert a large part of our
> |agricultural lands to the output ot bio diesel and ethanol we might make
> |it up to 10%. However that 10% would go a long way to wipe out our
> |balance of payments debt.

First off, the "balance of payments debt" is one of those silly
fictions. _Specific_ companies buy _specific_ shipments of crude or
refined oil: they don't incur any long-term debt.

Second, it's a fiction anyway.


>
> By law (2003 Ag bill) we are now required to have 20% of our
> diesel supply in the US be soy diesel.

Another one of those silly, uneforceable (watch) laws. Unless the U.S.
government sets up its own soy diesel company and undercuts the normal
diesel market, people will buy what is available and cheapest.

Governments can't issue edicts to markets and actually enforce such
edicts.

But Bush probably thinks he can. This is what comes of getting a
"gentleman's C" at Yale in his economics class.


--Tim May

In article <[email protected]>, R. David
Steele <[email protected]/OMEGA> wrote:

> |>If it does come to that sort of situation , you may do well to look at
> |>powering a perol power genset from woodgas .
> |>Not a whole comunity as alan carries on about , but a small producer unit
> |>big enought to run a small engine.
> |>They burn anything that will burn , literaly , coal ,wood ,old tyres ...
> |>if things get realy desperate , it may not always be real easy to locate
> |>vege oil or fat to turn into bio- diesel , but we always got crap laying
> |>around what will burn...
> |
> |Some things running on anything that will burn...
> |
> |http://highforest.tripod.com/woodgas/woodfired.html
> |http://www.pritchardpower.com/
> |http://www.trainweb.org/tusp/
>
> Would point out that ethanol is not an efficient fuel. It takes
> as much energy to produce it as it gives back. Bio diesel is
> more energy effective. Steam even more so. Water power is the
> best, if you have a source.

You are conflating energy storage (ethanol, for example) with energy
production (hydropower, for example). And if by steam you mean energy
production, this is available in literally only a few hot spots in the
world, including Iceland, parts of Northern California (Geysers, CA),
etc. If by steam you mean steam-powered vehicles, this is
doubly-conflating, as the steam does not _power_ a vehicle, nor is it a
_storage_ mechanism...rather, steam is only the _working_ energy
transfer method.

And hydropower has enormous environmental costs, which even the
greenheads are starting to understand. Far greater costs than, say,
nuclear power. For starters, damming of rivers disrupts fisheries, even
affecting ocean ecologies. Also, the cycle of river cleaning, marsh
cleaning, etc. is affected. The Aswan High Dam is a good example of
this disruption. An even greater disruption has been the Three Rivers
Dam in China, a train wreck in the making.

This whole thread is filled with so much bad physics, bad economics,
and bad engineering that it's laughable.


--Tim May

On Sun, 16 May 2004 10:52:09 -0300, Chris Phillipo <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>
> In article <1gduh08.smo931ullc5lN%%steve%@malloc.co.uk>, %steve%
> @malloc.co.uk says...
>> Chris Phillipo <[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>> > Sorry chucklehead but you argument doens't fly. There's nothing more
>> > environmentally friendly about burning home brewed fuel in a home
>> > modified car.
>>
>> <sigh> Of course not. Much better to burn the fuel in a power station at
>> 45% efficiency then transport it long distances on overhead pwoerline
>> losign another 10% or so then to turn it into hydrogen using an
>> inefficient and polluting process.
>>
>> Do dweebs like you ever engage their brains?
>>
>>
>
> You just don't get it do you? Do you work for big oil or something?
> Why in hell would you do that when you can produce hydrogen locally from
> renewable sources.

What renewable resources are those? You can run electricity through fresh or
salt water (the latter limiting you to the coasts, and the former being in short
supply everwhere) but first you have to generate the electricity....

Make more sense to use the electricity directly.
Or you can run super-heated steam over red-hot carbon, which takes water and
carbon and fuel to heat both.

Be much more efficient to use the carbon source (coal/oil/wood) directly.

