Stories tagged alternative-fuels
It's an important job I've got for you...: That's right: pump my gas. I'm not getting out of the car.
Courtesy thefiveten77Using microorganisms to do our dirty work is all the rage these days. And, you know, they deserve it—they’ve spent so much time making us sick that they’re due for a little bit of productive action (and don’t bring up gut microbes, water treatment, or natural decomposition. I’m just not interested in anything that contradicts me).
It’s encouraging, then, to see that scientists in California have genetically engineered microorganisms (like yeast and strains of e. coli that eat organic garbage and poop crude oil. Is “poop” the right verb? It is? It’s exactly the right verb? Oh, good.
Currently the process requires a lot of equipment for a pretty small output. A room-sized computer and fermenting machine produces about a barrel of oil a week—America consumes about 143 million barrels of oil each week. And, at the moment, the process isn’t super cheap.
However, the scientists involved are hopeful that the necessary equipment can be shrunk, and the product can be produced more efficiently. With a commercial-scale facility (planned construction in 2011), using Brazilian sugarcane as feedstock (not the best crop, but that’s another post), oil could be produced at a cost of about $50 a barrel. Not bad, compared to the current price of oil hovering around $140 a barrel.
The process should be carbon neutral or negative too. That is to say, the CO2 produced by burning the fuel produced should be less than that pulled from the air by the feedstock materials.
It’s all very interesting, but I’m afraid that this sort of technology is forcing biotechnology away from its true purpose—microorganisms working for us in the very literal sense. The day e. coli wanders out into my yard and mows my lawn is the day I’ll get excited. Otherwise, what’s the point?
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A wild tornado searches for prey: If only we could tame them! (image courtesy of the NOAA photo library)Techno-magician Louis Michaud believes that he can summon a tornado, “tame” it, and use the entity to generate electricity. And he intends not to simply summon a miniature steam vortex, such as can be seen in the Science Museum of Magisota’s Experiment Gallery, but a full-sized wind monster, as featured in the documentary “Twister.”
As bizarre as the idea might seem, councils of air and wind magicians at learning institutions across the country say the theory is sound. It would simply require a sorcerer of the most audacious kind. Perhaps the wizard Michaud is just that person.
The idea is based on the simple and well-known principle that tornado beasts feed and grow off of warm air. Michaud proposes summoning the tornado into a “vortex engine” using a source of hot air such as the waste heat from a nearby nuclear generator (or even, depending on geography, heat from warm tropical water). The hot air would be directed up from the vortex engine’s base in a spinning motion, and would gather momentum as it rose, eventually becoming a tornado several kilometers high. The air sucked into the tornado would spin turbines and generate electricity. The normally chaotic and destructive tornado beast would be content to stay above the vortex engine, feeding off the hot air provided. The wizard Michaud also claims that the stationary, summoned tornados could have the added benefit of combating, in some small way, the powers of That-Which-Shall-Not-Be-Named (Global Warming, as it likes to be called). The vortex engines would propel hot air high into the atmosphere, where it could more easily radiate energy back into space – an interesting idea, although it seems like there would have to be countless such tornado summoning stations to have any measurable effect. Who’s to say?
However, there is a price to pay for all this, as is always the case with magic. While universities have been experimenting with the summoning spell on a small scale – luring tornados not larger that a meter or two into this realm – the facilities for commercial-scale summoning would cost somewhere on the order of $60 million. This price would be offset somewhat if the generator were built in conjunction with a nuclear power station, as the station would no longer need a $20 million cooling tower. Michaud has formed the corporation AVEtec to seek investor funding. High wizards from Oxford, Cambridge, and MIT have joined AVEtec’s advisory board.
Those of you less experienced in the magical arts might be well served by this article, or this one, both of which offer a more scientific perspective.
Dear Readers,
Now, please raise a hand or two if I’m getting ahead of you, but I think it’s time we get down to business.
You’ve all heard of “the future,” correct? Flying cars, artificial intelligence, iPhones, and excremental fuel sources? I thought so. Or is there anything here that you are, as of yet, unfamiliar with?
Do your part to solve the energy crisis: A local man prepares to save the future, the only way he knows how. (photo by Mimi K)
Ever since the release of Back to the Future Part II, flying cars have been, more or less, old news, and Tamagotchi has put to rest all fears of A.I. iPones will remain a mystery to all of us for another few hours, at least, but are we all clear on the matter of turning excrement, or “poop,” into sweet diesel fuel?
