Since rocket engines aren't internal combustion but rather external combustion engines, they are really a poor justification for using hydrogen in a car engine. It doesn't work that way. A different type of engine altogether that has different fueling needs. Too bad when it's used in an internal combustion engine it can't make crap for power.

 

Keep telling yourself that! If you can't do it with the same amount (volume) of fuel, I'm still going to laugh at you because it was less efficient.

 

i was taking personal offense to the idea that H2 is a poor combustible mostly lol. The little chemist inside me screamed shenanigans. I'm not a mechanical engineer i haven't got a clue when it comes to automotive applications, but i do know my chemistry and what a compound should be able to do.

 

There comes a certain point where you can have something too combustable. It just burns too fast and is hard to control the flame front. A rocket engine is ALL flame front!

 

i think its time for some numbers, processing, heating and the distilling process aren't a charity. Threshing the corn takes a certain amount of energy (not provided by the sun), separating the usable portion from the chaff also takes a certain amount of energy (not provided by the sun), processing the corn into a solution to be fermented takes a certain amount of energy (not provided by the sun), fermentation takes a certain amount of energy but in this case who cares the bacteria do the work, but keeping the vat warm takes a certain amount of energy (not provided by the sun), and of course in the end distillation also takes a certain amount of energy (not provided by the sun). Its important to think of the entire process. I agree absolutely if you disregard the conversion process ethanol is an amazingly efficient deal, but once you add the fuel for all the farm equipment, all the fuel for the heating, and all the electricity used along the way, i doubt its going to be a 1:1.4 ratio. Since you are clamoring for the amazing ratio here please provide to me the processing energy required per kilogram of ethanol, because it actually is quite important.

And the hydrogen thing was more of me being appalled at it being called a terrible combustible, i had to yell shenanigans on that one . I'm aware of the issues of using hydrogen in cars, on paper its a sweet fuel but its hard to apply in an internal combustion engine. My guess would be because unlike most other fuels hydrogen is a gas at the temperatures and pressures currently used in engines, and gasses just can't carry the same amount of mass as a liquid especially if its a gas of pretty much the smallest molecular substance.

 

this is probably also the same reason people add nitrous oxide instead of straight up oxygen when it comes to bottle boosting. Straight up oxygen probably makes things way too volatile.

 

This is something that most people leave out when they talk about making fuels. They look at it from the standpoint that it yields X amount of fuel but the amount of fuel it takes to make it is less. That's all fine and dandy but at the end of the day it ALWAYS takes more total energy (in other ways you pointed out) to make it than it yields. This is always true no matter what fuel it is. The real discussion should really be based on what requires the least total energy to produce compared to it's yield.

 

There are some basic rules that apply to fuels. We know that burning too slow is not a good thing. We also know that burning too fast is not a good thing. At least not with current internal combustion engines. Ignoring aspects such as timing, some basic rules are the slower the fuel burns, the lower the rpm limit. Diesel being a good example. The faster it burns, the higher the rpm limit "can" be. The faster a fuel burns, the higher it's octane needs to be to control detonation. The slower it burns, the lower it's octane level can be. Again, diesel is a good example. Slow flame front speed, very low octane. If we design an engine that is specifically accounting for each type of fuel in compression ratio, etc, in other words the perfect diesel engine, the perfect gasoline engine intended for X octane, the perfect hydrogen engine, and the perfect ethanol fueled engine, tune them optimally around each fuel in both timing and a/f ratio, the engine that is using the fuel with the most btu content should make the most power on average. Note I am not saying torque as torque never has been and never will be a measure of work. Also keep in mind that each engine will have varying rpm limits as per their engine/fuel design limits. I am also not taking into account the fact that a diesel is not throttled. That is an efficiency gain right there but really only applies anywhere that is not at full throttle. For comparison sake, let's just assume full throttle. Keep in mind this is a theoretical comparison and only applies in a perfect world. There are lots of things that can affect the results but if done perfectly the above would work accordingly.

