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Guest
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 Posted: Wed Jun 18, 2008 2:12 am Post subject: Re: Experimental data on ethanol fuel efficiency |
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On Jun 17, 6:22 pm, Stephen Sprunk <step...@sprunk.org> wrote:
| Quote: |
mrdarr...@gmail.com wrote:
Unfortunately, at least in the US, it appears that farm subsidies
cause farmers to "forget" to plant food for eating. (That's how one
economist explained rising food prices.)
Forget? They're deliberately paid by the government to _not_ grow crops
to limit supply and thus keep the price up.
We'd save a lot of money and help the economy by ending that program and
letting consumers pay farmers for ethanol rather than sending our money
to terrorists in the Middle East. Ending the ban on sugar cane from a
certain dictatorship near Florida would free up corn currently being
used as a replacement, and banning the use of corn for feeding cows
would free up even more -- and we'd no longer need to pump those cows
full of antibiotics because they're being fed something that they can't
digest properly.
S
|
I agree with you 100.00%.
Ending the ban on Brazilian sugar would be good too. Or are we
boycotting them because the Brazilians wanted to imprison the American
pilots implicated in the crash of one of their passenger aircraft?
Michael |
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Uncle Ben
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| Posted: Wed Jun 18, 2008 3:02 am Post subject: Re: Experimental data on ethanol fuel efficiency |
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On Jun 17, 9:24 pm, Stephen Sprunk <step...@sprunk.org> wrote:
| Quote: |
Uncle Ben wrote:
It is often claimed on the basis of chemical energy in fuels that the
driving efficiency of cars using those fuels must be proportional to
their energy content. Anecdotal evidence has disagreed with this
assumption.
It's claimed, but it's wrong, because that claim ignores what proportion
of the energy content can be extracted from each fuel.
S
|
I wonder if anybody has read beyond the first paragraph of my original
post. The point of the whole thread was to have been a refutation of
what I call the BTU theory of mileage by means of experimental data.
I would phrase it that each engine has its own way of dealing with the
characteristics of each fuel, depending probably on its rate of burn.
I believe (can someone confirm?) that while gasoline benefits from a
spark advance, ethanol benefits from a spark delay. This may be
because ethanol is a single compound, while gasoline is a mixture of
many compounds. So the ethanol explosion may be quicker, and thus
more precisely timed to give the maximum energy to the piston. |
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Bill Ward
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| Posted: Wed Jun 18, 2008 5:35 am Post subject: Re: Experimental data on ethanol fuel efficiency |
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On Tue, 17 Jun 2008 16:52:46 -0400, daestrom wrote:
| Quote: |
Bill Ward wrote:
On Tue, 17 Jun 2008 02:03:18 +0200, Sevenhundred Elves wrote:
On Mon, 16 Jun 2008 18:03:02 GMT, "Ernieman"
ernieman7REMOVECAPS@verizon.net> wrote:
"Sevenhundred Elves" <sevenhundred@elves.invalid> wrote in message
news:q8qb54htvl1pa2vnv7l9h7qa417e2k9b5m@4ax.com...
On Sun, 15 Jun 2008 19:59:44 +0100, Eeyore
rabbitsfriendsandrelations@hotmail.com> wrote:
DG wrote:
20 years ago one of the smartest people I ever met was building
ceramic engines. Their time may have come...
Big cooling problems AIUI.
Graham
I don't know of any better conductor for heat than diamond. I
suppose diamond whiskers might also contribute to the strength of the
ceramic. Pity, that synthetic diamond is still somewhat expensive.
S.
Presumably, there is an easy solution to the cooling problem: inject
water into the cylinders; see
http://peswiki.com/index.php/Directory:Crower's_Six-Stroke_Engine
Hopefully, the ceramic engine will not have the corrosion issues of
metal parts.
Ernie
I visited the site and read the following description of that
"Six-Stroke Engine":
The first four strokes are the same as an internal combustion engine.
