SwiftFuel Alternative To Alternative Fuels 725
TheDawgLives writes "PBS has an article by Bob Cringely about the best route to end our dependence on oil and reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. Instead of replacing all our expensive cars with even more expensive hybrids or electric cars, his suggestion is to use a cheap drop-in replacement for gasoline called Swift Fuel. It is derived from Ethanol, but doesn't require any modification to older cars to prevent corrosion. It can be mixed with gasoline in any amount and can even be distributed using the same network as gasoline, including being pumped in the same pipes and shipped in the same trucks. It is truly a drop-in replacement for gas, and it is real. It is being tested by the FAA for certification in propeller aircraft. It also happens to be about $2 a gallon cheaper than gasoline."
Re:No, No, No, No, No... (Score:5, Interesting)
kpppppffffffffft. Like running solar power through the electric grid into batteries isn't triply inefficient itself? Guess again.
Re:Food? (Score:3, Interesting)
And what's so important about the starving children? Presumably, they have starving parents who you should also be worried about. Unless you only care about starving orphans, that is.
so how does it work? any guesses? (Score:1, Interesting)
My guess: Ethanol can easily be turned into aromatic chemicals [archive.org] like benzene, toluene, xylene. These have very high octane when burned as fuel in a gasoline engine. (Both web pages state that this technology will first be used to replace aviation gasoline, which is higher octane than automotive gas and still uses lead.)
Re:No, No, No, No, No... (Score:3, Interesting)
Inefficient? Yes. But less so than trying to cram it through "existing electric infrastructure."
Perhaps you're getting a headache because you've chosen what you believe is the truth and your brain is warning you to stop paying attention when reality threatens to shatter the illusion?
Crazy (Score:3, Interesting)
Sure, power lines don't work when I want to send energy across a continent or an ocean. But I have this wild idea where smaller solar plants dotting the landscape can decentralize the grid, improve transmission efficiency, and use existing infrastructure and proven technology.
There's that headache again... perhaps my brain is warning me that you're a dumb douchebag who will miss everything cool and die angry.
With apologies to Patton Oswalt.
Which is why you preserve dense energy resources.. (Score:5, Interesting)
You're right - we'll never see a battery powered Hummer. But electric vehicles that serve the needs of 90% of the population have been in mass production (even if subsequently shut down) since 1996. All because the government of California demanded that car companies deliver them.
Now consumer demand and energy awareness are at an all time high. They're backordering SmartCars and Apteras and even high-performance Tesla Motors sports cars into two and three year waits.
And I have to say, I hope gas goes to it's true cost where it covers our involvement in the middle east. Anyone who wants to stick with their 6 liter engine after gas hits $12 a gallon is getting exactly what they deserve.
Re:Food prices (Score:3, Interesting)
Are these nutrients and minerals present in the hydrocarbon fuel that's the output? I should hope not; they'd kill the cars! Therefore, they must be separated out as waste. And what do you do with the waste (that, not coincidentally, contains the nutrients and minerals)? Duh, you dump it back on the fields for the new plants!
Are you saying that the dead zone did not exist... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:RTFA (Score:4, Interesting)
Ultimately, prop planes and cars use the same technology, with some differences in details. One of those details is that airplanes don't have the same emissions requirements, allowing them to use leaded gas with a higher octane rating. The consequence is that they can run a higher compression ratio, and thus be more efficient.
If SwiftFuel can provide an additive that produces octane ratings on par with leaded gas, we can all jump for joy. Combined with direct injection, we could potentially see gas engines with compression ratios and supercharging boost on par with diesels.
Re:Oil != Gas (Score:3, Interesting)
This is NOT necessarily true. If you don't KNOW that your car is compatible, you should NOT put in more than 20% biodiesel, because it destroys natural seals in a way that petrodiesel doesn't. Some vehicles require fuel line replacement. Because they're diesels, these are almost always low pressure lines and it's cheap and easy to do. The cheapest thing worth using is Nylon 77 (most Nylon tubing is Nylon 66! There is a big difference!)
