2003 model cars show steady decline in fuel economy

Discussion in 'Earth Science' started by Success_Machine, Oct 30, 2002.

  1. Success_Machine Impossible? I can do that Registered Senior Member

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    365
    http://www.enn.com/news/wire-stories/2002/10/10302002/ap_48840.asp

    I ought to point out, especially since I know so much about the subject, how exactly we can achieve renewable energy for transportation on a national scale....

    Hydrogen is bullshit. In spite of the high efficiency of hydrogen fuel cells, the most compact hydrogen storage method are compressed gas cylinders with 4 - 11 weight-percent storage capacity. In other words compressed gas tanks weigh 10-20 times more than the fuel stored inside them, and this technology is not expected to improve in the next 20 years. As a result a hydrogen-fueled car will have either non-existent passenger/cargo carrying capacity, or very short range. Via the fundamental equation for kinetic energy the increased weight of the car due to the hydrogen fuel tank will mean more fuel is consumed just to get the car up to highway speeds, and the heavy car will experience more rolling friction. A hydrogen fuel cell car will cost as much as a house (can you say "mortgage"?). The reciprocating compressor used to refuel the car with compressed hydrogen will run you an extra $5000 plus tax, and the least expensive source of hydrogen will be natural gas, a non-renewable fossil fuel (OH YEAH! that's the bitch!!!).

    In contrast a featherweight container will store gallons of liquid fuel, such as ethanol. Ethanol is the way to go, since the fuel tank does not contribute to increased weight of the car. Ethanol can be made at home by fermenting sugars and starchy plants. It is made on an industrial scale by converting whole plants (composed of cellulose) to fermentable sugars in a process called hydrolysis, where the long fiber chains are broken down into glucose using a weak acid solution.

    Most plants consist of up to 98 percent cellulose. In fact cellulose is the most abundant substance made by living things. Originally petroleum came from cellulose, but it has been rotting under the earth for millions of years. Freshly grown biomass can be made into ethanol, which is cleaner burning anyway in internal combustion engines. And as a pure fuel, ethanol can be used in fuel cells as well should they ever become affordable.

    But how do we grow enough biomass to fuel the transportation industry with ethanol without competing with food production? See my essay entitled "Benthic Energy", found near the bottom of my starship generations website:

    href=http://geocities.com/womplex_oo1/StarshipGenerations.html
     
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  3. Joeman Eviiiiiiiil Clown Registered Senior Member

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    We need to execute all minivan and suv drivers.
     
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  5. Success_Machine Impossible? I can do that Registered Senior Member

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    Not true actually, most flexible fuel equipped vehicles on the road are minivans, SUVs and trucks. They are able to use either gasoline or renewable ethanol fuel interchangeably. However their owners are often unaware of this capability.

    Check out this website:
    http://www.ccities.doe.gov/vbg/consumers/e85.shtml
     
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  7. Success_Machine Impossible? I can do that Registered Senior Member

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    And perhaps fuel choice is more important than fuel economy....


    Kyoto Commitment Holds Promise for Ethanol

    The Prime Minister’s recent declaration at the Johannesburg Summit on Sustainability that he intends to ratify the Kyoto protocol can only be good news for ethanol. "Support for ethanol as been building in Ottawa and around the country for the past two years and ratification will only boost that support further," said CRFA Chair Bob Sicard.

    Department officials from Natural Resources Canada and Environment Canada have been working throughout the summer on an ethanol mandate and dealing with the many complicated issues that would confront the government should the Minister go forward with his plans to have ethanol in all gasoline. It is still unclear what form a mandate may take, but ethanol is clearly on the minds of Ministers and the Prime Minister’s Office when discussing Kyoto and green house gas reductions. The Ottawa citizen reported this spring that Minister Dhaliwal was "seriously considering a law that would force oil companies to mix the plant-based fuel ethanol into motor vehicle gasoline as a way to cut green house gases under the Kyoto protocol." Under the recently announced Climate Change discussion paper, Ottawa has proposed a 5% and 10% mandate for ethanol in Canada.

    With respect to timing, it is expected that the federal government will provide a "plan" to meet its Kyoto target some time in late October prior to the next round of climate change discussions known as CoP8.

    While momentum continues to build for ethanol it is very important that people evidence their support to the government. If you wish to express your support for ethanol and Minister Dhaliwal’s proposed mandate please click on the icon below and send a message to the Prime Minister.

    CRFA Launches Ad Campaign to Promote Ethanol

    The CRFA launched their climate change ad campaign on September 16 with a series of bus shelter ads promoting the benefits of ethanol. The bus shelter ads promote ethanol’s climate change and green house gas benefits and will be initially located along Wellington Street facing Parliament Hill. The campaign will also launch a series of newspaper ads beginning with the Hill Times in Ottawa later this month that will focus on the many benefits of developing an ethanol industry in Canada. The bus shelter ad featured above will almost certainly get the attention of a few MPs when the House resume sitting at the end of September!