In Crower's design, after the exhaust cycles out of the chamber,
rather than squirting more fuel and air into the chamber, his design
injects ordinary water. Inside the extremely hot chamber, the water
immediately turns to steam, expanding to 1600 times its volume, which
forces the piston down for a second power stroke. Another exhaust
cycle pushes the steam out of the chamber, and then the six-stroke
cycle begins again.
Thinking a bit about this, I began to wonder where the water got its
expansion energy from. Well, the heat seems to come from the cylinder,
of course, but how did it get there? It got there from the combustion
of the fuel, of course. But this means that some of the energy of the
combustion is delegated to re-heat the walls of the cylinder, and since
this energy can't then be used to push the piston, the four strokes on
fuel will not be as efficient as they could be. The expanding gas will
be cooler, and this means lesser Carnot efficiency.
It seems to me that the two strokes on water will take their energy
from the four strokes on fuel, making those 4 strokes less efficient.
One way to look at it is that any energy captured by the extra cycles
would have otherwise been lost to the cooling system.
But if the cooling system normally runs about 220F, the cylinder wall
can't be a whole heck of a lot hotter than that. So how much steam can
you generate from a 250F cylinder wall?
My bet is that you have more trouble with water blowing by into the
crankcase and see very little power increase if at all.
daestrom
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I just now followed the link to:
http://www.autoweek.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060227/FREE/302270007/1023/THISWEEKSISSUE
which gives a fairly good explanation. Apparently the steam does
recover energy, since the engine is air cooled and could run a lot hotter
than usual for a liquid cooled. The claim is that it runs "cool", but at
the time of writing, the prototype hadn't been dyno tested, so there was
no actual measurement of increased efficiency.
The inventor seems to be fairly experienced with practical matters, so
there may be something there after all. Time will tell. The
added complexity is the bugaboo I'd worry about. Spraying cold water on
hot metal in an oxidizing atmosphere doesn't give me a good feeling. |
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Stephen Sprunk
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| Posted: Wed Jun 18, 2008 6:22 am Post subject: Re: Experimental data on ethanol fuel efficiency |
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mrdarrett@gmail.com wrote:
| Quote: |
Unfortunately, at least in the US, it appears that farm subsidies
cause farmers to "forget" to plant food for eating. (That's how one
economist explained rising food prices.)
|
Forget? They're deliberately paid by the government to _not_ grow crops
to limit supply and thus keep the price up.
We'd save a lot of money and help the economy by ending that program and
letting consumers pay farmers for ethanol rather than sending our money
to terrorists in the Middle East. Ending the ban on sugar cane from a
certain dictatorship near Florida would free up corn currently being
used as a replacement, and banning the use of corn for feeding cows
would free up even more -- and we'd no longer need to pump those cows
full of antibiotics because they're being fed something that they can't
digest properly.
S |
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Stephen Sprunk
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| Posted: Wed Jun 18, 2008 6:24 am Post subject: Re: Experimental data on ethanol fuel efficiency |
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Uncle Ben wrote:
| Quote: |
It is often claimed on the basis of chemical energy in fuels that the
driving efficiency of cars using those fuels must be proportional to
their energy content. Anecdotale evidence has disagreed with this
assumption.
|
It's claimed, but it's wrong, because that claim ignores what proportion
of the energy content can be extracted from each fuel.
S |
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zzbunker@netscape.net
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| Posted: Wed Jun 18, 2008 10:09 am Post subject: Re: Experimental data on ethanol fuel efficiency |
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On Jun 18, 3:49 am, Eeyore <rabbitsfriendsandrelati...@hotmail.com>
wrote:
| Quote: |
"zzbun...@netscape.net" wrote:
The way GM is going, they might be fortunate if they''re still
making Boeing Condo's in twenty years.
GM owns some great technologies and car makers.
|
Nobody said they didn't. Our claim is still what it's always been.