With that said, anything especially new (late nineties on) probably has synthetic seals.
ALSO it is absolutely true that you need to change your oil more often if you run biodiesel or veggie oil; this isn't so much a change but it is a negative effect. The blow-by inherent to all piston engines is the problem; the stuff from the biofuel ruins your crankcase lube faster.
Other than that... I have a buddy who has an F250, he did his own conversion. He wrapped a copper heating coil around his exhaust manifold to preheat the oil, and that's all he did. It's a switchover system though (he also added a solenoid switchover valve.) I don't know what he finally did with the return. He did have to change the hoses around a little bit to change where they're short/long. So running veggie oil is not necessarily hard at all. Now he has a pump and a oil/water sep. and a filter onboard and just pumps WVO right into a tank. Still starts up and shuts down on diesel though.
Re:Food prices (Score:4, Interesting)
Why this is seriously Stupid (Score:4, Interesting)
Everything we make Ethanol from is based on soil.
All mass agriculture is based on petrochemical fertilizers. The tomatoes that you buy at the local supermarket are fertilized with oil! Oh sure, not directly...
Here's the biggest lie, though: "It also happens to be about $2 a gallon cheaper than gasoline." In reality, the true cost of both this fuel and gasoline are much much higher than what you see (or would see, in this case of this fuel) at the pump.
See, the cost of gasoline is human lives. Whatever you think about the reasons for our current military activities, we have definitely gone to war for oil. Not to steal oil, of course, but simply to increase its value. See, when oil goes up anywhere in the world, it goes up everywhere in the world, because it's a global commodity.
Interestingly, so is corn, which is where we get most of our Ethanol. While in theory we can produce cellulosic ethanol from things we would normally burn, releasing the CO2 into the atmosphere for no reason and without benefit, it really hasn't turned out to be that profitable and so it has gone largely unexplored. Of course, that corn is fertilized with oil, so when it comes right down to it, Ethanol as we use it in America today is a fossil fuel.
Really, this is the ultimate rub with all topsoil-based fuels: while through careful management it is possible to fertilize fields simply through rotation and the use of your own shit, we actually waste our humanure instead of growing plants with it. Consequently the plants must be fertilized with non-human byproducts (e.g. blood meal, bone meal, animal shit, et cetera) in the case of organic farming, or with petroleum-based products (typically, anyway) in the case of mass factory farming (the so-called "Green Revolution".) Taking this thought a step further, as we're currently not feeding the soil that our food comes from, how do we plan to feed the soil that we're going to feed our cars from? I don't know if you've noticed, but they have rapacious appetites. It might be because they weigh an order of magnitude more than a human, and have an engine under 25% efficient, but what do I know? I'm not a physicist. I could be wrong.
I found your comment unrefreshingly naive when you said "Or is it just some evil price fixing conspiracy to make their 5% profits worth more?" The oil companies are making record profits right now, vastly more than 5%. On top of that, yes, yes it is just an evil conspiracy. Keep in mind that any time two or more people get together to screw at least one other person, it's a conspiracy. Conspiracies to fuck you out of money really are everywhere. This should not be a revelation by now, either.
Anyway, one more time: The only liquid fuel technology which does not have some horrible defect that makes it at least as bad as what we're already doing is algae-based biodiesel. It still has nasty emissions compared to anything you actually want to breathe (so does vegetable oil, honestly - though it's different) but it is actually potentially better than carbon neutral.
See, essentially all the carbon plants are made of (and it is their primary building block of course) is harvested from the air. Once you separate the lipids from the rest of the algae, the remainder is useful as fertilizer, high in nitrogen. You know, so you don't need ANFO, which makes a better bomb than a soil food. Oh, it's an OK plant food, but it's no good for the soil. Without healthy soil (soil is not just some mineral dust, it is a community of living organisms AND mineral dust AND the organic but decomposing remnants of organisms past, and should be at least 60% organic material) you cannot grow a proper plant.
