Ethanol Ramblings

[beatersubi]

Steve- At what speed does a car's aero profile affect fuel consupmtion? If someone were a city dweller and rarely drove long distance freeway miles, the sedan might make more sense from a form standpoint. Despite the obvious functional superiority of a wagon.

Also, we must be regressing. What with all the four door pick-ups with a lockable micro-'bed'. I imagine they must look very similar in profile to an early motor-carriage w/ detachable storage trunk.

It'd be funny to see a progressive morph of Ford trucks from the model T to the current Explorer Sport-trac, to see how it comes back to the original shape.

We're doomed to extinction.

[entirelyturbo]

There's no real set rule. Cars are too different to make a blanket statement.

Each individual car has a type of critical point however. Slower than this point, the drag from the drivetrain negatively affects mileage. Faster than this point, the aerodynamic drag negatively affects mileage. Right at the critical point is when the car is going fast enough that momentum cuts down on drivetrain drag, but slow enough that the car isn't struggling to cut through the air. That's when it's going to be most fuel-efficient.

[evolutionmovement]

Lowering drag is something like lowering weight, where the gains build upon themselves. The difference is that weight more affects acceleration, while drag affects cruising efficiency (and top speed, which I dismiss as functionally irrelevant). The lower the drag, the more freedom allowed in drivetrain design or the greater efficiency for the same given drivetrain. It varies depending on cd, frontal area, and speed of travel. Around town, below 50 mph, the aerodynamic effects will be negligible. As Mike said, drivetrain design is a greater factor (size, efficiency, gearing, tires, etc.) as well as weight and driver habits than aerodynamics.

Pick ups, box trucks, etc. will always be useful designs as things will always need to be moved. They had a decent sized market for decades before they became fashionable accessories for white collar tools because they're necessary and they remain that way for the foreseeable future. Improvements can be made to make them more efficient to a degree, but at some point, the solutions will be too impractical and impede the function.

My problem is with the average car that is used for common duties of commuting with the occasional passengers and shopping. There is no vehicle that attempts a real optimized solution. Something like my Cessna car idea or the Aptera would only work for someone who doesn't need to be surrounded by a cocoon to feel safe and doesn't need more than 2 seats with some small amount of storage (though many people seem to think the 30 lbs. bag of tools I carry for work would require a 3-ton Suburban to move it). Where is the small family option that isn't a minivan? One that isn't poorly designed both aesthetically inside and out and drivetrain-wise (a clever implementation of a poor solution—the parallel hybrid) like the Prius. I'm thinking something the size of a first-generation Legacy with a cd .30 or better with a decent small DI 4 cylinder getting an honest mid-30's for mileage. That shouldn't even require covered wheel wells, though the rear might have to be more sloped like a hatchback. Of course there's also the weight issue, but people want all their safety and gizmos and as much as I'd like to rage against that, the government has mandated a good bunch of it, leaving it out of the hands of the consumer and designer whether they'd give it up or not. Aerodynamic efficiency costs very little and makes the consumer give up almost nothing.

[93forestpearl]

I was getting my best mileage in the sedan at about 75 mph. I think the VE of the motor was at it's best balance with drag. I was getting an average of 29.5mpg at 75 mph in the summer.



What I'm getting at is drag, although important, is not the only variable on the table. Matching your gearing with how the motor makes power and where it's "sweetspot" is plays big dividends as well.



You've probably thought about that though.

[evolutionmovement]

Exactly. I'm far from advocating doing 50 like the eco nuts blindly cling to as a reasonable highway speed. I notice virtually no difference in mileage in my Mazda doing under 65 on cruise though nearly an entire tank or 75 with several redline runs past 100 and high rpm whips around ramps. About half a mpg average over a tankful. Aerodynamic efficiency can allow you to play with your engine as far as gearing goes for a higher relative cruise speed or higher mileage at the same speed. Of course, the slower you go, the less important the aero. I'm designing my car as best I can for a highest-efficiency cruise speed between 75 and 80 mph as that's my preferred long-range driving speed.

Incidentally, we got the friggin' ethanol-laden winter gas here now and I'm back to 27 mpg from just over 30.

[MacNews]

we've been subsidizing over-production of these staple crops and dumping them cheap on the world market for so long that poor nations have become dependent upon it at the expense of their own growers (who can't make a profit trying to compete with our cheap food

I agree, and the whole Western World is to blame as well. You look at Canada, Australia, the EU. All complicit in giving their domestic farmers tons of subsidies that no African nation can come close to matching.