They don't own robot tech, they don't own computer tech, they don't
own A.I tech,
they don't own digital tech, they don't own satellite tech, they
don't
own laser tech, they don't own solar energy tech, they don't own
wind energy tech,
and they don't own missile tech.
| Quote: |
Now if only they'd let them get on with it instead of poking their big US noses in time-wasting exercises like Bob Lutz's big dream of a
Euro-Caddie that bombed so effectively it's all but sunk without trace. They've apparently made around 6000 total which I find
astonishingly HIGH but then they are now also selling it in the Arabian, Mexican, South African, and South Korean markets.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadillac_BLS
Saab could have been doing something useful instead of engineering this heap of crap.
Graham |
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Eeyore
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| Posted: Wed Jun 18, 2008 11:02 am Post subject: Re: Experimental data on ethanol fuel efficiency |
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Bill Ward wrote:
| Quote: |
Spraying cold water on
hot metal in an oxidizing atmosphere doesn't give me a good feeling.
|
Funny you should say that !
Graham |
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Eeyore
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| Posted: Wed Jun 18, 2008 11:02 am Post subject: Re: Experimental data on ethanol fuel efficiency |
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Lloyd wrote:
| Quote: |
Eeyore wrote:
Lloyd wrote:
Eeyore > > wrote:
Uncle Ben wrote:
Bret Cahill <BretCah...@aol.com> wrote:
If people are going to go to ethanol it might be easier to agree on
some one percentage ethanol and then use the right [high] compression
ratio engine.
For the future, sure. I think 85% is good. For the present (since I
already have a usable car), I switched for the 18% savings I get
already; and then I discovered the extra pep that my car gets as a
bonus.
You'll get a hell of a lot more pep with a turbo ! That's why Saab's the
world leader in this technology.
They were they first to add turbos to ordinary everyday road cars,
The first production turbocharged automobile engines came from General
Motors in 1962.
Not in quantity as standard models.
Saab OWN turbocharging more or less these days.
Which means GM does.
|
Yes, and Trionic is now appearing in certain Opel models. Which means it MAY appear
in some Saturn models eventually.
| Quote: |
And maybe if Saab didn't have delusions of competing with BMW and
Mercedes while only using 4 cylinders, they wouldn't NEED turbos so
much.
|
But that's what gave them the technical lead. Necessity is the mother of invention.
Graham |
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Eeyore
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| Posted: Wed Jun 18, 2008 11:02 am Post subject: Re: Experimental data on ethanol fuel efficiency |
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"zzbunker@netscape.net" wrote:
| Quote: |
The way GM is going, they might be fortunate if they''re still
making Boeing Condo's in twenty years.
|
GM owns some great technologies and car makers.
Now if only they'd let them get on with it instead of poking their big US noses in time-wasting exercises like Bob Lutz's big dream of a
Euro-Caddie that bombed so effectively it's all but sunk without trace. They've apparently made around 6000 total which I find
astonishingly HIGH but then they are now also selling it in the Arabian, Mexican, South African, and South Korean markets.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadillac_BLS
Saab could have been doing something useful instead of engineering this heap of crap.
Graham |
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Eeyore
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| Posted: Wed Jun 18, 2008 11:02 am Post subject: Re: Experimental data on ethanol fuel efficiency |
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Yevgen Barsukov wrote:
| Quote: |
On Jun 15, 1:26 pm, Eeyore <rabbitsfriendsandrelati...@hotmail.com
wrote:
Uncle Ben wrote:
It is often claimed on the basis of chemical energy in fuels that the
driving efficiency of cars using those fuels must be proportional to
their energy content.
Complete nonsense.
Ethanol for example has such a high equivalent octane rating that it can
be used at much higher compression ratios, under which conditions ICEs are
more efficient and therefore can recover most of the loss in pure
calorimetric energy content.
A practical way to do this is already in the market in europe by Saab,
where the turbo boost pressure varies with the gasoline/ethanol mix in the
tank, anywhere in the range from range from E85 to E0.
It actually performs FASTER (higher bhp and higher torque) on E85 than
pure gasoline.
See 'Saab bio-power'. Maybe coming to the USA one day. It's taken it's
home Swedish market by storm.
Graham
Mleage is still lower on E85 than on gasoline
even on Saab optimized system.