The above is mostly true since when you get to the flame front extremes both high and low, you start running into other isses that just don't match well with internal combustion engine. When you get to faster burning, more volitile fuels, regardless of their btu content, they would be hard to use in internal combustion engines. A very fast burning fuel is best used in external combustion such as the above mentioned rocket engines. A slower burning fuel is better suited to different types of internal combustion other than the otto or diesel cycles such as jet engines and the brayton cycle. Each type of engine has it's own fuel sweet spots in terms of volitility. Go outside of that range and it's just not a good fuel to use for that application hence my hatred for hydrogen in internal combustion engines. It's a crap fuel for that purpose.

The chart in this link shows very well what fuels have what btu potential. When we look at the power levels of each type of engine that runs on these we can pretty easily draw the correlation that their total efficiency is very well linked with the type of fuel they are running on. It works! If you look, it takes a gallon and a half of pure Ethanol to equal the same energy content as 1 gallon of gasoline. It's btu content is much lower. Now you can justify this with excuses and change the chemical content in your favor all you want but the numbers don't lie. What this should mean is that a perfect engine running on ethanol and a perfect engine designed for gasoline both tuned to stoich should make the exact same power as each other when the ethanol engine is ingesting nearly 50% more fuel per volume. Even if you could optimally tune each engine around it's fuel at the max power a/f ratio, and even if the ethanol engine made more power than gasoline, it's still less efficient! Why? btu content. Yes it matters!!! I have in the past said it's not all about btu in diesel engines but that was a little white lie as they are not throttled and have other efficiency advantages at this time. A blanket statement is easier.

At the end of the day it comes down to btu content. No matter what you do or what your dyno shows, ethanol is ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS less efficient than gasoline. When you can show that it has more btu potential than gasoline per equal volume, then and only then will I be proved wrong. Until then you may as well try to invent perpetual motion because odds are you'll figure it out before you figure out how to make ethanol more efficient than gasoline.

The truth shall set you free!

http://alternativefuels.about.com/od...rces/a/gge.htm

 

the numbers 1: (1.26-1.4) are the figures that research organizations have come up with for all of the energy put into taking corn and turning it into ethanol comapred to the energy in the ethanol.

 

Cornell University would disagree with those figures:

http://healthandenergy.com/ethanol.htm

There are of course other estimates. Here's a breakdown that completely says otherwise. It even goes into how to make it more efficient through different processes:

http://www.carbohydrateeconomy.org/l...a_Gallon_.html

It does make one impossible conclusion though and that is even after accounting for energy required to grow the corn that there is still a greater energy output yield from ethanol than there is to grow the corn, process it, and yield ethanol. This is impossible. You can not use less energy to create something than it yields in the end. You just can't account for the energy absorbed by the sun or the water and fertilzers. Then again this study was conducted 13 years ago so I don't put a whole lot of faith in it's results anyways. We've learned alot since then. This is also the same info that ethanol.org has on their site. They are biased towards Ethanol use though!

At the end of the day this is all moot anyways as the real topic is overall production efficiency in relation to other fuels. That's the only thing that really matters. The overall individial numbers on their own don't mean anything. The key that everyone focuses on of course is how much energy WE need to put into making it vs what we get out of it. From that standpoint it is possible to show a positive but the TOTAL energy requiements are always greater to produce something. There's a difference.

One thing I do find interesting is that there are very large differences in opinion in these studies as to what the total energy consumption and yield is which really only says to me that no one really knows for sure and that it's irrelevant to try to compare based on these results.

 

i think you are putting too much faith in an article you may not fully understand.

 

I think we keep saying the same thing over and over to FN.

Also, FloppinNachos, you have to remember, photosynthesis is terribly inefficient, 0.5-6% energy from the sun is used to make sugars and starches. Part of that is due to chlorophyll only using certain wavelengths, so a little bioengineering could possibly ramp that up. But unless you get into really high efficiencies, it is still not viable. The ethanol yield per acre would be higher, but so would fertilizer requirements (if that could even be met).

 

Check this out! This may bridge the gap between sugar based ethanol and standard pump gas. Not to mention this stuff can be made from non-food source sugars. Very cool 8)

http://www.nextenergynews.com/news1/...news3.28d.html

 

Simple math.

