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The scam of corn ethonal

Re: The scam of corn ethonal

MadTownSioux said:
Cow Poop!! Hey, this is the Dairy State.
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This isn't a joke.

My job involves taking fuels like this, also, landfill gas, digester gas from municipalities, industrial byproducts, coal bed methane, gasifier fuels, etc. and running engines on them. It involves significant research on the engine performance, and depending on the fuel, some cleaning of the gas, but we are able to make a decent amount of electricity out of these kind of projects. Enough to power the country, hell no. Enough to be part of a larger solution, definitely.
 
Re: The scam of corn ethonal

bigblue_dl said:
This isn't a joke.

My job involves taking fuels like this, also, landfill gas, digester gas from municipalities, industrial byproducts, coal bed methane, gasifier fuels, etc. and running engines on them. It involves significant research on the engine performance, and depending on the fuel, some cleaning of the gas, but we are able to make a decent amount of electricity out of these kind of projects. Enough to power the country, hell no. Enough to be part of a larger solution, definitely.
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There's a lot of that kind of technology going on- another example is how car companies went back to HC based paints when they realized that they could not just capture the exhaust, but use it for heat and/or power. There are a lot of opportunities for "waste" things- some are easy to use (methane) others can be very hard if not the right scale (heat).
 
Re: The scam of corn ethonal

Bakunin said:
I hate it when an awesome post goes unappreciated. That was some of my finest work, and I didn't even mention abortion. :p
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I think it was too good. Your point flew well clear of most heads.

Don't hurt your arm patting yourself on the back though. :p
 
Re: The scam of corn ethonal

We can build a space shuttle, but we can't design a car engine that gets 100 mpg? That's just pathetic. Money talks, right?Here's what the government should do. The first person, organization or company that builds an aftermarket engine that can be installed into an existing 4 door sedan weighing not less that 2000# and get 100 mpg will win $25,000,000. All the entities that sign a contract to try and do this would get a $10,000,000 grant for R&D, maybe limited to the first 10 contract signees. The price of the engine installed could not exceed $4,000 (giving about a 2 yr breakeven point for the consumer based on driving 15,000 miles per yr and gas costing $3.50). They would have to build 100 engines, install them, and run each of them 50,000 miles with a 1% failure rate in order to win the prize.
 
Re: The scam of corn ethonal

Timothy A said:
We can build a space shuttle, but we can't design a car engine that gets 100 mpg? That's just pathetic. Money talks, right?Here's what the government should do. The first person, organization or company that builds an aftermarket engine that can be installed into an existing 4 door sedan weighing not less that 2000# and get 100 mpg will win $25,000,000. All the entities that sign a contract to try and do this would get a $10,000,000 grant for R&D, maybe limited to the first 10 contract signees. The price of the engine installed could not exceed $4,000 (giving about a 2 yr breakeven point for the consumer based on driving 15,000 miles per yr and gas costing $3.50). They would have to build 100 engines, install them, and run each of them 50,000 miles with a 1% failure rate in order to win the prize.
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Rumor has it that the oil lobby kills that stuff as soon as someone comes up with it. Conspiracy? Perhaps.
 
Re: The scam of corn ethonal

Timothy A said:
We can build a space shuttle, but we can't design a car engine that gets 100 mpg? That's just pathetic. Money talks, right?Here's what the government should do. The first person, organization or company that builds an aftermarket engine that can be installed into an existing 4 door sedan weighing not less that 2000# and get 100 mpg will win $25,000,000. All the entities that sign a contract to try and do this would get a $10,000,000 grant for R&D, maybe limited to the first 10 contract signees. The price of the engine installed could not exceed $4,000 (giving about a 2 yr breakeven point for the consumer based on driving 15,000 miles per yr and gas costing $3.50). They would have to build 100 engines, install them, and run each of them 50,000 miles with a 1% failure rate in order to win the prize.
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To develop such an engine, you are off by about 1000x.