IMO, giving subsidies to farmers (While a nice political ploy) keeps Africa poor. And it's not fair. We have seen the success of free trade in many areas of the economy, why not in agriculture as well?

What is disappointing is the free-market parties in North America (Conservatives in Canada, Republicans in US) are just as beholden to the farmer lobby as the Liberal and Democratic parties.

[evolutionmovement]

That's why I'm joining a local CSA farm. Heritage turkeys, chickens, pigs, and sheep (not corn-fed, inbred, tasteless, pumped full of hormones and antibiotics, killed in a factory) and local vegetables from unsubsidized farms that also feature this thing called "taste". I actually like going to a farm stand/barn and hate the grocery store, and it's even cheaper than that industrial garbage. I can also order almost anything they don't have through their co-op. BUT! I'm on a friggin' waiting list. Of course, but I guess it's a good thing, if not necessarily for me personally.

The way the rich west treats the poor countries leaves me almost rooting for the pirates off Africa. As long as they keep treating the hostages OK, I have a problem disliking them. These people are living in a country that has had no government and no jobs for years. I can't even fathom the conditions they live in and they have to do what they have to do to survive. And it's all a repeat of the conditions that gave rise to the golden ages of piracy several hundred years ago (and may have inspired our founding fathers with some of their democratic ideas). That might change soon, though, with the recent involvement of international crime syndicates and the brutality they bring.

So far, we've gone from ethanol, to car design, to agriculture, to piracy, and still haven't gone off topic. And politicians like to think these issues are separate.

[93forestpearl]

Famines in the last twenty years have government policy to blame. There is enough grain in the world for every single person to eat over 3000 calories a day. Just because we have cheap grains availible does not mean a nation will accept it or allow their people to get it. Many nations could feed their own people, but would rather sell their stuff to other countries to fill their greed pockets.



It's pretty rare that anything like the Potato Famine happens anymore.

[sublunacy]

Batteries are dirty! there is no way of disposing of them period. Anyone wanting batteries in all these vehicles is crazy and lazy, thats my opinion. Likely gets sold to india and dumped.
-a local and global problem.

Petrol/oil /coal is full of sulfur, its emited in the air and comes back down as acid rain, AKA coral bleaching and ph issues. Ph issues due to coal plants etc is criminal.-a global problem. Plus the energy to get oil first, again a global problem. chemicals to produce it and tansportation. on and on with that stuff..... And we are buying it from other countries! and comparing it to alcohol hahahahaha nuff said i hope. really

SO that leaves what? Hmmm my subaru loves alcohol, so do I for that fact lets not try to reinvent the wheel, its a social lubricant. And my beloved subaru likes pure alcohol....and don't forget about my car, it loves freakin alcohol, so does my motorcycle, we enjoy alcohol together, enormously. and i can make it MYSELF AT HOME, cleanly with my refrigerator for pennies, it polutes nothing no one.
Hint i have a surplus of sawdust

I dare anyone to tell me that smaller turbo'd engines on ethanol wouldn't be far cleaner in every aspect compared to fossil fuels.
Plus the fact that a percentage of peolple could make more than enough for themselves with there own crops and water, and not be FORCED to buy it, because its illegal illegal illegal to have your own still or pure alcohol. But GLOBAL coral bleaching, acid rain, and terrorism paid for with your own money are acceptable side effects cause we are exploring other galaxies where stupidity and laywers and thieves and weak comprimising people won't be allowed to go I guess

[evolutionmovement]

You can distill that much alcohol in your yard? So can everyone else? How much surplus do you think a farmer could make? There's no way they could convert the entire fleet over to alcohol as it is, and our means of food production are already in a perilous state with a lack of genetic diversity, over-growing of subsidized shit, like corn, and all the fertilizers and pesticides overuse (partly due to the lack of genetic diversity, partly due to ignoring responsible methods of field rotation, though the two are also related). Even with all our agricultural waste being converted to alcohol, I have a hard time believing it would be enough. Alcohol isn't the answer with our present population of profligate consumers. The answer is far less humans. If I had the opportunity to take control, and allowed myself to do so, I would solve that problem even if it meant going down in history as the most brutal dictator the world had ever seen (I would maintain there were far worse, but most dictators believe their actions are in the best interest of everyone, so I couldn't be an exception). Waste people without useable skills, like lawyers and politicians, would be gathered up in the first round. After the major culling, revamping a responsible food system would be less a burden. Health care? No problem without all the self-inflicted wounds draining off the system. First step is to come up with an implantable sterilizing device that can only be removed upon passing a test (I realize there will be a black market demand for illegal operations and hillbillies would probably be able to skirt the issue, but there will also be penalties and the wilderness will be isolated). The problems are making it inert for everyone, one-size fits all, non-interfering with body functions, and able to fit in an infant.

