Ethyl alcohol blended gasoline should be a good bet now

[stratochief]

Re: RE: Ethyl alcohol blended

Currenly, we have almost no standards for impurities in our fuel stocks ....

Absolutely not true. What part of the industry are you in. Certainly not refining.

It's like saying we have different standards for pharmaceutical approval than the USA or Europe....that's FAR DIFFERENT from saying we have 'almost no standards'. We have very stringent regulated standards of impurities in fuels. Are they enough? That's a very different statement. Are our pharmaceuticals regulated enough?

 

[Reverend Blair]

Ethanol from crops? shudder.

That's one of the reasons why it doesn't work with crops purpose-grown for fuels usage. If we were to use waste from the crops (mostly we just use the seeds) it changes the dynamic a fair bit. That technology is emerging slowly right now, but if there was a market it would emerge more quickly.

We wouldn't need to break any more land and the existing farmers would have an additional sources of income. Introducing industrial hemp on a large scale helps a lot with this as well because a single crop can produce either fuel or a fibre crop, as well as animal feed and a seed/oil crop. It's a hell of a lot more efficient than growing wheat or corn and then burning the straw to get rid of it.

Any changeover is going to require government involvement to open up trade though, especially with the US, and to get processing plants up and running. Neither of those options is terribly popular with the Conservatives or the Liberals so you guys that vote that way need to put the pressure on them.

Hydrogen is still the ultimate goal though. It's too bad that the feds sold off their interest in Petro-Can. If they would have kept that and made a commitment to put the infrastructure for hydrogen vehicles in place, we could then put pressure on vehicle manufacturers to produce the vehicles and the provincial governments of B.C., Manitoba, and Quebec to commit to developing facilities to produce hydrogen with hydro-electric power.

 

[Aitrus]

How do you get hydrogen normally for the hydrogen fuel cells?

 

[Reverend Blair]

RE: Ethyl alcohol blended

You buy it at the hydrogen store. ;-)

There are suppliers that you can purchase it from, but they don't sell to just anybody and most (all?) provinces have restrictions on who can store it and why. We have similar restrictions on gasoline now...you can't store large quantities in the city, but farmers can keep a whack of it around, for instance.

Without an infrastructure that allows people to fill up their cars with it at will, it isn't feasible for consumer usage. Right now there is a circle of the auto makers being shy about the technology because there is no infrastructure to support it, the fuel retailers not wanting to invest in infrastructure because there are no customers yet, and nobody wanting to gear up the kind of mass production that is necessary.

The Canadian government, through Petro-Can, was in the position to break that circle, and chose to sell our shares instead.

 

[Toro]

RE: Ethyl alcohol blended

A solution would be to legislate that, by some date in the future, gas retailers had to have a certain percentage of stations with the new fuel.

 

[Reverend Blair]

RE: Ethyl alcohol blended

Excedpt that years of yarking from the radical right have made governments afraid to put such legislation into place. Even a 10% blend here in Manitoba was opposed visciously by the fuel retailers because it would make them uncompetitive.

 

[Aitrus]

Re: RE: Ethyl alcohol blended

You buy it at the hydrogen store. ;-)

Smart ass.

I mean is the process energy intensive? Does it require oil to produce? Is it based on organics - ie we would need fields and fields of corn or whatever? If the demand for hydrogen jumps, where will the increased production come from and what will the impacts be?

 

[stratochief]

Re: RE: Ethyl alcohol blended

You buy it at the hydrogen store. ;-)

Smart ass.

I mean is the process energy intensive? Does it require oil to produce? Is it based on organics - ie we would need fields and fields of corn or whatever? If the demand for hydrogen jumps, where will the increased production come from and what will the impacts be?

There are 'giant' questions that are glossed over and some perspective is needed.

I'm a geologist and not a chemist but the basic problem of hydrogen fuel cells is that the second law of thermodynamics dictates that we will always have to expend more energy deriving the hydrogen than we will receive from the usage of that hydrogen.

So where does the energy come from to produce the hydrogen fuel? With the exception of building hundreds of nuclear plants, massive amounts of hydo power, solar power would be needed....so much infrastructure that it would change the ecology of much of the world. Or, of course, more fossil fuel....expecially coal.

None of this will happen not because of any 'conspiracy' of governmnets or oil companies or green martians but because it's not rational. The only 'real' means to stop carbon fuel emissions is to reduce use and not substitute use. I'm a great believer that the only meaningful tool is the same as it's been for the last 50 years....population control. Not , however, as 'sexy' a solution as pie-in-the-sky tangents that have accomplished ZIP and in the greater scheme of things will continue to accomplish next-to-Zip.

Whenever I get a request for aid to a third world cause, I put a condom in the return envelope.

