Re: would like your input on alternative fuels

Posted by Truth seeker on July 05, 2006 at 15:12:52 from (170.215.133.67):

In Reply to: Re: would like your input on alternative fuels posted by mjbrown on July 03, 2006 at 14:53:15:

Hi!
Thank you for all of your responses I have some agreements, disagreements and strong disagreements.
Let deal with the questions/answers roughly in the order they were posted.

First of all, solar

I agree with B-maniac that could use Solar for power, I think it's great!
I have purchased two Fresnel lenses. Fresnel lenses are basically a super magnifying glass, they can heat up an object to a temp of 2000 F! That's enough to be able to weld with! I'll be playing with those as soon as I can. I'm not quite sure about PV panels yet. Besides the fact that in the winter we have less than 4 hrs of sun on our side of the hill, they're so expensive! I'd rather build a mirror array and make steam with it. But in my mind solar falls under the category of stationary power, I admire the GM solar racer going solely on solar, but if you want to move 1000 lbs of feed you'll need something a little more peppy (and cheaper).

Alright next post re: bio-diesel ecconomics

Another Strong agreement, I don't think you've missed anything, the logic carries out.
Here's another way of looking at it.
This chart is from journeytoforever.com or .org

Vegetable oil yields

Biodiesel yield = oil yield x 0.8 approx.

Note: These are conservative estimates -- crop yields can vary widely.

Ascending order
Crop US gal/acre

corn (maize) 18
cashew nut 19
oats 23
lupine 25
kenaf 29
calendula 33
cotton 35
hemp 39
soybean 48
coffee 49
linseed (flax) 51
hazelnuts 51
euphorbia 56
pumpkin seed 57
coriander 57
mustard seed 61
camelina 62
sesame 74
safflower 83
rice 88
tung oil tree 100
sunflowers 102
cocoa (cacao) 110
peanuts 113
opium poppy 124
rapeseed 127
olives 129
castor beans 151
pecan nuts 191
jojoba 194
jatropha 202
macadamia nut 240
brazil nuts 255
avocado 282
coconut 287
oil palm 635

(Note not all oil is safe for diesel engine use, tung and linseed oil will gum your engine!!)

As you can see, even corn yields a low 18 gallons of oil to the acre. Now I, so far, prefer the straight vegetable oil idea, but for the sake of easier understanding, we'll talk about biodiesel. So that would be 18 x 0.8 = 14.4 lets round it down to 14. So you use 5 gallons of fuel per acre for the tractor, you now have 9 gallons left, you sell the 9 for,,,,, lets give them a deal,,,,,,$2 a gallon, that's $18. Now of what I've heard it costs less than a dollar a gallon to make the "b100" let's say $0.70 a gallon so after you're through your left with $6.30 Now people would say "oh my your trading $300 an acre for only $6.30 an acre! Bad economics!" but you now have the pressed flakes from the corn. At least what I've heard those flakes are worth more! ‘Cause now it's a high protein feed (or you can grind it and make bread out of it) and I'd just say that you could still get $300 an acres worth. And you've saved $6.50 by using your own fuel, now lets say you have 40 acres of corn so it's $6.30 + 6.5 x 40 =$512. Plus that's not including the feed cake that's left. It doesn't see like much but now you will not be effected (as much) when fuel prices go up. If anything you'll be able to charge more per gallon.
Now if you growing peanuts and they give 113 gals per acre or castor beans 151 gallons Per acre!

Next post re: the manure digester (This is fun!)

I don't know a whole lot about this (and the manure to alcho..... ethanol ) but I have as you said there is government incentives to it and a lot of people just go in for that with no real plan for actually doing anything except take the money.

About experts being divided over it, it shows either, one side doesn't have all the facts, has accidently miscalculated something, or is LYING.

Woodgas: I haven't dabbled much with it yet but I know it works, but it has a decrease of power when used in a minimally converted engine, no problem if you had a large tractor with a lot of power, but the only running gas tractor I have now is a 8n, and it doesn't have much to spare in the first place. But once I get the AC wd45 running I'll probably have a go at it.

Mike (WA) I have to say I strongly disagree re: time to heat for steam/woodgas
First off you say lead time is a big problem, I'll admit that you can't just hop in and turn the key and floor it. BUT it's not anywhere as drastic as you claim.
1.Flash Steam boilers in the 1920s were available that you could be on your way in 5 minuets, so you could go and light the boiler, get your self a cup of coffee, and be on your way. Also once the boiler is hot and has pressure, it doesn't take long at all to re-fire it
The Tankless water heatert has the water instantly hot on demand. I saw one and it worked very well. It was propane fired and as soon as you would turn the hot on at the sink, it would light and take ½ a second for the water to get hot.
We had been using a wood water heater for a while and it would take five minuets from the time you light it till it's as hot as you want it. Five more minuets and steam would come out instead of water.
2 Do you heat with wood? I suspect that you don't because our woodstove (and it ain't no fancy airtight) would take only a few minutes to get it firing off the heat. On a cold morning my mom will get the stove burning real fast! My only experience with woodgas was whenever we had really dry kindling and we were not paying a lot of attention. It would heat up real fast and we would sometimes turn the damper down to much, then if you would open up the door it might "sneeze" in your face, we know a friend who said he seared his eyebrows when his stove sneezed. Woodgas in action!
I don't understand what you mean when you said "The drip system (which I had not heard of) seems to combine the worst of both systems" unless you thought I was planning on putting it in a ICE (internal combustion engine). I was thinking about making steam with it.
Of course John Q. Public wouldn't stand for any of this! We're Spoiled ROTTEN! We expect to be able to have our cake , eat it, and not get fat or have to pay for it.
Let me ask you this, how much is 5 minutes worth to you? If your earning $10 an hour five minutes is worth $0.83 if you drive 20 miles and would have used 1 gallon of gas (@ 3.00) if you used the steam car instead and burnt twigs, you would have saved $2.17.
As for your wife and son, I don't know. I don't know what their interests are, or their willingness level, I'm 16 and My mom and dad are both encouraging me. I'll tell you what I know and listen to what you have to say. But if you want to keep driving a hummvee, and paying for OPEC's new cruise ship, don't let me get in the way of your pursuit of happiness. Just don't complain to me about being robbed at the gas station.

