Alcohol fuel - The obvious answer, Yes or No?

[kmguru]

I think I found it:

A typical hemp seed crop yields 20 to 30 bushels per acre, or about 900 to 1300 lbs per acre.
Wholesale prices for hemp seed in the USA vary between 20c - 90c per pound. (NZ 30c - $1.40)
Farmers would therefore gross between US$375 - $1200 (NZ$575 - $1850) per acre.
Pressing seeds for oil usually yields 25% oil by weight, therefore 14 - 21 gallons per acre.
Hemp seed oil currently sells for between US$50 - $100 per gallon (NZ$77 - 153).
Gross Income per acre would therefore be between US$700 -$2100 (NZ$1076 - 3230).
(source: Ed Rosenthal, 1995)

 

[Billy T]

I think I found it:...

good work. Now compare to sugar cane grown in Brazil if you can. I think I have posted some related infro, but if using any of my cost data, be careful as I tend to include the taxes, not theproduction cost as I go by what I most recently paid at the pump for my car. I must go to bed now.

 

[MetaKron]

I learned about this stuff in class a long time ago. Diesel engines do indeed need to be tuned and I was taught that you needed a computer to do it, meaning something like a low-powered processor or some logic circuits (this was in 1977).

There are timing belts, pump timing, and the injectors. The valves are also adjustable. I don't know how but this site explains some of it. Even knowing that a diesel engine can fall out of tune is useful.

The most likely thing to have to adjust for a different fuel is the fuel/air mixture. I have very little familiarity with the types of diesel engines that are around so I have no real idea what would make one model able to use hemp oil and another unable. The lubrication of hemp oil is known to be good enough to use on aircraft engines. This means that the fuel does not have to be mixed with sulfur substitute to lubricate the valve action.

Diesels have their problems but hemp fuel is easy to make at home for very little cost. There will be no major obstacles to overcome to make the engines work with the fuel. The very first such engines ran on it. It can't cost all that much to buy the fuel, either. A lot of people will line up to buy a car that can run on a fuel that costs less than a dollar a gallon. So, yes, give people an engine of moderate horsepower that can run on freely available hempseed oil, they will want it.

We still have the home heating applications, too. A lot of people spend more on home heating than gasoline.

 

[Billy T]

I learned about this stuff in class a long time ago. Diesel engines do indeed need to be tuned and I was taught that you needed a computer to do it, meaning something like a low-powered processor or some logic circuits (this was in 1977).

There are timing belts, pump timing, and the injectors. The valves are also adjustable. I don't know how but this site explains some of it. Even knowing that a diesel engine can fall out of tune is useful....

OK, and thanks for the link, reference. We use the term "tune up" differently. Yes, one needs to check the compression to make sure you do not have a broken piston ring. Yes, one needs to check to make sure the injectors are not clogged. These are the two items your reference mentions for diesel engines.

I guess it may be possible for the belts, rocker arms and or gear train that lifts the exhaust valve via the unadjustable cam shaft to fail. I guess the mechanism that rotates the cam shaft could break and cause the exhaust valve to not open at all or remain open, etc. I call these mechanical checks and repairs "maintance" same a I call keeping the correct air pressure in the tires, "Maintance."

If you like to call things like this a "tune up," that is your right but do not be surprised if few understand you. If you refer to adjusting tire pressure as "tuning up the tires" people will understand that you are repairing the alingnment or adjusting the air pressure etc., but if you just say "tune up" (as you did) I think few will understand you are speaking of uncloging an injector of fixing a broken part like a piston ring, or gear or rocker arm screw that determines when the valves open. (I certainly did not understand you to be referring to these routine maintance items when speaking of a "tune up" for diesels.)

SUMMARY:
All mechanical devices need matainance, but not all maintaince should be called "tune up" IMHO. For example, do you "tune up" your front door lock when you squirt some graphite into it? Or do you maintain it?

 

[MetaKron]

You seem not to know, Billy, that the fuel injection on a diesel engine occurs at a precisely timed interval during the compression cycle and that this timing critically affects performance. Both the timing of the injection of fuel and the amount of fuel injected need to be adjusted to suit the fuel and the specific model of the engine. I am not the world's ranking expert on diesel engines but I could do that kind of servicing if I had a manual that told me how.

I had to look that up. I knew that diesel engines required tuning but I had to look it up to find out exactly what kind. The compression cycle starts with just air to compress. Then the pump squirts the fuel in at (hopefully) exactly the optimum time for complete combustion. This can't be done so well at low RPM and everyone's seen what happens then. The reasonable thing to speculate is that the engine might have to be retuned when you use a different fuel.

The valve action is also adjustable according to the link I put up.