    Source:
    http://www.greenfuels.org/

    =====================================
    =====================================

    Most flexible fuel equipped vehicles on the road are minivans, SUVs, and trucks, NOT cars. These vehicles can burn gasoline or renewable ethanol (E85) fuel interchangeably. However their owners are often unaware of this capability.

    Check out this website:
    http://www.ccities.doe.gov/vbg/consumers/e85.shtml

    But the Canadian government mandate is 5 - 10 percent ethanol mixed with gasoline. Cars can burn E5 or E10 without any modifications at all. At the same time they displace 5 - 10 percent of gasoline consumption and reduce net greenhouse gas emissions by the same amount.

    =====================================
    =====================================

    Refueling Stations in Ontario

    There are currently no public access ethanol (E-85) refueling stations in Ontario.

    Source:
    http://www.ccities.doe.gov/corridor/refueling.shtml

    The Canadian government plans to require ethanol to be mixed with the gasoline before it reaches the refueling stations, so we don't have to choose between gasoline or ethanol. At the intended levels of 5-10 percent ethanol in gasoline no modifications are required. However any greater amount of ethanol will require flexible fuel equipped vehicles, such as those already available from automakers.
     
  8. CounslerCoffee Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    4,997
    But how do we grow enough biomass to fuel the transportation industry with ethanol without competing with food production? See my essay entitled "Benthic Energy", found near the bottom of my starship generations website

    Nice essay. Didnt you know that corn is bad for you? According to some scientists it grinds away at the teeth and can cause intestinal problems.

    I hate people who drive SUVs, they think that they own the road... the only reason I drive slow sometimes is to piss them off.

    I'll find out more on that corn stuff...in the meantime Im in class.
     
  9. chroot Crackpot killer Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    2,350
    Most people would like to see ethanol or gasoline reformers in fuel-cell vehicles first, to capitalize on the existing liquid-fuel infrastructure.

    In the future, we may find it feasible to build cryogenic or solid anhydride hydrogen storage systems for mass production.

    - Warren
     
  10. Success_Machine Impossible? I can do that Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    365
    No it won't be possible. The storage capacity of metal hydrides is around 0.5 percent by weight, even worse than liquid sodium borohydride at around 4.5 percent by weight.

    Compressed gas is the best at around 7 wt-% storage for 10,000 psi compression, and 11 wt-% hydrogen capacity for 5000 psi compression (that's right, it gets worse the higher the compression). That still means the tanks are 10-20 times as massive as the fuel inside them.

    Ethanol is best, it is liquid at room temperature and pressure, and a featherweight plastic container will hold gallons of the stuff.


    (hydrogen is my bitch, I like to slap it around, it's so easy to abuse... heh heh)
     
  11. Jaxom Tau Zero Registered Senior Member

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    559
    I don't think the problem is technology. I have an old magazine clipping of how simple it would be for automobiles to be converted over to a methanol burning machine.

    It had a lighter engine, lower profile, and a braking flywheel to capture stored energy. the engine would actually cut off until you hit the gas again, and the flywheel would start the car and engine moving.

    The problem is both political (oil companies don't want you to stop buying gas) and the catch-22 of which comes first, the massive investment of methanol pumping stations so that people will buy the cars, or the vehicles themselves before there are pumps for methanol readily available.

    We're stuck in the oil rut, and it's easier and cheaper to stay there than to battle out. If you ask the simple question, is there a better way than petroleum, it's a no-brainer, of course...but it's getting there that's the struggle.

    BTW, which is better anyway, methanol or ethanol?
     
  12. chroot Crackpot killer Registered Senior Member

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    2,350
    Success_machine, I'm curious -- what's your background?

    - Warren
     
  13. Chagur .Seeker. Registered Senior Member

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    2,235
    Success Machine ...

    Considering that Hawaii has to import all of it's fuel oil and
    biomass is abundant, doesn't it seem logical that it would
    already be the 'fuel of choice' were it feasible?

    See: http://www.hawaii.gov/dbedt/ert/ethanol/ch1.html

    Take care

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

     
  14. Success_Machine Impossible? I can do that Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    365
    No, because before 10 years ago ethanol production plants were poorly desgned. I'm not qualified to say specifically in what way they were poorly designed. I'm just saying that all the literature indicates poor thermodynamic efficiency was achieved until the 1990s. Before then it took more energy to produce ethanol than was obtained in the form of fuel. It was an energy sink. But not anymore. These days energy surpluses of 25% are common, some much higher. And most of this is due to the improvements in ethanol facilities which today consume far less energy in operation.
     