Whew next post re: bio-diesel inefficiency

John T I hope you don't think that I'm a sassy teenager strutting around thinking that I know everything, I don't, but I do my best to learn as much as possible and will take criticism humbly.
As you could see from the previous post by IaGary and the chart I posted above I don't think I need to reiterate all of it. But let's look at it yet another way.
Before there were tractors.
The farm horse was not efficient, you had to "fuel" it all the time, it could make you stay up late at night tending it, and getting it ready took a while, It couldn't be strained to the max all the time, and when you grew the feed for you and them , most of it went for them.
BUT
They helped make America's food system available to men.
They were given to us by the Almighty, They were companions, They would reproduce, and they helped the farmer be free, for he could grow his and their food, and not be chained to a corporation.
They were inefficient, But It worked

Alright now onto steam
I'll first tell what I researched, then I'm going to speculate
First what I know is that the last few Stanley steam cars could achieve 18 mpg, I think it was kerosene that was used, and these engines were not machined very precisely, to use a paraphrased quote from Jay Leno (in a Popular Mechanics magazine where he was talking about his top ten cars) "gas cars were measured in accuracy in thousandths of an inch, steam cars were measured in feet" There was another steam car company that was started by a Mr. White. He impressed the industry by maintaining an accuracy of 0.001. They where impressed! But Mr. White was a perfectionist to an extreme. So very few reached production. The heaviest Stanley was 4000 lbs. But I don't think it was the engine or boiler that made it so heavy because in a old popular science/mechanics magazine there was an report done about a steam plane, I'm not talking about the first models before kitty hawk, this was done on a mono winged plane, and it had no problems with extra weight.

Semi speculation.
The Stanley car had only 20 hp But I've heard that if you replace a gas motor with an electric motor, for every 3 gas hp you would only need a 1 hp electric motor, because a electric motor can generate maximum torque at a stall. In other words, you don't need to rev it or ease the clutch before you put a load on it. I've heard the same for steam, 3 hp gas to 1 hp steam.
So, the Stanley car would be the equivalent of a 60 hp gas car. (Example a ‘83 Toyota tercel)
But that's not all!
Because the boiler was the main hp determiner, and it was designed to produce more than 20 hp to keep up with the engine's demand, so it would always have extra "hp" stored. And if you punched the accelerator you would have (for a unknown short time) 100 steam hp --3 gas hp to 1 steam hp— you would have the equivalent of a 300 hp gas engine.
That and the ability to run on twigs, branches, cow chips, chicken feathers, romance novels etc, You can get your power from anything that burns.

Steam efficiency
First I'll speculate.
If you insulated the fire box and boiler, so that you could lean up against them, to me that would be a major improvement in efficiency, in all the pictures of steam engines, and locomotives, do you see any insulation? I don't think that I see any, but I'd be glad to know for sure.
End speculation
Oh BTW do you know how coal and nuclear plants make electricity?
Steam!

I don't know about Fuel cells.
Murphy's law anything that can go wrong, WILL!
In my opinion, they are way too complicated.
You would need special training to be able to repair it if it broke down.
And that would mean more dependence.
Also it's going to be tough to buy one even IF they're priced reasonably.

Whew! I think that will have to be it for now..
But for a final note
There is a interesting magazine called Homepower dealing with home and business energy self- sufficency. It's a good magazine and if you check out their site you can download the current issue for free.
I called and asked for a sample magazine, which they sent to me for free and after seeing it I subscribed to it.

Homepower.com

If I sound frustrated, please understand. I don't want to grow up to be a slave for the oil companies. I want to make a farm where I don't have to worry about if I'll have enough money for plowing, I want independence, I don't need to "Have lots of money and not have to work"
I would rather not have to worry about money because I don't need a lot to live.
But that's my choice.
If John Q. Public wants the "wonderful" corporations to provide a easy way out of this energy mess and if you think they will just come up with new technology and give to the people because they are so caring, and the oil company's will give up and say "O look a new thing that makes our oil useless, it's for the good of the people, and we'll just auction off the company, because were are out of business. " well then, let John Q. wait. I'm doing something! I spend my "free time" reading, researching and tinkering.

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