All of this is the equivalent of adjusting air flow and ignition timing, so it is definitely tuning the engine. A "tune up" consists of replacing parts that are involved, like injectors, timing belts, and possibly valves, pistons, and heads. After doing any such replacements, a wise mechanic checks the tuning of the engine even if he thinks that what he did would not affect it. That's my opinion anyway. Replacing something like a timing belt absolutely requires checking the injector timing or you will have problems. I would do it for new injectors on general principles.

 

[MetaKron]

People have to be careful whose reports they believe, too. If you estimate 16 square feet per plant, 43506 square feet per acre, that's 2719 plants per acre, and that is sparse. If two pounds of oil can be recovered per plant, that's more than 700 gallons of oil per acre, not someone's figure of about 14 gallons per acre. I've seen estimates as high as 65 barrels per acre, which is 3575 gallons. Two pounds of oil would be from a plant that yielded eight pounds of seed and weighed not less than sixteen pounds but not much more than twenty to thirty. A big plant can weigh over 100 pounds and be half seed by weight, which is when you will probably need that 16 square feet per plant. Then you are looking at a plausible 12 pounds of oil out of one plant, more than a gallon and a half.

 

[Billy T]

You seem not to know, Billy, that the fuel injection on a diesel engine occurs at a precisely timed interval during the compression cycle and that this timing critically affects performance. ...

Of course I knew that, but admit I know little about how fuel injectors work. If they have electronic activated pumps, and they very well may in this day of computerized car, you have a good defense for calling the adjustment, if needed, of their timing a "tune up." I admit my unthinking image of how these pumps might work is based on the (probably false) assumption that they work like all the fuel pumps I am familiar with. - I.e. some mechanical energy from the car's motor directly (instead of indirectly via generator, whoops, via alternator etc) activates the pumps. Again you have caused me to think. Yes, I can even learn from you. Thanks.

 

[Billy T]

People have to be careful whose reports they believe, too. If you estimate 16 square feet per plant, 43506 square feet per acre, that's 2719 plants per acre, and that is sparse. If two pounds of oil can be recovered per plant, that's more than 700 gallons of oil per acre, not someone's figure of about 14 gallons per acre. I've seen estimates as high as 65 barrels per acre, which is 3575 gallons. Two pounds of oil would be from a plant that yielded eight pounds of seed and weighed not less than sixteen pounds but not much more than twenty to thirty. A big plant can weigh over 100 pounds and be half seed by weight, which is when you will probably need that 16 square feet per plant. Then you are looking at a plausible 12 pounds of oil out of one plant, more than a gallon and a half.

I am not going to do it, but it might be useful to compute the conversion efficiency your 700gallons/ per acre (/year?) implies. The total annual solar energy input/ acre assuming the leaves capture roughly 1/25* of it should should be at least 20 times greater that the Btu content of the oil. (I here assume half the energy ends up in the cellose and the non C4 photo synthesis is actually well below 10%. Corn an sugar cane both are the more efficient "C4 photosynthesis, but few other plants are.") conversion I.e. Even with these generous estimates, the conversion of solar energy is one part out of 500 ends up in the oil and plant celulose. Asuming equal division between oil and celulose, a rough order of magnitued wouold be a solar system with 0.1% efficiency. Solar cells can easily get 50 times better, but of course the cost a hell of a lot more than plants. Have you done this type of "sanity check"?
---------------------------------
*When plant is small, probably is is capturing less that 1/1000 of the solar energy falling on the ground. Perhaps it might be useful to consider less than annual solar imput.

 

[MetaKron]

Well, knowing that the plants will make themselves if I prepare the ground and plant the seeds, and knowing that solar cells cost millions of dollars per acre, actually calculating efficiencies that way seems superfluous to me. We are a long way away from having the means to squeeze that much out of every square foot of the planet's surface. The plant also produces the storage medium for the energy.

 

[Billy T]

Well, knowing that the plants will make themselves if I prepare the ground and plant the seeds, and knowing that solar cells cost millions of dollars per acre, actually calculating efficiencies that way seems superfluous to me. We are a long way away from having the means to squeeze that much out of every square foot of the planet's surface. The plant also produces the storage medium for the energy.

I only suggested it as a "sanity check" - Clearly if the energy in 700 gallons of oil is even 3% of that in the sunshine that fell on the acre, then the 700gallons per acre number is wrong. I am not suggesting that the efficiency is particulatly important.

It is always the costs that makes a system live or die (unless you start having quotas and discriminator taxes, subsidies, etc., which is what is keeping Brazilian alcohol out of the US and is making it more costly for Americans to drive and forcing them to pay higher taxes for the huge subsidies given to a relative few, already-rich, corn farmers. Privately held Cargill is not even a stock company, so in its case there are not even share holders making profits off the average taxer's back.

