absinthe wrote:lol burning oil if the mix is done right is no worse than burning wood, if its burnt hot then it burns rather clean. plus the fact that your removing the air cleaners (trees) to burn makes the idea of oil a bit better in my mind too lol
In both cases carbon is being emitted as a substance is being burnt, "stuff" traps carbon (regardless if it was trapped 5 minutes before the tree was cut down, or millions of years ago) and burning it simply releases it, trees don't "clean" the air in any way like you mentioned in fact over night they release a substantial amount of carbon dioxide they collected through the day, and certainly not at any great rate, bacteria and other marine critters do that.
What I don't get is why politicians have jumped on the bacteria band wagon, it grows a lot faster then any crop currently used for ethanol production apart from the fact it has the potential to produce something like 10,000 to 20,000 gallons of biodeisel per acre and the more carbon dioxide you feed it the faster it grows, I guess the special interest groups have more pull then something useful.
Forgot to mention if the wood doesn't turn into something like oil, the carbon will be released in any case as the wood decomposes, though in the case of rain forests it's usually re-absorbed, but this just means carbon from other sources isn't absorbed by rain forests as much as the tree huggers would like everyone to think it is.
What I don't get is why politicians have jumped on the bacteria band wagon, it grows a lot faster then any crop currently used for ethanol production apart from the fact it has the potential to produce something like 10,000 to 20,000 gallons of biodeisel per acre and the more carbon dioxide you feed it the faster it grows, I guess the special interest groups have more pull then something useful.
Are you sure you don't mean algae? And I have to add you should be reading http://www.greencarcongress.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow and finding that there is a lot of support for what you are saying. It is infrastructure and regional availability of resources that is the limiting criteria.
Also ADM is controlling a lot of the political agenda in the USA.
wheeloftime wrote:great to know. So basically unless im using strong acids in my pot or totaly screw something in the mash up, using an aluminum pressure cooker will not cause any problems? I appreciate the correction. I know I have alot to learn and the only way to learn is to ask ask ask.
Read, read, read and doing searches on this site and an internet search engine have done wonders to increase my understanding of many processes.
I would rather teach a pig to sing than argue with an Idiot.
wheeloftime wrote:great to know. So basically unless im using strong acids in my pot or totaly screw something in the mash up, using an aluminum pressure cooker will not cause any problems? I appreciate the correction. I know I have alot to learn and the only way to learn is to ask ask ask.
Read, read, read and doing searches on this site and an internet search engine have done wonders to increase my understanding of many processes.
Amen .. I read 6 months here before posting a question ..lol But hey I may be a slow learner ..lol
pintoshine wrote:Are you sure you don't mean algae? And I have to add you should be reading http://www.greencarcongress.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow and finding that there is a lot of support for what you are saying. It is infrastructure and regional availability of resources that is the limiting criteria.
Also ADM is controlling a lot of the political agenda in the USA.
Yes you are correct, I on the other hand was product testing and wasn't thinking straight
And yes I guess the infrastructure thing is the big problem but at least it wouldn't be driving food prices up like we're starting to see which is going to be a bigger problem, then of courst the production of food for fuel will go up also which makes turning corn and other crops into ethanol even less of a good idea.
However there seems to be a lot of barren locations world wide that growing food isn't possible and what not but with the abundence of sunlight and a little forward thinking by our collective politicians we could all be better off.
http://running_on_alcohol.tripod.com/id31.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow <- first thing on that page mentions using duckweed in arid areas, not sure if it would be as efficient or not though as using algae...
Ever seen an article on changing one habitat from one to another? Ever considered what such an environment change would do to indigenous species? Isn't this why the USA is not even drilling in some parts of Alaska? Good Idea on flooding seemingly worthless land for growing algae until you read an article such as the one that was published about losing one species every six minutes.
There is also another in the current events about the EU deciding to regulate the sources of BIO fuels to be environmentally friendly. The article about the deforestation of Indonesian rain forests to grow Palms for oil was a bit sad too, because the Palms can't replace the canopy or the habitat. The same is happening in Brazil which is deforesting the Amazon to grow sugar cane.
We have to be more responsible in our schemes. The introduction of a few fish for fun and entertainment are destroying the species in South Africa rivers.
The accidental introduction of a tiny mussel is destroying the efficiency of our hydroelectric power plants across the USA.
So are we trading an excellent and beautiful diversity for driving down the road? When are we going to take responsibility and even just slow down to speed limit and save a little gas. I have. There is nothing sacred when it comes to making a dollar.
Don't think I am on of those bleeding heart liberals because I am not. I like my money and I like my comfort and entertainment as well as anyone, but I do have an appreciation for the outdoors and wish our so called progress were a but more environmentally friendly.
My children won't see a lot of the thing I grew up with. They won't know anything is missing but there will be fairy tales about things that used to exist such as the do-do bird, the carrier pigeon and the pure bred Aborigines.
I'll get off my soap box now.
pintoshine said:
"Ever seen an article on changing one habitat from one to another? Ever considered what such an environment change would do to indigenous species? Isn't this why the USA is not even drilling in some parts of Alaska? Good Idea on flooding seemingly worthless land for growing algae until you read an article such as the one that was published about losing one species every six minutes.
There is also another in the current events about the EU deciding to regulate the sources of BIO fuels to be environmentally friendly. The article about the deforestation of Indonesian rain forests to grow Palms for oil was a bit sad too, because the Palms can't replace the canopy or the habitat. The same is happening in Brazil which is deforesting the Amazon to grow sugar cane.