"Renewable resources" are only renewable if used responsibly. Trees are a
"renewable resource", but at the rate you are going, there won't be any
left in 50 years...


AC

--
"The greatest fine art of the future will be the making of a
comfortable living from a small piece of land." -Abraham Lincoln

"R. David Steele" wrote:
>
> |>If it does come to that sort of situation , you may do well to look at
> |>powering a perol power genset from woodgas .
> |>Not a whole comunity as alan carries on about , but a small producer unit
> |>big enought to run a small engine.
> |>They burn anything that will burn , literaly , coal ,wood ,old tyres ...
> |>if things get realy desperate , it may not always be real easy to locate
> |>vege oil or fat to turn into bio- diesel , but we always got crap laying
> |>around what will burn...
> |
> |Some things running on anything that will burn...
> |
> |http://highforest.tripod.com/woodgas/woodfired.html
> |http://www.pritchardpower.com/
> |http://www.trainweb.org/tusp/
>
> Would point out that ethanol is not an efficient fuel. It takes
> as much energy to produce it as it gives back. Bio diesel is
> more energy effective. Steam even more so. Water power is the
> best, if you have a source.

You are probably right about the energy to produce ethanol but if you
use the sludge from the fermenting process, (put it through a oil press,
(They work pretty neat for this application too)), the sludge will come
out as a solid round cake like rod that can be broken up in to pellets,
then dryad and then fed into the still as fuel.
I have a pelletizer for converting alfalfa into feed pellets and it
looks like it works on the same principal as a oil press, except their
is no strainer and the water/oil removing chamber has much larger holes.

Remember the conversion factor for potatoes to alcohol is only 20% so
you 80% of the original spud left. This can be used as fuel or for
cattle feed.

I suspect that the commercial ethanol manufactures that use corn (big
thing in Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois) first press the corn to remove
the oil and syrups. Remove the corn oil from the liquid, wash out the
sweeteners, and then ferment the starch into ethanol which is distilled
out. Then what remains is used as cattle feed. So the economics are
not just from ethanol but from corn syrup, Corn Oil, ethanol, and cattle
feed.

Back on the farm we used to go to the Sugar beet processing plant and by
sugar beet pulp, (stuff left over after the sugar has been processed
out) for cattle feed. The stuff stank like high heaven but the dammed
cows had an orgasm over it.

The Independent

|> |>If it does come to that sort of situation , you may do well to look at
|> |>powering a perol power genset from woodgas .
|> |>Not a whole comunity as alan carries on about , but a small producer unit
|> |>big enought to run a small engine.
|> |>They burn anything that will burn , literaly , coal ,wood ,old tyres ...
|> |>if things get realy desperate , it may not always be real easy to locate
|> |>vege oil or fat to turn into bio- diesel , but we always got crap laying
|> |>around what will burn...
|> |
|> |Some things running on anything that will burn...
|> |
|> |http://highforest.tripod.com/woodgas/woodfired.html
|> |http://www.pritchardpower.com/
|> |http://www.trainweb.org/tusp/
|>
|> Would point out that ethanol is not an efficient fuel. It takes
|> as much energy to produce it as it gives back. Bio diesel is
|> more energy effective. Steam even more so. Water power is the
|> best, if you have a source.
|
|You are probably right about the energy to produce ethanol but if you
|use the sludge from the fermenting process, (put it through a oil press,
|(They work pretty neat for this application too)), the sludge will come
|out as a solid round cake like rod that can be broken up in to pellets,
|then dryad and then fed into the still as fuel.
|I have a pelletizer for converting alfalfa into feed pellets and it
|looks like it works on the same principal as a oil press, except their
|is no strainer and the water/oil removing chamber has much larger holes.
|
|Remember the conversion factor for potatoes to alcohol is only 20% so
|you 80% of the original spud left. This can be used as fuel or for
|cattle feed.
|
|I suspect that the commercial ethanol manufactures that use corn (big
|thing in Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois) first press the corn to remove
|the oil and syrups. Remove the corn oil from the liquid, wash out the
|sweeteners, and then ferment the starch into ethanol which is distilled
|out. Then what remains is used as cattle feed. So the economics are
|not just from ethanol but from corn syrup, Corn Oil, ethanol, and cattle
|feed.
|
|Back on the farm we used to go to the Sugar beet processing plant and by
|sugar beet pulp, (stuff left over after the sugar has been processed
|out) for cattle feed. The stuff stank like high heaven but the dammed
|cows had an orgasm over it.
|
|The Independent