OTOH, if you could actually do that, to heck with the prize, I would rather have the $25B in profit. The market speak loud enough here- if you *could* make a 30mpg truck that can also tow 12,000lb, and carry 2000lb, and sell for $35k, AND still make a profit- you would be making billions and billions. You would need 4 or 5 plants all capable of making 200k cars annually to keep up with production.


Money does talk, but sadly, mother nature speaks physics a lot louder.
 
Re: The scam of corn ethonal

Timothy A said:
We can build a space shuttle, but we can't design a car engine that gets 100 mpg? That's just pathetic. Money talks, right?Here's what the government should do. The first person, organization or company that builds an aftermarket engine that can be installed into an existing 4 door sedan weighing not less that 2000# and get 100 mpg will win $25,000,000. All the entities that sign a contract to try and do this would get a $10,000,000 grant for R&D, maybe limited to the first 10 contract signees. The price of the engine installed could not exceed $4,000 (giving about a 2 yr breakeven point for the consumer based on driving 15,000 miles per yr and gas costing $3.50). They would have to build 100 engines, install them, and run each of them 50,000 miles with a 1% failure rate in order to win the prize.
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Unfortunatly, those who are not a part of the engineering field would never understand. If the best engineering was able to get 8 mpg ( think 1900s), than people like you would complain about why we can't get 50 mpg.

The design process doesn't start from scratch than jump strait to optimization/ improved design. Its an iterative cycle that learns from its mistakes and srives for improvement. Specifically with cars, there are a whole host of "losses" that occur from ignition of the fuel to the wheels moving the car. Any additional system will impose additional efficiency losses ( from a power standpoint). Thus if you are forced to have additional state or federal regulations which might add more components, one could theoretical decrease the systems efficiency, or get less MPG. Take the Subaru lines for example. As soon as you throw in all wheel drive and a rear differential, the 'best' gas milage one can get is 23-27 mpg highway. Why? Its one more system with thermal/mechanical losses.

Alfablue might be more qualified to answer this question, as I believe he is closer to the industry than I. I just have a ton of friends who watch formula 1, work on cars etc. However, one can safly observe that overall efficiency in the united states in how we utilize oil is actually one of the best in the world. Again, if someone is really curious, I can dig up the number, but qualitativly the imports of oil have increased at a slower rate than growth of cars on the road/commute lengths etc. Engineers have done a good job squeezing more out of each unit of oil we use. Its a start, but not a solution to the problems. I digress.
 
Re: The scam of corn ethonal

unh_hockey said:
Alfablue might be more qualified to answer this question, as I believe he is closer to the industry than I. I just have a ton of friends who watch formula 1, work on cars etc. However, one can safly observe that overall efficiency in the united states in how we utilize oil is actually one of the best in the world. Again, if someone is really curious, I can dig up the number, but qualitativly the imports of oil have increased at a slower rate than growth of cars on the road/commute lengths etc. Engineers have done a good job squeezing more out of each unit of oil we use. Its a start, but not a solution to the problems. I digress.
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I have seen some data that did show over the long term that overall fleet fuel economy has gone up continuously since the late 60's. That is matched with emissions reductions of about 99%, and safety improvements (you can feel free to call most of that weight). But when the fleet has expanded so much, well, it's hard to supply all of them. And, you can expect fuel economy to continue to improve, as well as safety, as well as emissions. It's down to very small percentages- like 99.1% clean vs. 99.4% clean. Each step is very expensive.

One other note- F1 and most racing engines tend to be very, very efficient. They can't really afford to throw too much waste energy away, or they will be forced to carry too much fuel.
 
