Alcohol / Ethanol & Alternative Fuels

[dvishnu]

WOW!!!!!!!!!!

[Darren Dirt]

Careful folks! Although we all have fun together and love to joke around, our thread-drift ratio is approaching the same frightening proportions as the Quatloonatics

[dvishnu]

Ok everyone...Act accordingly! No more fun!!!.....Walk and write in straight wiggly lines.....The topic police has comandeered this thread....Please disperse....There is nothing to see here...

[NonEntity]

Hey Dvishnu, did you see that? I must have really upset Darren to get him to come out of his hole and actually make a public post on the board! I guess we'd better tone it down if we were THAT extreme. ;D

Sorry Darren, I couldn't help myself. I'm beyond hope, out of control and just plain having too much fun making an *ss of myself. (But I will admit your point did appear to have some measure of ... well, the INTENTION was good anyway.)

- NonE

[dvishnu]

;D ;D ;D

[Darren Dirt]

nonentity said:

Hey Dvishnu, did you see that? I must have really upset Darren to get him to come out of his hole and actually make a public post on the board! I guess we'd better tone it down if we were THAT extreme. ;D
- NonE

dvishnu said:

;D ;D ;D

Wah?

[Free Radical]

I played the april 1st No State Project and heard this -

"I'm going to go on record... and we can put this on the forum and we can see if I'm right. I'm predicting we're going to get close to $4 a gallon for gas, right around memorial day. I see no problem with that at all. It's definitely going to go well above the $3.30 I think it went before, when they decided to drop it."

www.eia.doe.gov/oil_gas/petroleum/data_publications/wrgp/mogas_home_page.html

See graph at the bottom.

[Darren Dirt]

Microbes could become a source of fuel and power over the next 50 years, a report from the American Academy of Microbiology says.

CBC News
The report touts microbes as producers of alternative fuels such as ethanol, hydrogen, methane and butanol, which could become sources of clean, renewable energy as the supply of fossil fuels declines and pressure mounts to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

While fuels such as ethanol are burned, which has an environmental impact, they are deemed to be cleaner than gas and oil, and their production puts less pressure on the environment.

"The future might look like a new power plant on the edge of town - an inconspicuous bioreactor that takes in yard waste and locally grown crops like corn and woodchips, and churns out electricity to area homes and businesses," said Judy Wall of the University of Missouri - Columbia, one of the authors of the report.

The idea of producing power directly from biomass - organic sources - in microbial fuel cells is in its early days, and yields are low. "But the potential to make great leaps of progress in yield and performance is great," Wall said.

However, progress depends in part on the discovery and development of novel bacteria that can transfer electrons from biomass to an electrode, the report said.

Immediately makes me think of the final scene in "Back To The Future" ;D

[yeoman]

Sagas4,

I am very interested in the results of your K&N air filter tests. Would you please post them?

(28,000 miles on 100% biodiesel and 8 months since stopping at a gas station to buy fuel)

[Darren Dirt]

Scientists develop portable generator that turns trash into electricity


news.uns.purdue.edu/x/2007a/070201LadischBio.html

A group of scientists have created a portable refinery that efficiently converts food, paper and plastic trash into electricity. The machine, designed for the U.S. military, would allow soldiers in the field to convert waste into power and could have widespread civilian applications in the future.

The U.S. Army subsequently commissioned the biorefinery upon completion of a functional prototype, and the machine is being considered for future Army development.

The tactical biorefinery first separates organic food material from residual trash, such as paper, plastic, Styrofoam and cardboard. The food waste goes to a bioreactor where industrial yeast ferments it into ethanol, a "green" fuel. Residual materials go to a gasifier where they are heated under low-oxygen conditions and eventually become low-grade propane gas and methane. The gas and ethanol are then combusted in a modified diesel engine that powers a generator to produce electricity.

Ladisch and Warner said the machine eventually could be deployed in disaster situations, similar to Hurricane Katrina, or at any crisis location where people are stranded without power. Emergency crews could then use the machine to turn debris such as woodchips into much-needed electricity, Warner said.

The refinery also could provide supplementary power for factories, restaurants or stores, Ladisch said.

...of course it's the *military* that are gonna be using it first... which means (since this is a public pronouncement) that they have already been using it for at least 5 years...

[Darren Dirt]

Interesting aspect of the growing "biodiesel" industry...

- - -

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transesterification

History of biolipid transesterification
One of the first uses of transesterified vegetable oil (biodiesel) was to power heavy-duty vehicles in South Africa before World War II. The name "biodiesel" has been given to transesterified vegetable oil to describe its use as a diesel fuel.

It was patented in the U.S. in the 1940s by Colgate, though biolipid transesterification may have been discovered much earlier. In the 1940s, researchers were looking for a method to more readily produce glycerine, which was used to produce explosives for World War II. Many of the methods used today by producers and homebrewers have their origin in the original 1940s research.

[Darren Dirt]

ForceFieldMagnets.com -- Wind Turbine and magnet parts, info, and other stuff

www.forcefieldmagnets.com/catalog/index.php?cPath=22

www.forcefieldmagnets.com/catalog/index.php?cPath=22_30

plenty o' books:
www.forcefieldmagnets.com/catalog/index.php?cPath=21

[Darren Dirt]

"biofuel is worse for the planet than petroleum..."

a rather unique perspective.

[Darren Dirt]

The Mysterious Origin and Supply of Oil
By Ker Than, LiveScience Staff Writer

posted: 11 October 2005 10:29 am ET

It runs modern society and fuels serious political tension. But where does oil really come from, and how much is left? The far-out possibilities might surprise you.

www.livescience.com/environment/051011_oil_origins.html *

In the leading theory, dead organic material accumulates on the bottom of oceans, riverbeds or swamps, mixing with mud and sand. Over time, more sediment piles on top and the resulting heat and pressure transforms the organic layer into a dark and waxy substance known as kerogen.

Left alone, the kerogen molecules eventually crack, breaking up into shorter and lighter molecules composed almost solely of carbon and hydrogen atoms. Depending on how liquid or gaseous this mixture is, it will turn into either petroleum or natural gas.

So how long does this process take?

Scientists aren't really sure, but they figure it's probably on the order of hundreds of thousands of years.



The idea that petroleum is formed from dead organic matter is known as the "biogenic theory" of petroleum formation and was first proposed by a Russian scientist almost 250 years ago.

In the 1950's, however, a few Russian scientists began questioning this traditional view and proposed instead that petroleum could form naturally deep inside the Earth.

This so-called "abiogenic" petroleum might seep upward through cracks formed by asteroid impacts to form underground pools, according to one hypothesis. Some geologists have suggested probing ancient impact craters in the search for oil.

Abiogenic sources of oil have been found, but never in commercially profitable amounts. The controversy isn't over whether naturally forming oil reserves exist, said Larry Nation of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists. It's over how much they contribute to Earth's overall reserves and how much time and effort geologists should devote to seeking them out.

If abiogenic petroleum sources are indeed found to be abundant, it would mean Earth contains vast reserves of untapped petroleum and, since other rocky objects formed from the same raw material as Earth, that crude oil might exist on other planets or moons in the solar system, scientists say.

*found via this list of 11 things humanity knows that it knows very little about

[edweird]

Can water fuel world?

Cracking H2O with radio waves.