Back in 2005 when gas first peaked at $3 a gallon, a bushel of corn sold for under $3. Considering the cost of land, labor, farm equipment and all the rest, I wonder how much of that goes to oil - I just know its not much. For those keeping score, a bushel of corn produces 2.75 gallons of ethanol.

Regarding the amount of oil it takes to ferment, well again, not much.

Distilling the mash into alcohol probably takes the most energy. How much heat? Figure the ambient tempearture is maybe 50° F. Ethanol boils at 148° so we only need to raise the temp by about 100°F. It weighs about 7.4 lbs per gallon. and the mash is about 15% ethanol.

(100° F * 7.4 Lbs)/.15 = 4934 BTU

Ethanol has 75,700 BTU per gallon.

I just filled up my RX8 the usual blend of 87 & 93 for $3.24 a gallon. 114,000 BTU per gallon. That's 35185 BTU per dollar.

E85 in the North Dallas area is selling for $2.79, at 75,700 BTU per gallon. That's 27132 BTU per dollar.

Today in Dallas, gasoline is a better bargain. To be equal, gasoline would have to cost $4.21 against ethanol at $2.79.

As much as I like the higher output ethanol produces I'll keep burning the cheaper gas. Of course that may only be for another year or two.

 

Read this a while back, didn't do the math so I'm not sure if its 100% accurate but still crazy...

You are driving the average $140,000 Lingenfelter "twin-turbo" powered Corvette Z06. Over a mile up the road, a Top Fuel dragster is staged and ready to launch down a quarter mile strip as you pass. You have the advantage of a flying start. You run the 'Vette hard up through the gears and blast across the starting line and past the dragster at an honest 200 mph. The 'tree' goes green for both of you at that moment. The dragster launches and starts after you. You keep your foot down hard, but you hear an incredibly brutal whine that sears your eardrums and within 3 seconds the dragster catches and passes you. He beats you to the finish line, a quarter mile away from where you just passed him.

Think about it, from a standing start, the dragster had spotted you 200 mph and not only caught, but nearly blasted you off the road when he passed you within a mere 1320 foot long race course.

 

Gates set to dump half his stake in Pacific Ethanol
By Dale Kasler - dkasler@sacbee.com
Published 12:00 am PDT Tuesday, June 3, 2008

Bill Gates is on track to dump half his original stake in Sacramento's Pacific Ethanol Inc., reflecting growing investor dismay with the industry.

Gates' Cascade Investment LLC, an early major investor in Pacific Ethanol, sold 1 million shares last week at prices ranging from $3.45 to $3.83 a share, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. That's in addition to the roughly 1.3 million shares he sold over a three-week period starting in late April.

The SEC filings suggest Gates is taking a loss on Pacific Ethanol. He has been converting his preferred stock into common shares at $8 a share, and then selling the common stock at less than $4 a share.

Neil Koehler, Pacific Ethanol's president and chief executive, said he wasn't sure what percentage of Pacific Ethanol's stock is held by Gates. But Koehler said it looks like Gates has converted about half of his preferred stock into common shares for the sole purpose of selling those common shares.

His original stake was 20 percent, and "he's well on his way to 10 percent," Koehler said.

Gates' $84 million investment in 2005 was a big early boost to Pacific Ethanol, but Koehler said he isn't particularly bothered by Gates' recent sales.

"That's the great thing about markets; people are free to buy and sell," he said.

He noted that he and three other insiders, including his brothers and company Chairman Bill Jones, recently purchased about $5.8 million in Pacific Ethanol stock through a private sale. The company, pressed for cash, has raised about $75 million through private stock sales since late March.

A representative for Cascade couldn't be reached for comment Monday.

Pacific Ethanol's stock closed Monday at $3.44, down 10 cents, on the Nasdaq market.

 

here- besidess the fact that last year 1/4 of our corn production went to ethanol that replaced only 5% of the fuel- look at the real economy reduction of cars when usign e85

http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/byfueltype.htm

look around on there. there are more.



Nissan Titan
Gas 13 city 18hwy

E85 9 city 13hwy


Nissan Armada
Gas 12 city 18hwy

E85 9 city 13hwy

 

give the corn to our cows so beef stays cheap!