exton
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Joined: 13 Dec 2006
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 Posted: Wed Jan 17, 2007 10:03 pm Post subject: |
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| MissLisa wrote: | | Quote: | exton
Ethanol wouldn't work quite as well here. I don't think we can actually make enough to suit our needs. |
Sure it would.. ethanol doesn't have to just come from sugar. |
Ultimately it does.
It you mean, it doesn't necessarily need sugarcane, yeah that's true. Anything that will ferment will do the trick.
And that's what i mean.
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Do you know how many Beat fields we have in Idaho alone or wheat fields in Iowa and corn grows just about anywhere!! We have plenty of land to produce enough ethanol to fuel our cars... even if they were a gas/ethanol mixture (since ethanol burns quicker than gas... and we Americans really are gas hogs lol)... it is doable and actually would put our farmers back in business. Win/win except for those pesky oil companies!!  |
Such land would be put to better use growing food for alleviating starvation in other countries.
I say this because there's a better source of clean energy - hydrogen. |
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exton
Forum Elder
Joined: 13 Dec 2006
Posts: 4218
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| Posted: Wed Jan 17, 2007 10:03 pm Post subject: |
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| MissLisa wrote: | | Quote: | exton
Ethanol wouldn't work quite as well here. I don't think we can actually make enough to suit our needs. |
Sure it would.. ethanol doesn't have to just come from sugar. |
Ultimately it does.
If you mean, it doesn't necessarily need sugarcane, yeah that's true. Anything that will ferment will do the trick.
And that's what i mean.
| Quote: |
Do you know how many Beat fields we have in Idaho alone or wheat fields in Iowa and corn grows just about anywhere!! We have plenty of land to produce enough ethanol to fuel our cars... even if they were a gas/ethanol mixture (since ethanol burns quicker than gas... and we Americans really are gas hogs lol)... it is doable and actually would put our farmers back in business. Win/win except for those pesky oil companies!! |
Such land would be put to better use growing food for alleviating starvation in other countries.
I say this because there's a better source of clean energy - hydrogen. |
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MissLisa
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Joined: 03 Jan 2007
Posts: 56
Location: Virginia
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| Posted: Thu Jan 18, 2007 1:34 am Post subject: |
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| exton wrote: | | MissLisa wrote: | | Quote: | exton
Ethanol wouldn't work quite as well here. I don't think we can actually make enough to suit our needs. |
Sure it would.. ethanol doesn't have to just come from sugar. |
Ultimately it does.
If you mean, it doesn't necessarily need sugarcane, yeah that's true. Anything that will ferment will do the trick.
And that's what i mean.
| Quote: |
Do you know how many Beat fields we have in Idaho alone or wheat fields in Iowa and corn grows just about anywhere!! We have plenty of land to produce enough ethanol to fuel our cars... even if they were a gas/ethanol mixture (since ethanol burns quicker than gas... and we Americans really are gas hogs lol)... it is doable and actually would put our farmers back in business. Win/win except for those pesky oil companies!! |
Such land would be put to better use growing food for alleviating starvation in other countries.
I say this because there's a better source of clean energy - hydrogen. |
Ohhh I can't agree with you more about putting our land to use to help the hungry... we would need a serious change in government for that to happen! They don't even want to feed those that are hungry in this country forget the other countries!
I have read about hydrogen as well... and that much of our navy already use hyrogen as a fuel if I am remembering correctly.
I am up for anything that is better for our environment and our wallets!! |
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PeaceLoveandRockNRoll
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Joined: 08 Dec 2006
Posts: 300
Location: Richmond, IN
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| Posted: Thu Jan 18, 2007 6:48 am Post subject: |
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Ethanol is not, at the moment, good for our wallets. The gas price spike we got a year ago was due to the ethanol mandate taking effect. Of course, I'm not saying it's not a wonderful idea, and as oil becomes more and more scarce, ethanol, with a pretty standard production cost, becomes a better and better option.
