Alcohol / Ethanol & Alternative Fuels

[sagas4]

Wood said:

Is anyone familiar with wood pellets or a fire place insert if they are as good as advertised.Its of course not revolutionary but just for non the sky is falling times.

I have heard of these, but have no experience with them. They are suppose to be very efficient from what I recall, but I think you have to buy the pellets unless you have a way of mass producing compressed wood pellets. A friend was looking into one of these and wanted to feed it dried field corn. Don't know if he ever did.

[joetooktheredpill]

Home depot is supposed to get them in october at what price i don't know.The pellet i believe are 176. a ton.and store in a6' by 6' by6' area,haven"t found a source in central texas yet.

[sagas4]

Here is a link to a general overview of pellet furnaces. www.askthebuilder.com/485_Rising_Heating_Costs_Trigger_Alternative_Heat_Options.shtml

There are many more resources if one googles "Pellet Furnace". I have done some looking and here is what I found as it pertains to my situation.

I cannot justify the operation costs in terms of my time to feed one of these since I currently use a geothermal heat pump. I kept a spreadsheet of utility costs for a year before and a year after installation. The geothermal heat pump literally cut my power bill by more than half and the savings is nearly equal for summer cooling as it is for winter heating. If I replaced some of the cracked & broken windows rather than clear silicone caulk over the cracks, with double or triple pane insulated replacements, I might save even more. If I put up some Solar PV and a few Wind Mills to generate my own power the cost of operating a pellet furnace is extremely high in comparison in terms of Purchasing corn or pellets, and the ongoing maintenance (my time) feeding and cleaning.

Anyway the geothermal heat pump costs less than 40.00 / month to run for 2000 sq ft., averaging 76F in summer and 74F in winter located @ 40 to 41 degrees N Latitude @ .06 to .07 cents per KWH.

The initial cost of the Geothermal unit and well drilling was 10,000 Fraudulent Reserve Notes (FRN) and my calculated payback was 6 years and 7 months. The Wells have a 50 year warranty, and the furnace 10 years, (2 on the pump and blower) but both of them are relatively inexpensive to replace, so if they last past 6 years and 7 months I break even, after that I'm savin FRNs just for the fun of watchin'em depreciate due to inflation. ;D

These are general numbers that I tracked and you may be able to use. The rule of thumb the installer told me is that you need 1- 125ft to 150 ft. well for each ton of cooling. So if you need a 3 ton furnace you will need 3 wells. There is also now a copper mesh cube which can be buried in the yard which is not as deep and would likely cost less for installation but more in materials than well drilling, so there are some options. Keep in mind that it is recommended the well be at least 50ft-75 ft. from any buried water, gas, or sewer lines; Local tyrant proclamations may vary.

[gjflanker]

sagas4 said:

The initial cost of the Geothermal unit and well drilling was 10,000 Fraudulent Reserve Notes (FRN) and my calculated payback was 6 years and 7 months. The Wells have a 50 year warranty, and the furnace 10 years, (2 on the pump and blower) but both of them are relatively inexpensive to replace, so if they last past 6 years and 7 months I break even, after that I'm savin FRNs just for the fun of watchin'em depreciate due to inflation. ;D

Hope you don't mind me going off topic a bit, but explaining to 8th graders why colonial paper currency wasn't worth much is quite a lot of fun. You should see their faces when I ask them why a piece of paper with green and black ink on it is worth anything. Then I explain the difference between currency and money and how u.s. currency used to be backed by money. Their eyes really pop when they figure out that the u.s. currency is only worth something because we all pretend its worth something, i.e. we're all just using pretend money!

[sagas4]

Review of Knowledge Publications Material:

I ordered some materials from Knowledge Publications. (Sorry Marc, You're gonna have to wait for another month or 2 till I save some more FRNs).

I am disappointed that they messed up the order (Shorted me some fresnel lenses, but otherwise I did get everything ordered); The Sunshine to dollars is a tight spiral bound 8.5x11 computer printed booklet, but it does have some good information and is well illustrated but only 40 pages. It is full of PRACTICAL information. Some of the solar books I have read are much longer but mostly theoretical. In the 40 pages are quite a few experiments you can do, and then scale up from there. I would have liked a nicely professionally bound book for 20.00 but I am generally satisfied with the value of information provided.