The Amazon is on the verge of collapse, Brazil is about to become an incredibly shitty place to live (aside from the Favelas, which are already incredibly shitty.) Topsoil-based fuels
Re:Food prices (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Food prices (Score:2, Interesting)
Reducing CO2 emissions futile? No, I'd say pointless and costly.
Aside from the fact that you are now heralding an unproven, imaginary system as a solution to a problem you and the other members of Heaven's Gate created.... You aren't listening.
It's quite likely you are creating more CO2 by plowing new land [slashdot.org] than you would have created by burning the fossil fuels you "replaced." Soil oxidation/erosion contributes an order of magnitude more CO2 [k-state.edu] to the atmosphere each year than the burning of *all fossil fuels* combined. Don't let any inconvenient truth stand in your way though.
Oh, well wonderful. You're going to solve a problem you created yourselves and it will only cost us millions in taxes, REAL environmental damage in the Gulf of Mexico, and thousands of human lives snuffed out by starvation because you thought it'd be a good idea to burn food in your God damned SUV. Great job, Jim Jones!
Re:Food prices (Score:5, Interesting)
On another note, Farmers usually plant 20,000-60,000 (Even as high as 80,000) corn plants per acre. Typically, 35 - 40k is common, at least in my area. With a 40,000 plant population, you are going to get around 200-210 bushels of corn which translates into about 28 tons or 25 metric tons (tonne) per acre (65% moisture). Now, according to this site [sciam.com], you can get about 5.2 metric tons of switch grass per hectare (around 7 acres). So that is around 175 tonnes for corn compared to around 5 tonnes for switch grass. You don't need to plow and seed switch grass, I assume it is the typical 2-3 cuttings a year like with hay though so some bailing and repeated cutting passes would probable make up for the plowing and seeding and it would probably be equal in fuel usage because fuel rate is calculated by PTO work.
Now the interesting part, you get around 28% product above what it costs to make the ethanol (the article says 25%) with corn. With the switch grass, you would get around 540% (per the article). Now the article is considering using the pulp as fuel for the refining process with switch grass but I assume that using silage from the corn crop could produce similar results if it wasn't ground up and left in the field. But you would likely gain around 49 tonnes of potential energy using the corn compared to 28 tonnes of potential energy going with switch grass in it's place. Now assuming the end product is going to be worth the same amount and the costs would be adjusted to reflect this in the pricing which means it would be better off to plant the switch grass on marginal lands in flood planes or other non-tillable and poor producing lands. Specking Soybeans in it every so often could possible take care of the nitrogen problems but a lot of the low lying marginal lands are already run off filters for existing crops which means they get carryover from fertilizers already in use.
I really don't think it would be beneficial to plant that instead of an existing crop unless the land is already so poor that it doesn't yield right on existing crops like corn. I don't see too much difference between silage and switch grass so an added benefit of planting corn might be a small amount of usable cellulose material that could be sold in addition to existing crop prices. You wouldn't want to do it every year but every other or maybe even every 3 years in between the last rotation might be a considerable source of product. It would take some work to store it but you might get about the same amount of material as if you harvested switch grass. There should be about 1 ton of silage ( metric tonne) for every 5 or 6 or so bushels of corn which translates to around 40 tons (about 36 tonnes) per acre (280 tons and 256 tonnes per hectare) which surprisingly is more then a crop of switch grass and is currently a by product tossed on the ground (it serves more of a purpose then waste though).
wikipedia article, additional information? (Score:2, Interesting)
i also can't access the swiftenterprises page though (it's slashdot affected), and as i said there isn't much useful info in google that i could find. the pbs article practically reads like an ad...not objective enough for my tastes (what about all the trade-offs? cost of refining? etc etc etc!)
Re:Oh, that's right... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Oil != Gas (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Food prices (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Food prices (Score:3, Interesting)
What causes the food price rising is the price of crude oil (who would tell, huh?), because a lot of energy to produce and transport food still relies on fossil fuels.
Re:Actually you are both quite wrong. (Score:3, Interesting)
Changing all this would probably take rather longer than the 10 year estimate for changing all cars in the original article. Consider that fuel in the US is still considerably cheaper in many other places.