According to their own web-site:
15,000 km per year on 1,350 litres of petrol. Over the same >distance, a typical BioPower driver would use 1,755 litres of E85
So the maileage per volume (saab data!) is 0.8 of gasoline.
How about energy content ratio (give same temperature)?
Gasoline: 34.8 MJ/L
Ethanol: 23.5 MJ/L
E85: 25.2
Energy ratio E85/gasoline = 0.72
So Saab data conforms that their engine can get better
mileage (80% of gasoline) then could be expected from energy ratio
(72%) but mind you, even than it is still noticeable less than
gasoline.
|
But they also go faster on ethanol !
Graham |
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zzbunker@netscape.net
Guest
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| Posted: Wed Jun 18, 2008 1:04 pm Post subject: Re: Experimental data on ethanol fuel efficiency |
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On Jun 18, 7:10 am, Eeyore <rabbitsfriendsandrelati...@hotmail.com>
wrote:
| Quote: |
"zzbun...@netscape.net" wrote:
Eeyore wrote:
"zzbun...@netscape.net" wrote:
The way GM is going, they might be fortunate if they''re still
making Boeing Condo's in twenty years.
GM owns some great technologies and car makers.
Nobody said they didn't. Our claim is still what it's always been.
They don't own robot tech, they don't own computer tech, they don't
own A.I tech,
they don't own digital tech, they don't own satellite tech, they
don't
own laser tech, they don't own solar energy tech, they don't own
wind energy tech,
and they don't own missile tech.
I don't follow you there at all.
They can buy robots from robot companies.
They can buy computers and I.T. from computer and I.T. companies.
|
Of course they can. Since they actually invented IT.
Which is why other smarter people invented
A.I, PV Cells, mircocomputers,, and cruise missiles.
| Quote: |
What kind of 'digital tech' do you think they need. I'd leave chip making to the chip makers.
Why do they need AI or satellite or laser or solar or wind or missile tech ?
Graham- Hide quoted text -
- Show quoted text - |
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zzbunker@netscape.net
Guest
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| Posted: Wed Jun 18, 2008 3:44 pm Post subject: Re: Experimental data on ethanol fuel efficiency |
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On Jun 18, 7:10 am, Eeyore <rabbitsfriendsandrelati...@hotmail.com>
wrote:
| Quote: |
"zzbun...@netscape.net" wrote:
Eeyore wrote:
"zzbun...@netscape.net" wrote:
The way GM is going, they might be fortunate if they''re still
making Boeing Condo's in twenty years.
GM owns some great technologies and car makers.
Nobody said they didn't. Our claim is still what it's always been.
They don't own robot tech, they don't own computer tech, they don't
own A.I tech,
they don't own digital tech, they don't own satellite tech, they
don't
own laser tech, they don't own solar energy tech, they don't own
wind energy tech,
and they don't own missile tech.
I don't follow you there at all.
They can buy robots from robot companies.
They can buy computers and I.T. from computer and I.T. companies.
What kind of 'digital tech' do you think they need. I'd leave chip making to the chip makers.
Why do they need AI or satellite or laser or solar or wind or missile tech ?
|
Nobody needs A.I., just like nobody needs a Cadillac.
So, the only message in that for GM is that there's more than
one way to film "Frankie Goes to Hollywood".
| Quote: |
Graham- Hide quoted text -
- Show quoted text - |
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zzbunker@netscape.net
Guest
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| Posted: Wed Jun 18, 2008 3:56 pm Post subject: Re: Experimental data on ethanol fuel efficiency |
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On Jun 18, 11:50 am, Eeyore <rabbitsfriendsandrelati...@hotmail.com>
wrote:
| Quote: |
"zzbun...@netscape.net" wrote:
Eeyore wrote:
I don't follow you there at all.
They [GM] can buy robots from robot companies.
They can buy computers and I.T. from computer and I.T. companies.
Of course they can. Since they actually invented IT.
Which is why other smarter people invented
A.I, PV Cells, mircocomputers,, and cruise missiles.
I still don't see what your point is. Is there one ?
|
You never will, since you seem to like all GM idiots,
you think you actually own sci.energy.