By steam, I mean a small boiler on your property that runs a
piston or two thus powering a generator of about 20 KW. Enough
to power a typical house. Could be wood fired or fueled by
whatever.

As for hydro, I am thinking of a small stream, much like we used
to see for powering grist mills. There are catalogs out for
people who want to run their own generators off of a local
stream. You just divert a little off (if you have a steep enough
drop) so that you can power your generator.

Again this was not for large scale but for local usage.

|> |I'm have not and have never said bio-diesel would replace petroleum oil
|> |derived diesel fuel. We use 178 trillion gallons of petroleum products
|> |per year in the United States today. The most we can hope to replace
|> |with Bio-diesel under the most favorable conditions is about 2 to 5%.
|> |
|> |May be with a crash program that would convert a large part of our
|> |agricultural lands to the output ot bio diesel and ethanol we might make
|> |it up to 10%. However that 10% would go a long way to wipe out our
|> |balance of payments debt.
|
|First off, the "balance of payments debt" is one of those silly
|fictions. _Specific_ companies buy _specific_ shipments of crude or
|refined oil: they don't incur any long-term debt.
|
|Second, it's a fiction anyway.
|
|
|>
|> By law (2003 Ag bill) we are now required to have 20% of our
|> diesel supply in the US be soy diesel.
|
|Another one of those silly, uneforceable (watch) laws. Unless the U.S.
|government sets up its own soy diesel company and undercuts the normal
|diesel market, people will buy what is available and cheapest.
|
|Governments can't issue edicts to markets and actually enforce such
|edicts.
|
|But Bush probably thinks he can. This is what comes of getting a
|"gentleman's C" at Yale in his economics class.

Soy producers want it. I have family members on the soy board.
They were the ones who turned me on to diesel cars! The soy
producers want the protection of the government so that they can
create new markets. The law is doing that.

Chris Phillipo <[email protected]> wrote in message news:<[email protected]>...

> Wind farms in the ocean, tidal force hydroelectric, and geo thermal are
> all more economically viable. Hawaii has the potential to be the USA's
> new Texas. Of course the Texan's that run the goverment won't let that
> happen in your lifetime.

How do you get the power to the user?

Run the numbers. It won't work.

Roughly 5/16/04 04:37, Steve Firth's monkeys randomly typed:


> However none of the "we can make huydrogen by electrolysis" nuts ever
> addresses the problems. The inefficiency and the potential for pollution
> in the form of chlorine and hydroxide. Neither of them trivial
> byproducts.
>

Plus unless you use the hydrogen in a fuel cell, you still get
nitrogen-oxygen compounds... e.g. from burning hydrogen in
ordinary air.

--
Me human. You Computer. Me have BFH. You have fragile parts. You behave.

"R. David Steele" wrote:
>
> < I snipped it because I wrote it<
>
> By law (2003 Ag bill) we are now required to have 20% of our
> diesel supply in the US be soy diesel.
> |


I don't really see how that is possible because according to the
tables at journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_yield.html the yield of oil
from soy beans is 48 gallons an acre.

According to the US Department of Energy the United States
http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/...y_annual/psa_volume1/current/pdf/table_03.pdf

consumed 4.430 million barrels a day of Diesel fuel in 2002. Lets assume
that half of the 4.420 million barrels were for heating fuel that leaves
2.21 million barrels a day for transport diesel fuel.