You have several options and none of them are particularly appetizing, and none of them have anything to do with global warming. You can produce your own fuel through biofuels, switch to electric cars, or produce more oil from costly hard to access oil reseviors which represent the last of your domestic supply.
A problem many bio fuels have is that they are not interchangable with petrofuels. This "SwiftFuel" is, which means that it is usable without modifications to existing infrastructure. The problem with electric cars is that you'd need to change considerably more than just the cars, there would be a need to completly rebuild power grids at the same time.
Re:Wait wait wait (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm reminded of an experiment someone did a while back (don't care to find the link), where people were allowed to play a gambling game where you could see you winnings and everyone else's. The game was rigged of course and set up so that the player would win some, but could also see that other people won less or even lost and some people won more. At the end of the game, they were given the option to reduce the winnings of the top winners and give it back to the "house", but it would cost the player a smaller percentage of their winnings. An overwhelming percentage of people (75% or something) chose to reduce the winnings of the top winners, even though it did not benefit them at all, and even actually cost them some of their own winnings. Maybe it's human nature to want poverty over prosperity as long as everyone suffers equally.
Re:Food prices (Score:3, Interesting)
Algae is an even better option. You can grow it in concrete ponds paved over any surface. And you can use seawater, not just freshwater. We're looking at growing algae in concrete raceway ponds paved onto unusable lava rock fields in Hawaii, fed by untreated seawater pumped right out of the ocean.
The great thing about algae is that it is a lot more efficient at converting sunlight to stored energy than larger plants, since it doesn't have to spend any of that energy building a scaffolding for itself. Most data puts algae at about 10-20 times the efficiency of other biofuel crops. The data I've seen also show a better ability of algae to produce oils than starches - which is more efficient anyway, as I understand it. That means algae is appropriate for biodiesel, not ethanol or a gasoline replacement.
Biodiesel would be just as good as a gasoline replacement, for all the reasons argued by the switchfuel folks: it preserves the utility of all existing technology and infrastructure, while gleaning the benefits of closing the carbon loop. Clean diesel engines are a very mature technology - just look at the auto market in Europe. And the added benefit is that you don't have to use agricultural land to produce algae - useless desert would work just fine.
Algae is the way forward for biofuels, no question.
Re:Wait wait wait (Score:4, Interesting)
Here [psu.edu]may be an explanation (it is the study I mentioned in the post above... and PDF warning):
Anyway, the GP post is upset that even though workers will be better off, and environmental concerns are addressed, the "haves" will do better than everyone else.
Re:Food prices (Score:3, Interesting)
I have to agree that on the USA biofuel production would have an impact on food price. Almost of your land is used. It doesn't matter if you're going to use corn or anything else to produce ethanol, it will replace land used for food crops.
But, you seem to always forget that countries like Brazil and India already have large sugar-cane cultures, used both for sugar and ethanol production. And these have ZERO impact on food production.
The real problem USA have with biofuel is that they can't produce it in a economical viable way. So if biofuel substitute petrol, USA will become dependant on other countries.
Resuming:
Biofuel:
* Good for the enviroment
* Good for developing nations
* Good for Europe
* Very bad for the USA economy
Re:Wait wait wait (Score:3, Interesting)
In the future we're going to eliminate so many jobs through advancement that we'll have no choice but to go towards a socialistic society...which I find ironic, because that's what capitalists fear the most.
Re:Food prices (Score:3, Interesting)
They're a lot easier to make too.
Re:Food prices (Score:2, Interesting)
Switchgrass is quite a remarkable native North American prairie grass. The root system grew so thick that jack-hammers were needed to put in a water-line. Switchgrass prevents land erosion and is drought resistant. Cattle and Bison prefer to eat young-green switchgrass to other feed.
If a native North American grass that is easy to grow with few resources can make us energy independent, then great! If I had the money, I would start another switchgrass farm.
Re:Wait wait wait (Score:3, Interesting)
Idealists vote democrat. You're right that they're generally younger, though. It takes a while for a realist to become jaded with the system and to become cynics.
