Stories tagged fuel
Trains are efficient
Courtesy Sean Lamb When it comes to moving tons of freight, freight trains are very efficient (barges or ships might be even better). Someone asked FactCheck.org
"Can a freight train really move a ton of freight 436 miles on a gallon of fuel?" (click link to read)
The facts
Seven major railroad companies reported the following for 2007:
- 1,770,545,245,000 ton-miles of freight were moved
- 4,062,025,082 gallons of diesel fuel were consumed
- That works out to be almost 436 ton-miles per gallon (435.88)
Trains today 85% more efficient than in 1980
The Association of American Railroads is boasting an 85.5 percent improvement in fuel efficiency for their trains since 1980.
“In fact, if just 10 percent of the freight currently moving by truck went instead by rail, the nation could save one billion gallons of fuel per year."
This information probably sounds like an advertisement for the railroad industry. I did use the Association of American Railroads website as a source.
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The fuel of the future?: Termite guts break down cellulose into a form that could be used for fuel.
Courtesy Velo Steve
Scientists for the US Department of Energy are studying termites in hopes of developing new sources of fuel.
Termites eat wood. Wood is made of a tough material called cellulose. There’s an awful lot of cellulose in the world, and its easy to grow, making it an ideal raw material for making ethanol. Except – it’s really, really hard to turn cellulose into ethane (natural gas). It’s much easier to make ethanol out of food crops like corn – but that creates problems of its own.
Termites, however, have microbes in their stomachs which break down cellulose quickly and efficiently, as anyone who’s ever had a termite infestation in their house knows. Scientists hope to figure out how the microbes do their job, and then duplicate the process to help fill the nation’s energy needs.
The incomparable Cecil Adams weighs in with his thoughts on cellulose-based ethanol.
Researchers at Penn State University have developed a fuel cell in which common bacteria produce copious amounts of hydrogen. Some experts believe hydrogen will replace oil as the fuel of the future, if we can find a way to produce it cheaply. The new apparatus uses waste water, plant material and bugs to produce hydrogen.
John Kanzius discovered that salt water when bombarded with radio waves burns. You can learn more and see salt water burn in this video(You Tube).
Corn, the real enemy: The demand for corn to make ethanol is pushing up the price of many food items, including ice cream. Photo by frascelly at flickr.com
Most ethanol is made from corn.
As the demand for corn goes up, the price goes up, too.
Dairies buy corn to feed their milk cows.
As the price of corn goes up, dairies must raise the price of milk to keep even.
And what essential, life-sustaining product is made from milk?
ICE CREAM, PEOPLE!
The demand for ethanol is forcing up the cost of ice cream!
The terrible irony of all this is that ethanol is promoted as a renewable, alternative fuel, one that will reduce pollution and carbon emissions and thus help combat global warming. Yet, its production is harming the one known proven antidote to blazing temperatures – ice cream!
Our way of life, our very existence is at stake here.
Fortunately, science comes to the rescue. Researchers in Georgia are building the first cellulosic ethanol plant, which will make ethanol from plant waste (like lawn clippings and switch grass) rather than from food crops.
It may not save the planet, but if it saves ice cream, that will be a good first step.
It seems that everywhere I look, energy is in the news these days. Here are a few more stories that caught my eye recently.
Wind power
Delaware is considering building a massive windfarm in the waters off their Atlantic coast. Experts estimate this could generate enough energy to light 130,000 homes. But some people raise concerns about the damage this might do to migratory birds, ocean shipping, and the natural beauty of the view.
Nano solar panels
We’ve discussed how nanotechnology might revolutionize solar energy elsewhere on this blog. Now come word from Rice University of a breakthrough: an efficient means of creating molecular-sized semiconductors, an important component of high-efficiency solar panels.
Green fuel guide
Ethanol. Biodiesel. Hydrogen. Lots of new fuels are vying to replace gasoline as the automotive energy of the future. Popular Science magazine gives a run-down on the pros and cons of each.
All about CFLs
We’ve had a couple of threads here on Compact Fluorescent Bulbs and the advantages of replacing your regular bulbs with low-energy CFLs. For those who want to learn more, here’s a handy round-up, telling you everything you need to know about these bulbs.
Rock-Tenn paper recycling plant loses steam.
Rock-Tenn biofuel studyRock-Tenn currently uses steam heat generated by the coal fired Xcel High Bridge plant. When that source of steam is shut off this summer, Rock-Tenn will fire up its old boilers and begin burning fuel oil or natural gas. This will increase their energy costs by four to six million dollars annually but could go much higher depending upon the volatile international energy markets.
The Rock-Tenn plant processes half of all paper recycled in Minnesota (about 1000 tons per day). Rock-Tenn (formerly Waldorf Paper) employs about 500 people at an average salary of $60,000 and spends about $75 million on goods and services yearly.
St. Paul Port Authority, to the rescue.
The St. Paul Port Authority, a non-profit municipal corporation, with its mission of job creation and retention, plans to build a new fuel plant for Rock-Tenn. Big bucks are involved. Current estimates are about $140 million. District Energy, a private, non-profit corprtion, and Market Street Energy, its for-profit affiliate will run the Rock-Tenn power plant (they currently run the St. Paul district heating and cooling).
Law makers propose $4 million to study idea.