So a barrel of oil is 42 gallons
so now we have 9.28 million gallons a day of Diesel fuel used in 2002

So 9.28 million * 365 is 33.879 billion gallons of diesel fuel
at 20% we would have to produce 6.7775 billion gallons of biodiesel

(Still working with 2002 stats)
At 48 gallons an acre of soy oil we would have to allocate 141.163
million acres to the cultivation of Soy Beans
That would be 220,568 sq miles to soy beans.
That is a plot of land 469.6 miles by 469.6 miles which ain't going to
happen.

Now if we included bio diesel from other sources like rape seed which
has much higher oil output per acre we could just possible do it.


BTW the web site http://www.eia.doe.gov/fueloverview.html
Has all kinds of information about energy issues

The Independent


> |> in what way? are you saying it's not viable due to the number involved?
> |> 'cos if so, I expect you're right. Technically, it can be done - you can
> |> also do ethanol for spark-ignition engines.
> |>
> |> however, we *will* deplete the oil supply if we carry on as we are, so we
> |> need some sort of alternative. And the much in-vogue hydrogen is a long way
> |> from practical too.
> |>
> |
> |The main purpose for my comments on bio-diesel is to run a diesel gen
> |set and to make fuel for my C-120 in the case of a major disruption of
> |resource markets by war, or economic depression.
>
> What you might think of is how to run a generator on steam. It
> is not that hard to build a good steam engine that would power a
> small generator (under 20KW).

Chris Phillipo <[email protected]> wrote:

> You just don't get it do you? Do you work for big oil or something?
> Why in hell would you do that when you can produce hydrogen locally from
> renewable sources.

Which renewable resources? Biodiesel?

Or do you mean your clever plan to have 6 billion people move to
Iceland?

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Chris Phillipo <[email protected]> wrote:

> In article <1gduj4q.1lgp2xrypppcdN%%steve%@malloc.co.uk>, %steve%
> @malloc.co.uk says...
> > Chris Phillipo <[email protected]> wrote:
> >
> > > > and where, pray, do you get the electricity?
> > > >
> > >
> > > Well in iceland they get it from geothermal and produce hydrogen right
> > > at the gas station.
> >
> > Right, so all 6 billion of us should live in Iceland right?
> >
> >
>
> Why? 6 billion of us don't live in Saudi Arabia do they?

So you reckon that either (a) Iceland has enough geothermal to supply
six billion peoipel with hydrogen (unlikely) or (b) we have enough
geothermal to generate that hydrogen locally.

Guess what dullard, wrong on both counts.

Six billion of us moving to Iceland is probably more feasible.

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Chris Phillipo <[email protected]> wrote:

> There is no fossil fuels invovled in GEOTHERMAL ENERY.

There are (sic) no (significant) geothermal energy available in most
coutnries in the world.

> Iceland is moving towards a 100% hydrogen powered society and will soon be
> able to EXPORT hydrogen to short cited idiots like you.

My cites generally tend to be long and detailed.

> Here in Canada we have hydro electric dams already producing hydrogen.
> Ballard, the leading comany in the Hydrogen fuel cell game is not a UK
> company. Your ignorance precees you.

Uh huh, how much hydrogen? Answer a gnat's fart. Hydrogen is produced on
a commercial scale by reducing methane.

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Austin Shackles <[email protected]> wrote:

> not sure about chlorine, dunno as you'd get much of that unless you're using
> seawater. But you'd have to desalinate the seawater anyway to be able to
> electrolyse it, AFAIK.

Err no, you have to salinate water in order to be able to electrolyse
it.

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Chris Phillipo <[email protected]> wrote:

> I think you mean fictional byproducts.

Your ignorance of basic chemistry is noted.