But nobody is going to do stop overconsumption and breeding. I'm just pissed that I'll be dead before society collapses as life by the gun appeals to me with the exception of probably always being filthy. I'd probably get used to it. Another thing that bothers me is that the car I'm building would be ideally suited to home ethanol distilling with the mileage and low maintenance it would have (if not Mad Max style abuse), but WTF would I do when I ran out of tires?

[fishbone79]

Actually, if any of you have worked on a farm, you know that you could probably run a few tractors all winter long on the alcohol effluent oozing from the bottom of a silage pile. And that's not purposeful production.

[evolutionmovement]

Absolutely. Responsible farms are using it to reduce their costs on bought fuel, but we can't all work on farms. The bad thing about cars, in regards to their effect on the modern world, is that they've allowed a society to build up were people can live long distances from work and shops and virtually eliminated grid independence. Owning a car is a necessity in much of the Western world, particularly North America, with its vast spaces and poor public transportation, save a few large cities. If that wasn't bad enough, most of them seem to want to own the largest and inefficient vehicle they stretch to afford, utilizing even more resources than such an energy-intensive system already needs. There's just no way to generate enough alcohol for everyone and be able to eat.

That's why I had the Evolution Movement plan to move people to more manageable megapolises and abandon the sticks to nature, loonies, and a privileged class of engineers and problem-solvers who wanted more privacy. Within the megapolis, there would be no need for a car with good public transportation and most things so close by. Power production would be simpler with less loss, food more local (much of it in vertical farms and crops that require orchards and fields would be located as close to the cities as possible) and with less waste. What cars there would be could be electric and run on more sustainable power generation. As for battery EOL, current lithium-based batteries are recyclable and inert, and with millions less cars to use them. None of this could happen without a series of strong emperors with the same goals and a building program akin to that of ancient Rome. Without slaves, but that gets off the topic.

[kimokalihi]

You're absolutely right. Straight pisses me off that everyone keeps driving SUVs and gas guzzlers and the majority of the time you know it's just them driving in it anyways.

Hummers? Really? WTF!

I drive my metro like I stole it and still get 35-39MPG. With the ENTIRE car sound deadened. To the max. Actually I think it could use some more closed cell foam but I'm lazy and it's expensive.

[sublunacy]

Lithium ion batteries have no harmfull heavymetals, but otherwise very dirty and imposible to recycle.
If you call this recycling i again must bite my tongue.


--quote from batteryuniversity.com----

Lithium (metal) batteries contain no toxic metals, however, there is the possibility of fire if the metallic lithium is exposed to moisture while the cells are corroding. Most lithium batteries are non-rechargeable and are used in cameras, hearing aids and defense applications. For proper disposal, the batteries must first be fully discharged to consume the metallic lithium content.
Lithium-ion batteries used for cell phones and laptops do not contain metallic lithium and the disposal problem does not exist. Most lithium systems contain toxic and flammable electrolyte.

In 1994, the Rechargeable Battery Recycling Corporation (RBRC) was founded to promote recycling of rechargeable batteries in North America. RBRC is a non-profit organization that collects batteries from consumers and businesses and sends them to recycling organizations. Inmetco and Toxco are among the best-known recycling companies in North America
Europe and Asia have had programs to recycle spent batteries for many years. Sony and Sumitomo Metal in Japan have developed a technology to recycle cobalt and other precious metals from spent lithium?ion batteries.

Battery recycling plants require that the batteries be sorted according to chemistries. Some sorting must be done prior to the battery arriving at the recycling plants. nickel-cadmium, nickel-metal-hydride, lithium?ion and lead acid are placed in designated boxes at the collection point. Battery recyclers claim that if a steady stream of batteries, sorted by chemistry, were available at no charge, recycling would be profitable. But preparation and transportation add to the cost.