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Eeyore
Guest
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| Posted: Wed Jun 18, 2008 4:10 pm Post subject: Re: Experimental data on ethanol fuel efficiency |
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"zzbunker@netscape.net" wrote:
| Quote: |
Eeyore wrote:
"zzbun...@netscape.net" wrote:
The way GM is going, they might be fortunate if they''re still
making Boeing Condo's in twenty years.
GM owns some great technologies and car makers.
Nobody said they didn't. Our claim is still what it's always been.
They don't own robot tech, they don't own computer tech, they don't
own A.I tech,
they don't own digital tech, they don't own satellite tech, they
don't
own laser tech, they don't own solar energy tech, they don't own
wind energy tech,
and they don't own missile tech.
|
I don't follow you there at all.
They can buy robots from robot companies.
They can buy computers and I.T. from computer and I.T. companies.
What kind of 'digital tech' do you think they need. I'd leave chip making to the chip makers.
Why do they need AI or satellite or laser or solar or wind or missile tech ?
Graham |
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Yevgen Barsukov
Guest
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| Posted: Wed Jun 18, 2008 4:23 pm Post subject: Re: Experimental data on ethanol fuel efficiency |
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On Jun 17, 5:49 pm, Uncle Ben <b...@greenba.com> wrote:
| Quote: |
On Jun 17, 6:05 pm, Yevgen Barsukov <evgen...@gmail.com> wrote:
On Jun 17, 11:37 am, Uncle Ben <b...@greenba.com> wrote:
On Jun 17, 11:53 am, Yevgen Barsukov <evgen...@gmail.com> wrote:
Mleage is still lower on E85 than on gasoline
even on Saab optimized system.
According to their own web-site:
15,000 km per year on 1,350 litres of petrol. Over the same >distance, a typical BioPower driver would use 1,755 litres of E85
So the mileage per volume (saab data!) is 0.8 of gasoline.
In my neighborhood the price of E85 is 0.75 that of gasoline.
In my car, the mileage per volume is 0.85 that of gasoline.
Therefore, I go farther per dollar on E85.
Who cares about miles/gallon; its miles/money that counts.
Uncle Ben
Good point. However your area appears somewhat untypical. The average
difference between E85 and unleaded gasoline price is 17%http://e85prices.com/
Also low price of E85 reflects subsidies on ethanol rather than
economic fundamentals (e.g. might not be still there last year or a
year
after that when subsidies are canceled). So if your decision to
purchase a car is based on this expectation, figure this uncertainty
in.
Regards,
Yevgen
You are right about the unpredictability of the price of ethanol.
This year's floods in the mid-west are robbing us of much corn.
But look longer out. If it is true about Peak Oil occurring right
now, the price of oil is going to go up and up for years, while
ethanol will go up much slower. Eventually we all will be begging for
ethanol or another biofuel.
Oil is not going to go back to where it used to be. When oil is $3000
per barrel, we likely will not be burning it to move cars. We might be
making pharmaceuticals out of it.
Ben
|
I quite agree that oil has picked and we have to brace for production
to be half in 30-40 years. So yes, prices is only
going to go up long term, regardless of some possible short-term
drops.
But, ethanol prices is highly affected by oil-price
because of disel fuel used in agriculture and fertilizers
which are (as all heavy-chemistry) very much oil and gas based.
If that is true that only about 10% of bio-ethanol energy is
coming from the sun, and all other is offset by used oil,
than price of ethanol can be expected to lag only 10% behind
price of oil. Note that 10% is an optimistic estimate, some
other estimates are saying that it is not breaking even.
But than, given high price pressure, technology of bio-ethanol
is bound to improve. Switch-grass and other cellulose processing
sound very doable from chemical stand-point. They might further
disconnect price of ethanol from oil and that would be great.
Good to know that ethanol price can provide a "hard limit" on
how high gasoline price can rise, and it looks like this limit
is almost reached already. Clear that market will also affect
the price of ethanol itself, but if its fundamentals are
disconnected from oil (specially with new technologies kicking in),
dynamics will be quite different.
Regards.
Yevgen |
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