SwiftFuel Alternative To Alternative Fuels

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."

Food prices

Where does the ethanol come from?

Re:Food prices

Switchgrass [slashdot.org]

Re:Food prices

It's not the same land or farming resources, though. Switchgrass grows on a wider variety of soil and climate, meaning it can be grown in places where you couldn't grow food crops, and doesn't require much seeding or fertilizer.

Re:Food prices

Your right that it can be grown on land that is not used for food and grow very well there. I think the problem is that the people who do grow food might stand to make more money growing switchgrass so then the land for food will be used anyways. I know if I was a farmer and had a chance to make more money growing a weed I would be all over it. I might be wrong in that. It might not make them more money it is just the first thing that popped in my mind.

Re:Food prices

I know if I was a farmer and had a chance to make more money growing a weed I would be all over it.

Yeah, I tried that. You go to jail.

Re:Food prices

Hmmm, does Brazil have these same problems?

Re:Food prices

Brazil grows sugar cane and started back in the 70's. It is only in the past 5 or 10 years that they became energy independent so it took them decades. I am sure they had all sorts of growing pains but they should be commended for doing it. We should be doing it for the same reasons. Better to use a renewable fuel where we can and save the oil for what we really need it for. Moms SUV is not really a need to me. She can have ethanol or swift fuel.

Wait wait wait

Are you actually advocating that brazil not mechanize the nearly 500 yearold process of sugar cane harvest? Are you nuts? Was industrialization something you found "quaint"?

It's not a religion

It's not a religion. Religions are based on faith. This is based on hysteria.

Actually you are both quite wrong.

This is based on an economic consequence. The infrastructure of America is built around the car, and not just any car, but a car that had 60 years of dirt cheap fuel. Our cities and towns are modeled around this. More importantly salaries are also adjusted for a much cheaper transportation cost. 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. Nothing else is feasible despite all the fairy farts, adament denials, and heartfelt praying that might be offered. If you don't want to live where public transportation can be possible, then do not expect people to cry for you when something clearly predictable damages your ONLY source of personal transportation.

Are you saying that the dead zone did not exist...

prior to the biofuels initiative or that you are against agriculture in the midwest that produces huge amounts of untreated runoff every year and has been since probably the mid 50s if not before. Remember at one point in time, before gasoline was discovered to be perfect for the combustion engine, ford considered ethenol. As it happens he chose gasoline because it was dirt cheap and they were dumping it straight into the Mississippi (I honestly cannot fathom how that must have smelled) since it was a by product. Mind you I'm not trying to justify this as a perfect circle or some other kind of historical asshatery but I find your most compelling arguement not only contrary to your final statement about global warming but also tangential to the issue.ãã Additionally, while oil will always be sold and burned off by someone else, decreasing the demand will decrease the price and also reduce the incentive for people to tap costlier reseviors.

Re:Food prices

"But don't try to tell any of this to the cult of global warming. They don't like facts interfering in their religion."

Your post started of by making a good deal of sense, but then you brought politics into it and fucked it up. I am assuming you have done this because it's a popular US pastime to bash environmentalists and not because you have actually done any reasearch into climate science.

The AGW 'cult' have been telling the neo-cons that corn to ethonol is a bad idea since before the first government subsidy cheque was cut. Yes the 'giant dead zone' is caused mainly by fertilzer run-off, but how about pointing out it existed well before the corporate welfare crowd started sponsering hairbrained biofuel schemes?

OTOH, lets not let facts stand in the way of yet another contorted excuse to bash environmentalists, most of whom would agree with your stance that corn for fuel is an exceptionally bad idea.

Re:Food prices

And that's been seen before. It's the paradox of efficiency.

Say we're only using domestic fuel and none can be exported. Yes, that's not realistic, but it makes things less complicated.

As fuel efficiency is raised, the demand for oil dips, as the demand dips the price or supply must do so as well. Oil companies don't want to settle for less money so they're not going to lower production until they need to.

The result is that in general people start to driver farther than they were, and the savings in efficiency disappears.

In a scenario like this the government would step in and introduce a tax on the fuel being sold, to keep the price from dipping.

In terms of the real world, you'd have OPEC reducing the supply to keep the fuel price from dropping and the incentive for people to be more efficient. Realistically, OPEC knows perfectly well that the oil will eventually dry up completely, and it's really in their interest to keep the rest of the world hooked as long as possible.

Re:Food prices

Where are all of these nutrients and minerals going to come from to grow new plants?

I don't know if switchgrass is a legume or not. Legumes make their own nitrogen fertilizer; and cellulosic ethanol could be made from some kind of leguminous grass. You wouldn't need much of the other nutrients (phosphorous, potassium, etc.)

fertilizer is a safe, renewable source that is completely independent of petroleum...

No more dependent on oil than other products. Ammonia for nitrogen fertilizer is made from natural gas; not oil. That stupid oil company TV ad that lumps the two together ("Two-thirds of the oil and natural gas consumed in the U.S. is produced in North America") is very misleading.

The best alternative is to develope communities in a fashion that is conducive to both mass-transit as well as manual-transit (such as walking, biking, &c.)

AC's Law of Real Estate: The housing you can afford is 50 miles from where the jobs are.

Oh, and try walking or biking to work in Wisconsin in February.

Re:Food prices

Mt Everest is even colder and people climb that too. But not to and from work.

Oh yeah? What about sherpas, then? ; )

Correction

It also happens to be about $2 a gallon cheaper than gasoline for the next five minutes."

There. Fixed it for ya.

