| Author |
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Alanx1
| | Posted on Thursday, October 11, 2007 - 03:23 pm: | 
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Did they by any chance film "deliverance" near there?  |
Snail
| | Posted on Thursday, October 11, 2007 - 10:29 pm: |
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Is it hard to make fuel from corn? How much corn would I need to make 10K gals. fuel? |
Alanx1
| | Posted on Friday, October 12, 2007 - 12:35 am: |
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I don't remember the exact ratio of corn to gallons but I think they said you would have to plant every acre of land in the country with corn and you would get enough ethynol to last the country about a month. It's not a very efficient process. |
Lions
| | Posted on Friday, October 12, 2007 - 03:11 am: |
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They should try using baked beans |
Dbird29
| | Posted on Friday, October 12, 2007 - 10:27 am: |
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Snail is going to be the "Astronaut Farmer"?
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0469263/
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Blake
| | Posted on Friday, October 12, 2007 - 01:24 pm: |
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"I don't remember the exact ratio of corn to gallons but I think they said you would have to plant every acre of land in the country with corn and you would get enough ethynol to last the country about a month. It's not a very efficient process."
Not according to this report.
 |
Danny
| | Posted on Friday, October 12, 2007 - 03:39 pm: |
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I'd like a little more information in regards to the illustration. Does the big black square representing US arable land mean current and/or future farmland, or does it also include my front yard, interstate medians and any part of Southern Alaska that's flat and not permafrost?
Granted, I only scanned the article, but it didn't look like the answer was in there. |
Slaughter
| | Posted on Friday, October 12, 2007 - 04:42 pm: |
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Blake, the problem with this - EVEN IF TRUE - we cannot possibly imagine the HUGE environmental impact of that kind of fertilizer usage, water contamination, disposal of byproducts.
There's solid waste generated in production of biofuels. When they've been broken down ("digested") to make alcohol, they're not usable as compost/fertilizer so that solid waste is TRASH.
Environmental impact is NOT JUST fuel economy and tailpipe emissions!
Yeah like Danny, I'd like to know how "arable land" is defined. |
Alanx1
| | Posted on Friday, October 12, 2007 - 08:07 pm: |
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Hey, I know! We can buy the corn from CHINA! |
Alanx1
| | Posted on Friday, October 12, 2007 - 08:08 pm: |
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Almost forgot, that was sarcasm... |
Snail
| | Posted on Friday, October 12, 2007 - 09:30 pm: |
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Not entnanol, corn oil. How complicated is it extracting corn oil to replace diesel? I have several acres I could plant to corn if it wouldl run my CAT's and excator. |
Danny
| | Posted on Saturday, October 13, 2007 - 10:47 am: |
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video.google.com/videoplay?docid=45777318430028673 7
www.freedomfuelamerica.com
I'm a little rusty on my research, but IMO, I think you'd be $$-ahead if you made an agreement with all the fast-food joints on Ophir to take their used fry grease and mix up your own.
I've heard rumors, but haven't done any investigating, that there's a way you can run straight veggie oil with nothing more than a few minutes of filtering. |
Ricky
| | Posted on Saturday, October 13, 2007 - 11:58 am: |
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The biggest headache with going veggie is it will gel up in the tank and/or fuel lines when it gets cold out. Kinda like the Jerry Garcia diet. |
Benm2
| | Posted on Saturday, October 13, 2007 - 10:23 pm: |
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Snail,
Most home shop stuff seems to focus on making diesel from used restaurant vegetable oil. I could chase down the links from google, but you'd be far more direct at looking for just what you needed.
http://machinedesign.com/ContentItem/70308/Catalys tcouldrevolutionizebiodieselproduction.aspx
The above is a link from an engineering mag, the idea's been promising enough to get some big investors, although the details of the process have been (purposefully) sketchy.
Steve, s**t in the rivers is nothing new. I'm not meaning in any way to discount your concerns about fertilizer & pesticide pollution, but I'd still rather pay a farmer than give my dollars to another dictator. Plus, there's always solar. I really expect that internal combustion will die & be replaced by batteries. Solar power is much better at producing electricity (IMO, solar includes wind). Biofuels are just the intermediary (for transportation) until the batteries catch up to consumer expectations. Then the biofuels will be burned at electric generating plants.
