Enviro-PLONK!

[UncleAl]

http://www.nature.com/news/2006/060710/full/060710-4.html

 

"if all the corn (maize) produced in the United States last year were removed from food supplies and turned into ethanol, just 12% of US gasoline demand would be offset. Turning soybeans into diesel would account for only 9% of US diesel demand"

 

Maybe if we extended daylight-savings time some more the plants would grow bigger in the extended sunlight. "8^>)

 

"A US Department of Energy report released on Friday 7 July said that biofuels such as cellulosic ethanol could displace 30% of the fuel consumed in US transportation by 2030."

 

Dust from Tinkerbell's behind is elevating. I saw the movie, it must be true.

[learnin to learn]

why doesnt the US just reopen all the caped oil wells that are in the mid and southern west? 30 years ago, there were oil wells all across the mid-west! My family owned many. The EPA made them cap all the wells.

[Jay-qu]

Do you still own them?

 

30% is not bad, with a few more similar alternatives I think we may just get away from oil yet.

[Cedars]

why doesnt the US just reopen all the caped oil wells that are in the mid and southern west? 30 years ago, there were oil wells all across the mid-west! My family owned many. The EPA made them cap all the wells.

 

Because there is still oil to bleed from other sources first.

[learnin to learn]

Because there is still oil to bleed from other sources first.

 

I understand that, but with gas prices riseing to over $3 a gallon, isnt time to... find another way to get our oil?

 

no we dont own the wells anymore. My family no longer owns any farmland.

[C1ay]

Maybe if we extended daylight-savings time some more the plants would grow bigger in the extended sunlight. "8^>)

Shhh. Some congress critter might pick up on that if Al Gore doesn't come up with it first.

[Cedars]

I understand that, but with gas prices riseing to over $3 a gallon, isnt time to... find another way to get our oil?

 

no we dont own the wells anymore. My family no longer owns any farmland.

 

They are making record profits now, why would they want to change that?

 

They dont want to get 'our' oil yet. Imagine the money they will get for it in the future. 'Tis money in the bank. I suppose if we changed some of our mineral rights laws we could force them to cash in now. But do you really think our government will do that, with all the political clout big oil has? Look what happened when they wanted to raise grazing fees in the west? That was shot down in a big hurry.

[Michaelangelica]

30% is not bad, with a few more similar alternatives I think we may just get away from oil yet.

30% is great.

that + natural gas or gas from bio-fuels and we can save the oil for important things

Bio-fuels with charcoal as a by-product seem to offer a lot of advantages

(see the Terra preta thread for links). You can use waste from timber mills or even garbage.

I am sure there would be a lot of N Queensland cane farmers happy to grow biofuels. We (& the Poms) already produce a lot of rum in Bundaberg and there is a lot of bagess left unused. Some are marketing it as garden mulch.

Some experts say we have reached peak oil production now so I guess soon it will be cheaper to run the car on Rum:)

 

Some say alcohol in gas is bad for cars. What say you petrol heads out there?

 

One expert, on the news the other night, said the only country with good oil reserves and any oil future was Iraq.

Why did we go to war again?

[Jay-qu]

I know that ethanol wont get you as far as gas per litre, there may also need to be some adjustments to your engine to make it run properly. Anyone know more on this?

[Qfwfq]

Ask a Brazilian, JQ, anyway it isn't really the point, I presume the percentages not to be meant in volume but according to equivalence.

 

Maybe if we extended daylight-savings time some more the plants would grow bigger in the extended sunlight.

Gosh that's hilarious, your sense of humour has no limits!

 

Just in case anybody took it seriously, how could DST change the total daily sunlight? Unk, you don't even seem to have read that whole page, starting with the third sentence, first paragraph:

 

Researchers should instead concentrate either on producing ethanol from indigestible plant material such as cellulose, or on synthetic hydrocarbon fuels.

[Ganoderma]

most people use it as an additive not a replacement. its the easiest way without changing anything.

 

$3 a gallon is not much. it has been over that for over a year in many canadian places. europe has had much higher for longer...I also wonder how big the sands are in central canada. Liek said above, it is defiantly godo financialy to hold on to your oil now to sell it for high prices later. although i think this will ultimatly cause war the way things are shaping up (or has it already...).

 

one old method is using grease/oil from restaurants and other producers. we ran an old ford pickup diesel (the 2 tank type) off it for a while. no modification is needed on older cars (newer ones seem to not work well on it). the problem is it is horrible for starting. so start on diesel and run it on biofuel aka grease. we just switched the tanks once the truck was running. its messy though. all thats needed is filtration, whish is easy. we got what looked to be anywhere from 40-60% fuel and the rest was garbage.