 

[MetaKron]

We need to avoid leaving farming in the hands of a few large businesses. Those monopolies are able to dictate terms to the general population that are way bad for civil rights and for our ability to even survive. What are they selling us? Tasteless food that any small farmer can easily improve on, more taxes, more restrictions on our lives, and nothing in return but low wages, clothing and shoes that fall apart, housing that falls apart, and almost entirely worthless television and movies. Even most of the books are insipid.

It's better to face death by gunshot or wild animals than to face a life that just winds down according to the rules of entropy. In the first instance you live until you die. In the second instance you start dying the moment you are born.

 

[Billy T]

I am please we comletely agree at least on all your last post but this part.

...It's better to face death by gunshot or wild animals than to face a life that just winds down according to the rules of entropy....

With energy input you can control the increase of entropy, in your local system, but unfortunately, from the individual POV, not all the aging process.

 

[MetaKron]

Your choice. How about letting me have mine?

That sounded too personal. What I meant was, society should let me have my choice.

 

[Billy T]

Your choice. How about letting me have mine?...

Certainly. If you are really serious, not one can stop you from ending it all. Me, I put $5oK into a life annuity (Mainly to protect me from getting stupid with age as I can easily live on that and Social Security in Brazil.) I am frugal. So despite having already gotten my $50K back, I want to live long enough to collect at least $150 from the company.

 

[MetaKron]

No, it's just having a reasonable risk that I want as opposed to futile attempts to remove all risk from life. If doing something stupid means that I have a one in a million chance of dying from doing it, I don't want the law to say that I can't do it. I see it as having a 99.9999 chance of surviving it.

 

[Billy T]

No, it's just having a reasonable risk that I want as opposed to futile attempts to remove all risk from life. If doing something stupid means that I have a one in a million chance of dying from doing it, I don't want the law to say that I can't do it. I see it as having a 99.9999 chance of surviving it.

Sorry - I was not clear and think you misunderstood my "doing something stupid" - I was not concerned with possible suicide or activity risk factors, but with foolish F&F decisions I might make in my old age.
(Finances and Females)

 

[MetaKron]

Well, I wasn't all that clear either. I don't take risks that are unrewarding or high probability of injury or death. At the same time I have complete confidence doing some things that people characterize as deadly risks because I know that the chances of dying are on the order of one in a million.

 

[MetaKron]

I do not know that essentially unprocessed hemp oil is not a suitable replacement for refined diesel, but remain skeptical. I have no doubt that diesel motors will run on it. They can run on old french-fry oil. The first ran on peanut oil I think.

That running is not a proof they are a viable replacement for refined diesel. The instruction manual for the first VW I owned stated it could run on benzene. (The toxicity of benezene was not as well known them.) I once put some very cheap gas (actually it was probably mainly untaxed paint thiner) in my four wheel drive, old Russian* made Lada, which is a "gas only" car. Well it did run, but never again will I do that. You need to be sure that the fuel you feed the engine does not destroy it after a few years of use. I am not saying it is impossible for this to be true of simple unrefined hemp oil, but I would be very surprised if it is. After all, PetroBrass has spent millions and come to a conlculsion that soybean oil must replace the currently used mamona oil. I am sure they looked into hemp oil and many others.

About "love the Earth.org" I just made that name up half hour ago to illustrate the type of sites more full of hopes more than facts one can encounter on the net. If it really exists, I want to state I know nothing about the quality of what is there.
--------------------------------
* Russian gas was, at least then, very low quality, so I thought it would be OK.

Any country that chooses to manufacture large quantities of hempseed oil faces trade embargoes by the U.S. at best, and it could escalate to military assaults and carpet-bombing of cities. It is and always will be feasible to grow it for fuel as long as no authority chooses to attack the growers for doing it. The U.S. has a bad history of attacking other countries over the alleged drug trade, including using chemical weapons like paraquat that are quite dangerous to humans on both food crops and hemp, which even if they were still usable would have to be picked by hand. They also killed somewhere from 500 to 5,000 Panamanians to extract Noriega, and this was over the cocaine trade. The drug trade has been used as an excuse for a lot of operations like that.

In other words, choosing hempseed oil as fuel is mortally dangerous to the country that does so and invites destruction on a vast scale, courtesy of the nation that was built on principles like individual liberty.

 

[MetaKron]

And there does need to be careful temperature control when distilling alcohol for fuel or it will end up with too much water to be useful as fuel. The requirements are a little looser for moonshine but people still want a lot of kick for the dollar.

 

[Roman]

Just heard on NPR that with recent, revised number crunching, ethanol is a viable fuel, so long as they get it from stuff that doesn't require enormous nitrogen inputs.

I was thinking about this, and if America was to raise crops more efficiently without losing all the fertilizer to runoff every year, we would get far more calories of ethanol to the acre than we currently do. There's no reason we couldn't get more energy from our farms than teh energy we put in, as the all the energy that comes from plants comes from the sun, not nitrogenous fertilizer.

Check these guys out:
http://www.landinstitute.org/