It would be nice to have another party or two, because the original republican party that I respected is gone (and left with Reagan), and the democratic party that I admired for progress is gone with Clinton.
I'm afraid that McCain is more of the same republicans we've had, but I really, really hope that Obama is different. The only problem is that it's going to take a couple of presidential terms at least, to clean up the mess that Bush and company left.
You are actually wrong about ethanol (Score:3, Interesting)
Since ALL fuels using the exceedingly complex formulae will result in more than 100% energy used to make the fuel, all the Cornell study proved is that with the most common growing and processing techniques used to make ethanol in the US that ethanol is half as efficient as gasoline, but a lot of studies have shown that, and newer technology has brought ethanol production close to the efficiency of gasoline production.
I agree that it isn't the optimal, final solution, but I happen to think that biodiesel technology is a better idea, as crops like canola and soybean can produce oil readily (using only a fractino of energy required for fermentation) that can be poured into the tanks of existing diesel engines with little to no modification. Furthermore, once the oil is extracted the meal left over is still recoverable for feedstock, whereas there is much less left to use as feed when corn is made into fuel.
Re:Wait wait wait (Score:3, Interesting)
There will come a time when you go to a store as a drive thru,
and you wave a Fob key at a scanner with your shopping list
and a robot will start handing you bags to put in your back seat.
Then you drive off from the almost 100% robotic store,
or it will be delivered by said robotic truck to your house.
Your car will be built by robots.
Your house will be built by robots.
Your food will be grown and harvested by robots.
FBI at langley already have 'Electric sheep'
http://www.friendlyrobotics.com/about/news/ [friendlyrobotics.com]
Once 90% of jobs are done by robots, then it will be well past
the tipping point.
A lot of ppl say there will be new jobs, but at some point any
job you can think of can be done by a very well programmed robot.
Its kinda like the ppl that think that the illegals that mow
your yard are too dumb to do any other job, then they show
up in construction and other jobs and ppl say hey wait !
The illegals can do any job here that they do in their home country,
and the robots will be doing the jobs at some point as well.
Asimo can already serve drinks, soon he will do other human
tasks with no problem.
http://asimo.honda.com/asimotv/ [honda.com]
Then it just becomes about getting the price down.
When the robot can build and repair other robots then they
will not even need the factory workers.
Re:Wait wait wait (Score:3, Interesting)
As far as actual wealth distribution goes, I'd give up a part of my wage if I knew that it was going to for example get rid of the corruption in 3rd world governments and let those countries develop more effectively, but that's not even an option open to me so I'd prefer to just keep what I have. I'm pretty lucky to have a decent job. I'm not especially rich by most western standards, but I'm not poor either, and I'm happy with that. I don't wish that Sergei Brin or whoever didn't get to spend his money on going into space or on nice cars, and I certainly wouldn't take a pay cut just so that I could hear that he lost all his money. Maybe some troll like twitter would take a pay cut just to see for example Bill Gates lose all his money.. I'd take a pay cut to see MS as a company disappear off the face of the earth, but that's something that would affect me and my job directly (in a positive way
Re:Food prices (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Why this is seriously Stupid (Score:3, Interesting)
Exactly, and I'm surprised that this isn't brought up more often. And the insect analogy might be more apt than you intended. Many insect populations grow exponentially until they exceed the carrying capacity of the environment. Then the populations crash. Then the populations start rising exponentially again and rinse, lather, repeat.
For the human-population-on-earth experiment we're currently on the exponential rise [rcn.com] portion of the graph. Time will tell whether humans are smart enough (unlikely) or lucky enough (possibly) to start into a negative population growth and allow the human species to live on the planet in some sort of desirable equilibrium rather that having everyone eck out some marginal existence boiling their dandelions for gas. Or worse, having mass die offs of humans (and likely other parts of the ecosystem). It's happened before. It will probably happen again. We might be able to control it.
Then again, maybe not. Murphy was an optimist.
Re:Which vehicles? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Wait wait wait (Score:3, Interesting)