Oh. I see. We haven’t all been doing our assigned reading, have we?
Well, if the responsible among you would like to put your heads down on your desks for a few minutes, I’ll refresh the rest of the Science Buzz readers.
Chemists around the globe have been hard at work on various processes to convert organic, carbon-based waste products into something very much like crude oil. Examples of organic, carbon-based waste products include, but are not limited to, chicken and turkey guts, old tractor tires, Sega Genesis cartridges (in part), lawn compost, cookie dough, defective jewel cases, ramen noodle wrappers, my fingernail clippings, old magazines, new magazines, tennis shoes (right and left), twine, super glue, baseball hats, worn out VHS copies of “Biodome,” and, naturally, human fecal matter.
The method for turning carbon products back into something like petroleum is relatively new, although certainly not unheard of. By applying the right conditions (heat, pressure, and, uh, other stuff) to the contents of, say, a couple tons of landfill, you can end up with a crude oil like substance, and some left over minerals and metals. The trick is in refining this process so that the energy needed for the transformation is less than the potential energy of the fuel output. As scientists come closer to a workable method, government and industry have been taking a closer look at large-scale applications. This article mentions Britain’s interest in the technology needed to turn their organic waste – of all sorts – into transportation fuel.
As something that produces carbon-based fuels, this process wouldn’t exactly halt the output of global-warming CO2, but it’s not quite so harmful as burning fossil fuels because, as the article puts it, “the carbon produced when the fuel is burnt was absorbed from the atmosphere by the plants or trees used to make it.” That is to say, it wouldn’t create new CO2, because the organic components of the fuel had just been taking in carbon that was already in the atmosphere.
The facilities required for the process are, unfortunately, extremely expensive. Once everything is set up, however, the fuel produced could potentially be very cheap. And the ingredients aren’t generally difficult to produce.
Well, well. It’s happened again.
Members of the so-called “scientific community” have molted from their crusty pupae and emerged as the wriggling little thieves and plagiarists I’ve always known them to be.
I’m sure this sounds a little bit harsh, and it is, but deservedly so, for the crime committed is most egregious. Let me explain, and I think you will agree…
The solution to all transportation fuel problems.: This man somehow got into my head and stole my idea. Possibly metaphorically. (photo by Richard Faverty, permission for use granted by Bob Arno)
A team based out of the University if Wisconsin-Madison has recently announced its “discovery” of a two-stage process for turning the sugar fructose into “a liquid transportation fuel with 40 percent greater energy density than ethanol.” The first set of quotation marks here are for irony, the next are meant to give credit where credit is due, something often overlooked among certain scientists.
We are all aware of the increasing focus being placed on renewable fuels, especially those for transportation. Ethanol is currently the only one being produced on a very large scale, and it is not without problems. Ethanol contains relatively little energy compared to fossil fuels, it evaporates quickly, and it readily absorbs water from the atmosphere, which must be separated from the fuel through an energy intensive process before it can be used.
DMF, the fructose-derived fuel, is not water-soluble, it is stable in storage, and it costs less energy to produce. The article I read also seems to suggest that DMF is carbon-neutral (that us to say, it doesn’t contribute to the global warming CO2 in the atmosphere), but I’m not sure that this is accurate.
DMF itself is not new, but the process developed at UW is. Using acid and copper catalysts, and salt and butanol as a solvent, the new process is much more effective at deriving the DMF than previous methods, adding to its potential as a commercial fuel.
This all sounds great to you, I’m sure, but I think we should get back to the real meat of this story: shameless thievery.
Every night I dream about falling asleep on a silk bed that floats in a pool of some kind of liquid gold (not real liquid gold, though, because that would probably burn the bed). The means of achieving this dream I have always kept secret, until now, when it seems there is no more point to it: converting simple sugars to pure energy. My novel method is only slightly different than that of the UW “scientists.” Using seven and eight-year catalysts, and five and six-year-old solvents, I could solve the world’s transportation problems.
The children - with the consent of their parents, of course - would be given fructose rich fruit-flavored drinks, or bowls of pure sugar (also fructose rich), and then harnessed to cars. Cars with empty gas tanks! The fired-up kids would tow the vehicles! Current production model cars could use the new technology with only minor adjustments (although larger vehicles would require a greater child-power rating to reach optimal speeds – somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 mph). The control interface would be entirely voice activated – I’m thinking something like “If you don’t get me to the mall by the time I count to three, you will be in so much trouble, JGordon! One… Two… Two and a half…” And you’re off!