We have to be more responsible in our schemes. The introduction of a few fish for fun and entertainment are destroying the species in South Africa rivers.
The accidental introduction of a tiny mussel is destroying the efficiency of our hydroelectric power plants across the USA.
So are we trading an excellent and beautiful diversity for driving down the road? When are we going to take responsibility and even just slow down to speed limit and save a little gas. I have. There is nothing sacred when it comes to making a dollar.
Don't think I am on of those bleeding heart liberals because I am not. I like my money and I like my comfort and entertainment as well as anyone, but I do have an appreciation for the outdoors and wish our so called progress were a but more environmentally friendly.
My children won't see a lot of the thing I grew up with. They won't know anything is missing but there will be fairy tales about things that used to exist such as the do-do bird, the carrier pigeon and the pure bred Aborigines.
I'll get off my soap box now."
>>>CLAPPING<<<
I couldn't agree more.
"Be nice to America, or we'll bring democracy to your country."
"The best things in life aren't things."
"Imagination is more important than Knowledge"-Albert Einstein
pintoshine wrote:Good Idea on flooding seemingly worthless land for growing algae until you read an article such as the one that was published about losing one species every six minutes.
Perhaps in the state of mind I was in the other day I wasn't completely clear on my intensions, and there is a never ending tale of the introduction of non-indigenous species and the havoc it has the world over.
However that said my intention was for enclosed spaces (something like air tight green houses) that re-cycle the CO2 from the fermentation process, and the water that evapourates, that way if all precautions are taken (or native algaes used) there should be no threat of contaminating any enviroments, and similar systems are already in place in a lot of countries for handling genetically modified material from escaping into the wild.
Mind you it would be completely pointless to simply flood arid areas as the water would continously evapourate and would need to be replanished some how, and all the CO2 that the algae would thrive on would simply be wasted.
The reason that most of the worlds oxygen comes from algae is because water covers most of the earth so it only makes sense that, thats true. Algae is one of the simplest photosynthetic beings and there is really nothing that makes it better for fuel. It takes a lot of water and sun light when you would most likely be better off with a cheap source of sugar. So I would kind of like to bring the focus back to making stills for fuel use. I have been trying to come up with a low budget way to produce E85 and I think I may be on to something very well shortly. My first still was rather small and produce some good results but not perfect to my high standards. So I called a local glass company and they are helping me make a nice valved reflux still. It will be about 5.5 feet tall and about 5 inch in diameter. I plan to experiment with what I fill it with. I have been thinking I might try using alumminium foil that has been cut to make pot scrubber like packing. I plan to have the still completed and hope to run my first batch through it in two weeks. I will be sure to write how it works out for me. I myself am using waste sugar beet molasses as my source of sugar, its cheap and is readily available. Also an interesting thing I found out is the more ethanol you mix into your gas the more water it can hold, so in E85 the ethanol does not have to be too pure. Anyways good luck to all
So I have looked at the said yahoo group above and have read the 1st 200 posts and the last 100 posts, so far I have not found anything much worth reading other then the fact that if you dont know anything about oil heat exchange then its a bad idea to try and use it. I think I must have missed what it was you were trying to point out was there any specific post you were talking about?
I think you ought to learn more about how the people who are building commercial ethanol plants are doing it... If I were you I'd spend that 2500 and get into an engineering school. If you can afford it, thats the way to go if you wanna play with the real commercial ethanol producers.
Also an interesting thing I found out is the more ethanol you mix into your gas the more water it can hold, so in E85 the ethanol does not have to be too pure. Anyways good luck to all
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I'm not sure that is correct. If the ethanol is not 100%/200proof,then it has some water in it. Gasoline is a form of oil. Oil and water will not mix by themselves. You can add "Dry Gas" and that will work. It can be a real pain to dry out the ethanol with zeolite, that works also.
Well lets think about this for an instant. If you have a mixture of gasoline, ethanol, and water with very very little water it mixes just fine because the ethanol helps the gasoline from pushing out the water. Water and ethanol mix very well and so does gasoline and ethanol. The problem comes with trying to mix gasoline and water it just does not work. So you can either use less gas or less water. Well so people always say you have to get pure ethanol. I have found a few people that just say the same idea I have, the thought that just use less gas. If you use less gas there is less of a problem between the water and gasoline. But then you have to use more ethanol which helps buffer the water and gasoline even better. In my research I have found 30% ethanol and 70% gasoline allows for that ethanol to be 95% pure meaning if your still can produce as pure as it can w/o chemical treatment of your ethanol it should ideally work, I personally would rather go with a 50%-85% mixture of ethanol just to be sure.
I'm all for ethanol as fuel. But if you're planning on a money-making operation, you've got a lot more planning to do. A good place to begin is The Alcohol Textbook (Lyons, Kelsall, and Murtagh), chapters 10 and 16.
This will give you some insight into issues that I haven't seen brought up in this thread and references to other literature.
I have found that reading Alcohol can be a Gas by David Blume, has been a big help as well as his website, permaculture.com. I am still learning and expect i will be for about oh say the rest of my life !! but there is so much info out there and only so much time , i have gotten my permits and met all my requirements and have so far only produced a few batches but with working and already owning a small business there are only so many hours in a day , but i am hoping to offset some of my cost by doing some of the things i read on permaculture, as well as i am lucky enough to have help from some local farmers. good luck!