Not that requiring a certain level of fuel efficiency would hurt... |
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Lester
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Joined: 08 Dec 2006
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| Posted: Thu Jan 18, 2007 6:51 am Post subject: |
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| exton wrote: | | Lester wrote: | | Cars don't run off ethanol completely, I think your information may be off |
They can. Ethanol is just like gasoline, only...not. It requires just a little tweaking to make a car run off it. |
If you have more than 10% ethanol in your car it has a huge chance of blowing up. |
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Lester
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| Posted: Thu Jan 18, 2007 6:52 am Post subject: |
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Whatever happened to hydrogen?
I heard rumours of cars running solely on it. |
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exton
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Joined: 13 Dec 2006
Posts: 4218
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| Posted: Thu Jan 18, 2007 7:45 am Post subject: |
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| Lester wrote: | | exton wrote: |
They can. Ethanol is just like gasoline, only...not. It requires just a little tweaking to make a car run off it. |
If you have more than 10% ethanol in your car it has a huge chance of blowing up. |
If you have more than 10% ethanol you run the chance of your car not working. It won't blow up.
You obviously have to modify the engine a bit in order to run on full ethanol. But that's just a matter of details. It's the same exact technology, just different engine cycles and gas-air ratios and whatever. |
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exton
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| Posted: Thu Jan 18, 2007 7:45 am Post subject: |
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| Lester wrote: | Whatever happened to hydrogen?
I heard rumours of cars running solely on it. |
There's no hydrogen infrastructure. There are cars that run on it, but where will you go to refuel? |
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Lester
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Joined: 08 Dec 2006
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| Posted: Thu Jan 18, 2007 1:08 pm Post subject: |
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| exton wrote: | | Lester wrote: | Whatever happened to hydrogen?
I heard rumours of cars running solely on it. |
There's no hydrogen infrastructure. There are cars that run on it, but where will you go to refuel? |
The water bubbler?
Mythbusters ran a car on the used grease from a fast food place, no modifications. |
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exton
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Joined: 13 Dec 2006
Posts: 4218
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| Posted: Fri Jan 19, 2007 1:59 am Post subject: |
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| Lester wrote: | | exton wrote: |
There's no hydrogen infrastructure. There are cars that run on it, but where will you go to refuel? |
The water bubbler?
Mythbusters ran a car on the used grease from a fast food place, no modifications. |
Grease != hydrogen power
Water won't work for refueling, because you need to electrolyze it to turn it into hydrogen. The idea is that you electrolyze it with cleanly generated electricity, and then store it to put it in cars.
And yeah, you can run a car on grease. Your car won't last long if you do it with no modifications, though.
First, it has to be a deisel car. Gasoline cars won't work.
Second, the necessary modification is a heating coil around the fuel line; it makes the grease flow better.
You'd also do well to have both a gas and a grease tank in a car; if it's really cold out, you won't be able to start the car on grease alone. |
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PeaceLoveandRockNRoll
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Joined: 08 Dec 2006
Posts: 300
Location: Richmond, IN
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| Posted: Fri Jan 19, 2007 6:22 am Post subject: |
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| My high school math teacher had a grease powered car... that's not really an answer for everyone, though, there isn't quite enough spare grease sitting around. |
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Lester
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Joined: 08 Dec 2006
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| Posted: Fri Jan 19, 2007 10:14 am Post subject: |
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| PeaceLoveandRockNRoll wrote: | | My high school math teacher had a grease powered car... that's not really an answer for everyone, though, there isn't quite enough spare grease sitting around. |
We'll just to eat more fried pancake wrapped sausages.
It doesn't get too cold in australia, so grease sounds like a capital idea. Thanks for the heads up though, heating coil... hmm, would that not overheat my engine?
I am completely oblivious in all thing cars, except I like the good looking ones, so if that was ignorant, you know why. |
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