It could have been win-win-win! The kids would have gotten the sugar they want so badly (as well as healthy exercise), drivers would have had plenty of fun, and I would have been rich, rich as Reagan. But no. My genius idea has been stolen, stolen and perverted to the point where I want nothing more to do with it. Oh well.
A side thought – as I understand it, one of the problems with ethanol can be growing plants that efficiently produce carbohydrates. Corn, obviously, is the main candidate around here, but I guess sugar cane is one of the best things to use (Brazil makes tons of ethanol, and they use sugar cane). These crops, however, can be pretty rough on the land, and the various steps in farming and harvesting can create a fair amount of pollution. I wonder if producing the fructose needed for DMF could be similarly problematic.
There are some issues here that aren’t generally what we think about in association with fuel production. Anyone know more about this?
Volunteer Tim in the Experiment Gallery highly recommends this online fuel cell newsletter.
Most of the articles are on that sight, but you can get also get them sent to your email as .pdf files by signing up at this link.
Tim says he's had several different fuel-cell based journals sent to him, and this one might be the best (plus it's free!).
I am the proud owner and driver of a Gordon Ragnarok, a medium sized family sedan. The Ragnarok was developed by my brother and I, hence the Gordon branding. It is fueled by a diamond-rich blend of precious stones (I’ve tried using a more ruby-heavy mixture, but the performance suffers), and it emits a burning stream of sulfurous gas, which is quite harmless to the occupants of the car.
The vehicle is a delight to drive, and is admired by my neighbors and coworkers, however I am beginning to realize that diamond/jewel fuel is increasingly difficult to find. Sure, there are more jewels out there – quite possibly vast reserves of them – but the politics of acquiring and operating a reliable diamond mine are… sticky.
New developments in hydrogen storage technology may be bringing alternative fuels closer to practical application. This is good news for me (and, perhaps, other people, although most other people run their cars on, ha, considerably less concentrated carbon than I use).
Many of you are probably already familiar with the concept behind hydrogen fuel cells (take a look at this post’s tags for some other good blogs on fuel cell technology), but the basic idea is to use an electrochemical reaction between hydrogen and oxygen to produce electricity, which can then be used, of course, to run something like, say, a car of the future. What’s more, this car of the future should only emit water vapor, instead of CO2 and other polluting gases. The volunteers in the SMM’s Experiment Gallery have a pretty slick visitor activity where they use a glass of water and miniature fuel cell to power a fan. I recommend it.
Anyhow, there’s lots of science involved here, and some sophisticated proton exchange membranes, and some hydrogen storage tanks. Lots of hydrogen storage tanks, unfortunately. See, safely and efficiently storing enough hydrogen fuel for a vehicle to have a reasonable range (something like 300 miles) has been a major obstacle to fuel cell cars. Compressing enough hydrogen gas into cylinders or storage tanks to reach a sufficient range would be prohibitively heavy and bulky. Scientists in the UK, however, have recently developed a new compound of the element lithium that could allow for high-density, light weight storage of hydrogen.
Li4BN3H10 - Not as pretty as the Ragnarok's crystal fuel, or as cuddly as the Mark II's, but maybe more practical.: "Hydrogen (H) atoms are shown in green, lithium (Li) atoms in dark grey, nitrogen (N) atoms in blue and boron (B) atoms are in grey and inside the pyramids." (Credit: Image courtesy of Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council)
Crystals of the lithium compound (Li4BN3H10, to be specific) absorb atoms of hydrogen gas, and then release it as needed. The process, called “chemisorption” isn’t anything new, but a material was needed that would be a “light, cheap, readily available material which would enable the absorption/desorption process to take place rapidly and safely at typical fuel cell operating temperatures.” Li4BN3H10 seems to be an excellent mix of those properties, and the scientists involved in the project claim that it could allow for fuel cell cars to become “viable for mass-manufacture within around 10 years.”
Oddly enough, this is where this story loses me a little bit – it seems like we often hear about breakthroughs that place next generation technology right around the corner, and yet it’s difficult to imagine very many people driving around in fuel cell cars in anywhere near ten years. GM, as it happens, produced a prototype fuel cell vehicle in 1966 called “The Electrovan.” I’m sure The Electrovan had some serious practicality issues (it weighed twice as much as a normal van, for one), but, still, that was over forty years ago. The world has produced some rad stuff inside the last forty years (me), but no more Electrovans. Is the problem that, however excited the lithium researchers might be, there are still too many other barriers? Or because it won’t be in the interest of businesses and governments until fossils fuels are no longer a practical option? Or simply because we can’t imagine a near future swarming with Electrovans?