 

things like corn farming and such to get alternatives is good, but it uses a lot of land. i personally think it is in our best efforts to research recycling and reusing more. sure using these biofuels is great and much better, but this planet is getting smaller.

[Cedars]

I know that ethanol wont get you as far as gas per litre, there may also need to be some adjustments to your engine to make it run properly. Anyone know more on this?

 

I think they mix it around here at 10% (gas and alcohol mix).

 

One thing that occured around here when they started putting alcohol in the gas was the mixture was cleaning out the gunk built up and this caused a few problems for people as their fuel filters became clogged. A few people claimed it totaled their engines, but others claimed these were worn engines/carbs/injectors. I personally had no problems with the 10% mix and have driven some pretty iffy cars in the beginings of this.

 

From memories of youth: The racers who used alcohol in their race cars had to make some carberator adjustments (jet screw). I dont know if fuel injection has a similar need. But the racers were also using a higher percentage of alcohol (and some used straight alcohol). The racers with straight alcohol used a different carberator. If I remember right, the straight alcohol burner needs more oxygen than the petro based carb.

 

*hmm I wonder if I still have that 6 pack carb setup for alcohol

[TheFaithfulStone]

Or we could build a TDP plant

 

If we assume (from the article) that there is about a 2 (ton) to 5 (barrell) ration of garbage to oil, and the US produces around 12 billion tons of garbage every year then we could produce 30 billion barrels of oil a year. (We are currently using around 7 billion per year. Assuming we utilized 100% of our junk. Using just 25% of it would meet current needs.)

 

You also get natural gas, minerals, and pure water out of the process, along with waste carbon (which makes double carbon fiber, and CNTs, yay!)

 

What's the downside to this?

 

The downside to this is you can't make plastic out of it - only gas, heating oil, etc. (I don't think.) And it doesn't do much to solve that whole "burning oil releases tons of noxious fumes and greenhouse gases" into the air.

 

It's not as cheap as digging up dino-oil. At least $80/barrel (which is not much higher than current prices, frankly.)

 

TFS

[learnin to learn]

Or we could build a TDP plant

 

If we assume (from the article) that there is about a 2 (ton) to 5 (barrell) ration of garbage to oil, and the US produces around 12 billion tons of garbage every year then we could produce 30 billion barrels of oil a year. (We are currently using around 7 billion per year. Assuming we utilized 100% of our junk. Using just 25% of it would meet current needs.)

 

You also get natural gas, minerals, and pure water out of the process, along with waste carbon (which makes double carbon fiber, and CNTs, yay!)

 

What's the downside to this?

 

The downside to this is you can't make plastic out of it - only gas, heating oil, etc. (I don't think.) And it doesn't do much to solve that whole "burning oil releases tons of noxious fumes and greenhouse gases" into the air.

 

It's not as cheap as digging up dino-oil. At least $80/barrel (which is not much higher than current prices, frankly.)

 

TFS

 

But will that kind of gas run on newer engines? Or would we have to modifty them?

[TheFaithfulStone]

It's just like regular oil.

 

TFS

[learnin to learn]

It's just like regular oil.

 

TFS

 

Then that is good! But is it cost efficient? And how long would it take to build these TDP plants?

[TheFaithfulStone]

Well, the single operating plant in the US has production costs of $80/barrel for #2 crude.

 

By contrast, dino-oil is $76 at market. So YES it's more expensive than dino-oil.

 

On the other hand, there is only a single plant, which means that there's no economy of scale - and, it doesn't take into account any money you may save by not having to throw away a bunch of stuff.

 

For the record, it's kind of innaccurate to say that TDP makes oil. It either recovers it, when the feedstock is plastic or other long-chain petroleum products, or it speeds up the process of making it, when the feedstock is organic (crops, turkey guts, etc.)

 

The question about TDP is how it affects the carbon cycle. Normal bio-fuels have emissions, but the carbon that they put into the air is balanced by the carbon the plants themselves consume.

 

The reason emissions from fossil fuels affect the climate is because this carbon has been stored away underground for millions of years - using biomass as our of hydocarbon energy would obviate this problem as it become less like we are tapping into an geologically ancient carbon cycle, and more like we are tapping into the current one.

 

Normal biofuel operations are (ideally) Carbon Neutral (provided there's not any dino-oil being used at all, which is unlikely.) I'm not sure about TDP though, and haven't found much information on this issue.

 

The full name of the process is thermal de-polymerization if you wanna do some googling.

 

TFS