The proposed Midway biomass power plant picked up some steam May 1st when members of the Minnesota Legislature included $4 million to study the idea in their environment, energy, and natural resources bill. The bill also allows for regular input from four district councils (near University Avenue and Vandalia Street) and by business and labor interests.
Big, important issues involved.
Coming up with an environmentally friendly biomass source that is technically and economically workable is a task that involves many important issues.
Municipal waste disposal.
Resource Recovery Technologies (RRT) runs a processing plant in Newport, MN that converts municipal solid waste (MSW) to refuse-derived fuel (RDF). The RRT plant gets municipal solid wastes from Ramsey and Washington counties, which subsidize its operation. Read more about municipal waste disposal here.
Energy from renewable fuel sources.
Ramsey and Washington counties support an RDF fuel source for the Rock-Tenn plant as a way to provide both fuel for Rock-Tenn and a "market" for the counties' municipal solid wastes. Other biomass fuel choices exist—among them, woody wastes, agricultural wastes and crops grown specifically for fuel. The choice of fuel for the Rock-Tenn power plant has implications for the municipal solid waste system, but also for air quality, property taxes, agriculture and farmers, and the future of recycling. tcdailyplanet
Who pays? Who profits?
The St. Paul Port Authority, Ramsey County, Washington County and the City of St. Paul are among the public entities whose decisions factor in the process, including decisions on financing and public subsidies. I recommend reading TCPlanet's, "Follow the money" and "Keeping track of the players".
Environmental impacts.
A proposal would need to be made to the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) with an Environmental Assessment Worksheet. After the MPCA evaluates this worksheet, it will decide whether a full-scale (time-consuming and expensive) Environmental Impact Statement is necessary.
"a biomass plant has impacts both 'upstream' and 'downstream' of the plant. Upstream impacts include the impacts of growing, harvesting, processing and transporting the biomass. ... Downstream impacts include noise and health impacts from air and water emissions and ash disposal. Air emissions have the most significant downstream impacts." Green Institute study(pdf)
What do you think?
Refuse-derived fuel, known as RDF, raises health and quality of life issues, issues that hopefully will be resolved with fully informed, scientific reasoning. You can get started by following some of the links above.
Will new technologies render oil obsolete?: Photo by tbone55 via flickr.com
There’s been lots of energy news lately. Here’s a round-up of some articles I found interesting:
An inventor in Colorado is making biofuel from pond scum. Algae grow rapidly; they produce waste products that can be turned into biodiesel and ethanol; and they can absorb carbon dioxide from traditional coal- and oil-burning factories.
A company in Arizona has announced on their corporate blog that they have invented a new process of creating hydrogen on-demand from magnesium and water. This would allow a clean-burning fuel cell to produce its own hydrogen.
And speaking of fuel cells, Ford Motor Company has unveiled a prototype hydrogen / plug-in car. It runs on batteries powered by hydrogen. But, very few stations in the US carry hydrogen for refueling. So, you can also recharge the batteries by simply plugging it into a household electrical outlet. Ford hopes to have a commercial model available within 10 years.
Michael Waltrip's car: Courtesy stevejk.
Michael Waltrip's NASCAR team was heavily fined this week for cheating. Inspectors found an unspecified substance in the engine which was thought to unfairly boost his car's performance. But what was this mysterious stuff? Most sources say inspectors found oxygenate in the engine's intake manifold. So if that's the case how does this stuff work?
Internal combustion engine: Courtesy Wikimedia CommonsFirst we need to do a quick run down of how a standard car engine works:
- Gasoline and air get mixed together inside a small chamber called a cylinder.
- A piston shrinks the size of this valve compressing the gasoline and air.
- A spark plug makes a tiny electric spark which ignites the gasoline and air causing the piston to move. The piston's movement is linked to the wheels, causing them to turn.
- The piston also comes back around another time to force out the gases left over after the explosion. That's the exhaust that that comes out your tail pipe.
The air that gets sucked into the engine just comes from the outside world. The same air we breath. The explosion works because our air has about 21% oxygen in it and oxygen really likes to burn. But what if we could add more oxygen to this equation? This results in a more complete combustion of the fuel and more power. More power means more speed.
From what I've read on the web it seems that Waltrip's team was using a type of gel that sits in the air intake on the engine. As the gel evaporated it would release oxygen into the engine which would then be used for combustion, increasing power. NASCAR was none to happy about this and fined the crew chief of the team, David Hyder, $100,000 and kicked him out of the garage.
Incidentally you might be using another type of oxygenate in your car right now, ethanol. Ethanol is mixed in with gasoline to reduce emissions because it is an oxygenate. When you get a more complete combustion with added oxygen you also get less exhaust and less harmful emissions. I still think that Ethanol is a poor alternative fuel strategy but that's another story for another time.
Many people, from the President on down, believe that the US must reduce its reliance on oil. But where will we get the energy we need to run our homes, businesses and cars? People have suggested nuclear power, solar, wind, biomass and many other approaches. All have their advantages and disadvantages.
One idea getting a lot of support is hydrogen—as a fuel or in batteries. Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe, and when you consume it, the only waste product is pure, clean water.
But hydrogen has a lot of drawbacks, too. An article in the November issue of Popular Mechanics runs down the challenges in hydrogen production, storage, distribution and use.
Meeting America’s energy needs will probably require a combination of approaches.
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