Roy McAlisters book is Professionally done like Marc's book. There's lots of chemical equations, tables, and illustration. Although I have not had time to read it yet, a brief scan reveals it does have an index, and looks to be packed full of scientific data and I am very pleased with the quality of the product.

The Hydrogen Car DVD is done like a college lecture class and has some very basic information that is boring for those who have had some automobile vocational training, and basic chemistry and physics, but as the authors point out, their target audience is the average individual who may not have an in depth knowledge of chemistry, physics, and mechanical engineering.
(Roy and Steve make several comments urging children to get a good education in chemistry and physics and sciences in general. I like the subtle and not so subtle hints and would agree with them. With that type of knowledge one can actually produce something of value rather than suck like much of the other worthless professions like lawyers do.) After watching the DVD I think someone who can (on a lawn mower engine) change the oil, adjust the fuel air mixture on a carburetor, and knows how to gap a spark plug could easily make the engine modifications with no other documentation than what is contained in the DVD. If you have never done these things and don't know how, this DVD will not guide you step by step, so you will have to get some further information. It may be in the Solar Hydrogen Civilization Book, but I have not read it yet so I don't know if it is contained in there. I did briefly scan it and it has tables with burn rates, graphs, and pictures of engine internals. I'll let you know more after I have read the book.

After watching the DVD I was thoroughly shocked and let down, when Steve did a cost/BTU analysis and showed that you're better off using gasoline; however, after he burst the free energy bubble, he did show how hydrogen enriched fuels (with home produced hydrogen and alternative fuels) can be made for less than 1.00 Gallon Gas Equivalent (GGE) at 2005 prices. I look forward to the Diesel Engine DVD and how to make TURPINE and Alcohol DVD's they talk about making. The Hydrogen Car DVD was done in 2005, so I presume they are working on the others right now.

Overall I am pleased with the value/price offering, and it looks like you can convert a small lawn mower engine for about $25.oo to experiment with. Will keep y'all posted when we start experimenting. At the moment I have other projects that need completion.

[Darren Dirt]

gjflanker said:

I agree that the Civil War (in itself a misnomer in that it was not a war over control of the government) was not about slavery. Check out "The South was Right" for a very interesting read on what it really was all about, mostly maintaining economic superiority of the northern markets over the southern supply of agricultural products. ...

This Listmania collection of secession-related books says it all:
www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/listmania/list-browse/-/K4B36GZ168P5/ref=cm_aya_av.lm_more/002-3421018-1584038

"Southern Secession and Revolutionary Self-Determination" (by anarchteacher, History Instructor, Libertarian)

One of the book titles is "Emancipating Slaves, Enslaving Free Men: A History of the American Civil War". 'Nuff said.

[NonEntity]

As regards the price of alcohol for fuel puposes, the following article may be of interest. It is from Mises.org.

Ethanol and the Calculation Issue

by Peter Anderson [Posted on Thursday, August 18, 2005]

In 1978, Congress began a series of efforts to boost the production of ethanol, an alcohol that American producers most commonly derive from corn. The idea was to produce a fuel in response to the energy crisis. The subsidies take many forms from vast income tax credits to companies that blend gas and ethanol to loan deficiency payments for the production of corn.

Like mohair, however, subsidies for ethanol have long outlived the original crisis. Congress recently passed a $12.3 billion energy bill, which President Bush soon signed into law August 8, 2005. In particular, this bill requires the use of 7.5 billion gallons of domestically produced fuels by 2012, which will ultimately increase the production of ethanol, or so the ethanol industry hopes.

The supporters of increasing ethanol production have presented their usual arguments such as how these bills create jobs in the Midwest (one estimate predicts Iowa’s economy to grow five percent), provide better security and prices for farmers, and increase America’s self reliance in terms of energy production.