Re:Correction

So wait, I don't get you. Do you mean gasoline is going to go up another 10 cents in the next five minutes so it will be $2.10 cheaper? Or do you mean that once this technology gets found out, they'll jack the price up because it is a substitute for gasoline?

Re:Oil != Gas

Corn based plastics [csmonitor.com] are just the tip of the iceberg, we will be seeing dozens of new plant based plastics in the decade. Just because oil has been used for a 100 years doesn't mean that they will even need it in another 100.

Re:Oil != Gas

For one thing, most diesel engines can't run on biodiesel unmodified.

That is wrong. In a new diesel, it will run pure biodiesel with no modifications. In a used diesel, the biodiesel will clean out the fuel system, so the fuel filter will get plugged. That is the only change needed.

And, you can't use "fresh" vegetable oil, either. It has to sit in barrels and ferment in the sun.

Ferment into what? It is running in a diesel engine, not a ethanol engine.

For vegetable oils, it needs to be warmed up before running in the diesel engine, but that is also the only thing needed to do when the vegetable oil is heated up before being sent to the engine.
One [journeytoforever.org] reference for running only straight vegetable engine in a car. There it did need modifications like different injectors and glow plugs, mostly to compensate for the increased viscosity.

Re:No, No, No, No, No...

Bad idea, bad idea, bad idea. Why? The process is totally inefficient.

kpppppffffffffft. Like running solar power through the electric grid into batteries isn't triply inefficient itself? Guess again.

It uses recyclable materials.

Yeah? Metals like steel and copper are pretty recyclable. Doesn't mean they're cheap. In fact, they've more-than-doubled in price over the past several years.

Which is why you preserve dense energy resources..

A person needs very little energy to move around. In fact, a burrito can get you at least fifteen miles on foot. As a civilization, we have to recognize that as the goal, and give up on the idea of cars as we know them. They're just not viable in the long run.

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.

Did you even read the article?

He talks EXACTLY WHY the solar power->electric->battery WON'T WORK! Because it will take over a decade for electric cars make it to most households even if we outlawed all non-electric car sales today! Cars have a life expectancy of 10 years or more, which means you will see that same 2007 car that was bought last year on the road until 2017 or later. The government could even outright outlaw all gas powered cars today and still you would not see a full uptake of electric or hybrid cars for several years because people can't afford to make the purchase. Again, it is usually every 3-4 years for someone to get a different car, but not necessarily a brand new car (usually a used one), and most cars will see at least 10 years and 3 owners. This means people expect to have 10 years to save up to purchase a brand new vehicle, or 3 years to save up for a several year old used one. Any change that would be significant would need to be able to affect ALL cars at the same time, not after 10 years. This is why a fuel change that can be used in existing cars is the method of choice to change our energy usage. Yes, keep the hybrids and electrics coming, but do the thing right now which can affect ALL cars right now! And let the 10+ year solution continue to work as well.

I just ate an aspirin pancake.

I'm sorry to yell. But where exactly do you think coal and oil and natural gas come from?

Here's a hint: it's all dead organic material, which originally gathered energy from something that gathered energy from what original source? Yes, that's right kids! It's the sun! Revered for millenniums for a reason...

Wind generation? Another form of solar energy. No sun, no wind. Lakes and rivers? No sun, no rain, no fresh water, no lakes and rivers! Not to say you can't harness these different manifestations of the sun's energy...

Passive solar plants are already in use all over the world, and even store energy using gravity or other passive methods that waste very little energy. Many small power plants can decentralize the grid, improve efficiency since the grid is smaller, and are much more viable than millions of little ICEs.

Imagine, Wal-Mart borrows ten billion dollars to install solar panels to cover their parking lots, which stop local heating effects, decrease A/C usage in all customer cars, and provide them with another revenue stream all in one master stroke.

Which vehicles?

I'm sorry, hauling 3500 pounds of steel to carry one person and groceries using controlled explosions is monumentally stupid.

We need to conserve energy dense fuels for situations where they are are truly needed (emergency vehicles, long-haul transportation through sparse landscapes, aviation).

What people are upset about is that life is much less convenient when we're all not driving powerful vehicles than can carry 10 folks and tow a boat on a whim. Well, tough shit. You may have to carpool or take the bus. You may not be able to keep your own jetski in a garage a hundred miles from your lake house. These are privileges, not rights.

Algae based biodiesel is interesting, but again, we need to get away from ICEs except where they are absolutely necessary. An electric car can receive power from any source - nuclear, coal, and even biodiesel through small on-board generators. ICEs will always be addicted to one type of depletable resource - that derived from dead organic material.

Re:SwiftFuel sounds like a bad idea.

The idea is to use SwiftFuel as a no-lead replacement.

Lead is currently added to avgas to retard premature detonation in the cylinders, and to increase the octane rating. One of the problems with unleaded fuels is that they produce higher compression than avgas. Today's unleaded gas would increase compression to the point where it would literally blow the seals out of the engines. They also have different chemical effects on materials that may cause deterioration in such parts as fuel lines and gaskets. Another difference is that the lead additives help protect the engine valve seats from eroding.

Airplane engines were designed to run on a very specific fuel, that had very specific properties. Avgas produces a precise amount of compression when it's burnt. The old engines were designed to be run at 100% of their potential power, so there is no tolerance for out-of-spec components, such as unleaded fuel.

In order for SwiftFuel to be an acceptable replacement, it will have to have very similar characteristics to today's avgas. Either that or it will have to be "close enough" so that older engines can at least be modified to burn it, and that would promise to be an unpopular, expensive decision (airplane repairs are never cheap.)