  15. Chagur .Seeker. Registered Senior Member

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    2,235
    Okay, Success_Machine ...

    25% efficiency common?

    Put up, or can it!

    Take care

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    "We must respect the rights of the dissenters, even though they
    .might be idiots or harmful."
    - Wau Holland - (Died 07/29/01) -
     
  16. Success_Machine Impossible? I can do that Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    365
    Ethanol produced in modern facilities contains roughly 25 percent more energy than was required to produce it. In some cases even more than 25% energy surplus was achieved.

    Reference: US Dept. of Agriculture
    http://journeytoforever.org/ethanol_energy.html


    Another interesting fact is that plants are at least 17.6 percent efficient at converting solar energy into fibrous plant tissue that is high in cellulose, the stuff that ethanol is made from. This easily competes with, and often exceeds, the efficiencies often reported for photovoltaics, wind power and solar thermal powerplants. In the case of biomass, it is able to be used either to produce electricity or to make automotive ethanol, a flexibility not realized with other renewable energy sources.

    Reference: Starship Generations, topic #2, charts
    http://geocities.com/womplex_oo1/StarshipGenerations.html
     
  17. postoak Registered Senior Member

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    281
    Ethanol produces pollution when burned. For that reason alone it can't be considered the ideal fuel.
     
  18. Success_Machine Impossible? I can do that Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    365
    It produces less pollution than gasoline, due to its higher oxygen fraction and lower combustion temperature. Also, since it comes from biomass, all greenhouse gas emissions are reabsorbed in the next year's agricultural energy crop.
     
  19. postoak Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    281
    I don't know that "less pollution" than gasoline is a good enough target to shoot for, considering how big an effort will be required.

    From what I've read, it is expected that nano-technology will someday make solar power an inexpensive energy source. We then need to use this cheap solar power to produce, from readily available materials, a different energy souce for use in automobiles -- one that produces at least as little pollution as hydrogen (heat and water) and has good storage properties as well.
     
  20. Chagur .Seeker. Registered Senior Member

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    2,235
    Success_Machine ...

    "Estimating the Net Energy Balance" from a 1995 study?

    "Washington, August 7, 2002, Reuters: Measured from cornfield to the fuel tank, ethanol provides more energy than is consumed in producing it, researchers said in a new report that could figure in congressional debate over U.S. energy policy." Report by who?

    Come off of it, you're blowing smoke. Lets have some hard data!

    Take care

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    "We must respect the rights of the dissenters, even though they
    .might be idiots or harmful."
    - Wau Holland - (Died 07/29/01) -
     
  21. chroot Crackpot killer Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    2,350
    postoak,

    Solar power will never be viable, unless we can design ultra (and I mean ultra) efficient machines.

    The earth receives only about 1 kW per m[sup]2[/sup]. There isn't much energy to be captured in the first place. Second, if you were to harvest solar energy on a global scale, you'd kill all the creatures that depend on solar energy (nearly every organism on the planet).

    Solar is not a solution, unfortunately.

    - Warren
     
  22. postoak Registered Senior Member

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    281
    chroot - all I know is what I read.

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    I got this from www.nanozine.com:

    Somewhere else I read that the amount of solar energy striking the earth's surface is 40,000 times our current energy needs.
     
  23. Success_Machine Impossible? I can do that Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    365
    Chagur: there is lots of hard data, just read some of the articles on this website...

    http://journeytoforever.org/ethanol_energy.html

    The people supporting ethanol include Argonne National Laboratory, US National Transportation Ministry, Colorado School of Mines, US Dept. of Agriculture, National Corn Growers Association, and the US Dept of Energy. Add to that the Canadian Federal Government, who has declared their mandate to implement ethanol in gasoline nationwide up to 10% concentrations as part of their effort to achieve the Kyoto obligations. Biomass-derived ethanol is a zero net emitter of greenhouse gases, and any amount added to motor vehicle fuel will directly displace the same amount of fossil fuel.

    Only the Sierra Club and David Pimentel from Cornell University are against it. For some reason they have gotten more media coverage than the people who are genuinely interested in national unity, and maintaining our way of life.

    I recently found a book in Toronto Metro Reference Library, published in 1907, containing detailed technical and economic information on the production of ethanol and its use in motor vehicles as a replacement for gasoline. At the time almost no oil was imported from abroad and oil shortage was a real possibility. Even 100 years ago ethanol was considered the best alternative.

    Nothing has changed today, although there are alot of so-called alternatives in the popular media, e.g. nanotechnology or hydrogen fuels cells, none of which have technical merit. They have merely clouded our understanding of the problem.
     
    Last edited: Nov 5, 2002

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