I'll get back to tilting my windmills now. |
Slaughter
| | Posted on Sunday, October 14, 2007 - 11:44 am: |
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The problem is you are ALL looking at it as a hobby.
If you were to plant dedicated crops and extract usable BTU's of energy (alcohol, oil, heat) - and power even 10 % of our energy-consuming machinery, I'd bet the environmentalists would be UP IN ARMS because of the HUGE damage that the required chemical fertilizers, genetic engineering, land usage/drainage - not to mention the processing/extraction/fermentation. THEN start looking at the water requirements... all I'm saying is it's not trivial.
Sure a few dozen folks look really cool getting "waste oil" and using it to run a diesel. Works great as long as there's nobody else demanding "their" waste oil.
You CAN get conversion systems for diesels which will let you run veggie oil directly. Worked with a woman who did it to her Mercedes. Still has a way to go before ready for prime time. |
Slaughter
| | Posted on Sunday, October 14, 2007 - 11:49 am: |
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Ben - you ARE making good points.
I just think that when others see somebody doing bio fuel in their own garage, they think the whole planet can run that way without ANY other systems being impacted.
Hell, there's a HUGE move afoot for no-till crop production - because of the impact of tilling the soil. 2/3 of my family are dairy farmers in Wisconsin and I hate to say it, I just don't see a way to support our energy needs with biofuels.
I agree, primary individual transportation MUST evolve to electric and MUST also lean more heavily on PUBLIC transportation.
Or else we need a really good war or major disease outbreak to get our population in check... and no, I'll stop before going political!
(Message edited by slaughter on October 14, 2007) |
Slaughter
| | Posted on Sunday, October 14, 2007 - 12:05 pm: |
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Admittedly - the following info is from the Natural Gas Vehicle Association so take it with a grain of salt but it DOES illustrate the complexity of the problems:
quote:To grow the corn necessary to produce one gasolinegallon-equivalent of ethanol requires about 2,700 gallons of water.vi To put that into perspective, the water industry estimates that an average person uses 3000 gallons of water per month. To produce an extra 30 billion gasoline-gallon-equivalent would be the equivalent of adding another 2.25 billion people to the U.S. populations. The current U.S. population is a little over 300 million. Note that this does not even take into account the amount of water necessary to actually produce the ethanol – which is reported to be between 3 and 6 gallons of water per gallon of ethanol.
and
quote:
If America is to reduce its dependence on foreign oil, we must produce and use more ethanol and biodiesel in our vehicles. However, as explained above, it is highly improbable – if not impossible – for ethanol and biodiesel alone to achieve President Bush’s goal of 35 billion gallons of renewable and alternative fuel by 2017. To have a chance of achieving this goal, America must maximize the use of all alternative fuels – especially natural gas.
Regardless of WHERE we get our energy, we're NOWHERE without conservation.
Read also "The False Hope of Biofuels" in the Washington Post - not known to be a Conservative news source by ANY stretch of the imagination:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/30/AR2006063001480.html
The authors conclude:
quote:It would be morally wrong to divert cropland needed for human food supply to powering automobiles. It would also deplete soil fertility and the long-term capability to maintain food production. We would destroy the farmland that our grandchildren and their grandchildren will need to live.
(Message edited by slaughter on October 14, 2007) |
Danny
| | Posted on Sunday, October 14, 2007 - 04:13 pm: |
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The problem is you are ALL looking at it as a hobby.
Yeah, you're not wrong about that, I just prefer the term self-reliant. 
I'm aware it's totally unfeasable, but you know what I really want? A personal nuclear reactor. I could recharge my electric commuter car, run my house AC to my heart's content in the Central Valley, sell the excess back to the local utility AND heat my pool while cooling the core.
I know it'll NEVER happen, but a guy can dream can't he? |
Davegess
| | Posted on Sunday, October 14, 2007 - 06:54 pm: |
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Corn is liekly a poor choice to use for ethanol. It takes a pretty good amount of oil to grow. A better way to go would be bio-desiel. Desiel is more eficent anywasy and it easier to grow gcrops for it. Something less oil dependent like sunflowers or canola.
If you want ethanol then we need to figure out how to make it from grasses. people are working on that but it is a way off.