If Henry Hazlitt were still alive he would no doubt point out that the state’s creation of jobs in one sector comes at the expense of others. He could say this without even touching on the matter of whether national economic self-sufficiency is a desirable end.

Despite these arguments, let us draw attention to the calculation issue first raised by Mises. Mises argued that a pure socialist system will lack a market for the buying and selling of goods, especially capital goods, and thus no rational pricing system can exist. Central planners, therefore, could not accurately calculate profits or losses for production and any purely socialist system would ultimately degenerate into chaos.

Currently, America’s heartland is experiencing similar calculation problems due to the federal government’s subsidization of ethanol.

One small example will illustrate the complexities that critics and proponents of ethanol face in properly calculating fuel inputs as opposed to the final ethanol fuel output. It takes energy to mine the ore for steel. It also takes energy and fuel to make the steel for tractors and then produce and ship the tractors. Likewise, tractors certainly require fuel for their operation. The tractor calculations, however, say nothing about the energy costs required for the production and shipping of fertilizer or building ethanol plants.

In the end, the total energy costs outweighs the final energy production. In addition, recent studies undertaken by Cornell University and the University of California at Berkley corroborate the claims of the inefficiency critics. These studies, however, have not quieted ethanol proponents who envision higher corn prices resulting from ethanol subsidies.

Fortunately, in regards to the calculation quandary economic theory does provide an answer. In an unfettered market, the demand for consumption goods induces entrepreneurs to steer production toward those areas where the sale of their product will bring a rate of return to their investment at or above the prevailing rate of interest. In turn, producers of consumption goods will bid for those capital goods of a higher order that they calculate will bring a return to their final product that also remunerates the investment. This buying and selling on the market creates prices for these goods, which allow producers to calculate the profit or loss of their operation.

This somewhat simplified theory of production in turn illuminates the current situation of ethanol production. If consumers are not willing to pay for the costs of unsubsidized fuel with ethanol additives at the pumps, no market for ethanol production will exist. Entrepreneurs will not employ capital goods like fuel toward the production of ethanol because the sale of the final product ethanol will not cover their costs of production at or above the prevailing rate of interest and ethanol producers will incur continual losses. The expected sale of corn to ethanol producers will not compensate the higher orders of production.

Hence, farmers’ will not employ capital goods like tractors, fuel, and fertilizer towards corn production because in the end it will result in a monetary loss. This similarly goes for tractor, fertilizer, and steel production. If entrepreneurs in the ethanol production sector do not accurately gauge an efficient and profitable way to employ their capital, their costs will soon outstrip their revenue and they will not produce in these sectors for long.

In the end, the federal government’s subsidization of ethanol through various energy bills created the current debate over the efficiency of ethanol production. In an unregulated and unsubsidized economy, the market pricing system for ethanol consumption and the capital goods required in its production will soon signify if ethanol production represents an efficient and viable investment. Hence, the continual need for an ethanol subsidy implies that the latter criterions are not met in ethanol production.

If ethanol production were truly profitable it would not need subsidization because consumers would purchase ethanol-enhanced fuel at a price that would provide a reasonable rate of return to producers. This in turn means that the producers of capital goods essential to ethanol production would also receive a rate of return on their investment that would allow them to profitably continue producing capital goods essential to ethanol production.

Mises recognized the central importance of prices to production. Prices cut to the heart of the matter. They provide producers with the tools to determine how much of some input they will use and those inputs and production processes they will forego. Prices essentially signify whether an entrepreneur gains or loses in his or her area of production. Market distortions such as that which benefit ethanol draw producers into activities that are performed not for consumers but for meeting the rules and capturing the benefit.

Mises recognized that a purely socialist system would ultimately disintegrate into chaos because it lacks the ability to generate the guiding hand of prices. Likewise, the American government’s continual interference in the energy market is doing its part to create chaos in terms of what energy source to produce. In an unhampered market, however, there is no controversy of calculation or production; there is no chaos. Or, applied to the current context, there would probably not be ethanol.