The recycling process starts by removing the combustible material, such as plastics and insulation, with a gas fired thermal oxidizer. Gases from the thermal oxidizer are sent to the plant's scrubber where they are neutralized to remove pollutants. The process leaves the clean, naked cells, which contain valuable metal content.

The cells are then chopped into small pieces, which are heated until the metal liquefies. Non-metallic substances are burned off; leaving a black slag on top that is removed with a slag arm. The different alloys settle according to their weights and are skimmed off like cream from raw milk.

Cadmium is relatively light and vaporizes at high temperatures. In a process that appears like a pan boiling over, a fan blows the cadmium vapor into a large tube, which is cooled with water mist. This causes the vapors to condense and produces cadmium that is 99.95 percent pure.

Some recyclers do not separate the metals on site but pour the liquid metals directly into what the industry refers to as 'pigs' (65 pounds) or 'hogs' (2000 pounds). The pigs and hogs are then shipped to metal recovery plants. Here, the material is used to produce nickel, chromium and iron re-melt alloy for the manufacturing of stainless steel and other high-end products.

Current battery recycling methods requires a high amount of energy. It takes six to ten times the amount of energy to reclaim metals from recycled batteries than it would through other means.

Who pays for the recycling of batteries? Participating countries impose their own rules in making recycling feasible. In North America, some recycling plants bill on weight. The rates vary according to chemistry. Systems that yield high metal retrieval rates are priced lower than those, which produce less valuable metals.

Nickel-metal-hydride yields the best return. It produces enough nickel to pay for the process. The highest recycling fees apply to nickel-cadmium and lithium?ion because the demand for cadmium is low and lithium-ion contains little retrievable metal.

Not all countries base the cost of recycling on the battery chemistry; some put it on tonnage alone. The flat cost to recycle batteries is about $1,000 to $2,000US per ton. Europe hopes to achieve a cost per ton of $300US. Ideally, this would include transportation, however, moving the goods is expected to double the overall cost. For this reason, Europe sets up several smaller processing locations in strategic geographic locations.

Significant subsidies are sill required from manufacturers, agencies and governments to support the battery recycling programs. This funding is in the form of a tax added to each manufactured cell. RBRC is financed by such a scheme.

Important: Under no circumstances should batteries be incinerated as this can cause explosion. If skin is exposed to electrolyte, flush with water immediately. If eye exposure occurs, flush with water for 15 minutes and consult a physician immediately"
----------------------------------------
But nice try, very convincing
Frank

[sublunacy]

Did you see the part about the chimney scrubbers? Carbon? ionic?
I bet that system is full of more shit than our catalitic converters, that an alcohol car wouldn't need BTW.
Remember what cats really do, they turn harmfull hydrocarbons that are bad for animals, and it turns it into something else that is not harmfull to humans, but bad for plants.

"Catalytic converter production requires palladium and/or platinum; part of the world supply of these precious metals is produced near the Russian city of Norilsk, where the industry (among others) has caused Norilsk to be added to Time Magazine's list of most polluted places.[14] "
.Wikipedia

[evolutionmovement]

And this compares how well to using land we grow food on in an unsustainable manor to grow alcohol, which gives less mileage than equivalent gasoline using antiquated technology and which also has to be transported? In order to supply the US fleet with enough fuel, how much of our land would be growing crops for alcohol?

http://healthandenergy.com/ethanol.htm

Now maybe you'd have something if algae conversion pans out in the kind of volumes necessary, but not these early "sustainable" options.

Battery chemistry can change and advancements are increasing as it's a technology that was abandoned and left to stagnate until recently. ICE still use throttle plates and cams to actuate valves. The advancements are incremental as the technology is approaching its limit. Battery technology is in its infancy.

[Binford]

I have a solution for food:


SOILENT GREEN IS PEOPLE!!!!!

[sublunacy]

Evolutionment u say alcohol won't work, but its the best thing we have far far better than anyother choice. No one is even trying.....
Its illegal to do so, hahahhaa
But we drink it, and are putting it 10% in fuel plus other uses, and WE haven't even tried yet, not even scratched the surface!!!!!!!