I’m definitely interested in the progress being made with fuel cell technology, and I’m hopeful that practical application isn’t too far away, but that doesn’t mean that my brother and I will be halting the development of the Gordon Ragnarok Mark II. In an effort to take advantage of a cheaper, more plentiful energy source, the Mark II is designed to use puppies as fuel. Theoretically, full-grown dogs should work as well, but dogs suffer from the same storage barriers as compressed hydrogen (heavy, bulky, and potentially dangerous). Woof.
You will soon be able to get one. The Chinese company, Horizon Fuel Cell Technologies, is going to begin selling a toy car completely powered by hydrogen that includes its own hydrogen refueling station. Hopefully this company will soon be able to use this more affordable version of the technology to mass produce full sized hydrogen powered vehicles.
E85 Logo: E85 Logo. Source-Wikipedia
What is E85?
The 85 refers to 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline. Regular gasoline in Minnesota is E10, 90% gasoline and 10% ethanol.
What are the benifits of E85?
- Reduces smog forming pollutants by 25%
Reduces greenhouse gas emissions by 35% to 40%
Increased vehicular horsepower by 5%
Why has the price of E85 gone up so much?
The price of ethanol has been driven up because major oil refiners are suddenly buying in bulk. They're stocking up on ethanol as a replacement for MTBE, a petroleum-based additive suspected of causing cancer. MTBE and ethanol boost the octane of gasoline and can reduce pollution.
Won't E85 production deplete human and animal food supplies?
No, actually the production of ethanol from corn uses only the starch of the corn kernel, all of the valuable protein, minerals and nutrients remain. One bushel of corn produces about 2.7 gallons of ethanol AND 11.4 pounds of gluten feed (20% protein) AND 3 pounds of gluten meal (60% protein) AND 1.6 pounds of corn oil.
What about E85 miles per gallon?
Unfortunately, because ethanol contains less energy than gasoline, fuel economy is reduced for most 2002 and earlier FFVs (flexible-fuel vehicles) that are currently on the road by about 30% (most after 2003 lose only 15-17%, or less) when operated on pure E85 (summer blend). Some of the newest vehicles can lessen this reduction to only 5-15%. It is important to note, however, that if the engine had been specifically tuned for consumption of ethanol (higher compression, different fuel-air mixture, etc.) the mileage would have been much better than the results above. The aforementioned fact leads some to believe that the "FFV" engine is more of an infant technology rather than fully mature.
In daily commute driving, mostly highway, 100% E85 in a turbocharged car can hit fuel mileages of over 90% of the normal gasoline fuel economy. Tests indicate approximately a 5% increase in engine performance is possible by switching to E85 fuel in high performance cars.
Does it take more energy to produce ethanol than it delivers?
Current technology fuel ethanol, returns 139% of the energy invested in its production and delivery for a net +39% energy return, due to the free solar energy captured by the plants used for its production. Current values for the energy balance of production show that gasoline returns only 80% of the energy invested in its production and delivery to the consumer. It has a negative energy balance of -20%.
Energy crops such as perennial switch grasses, timothy, and other high-output/low-input crops will be used in the future. This will improve the energy input/output ratio even more.
How are flex fuel vehicles (FFV) different from a gasoline-only vehicle?
"An FFV will contain a fuel sensor that detects the ethanol/gasoline ratio. In addition, a number of other parts on the FFV's fuel delivery system are modified so that they are ethanol compatible. The fuel tank, fuel lines, fuel injectors, computer system, anti-siphon device and dashboard gauges have been modified slightly to tolerate the alcohol. This normally includes a stainless steel fuel tank and Teflon-lined fuel hoses. The use of E-85 in gasoline-only vehicles is not recommended as it may cause damage due to the incompatibility of the alcohol fuel (ethanol) with the parts in gasoline-only engines. Performance and emissions will also be compromised."ethanolrfa.org
How is ethanol purified from the fermentation mixture?
For blending with gasoline, ethanol purities of 99.5 to 99.9% are required, depending on temperature, to avoid separation. Currently, the most widely used purification method is a physical absorption process using molecular sieves.
Sources:
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