[staatsfiend]

You might also note in regards to ethenol in its pure form commonly referred to as methanol, that twice the volume is required to get the same desired effect as gasoline. So that 18 gallon tank in your Lumina or Taurus would only go half the distance as it would on gas. Hydrogen cells are clearly the route in my opinion.

[sagas4]

staatsfiend said:

You might also note in regards to ethenol in its pure form commonly referred to as methanol, that twice the volume is required to get the same desired effect as gasoline. So that 18 gallon tank in your Lumina or Taurus would only go half the distance as it would on gas. Hydrogen cells are clearly the route in my opinion.

That is true which is why McAlister suggests hydrogen enriched fuels. To go the same distance on hydrogen gas it needs to be stored at about 20,000 PSI. Right now about the safest a portable tank can hold is 2,000-3,000 psi. If there is a mix of about 5 to 7% H2 injected and timing set properly rather than 10-20 degress before TDC one should get about the same mileage.

BTW Ethanol is grain alcohol, Methanol is Wood alcohol and Methanol has less btu's than ethanol which both have less btu's than gasoline.

[scottinalaska]

Sagas, I too am going through the material that you ordered from Knowledge publications. The missing book was on backorder but is coming.
I really appreciated the real math that Steve put out in regards to realistic price breakdown of using Hydrogen.
As soon as I figure out a more economical way to extract hydrogen, I'll let you know. ;D
scott

[sagas4]

Scott,

Thanks. I look forward to your success. I am still reading the book about 1/2 way through right now. Haven't got to the Chemistry DVD's yet. Here is a summary of where I am in the book.

The book thus far mostly lays out how we got to where we are, and lays a foundational plan using well documented scientific data on how to move to a hydrogen economy in a matter of 10 years or less. I found it interesting that McAlister, recognized the problem with governments is the use of force to control people and resources, and clearly states that the current oil economy is backed by the force of military power and war. He suggests that people become involved with groups like The American Hydrogen Association to apply political pressure on politicians to change the system. As he states, politicians only care about two things, Money and Votes. Since the Oil Companies control massive amounts of money the people cannot easily match, the option left for the people is votes. By becoming involved with groups like the American Hydrogen Association politicians will see a new voting block beginning to emerge and gain voting power. (IMHO, McAlister gets this partially correct, in that he recognizes the use of violence as part of the problem but plays into the hands of the system and ignores a more powerful solution).

My Comments: The solution is for industrious people to make products that move us toward a hydrogen based economy. When the oil companies and governments start loosing money and support they will have to start supplying products people will buy or go out of business. McAlister also suggests that people seem willing to pay higher gasoline prices; however I don't believe that is true. If there are no alternative engines etc., on the market then there is no choice. Weis and I found that Brazil and other South American areas have small diesel and multi-fuel vehicles on the market, and Ford Motor Company produces them. The issue is that it is not available in the North American Market, and import tariffs and red tape make it difficult for the common folk to import such items. The technology is available it is just not offered in this market. If I could buy hydrogen at or below a gasoline price, Make it myself easily, and could buy a Larson Radax Engine I would.

From what I have read and studied so far, converting a lawn mower engine for experimental purposes is relatively easy and cheap; a car engine is much more difficult, especially an electronic fuel injected one, so at this point I would think diesel engines may be more easily used and bio-diesel produced from used cooking oil for the backyard shade tree mechanic.

[marc stevens]

I think the whole article is suspect because he writes:

"If ethanol production were truly profitable it would not need subsidization because consumers would purchase ethanol-enhanced fuel at a price that would provide a reasonable rate of return to producers."

Give me break, does this guy have any understanding of the current prison experiment society we all live in? He assumes ethanol production needs subsidization. I think we all know this is BS.

The market is not ALLOWED to determine the profitability of ethanol production because a gang of killers, thieves and liars calling themselves "government" abhors the free market.

Maybe this guy also thinks the tobacco and farming industries are not profitable because there are subsidies.

[lazerwood]

How about the compressed air car? This company seems quite far along in the development of this technology.

www.theaircar.com/thecar.html

[patrickhenry2k5]

Energy Information
byronw.www1host.com/

[sagas4]

patrick,

Interesting read. Thanks for the post.