 

[Reverend Blair]

I mean is the process energy intensive? Does it require oil to produce? Is it based on organics - ie we would need fields and fields of corn or whatever? If the demand for hydrogen jumps, where will the increased production come from and what will the impacts be?

Hydrogen needs two things for its production...water and electricity. That makes hydro-power a natural. New technology in hydro development allows for several small plants with small footprints and minimal flooding, so ecological impact is kept to a minimum. Wind power can also be used. Even hydrocarbons can be used and their pollutants sent back undergound...something that is possible in a fixed plant, but is not possible in a moving car.

Nuclear fusion would ultimately be the answer to power production for stripping hydrogen, as well as producing electricity for other uses, but we aren't there yet. There is an experiment with participation from just about everybody being set up in France though, so fusion could be a reality within a couple of decades.

We need to begin the shift now. We have the technology available to start, and it will produce jobs and wealth...new technology always does.

 

[Aitrus]

I'm pretty sure north americans consume about 4x the resources of people in developing countries, so its not the population size that's the issue but the consumption habits. Your condom in the envelope thing also ignores the fact that children are a liability in developed countries and a resource in developing countries.

So hydrogen is just using energy to separate the oxygen from the hydrogen in water... I wondered if that was the deal or if it was something more complex.

 

[Reverend Blair]

RE: Ethyl alcohol blended

It's actually a pretty simple process. You remove the hydrogen from the water with electricity (Google it, there is more to it than that) and you have a fuel.

A lot of the problem is our consumption habits though. There are four buses a day to my neighbourhood, two in the morning and two in the afternoon. There is no light rail here at all.

Our last mayor, who I never voted for at all, was trying to rectify such things. He did have a certain vision for our city...a vision of Winnipeg as a destination. That vision included things like mass transit and making the downtown vibrant by making affordable housing available.

Our present mayor is attempting to do the opposite. He has a vision of Winnipeg as a collection of office buildings filled with workers who live in monster houses and drive their SUVs to work.

Mayor Sam Katz is an idiot. He's also of about the same myopic view as most politicians who think in terms of business instead of in terms of people's needs. He has no vision beyond the corporate profit margin. There is little profit for corporations in conservation.

 

[LeftCoast]

Well, the US has recently passed a bill that will require gasoline suppliers to add 8 billion gallons of ethanol per year to their gas by the year 2012 in order to reduce their dependance of foreign oil. This will result in more than19 million acres of farm land dedicated to producing nothing but corn for ethanol. (Think Cargil) That amount of ethanol will only meet their demand for fossil fuel for one half of one day, minus the fuel required to grow and process it. Not that good an idea, really.

I don't think the idea behind ethanol production is to replace petroleum. It is used as an additive to boost the actane - which makes petroleum burn somewhat cleaner. The real reason behind ethanol production however is an agricultural subsidy that is not an agricultural subsidy.

Even Bush isn't stupid enough to propose ethanol as a gasoline replacement (although, like the Iraq - Al Qaeda connection he is not beyond infering it). It takes more enegy than is contained in a gallon of ethanol to produce a gallon of ethanol.


However - ethanol or methanol produced from annual grasses such as prairie grass, hemp etc. could be economically and environmentally viable - but it wouldn't benefit ADM or Monsanto.

 

[stratochief]

The issue is very much that of population. The issue is not only that we use 4 times the energy per capita (I thought it might be even higher) but that 'they' are gearing up to do the same. There are 1.3 billion Chinese, '.3' alone is 300 million or 10 times the population of Canada. India, with fewer population controls, will surpass China in population in 2025 or so.

There is zero slowdown in the use of fossil fuels. There is a huge increase and that demand is increasing and continuing to increase. We are ready to use every barrel of oil and cubic foot of nat. gas produced. None of it goes unsold and wells aren't being shut in. Fossil fuel production is scheduled to increase dramatically in Alberta in the next 25 years. Every BTU will be gobbled-up. Today on CBC news there was news of more future drilling off of Nova Scotia....not more windmill production.

The Chinese and Indians and Malays and Indonesians and Brazilians and Nigerians and other billions want to live just like us...wasteful. Drowning in stuff and using up stuff. India will soon have 45 times the population of Canada. If a modern India 25 years from now used half as much per capita in fossil fuels as Canadians ...decreasing India's population 5% would mean a reduction each year of all the fossil fuel consumption of all of Canada.

Population is very much the issue. They want to be 'just like us' and that's scary for the environment. There's a myth that 'alternate energy' sources are going to used instead of fossil fuels. They will actually be used 'in addition' to fossil fuels. Saudi Arabia, Iran, Nigeria, Venezuela, Russia etc. aren't going to be slowing down production and no matter what a pittance of population like Canada does, the Chinese and Indians and Brazilians, etc. will happily buy up those fuels and put the biproducts into the atmosphere.