Me I think Nuclear woul dbe a good short term answer, we need to figure out a better use for the spendt fuel, there has to be some way to make it useful without endangering the world. It certainly has drawbacks but is it really anymore dangerous than coal? |
Jon
| | Posted on Sunday, October 14, 2007 - 08:02 pm: |
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I'd like to see a motorcycle powered by chicken poop. |
Unibear12r
| | Posted on Sunday, October 14, 2007 - 08:08 pm: |
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The new design nukes can burn the old nukes leftover fuel. The 10% of it that will be left will be pretty nasty tho. I say just seal it in glass and stainless and bomb the deepest part of the Marianas Trench with it. 35000 feet under water (a nuclear moderator) and about 50 feet of mud will put it out of reach of anything it could ever bother. Makes far more sense than an old salt mine.
We have something like 500 years worth of coal in this country even if we drop all other power sources. The latest design (one in u.s.) power plants for coal are VERY clean but a bit expensive. Plus there is a huge amount of carbon dioxide to dispose of. A bit tricky but doable, of course all it takes is money.
There has been a recently renewed call for putting power satellites in orbit. This has far greater merit than most would think at first glance. But it's greatest problem has nothing to do with space or technology but land use on Earth as the receiving antennas are quite large. Again it just really boils down to money and politics.
Using corn for biofuel makes no long or mid term sense at all. Alcohol from waste greens and the like is far better but still just a mid term solution. And again the biggest stall there is mostly money and politics now and not technology. Using waste grease for biofuel is a nice way to get rid of the waste problem but not a fuel solution. |
Unibear12r
| | Posted on Sunday, October 14, 2007 - 08:19 pm: |
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Lol Jon, it's been done. Well, cars anyway.
Something VERY new is zapping water with a very specific microwave energy that is tuned to instantly split water into hydrogen and oxygen. Between the vapor pressure and the energy in the split gases you get more energy out than you use. Only done recently in lab settings and not proved out yet.
But just think, burning water for power! And Martian death rays. |
Jon
| | Posted on Sunday, October 14, 2007 - 11:48 pm: |
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Unibear,
Very interesting stuff. We have to do something eventually. |
Dbird29
| | Posted on Monday, October 15, 2007 - 12:29 am: |
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Unibear12r
| | Posted on Monday, October 15, 2007 - 10:52 pm: |
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Somebody on badweb posted a link a while back on the fusion work Dr. Bussard was doing for the Navy. Too bad it was shut down as it seemed to be a wonderful concept likely to bypass many of the current fusion woes. |
Blake
| | Posted on Wednesday, October 17, 2007 - 02:07 am: |
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Ethanol is for IC engines. If we go to electric tractors and for all vehicles other than my Buell, then we can burn the corn along with the coal to generate electricity. 
We do have PLENTY of coal. Cali won't burn it though. Which is why they have to pay so much to outsources electrical power production when Cali's demand exceeds its own production capacity. |
Unibear12r
| | Posted on Thursday, October 18, 2007 - 07:51 pm: |
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OUR Buells Blake! OUR Buells! |
Blake
| | Posted on Friday, October 19, 2007 - 12:55 am: |
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You got it.
A car or truck I can handle, but I just can't stomach the idea of an electric motorcycle.
Call me a dinosaur; it's how I feel... You know, big, lumbering, and highly irritable. |
Gohot
| | Posted on Thursday, October 16, 2008 - 09:10 pm: |
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Growing corn on every avalable acre would lead to water shortages, as it is a water intensive crop, I know I farm. The molecular structure of alcahol is half that of gasoline roughly, hence twice as much is used to go the same mileage, it does burn cooler though. It also burns much cleaner, but is not to kind to rubber components, but is useful in the making of tortillas...? |
Unibear12r
| | Posted on Friday, October 17, 2008 - 01:22 am: |
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Here's one for you Blake! There are plans here for a power plant to burn "bottom coke" from the refineries here. That's supposed to be what's left over and of little use. It burns like coal so the plant will burn coal to augment the fuel supply. It's a ultra clean design and it will be out in the oilfields so all the CO2 will be separated and used instead of steam injection underground to push the oil. (Do we get Carbonated Hydrocarbon though? ) Very smart stuff! Maybe there is hope for California. |
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