Re: The scam of corn ethonal

Advancements in engine efficiency have been made, but most people that aren't tuned into the technology don't realize it. It wasn't that long ago that engines were 25-30% efficient, now the goal is 50% (I believe Jenbacher announced an efficiency of 48.7% late last year). Just to get this far has taken billions of dollars and over 50 years of research. With advancements in HCCI technology hopefully we can crack the 50% barrier within the next several years. The biggest problem with IC engines, with respect to efficiency, is that a huge amount of energy is lost as heat, lost in the engine radiator via engine coolant or heat getting shoved out of the exhaust. This limits how efficient an engine can be, until there is a way to better capture this lost heat. In stationary applications this is much less of a problem. If an engine sits in one place and turns a generator, then the exhaust and coolant can be used to heat buildings and for other uses. In these types of applications you can see efficiency numbers around 90%, simply because you utilize all of the heat that is otherwise wasted.
 
Re: The scam of corn ethonal

Priceless said:
I think it was too good. Your point flew well clear of most heads.
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Great, I'm now qualified to be a Hollywood writer for a show nobody watches but the critics love. :p
Don't hurt your arm patting yourself on the back though. :p
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But if I hurt myself doing that while at work, I get workman's comp! Win-win!
 
Re: The scam of corn ethonal

ScoobyDoo said:
Rumor has it that the oil lobby kills that stuff as soon as someone comes up with it. Conspiracy? Perhaps.
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I have heard the same thing. If I were a big oil executive, I'd be diversifying my company, so as fuel usage/sales goes down with increased economy, my company would be able to keep the profits up. That's why you need a very public push by the government to do 100 mpg challange, so it won't die in a dark room somewhere. Thankfully the governement is in a position where they can't be influenced by lobbies. :rolleyes:

Better yet, some billionaire could finance the contest and it could be a realuty tv show.

So talking about using recovered energy from the burning of fuel...why aren't turbos universally used as they are nothing but free energy? This year Ford has really pushed the Ecoboost, which is a turbo charged engine, which boosted fuel economy by 25%.
 
Re: The scam of corn ethonal

Timothy A said:
So talking about using recovered energy from the burning of fuel...why aren't turbos universally used as they are nothing but free energy? This year Ford has really pushed the Ecoboost, which is a turbo charged engine, which boosted fuel economy byup to 25%.
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FYP.

And nothing is free, especially what you get out of them- nobody I am aware of is taking exhaust energy and turning that into anything but boost. Which isn't really more efficient- it's just more. Turbos allow smaller engines to act bigger, but the reality is that it takes X energy from move from A to B. Hard to get around the very basic of basic physics.
 
Re: The scam of corn ethonal

Slap Shot said:
Has there been a conservative movement within Congress to do the same?
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Of course not, Cargill, Monsanto and ADM would take away their campaign contributions, the same reason Obama doesn't say anything about it. When it takes 29% percent more energy to produce a gallon of e10 than it does a gallon of gas, it should be a no brainer, shouldn't it?
 
Re: The scam of corn ethonal

Slap Shot said:
Has there been a conservative movement within Congress to do the same?
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Of course not, Cargill, Monsanto and ADM would take away their campaign contributions, the same reason Obama doesn't say anything about it. When it takes 29% percent more energy to produce a gallon of e10 than it does a gallon of gas, it should be a no brainer, shouldn't it?
 
Re: The scam of corn ethonal

MinnFan said:
This is what you get when the first in the nation caucus is in Iowa. This is a bi-partisan problem. Heck, even Al Gore now says that ethanol isn't the answer.
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This. If we want to solve our dependency on fossil fuels (so we're talking coal just as much as we are oil), the "natural" sources (Wind, Solar, Geothermal and Hydroelectric) are probably our best bets. The technology isn't quite there for any of them (only exception is hydro, which has too many environmental implications when you dam up a river), but I think that it's entirely possible that we can further develop those designs until they are more efficient and (hopefully) cheap enough to produce better compete on the open market.

I see it like the automobile in the 1910s: true "green" energy is currently expensive and not very practical. But a little bit of innovation can go a long way towards making the design better and the product cheaper... maybe enough so that it can really take off and revolutionize our economy. At least I like to hope that it can work out that way.
 
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