There is a a disjoint between alternate fuel discussions and what's actually going on in the real world. No one is dealing with the reality. The warm fuzzy stuff...like let's build a windmill...just sidesteps this reality.

 

[LeftCoast]

re: hydrogen production.

Currently, most commercial hydrogen is produced by steam reformation of natural gas (CH4 + H2O -> C0 + 3H2) additional H2 is produced in a gas shift reaction (CO + H2O -> CO2 + H2). Notice from a green house gas perspective this also produces CO2.

Hydrogen can also be reformed from Methanol (wood alchohol - CH3-OH) through a similar reaction.

Hydrogen can also be produced by electrolizing water (2H2O -> 2H2 + O2). At best this process is about 65% efficient - so it takes more energy to produce hydrogen than is contained in the hydrogen by this method.

However, it is helpful to think of Hydrogen, not as a fuel, but as a (lossy) energy carrier. Clean electical power is not a big problem. It can be produced by wind, solar, hydro and (depending on how you view nuclear) by nuclear fission. Unfortunately, this type of power is not portable. Conversion to hydrogen (even at 65% efficiency) allows it to be used as a transportation fuel.

 

[manda]

I just think that we should get horses and not worry about gas any more

 

[Reverend Blair]

RE: Ethyl alcohol blended

Go help out a thresherman's reunion sometime, Manda...that'll cure you of your horse idea. You spend more time looking after the horses than working with them, then the damned things step on you, kick you, and bite you.

I like horses, but we are far better off using them as entertainment.

That 65% efficiency bit is kind of a funny thing, isn't it Left Coast? You rightfully pointed out that it isn't so bad because hydrogen is really just a storage system. All fuels are really storage systems because all of our energy ultimately comes from the sun.

Fossil fuels are just a really long-term storage system. When you look at the work we do and the energy expended in geting them and refining them, 65% efficiency isn't that bad at all. In the case of oil sands, it's really quite good.

Throw in the low efficiency rate of burning it...most of the energy produced in an internal combustion engine is lost in heat...and hydrogen begins to look downright attractive.

 

[Jay]

Re: RE: Ethyl alcohol blended gasoline should be a good bet

I just think that we should get horses and not worry about gas any more

Maybe some people could use horses to generate localized electricity.

 

[Reverend Blair]

RE: Ethyl alcohol blended

All you have to do is burn their "exhaust".

 

[Extrafire]

Re: RE: Ethyl alcohol blended gasoline should be a good bet

I just think that we should get horses and not worry about gas any more

I remember reading about horses in New York just before cars and trucks started taking over. Lots of them died in the street (over 16,000 one year). Their exhaust severely polluted the gutters and sewers and on hot humid summer days, the stench was overwhelming. Never go back, always move forward.

 

[Karlin]

The issue is very much that of population.

If a modern India 25 years from now used half as much per capita in fossil fuels as Canadians ...decreasing India's population 5% would mean a reduction each year of all the fossil fuel consumption of all of Canada.

Population is very much the issue. They want to be 'just like us' and that's scary for the environment. There's a myth that 'alternate energy' sources are going to used instead of fossil fuels. They will actually be used 'in addition' to fossil fuels.

Yes, its the basis of the problem. The whole world needs the courage of China and limit births to two, obviously the crowded places but as you say, its Canada that leads the way per capita so reducing our useage of fossil fuels would be the same as , what is it? 5% of India.s population?

We will burn up every drop of oil, and it will continue for 100 years. We will find more, its certain, and maybe I suspect allready 'they' allready known where it is.

The thing is to burn it slowly, so the earth can absorb and use it up. The more we do pro-actively the better, fercrissakes. So ya, every windmill helps, tons and tons. And proponents of windmills don't see a nice fuzzy world, I take insult to that.
quote strato: " There is a a disjoint between alternate fuel discussions and what's actually going on in the real world. No one is dealing with the reality. The warm fuzzy stuff...like let's build a windmill...just sidesteps this reality."

Go ahead and explain more of the reality as you see it, but include an answer also okay? You seem to see clearly enough, and we could use your help stratochief.

Like ethanol - I checked again today and Mohawk is charging 5cents MORE for the blend. The ethanol portion, 10%, costs them about 30cents a liter in bulk. 5cents more indeed.
You and I can poor it right into our gastanks - if you can find a 4 liter jug for under $4, buy it and use it in your car - up to half and half is generally okay, check your owners manual but ethanol works in most gasoline-burning engines. This alone would solve the supply problem - we've got to protest this, as customers, by buying ethanol for under $1/l.