And Tires? What are you talking about? there is a hundred ways to make tires and if you didn't pour so much petrol into car and shipping it from afganastan or whatever, you could make tires from anyone of the local oil feilds or whatever and use it responsibly. Anyway if we used less there would be no oil problem whatsoever. But we made one didn't we? a big one.
Tires arn't made from rubber trees are they? Does it have to be petrol chemicals? No! We are like sheep with an clinically insane sheep herder callng the shots, no direction at all just, self gratification.

Kimo a couple pages back you were talking about some facts about alcohol that were ingloriously manufactured, to mislead the gulible general public and city slickers. And in turn protect a growing need for oil. Who do u work for? hahahh just kidding

Look I want the right not to be oil dependant! And that for me is alcohol and firewood for heat. Yes I need a few other things but that stuff doesn't add up to much, very very little in a year or ten, even a lifetime. The government has made it illegall to be anything but oil dependant for transportation with there taxes and there laws.
This is a subaru forum, I think We should band together with our cars by our side and demand a choice to buy local or otherwise.
Hey if you have a better idea on how to power my sube, kimo i would like to hear it.

[sublunacy]

evolutionment I read the page wrote buy someguy named Roger segelken who went to univerversity at cornell and he took some quotes from a proffessor about Corn ethanol only. Its about corn ONLY, and yes its a food crop! Not a good arguement when there is alot of choices other than food crops and it is horribly inacurate aswell BTW. It just someones opinion! It means very little! And your eating it up.

[sublunacy]

it also states that the vehicles in question get 11.7370 miles to the gallon average per year.
This is disgusting I gotta go

[fishbone79]

Algae farms that produce directly refinable hydrocarbons are FAR more efficient than even the best ethanol solution. The algae farms I've seen in NM are incredibly productive, but the problem is they rely heavily on electricity to operate their turbines, etc. so their net efficiency is not as high as it could be.

That said, if we covered the entire state of NM with algae farms we could produce the 20,000,000 bbl/day of oil consumed by this country (of course, you'd need about 100 coal-fired electric plants just to make enough juice). I found a site that details this ad nausium (complete with all the energy equations, heat transfer, days of sun for last 10 years, etc.), but I can't find the blasted thing - I just spend 30 minutes googling. This is yet another reason we need to get the tree-huggers out of the way and start building nukes double-time. I'm a geologist; Yucca Mt. is fine, we won't be around in a million years, so just do it already!

[Legacy777]

I haven't read all the new posts, but ethanol from food based crops is NOT sustainable. I don't care what anyone says.

All the corn that we used to sell to other countries for food now has a jacked up price. So the other countries can't buy the corn....and people die. Just so we can feel better about ourselves. When in reality, the emissions savings is not really there.

[evolutionmovement]

Firewood! Good luck with that! Who needs trees?! Once again—too many people.

That was just the first page I picked up, but I've seen similar in many places and it was likely already STATED IN THIS THREAD EARLIER ON. I'm amazed you read that, as you didn't seem to have read much else in the posts. But even if his numbers are off by 500%, there's still no way for ethanol to replace gasoline AT THIS TIME. Just as batteries aren't viable AT THIS TIME. I'm by no means against energy independence, what I'm against is making a worse problem and holding on to antiquated ideas because "that's what we've always done". Dinosaur mentality and I don't think I need to cite sources on what happened to them (though, if I take the first one I find on Google, I suppose I could end up posting something from a Creationist website that says they were planted by the devil). And the point about tires, in the context of a tongue-in-cheek wonderings about getting around in a society that has collapsed, as in has no oil distribution or factories, HOW WOULD YOU MAKE THEM? Sure, I could maybe distill enough ethanol to drive a 60 mpg+ vehicle here and there (until the roads became undriveable), but what would I do when the tires were done? But I can't argue against fear. Freedom of religion—believe in whatever you want.

[sublunacy]

inaccurate because they only reflect the need for oil. period That i can't make effiently reducing the need for it.
Get it?? everything your baseing your argument on is false.
If we were allowed to try individually the supply and demand for oil would be lower, and more money in your pocket.

[sublunacy]

the biggest problem are laws that concentrate the demand for energy/ alcohol specifically, that is the only problem i see. that and a little more waste management and we would be ballin.
Im not sayin you have to make it yourself or anything im sure there are lots of countries that would love to sell us some Alcohol
That and the fact My subaru likes it, so do i, and i should be able to make some batches in my spare time with some of the WASTE THAT PRODUCE,
Quit flip flopping guys you no im right, and my car likes it what are you guys talking about?