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[email protected] (Steve Firth) wrote in
news:1gdwles.fe4ixjzxu0ihN%%steve%@malloc.co.uk:

> Chris Phillipo <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> In article <1gduj4q.1lgp2xrypppcdN%%steve%@malloc.co.uk>, %steve%
>> @malloc.co.uk says...
>> > Chris Phillipo <[email protected]> wrote:
>> >
>> > > > and where, pray, do you get the electricity?
>> > > >
>> > >
>> > > Well in iceland they get it from geothermal and produce hydrogen
>> > > right at the gas station.
>> >
>> > Right, so all 6 billion of us should live in Iceland right?
>> >
>> >
>>
>> Why? 6 billion of us don't live in Saudi Arabia do they?
>
> So you reckon that either (a) Iceland has enough geothermal to supply
> six billion peoipel with hydrogen (unlikely) or (b) we have enough
> geothermal to generate that hydrogen locally.
>
> Guess what dullard, wrong on both counts.
>
> Six billion of us moving to Iceland is probably more feasible.
>

I would have thought the bodyheat generated by 6 billion people crammed so
close together would melt the place .

Then there is a sanitation problem , where are six billion people going to
poop ?

On Mon, 17 May 2004 00:12:57 +0100, Steve Firth <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>
> Austin Shackles <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> not sure about chlorine, dunno as you'd get much of that unless you're using
>> seawater. But you'd have to desalinate the seawater anyway to be able to
>> electrolyse it, AFAIK.
>
> Err no, you have to salinate water in order to be able to electrolyse
> it.

A small amount of mineral salts are necessary, but if you electrolyse sea water
you get caustic soda (lye;sodium hydroxide) and chlorine gas, mostly.

Which makes hydrogen from water even a worse idea than it seemed at first glance.
Making fresh water from sea water is very costly and fresh water is becoming
scarce almost everywhere.

In fact, fresh water shortages are probably a more serious issue than petroleum
shortages. Only 1% of the water on the planet was fresh to begin with, and much
of that is in a handful of large lakes, like Lake Baykal in Siberia, Just north
of the Mongolian border. It is incredibly deep.

AC

Alan Connor wrote:
>
> On Mon, 17 May 2004 00:12:57 +0100, Steve Firth <[email protected]> wrote:
> >
> >
> > Austin Shackles <[email protected]> wrote:
> >
> >> not sure about chlorine, dunno as you'd get much of that unless you're using
> >> seawater. But you'd have to desalinate the seawater anyway to be able to
> >> electrolyse it, AFAIK.
> >
> > Err no, you have to salinate water in order to be able to electrolyse
> > it.
>
> A small amount of mineral salts are necessary, but if you electrolyse sea water
> you get caustic soda (lye;sodium hydroxide) and chlorine gas, mostly.
>

Now I am going back to my Engineering school chemistry here so:

It depends on the voltage and current used

In Salt (NaCl) the Chlorine atom is more electronegative than the Oxygen
atom in the water in that the Chlorine atom holds on to its electron
tighter than water.

It the electrolysis process.

Oxygen is stripped away from the Hydrogen forming Hydrogen gas and
Oxygen gas.

If the voltage and current are high enough the Chlorine is stripped away
form the sodium or the potassium (both are in salt water) and collecting
as a a gas on the negative electrode with the Oxygen. The Sodium on the
other hand now reacts with the water stripping the H2O molecule of a
Hydrogen atom to make Na(OH) plus a single Hydrogen atom. This atom
will migrate to the positive electrode to produce even more hydrogen
than the electrolysis of water. So the whole process becomes even more
efficient.

> Which makes hydrogen from water even a worse idea than it seemed at first glance.
> Making fresh water from sea water is very costly and fresh water is becoming
> scarce almost everywhere.
>
> In fact, fresh water shortages are probably a more serious issue than petroleum
> shortages. Only 1% of the water on the planet was fresh to begin with, and much

Not if you count the ice at the north and south poles as fresh water
which it is....

> of that is in a handful of large lakes, like Lake Baykal in Siberia, Just north
> of the Mongolian border. It is incredibly deep.
>
> AC

Like every thing else you post it is flat assed wrong....
But then " He who knows not and knows not he knows not is a fool"

The Independent


"When you play with the big dogs your going to get bit."