Ultra-High Efficiency Methanol Engines w Advncd Exhaust Energy Recovry: 50% Efficiency gain over ICE
... using gasoline only.
presentation by Leslie Bromberg, Kevin Cedrone, Daniel R. Cohn, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, at the
20th International Symposium on Alcohol Fuels (ISAF), March 26, 2013
They are proposing an engine with direct injection and onboard reforming of methanol yielding up 50% efficiency gains over PFI ICE. Marginal cost of $1,500 to $2,500. Annual savings $600 to $1,000 from efficiency gain alone (without considering cost savings on alcohol fuel vs gasoline)
http://academic.sun.ac.za/microbiology/Documents/ISAF%20PDF%20for%20web/Session%2010/Kevin%20Cedrone.pdf
Methanol
–Most efficient, economical liquid fuel to produce from coal and natural gas
–Physical and chemical properties enable ultra-high efficiency engines
• Up to 50% higher efficiency than standard gasoline engine in cars
• 20 - 25% higher efficiency than diesel engine in trucks
Ethanol
–Can be made from natural gas and coal
–Provides similar but lower production and efficiency advantages
–Accepted in US, distribution infrastructure already exists
Ethanol, methanol are liquid fuels produced from biomass/waste most efficiently
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Reformer Enhanced Alcohol Engines
Internal Combustion Engine
Due to high RON and evaporative properties, alcohol fuels facilitate higher engine efficiency
• Higher compression ratio
• Downsize, turbocharge, direct injection
• Heavy EGR/lean + H2-rich reformate gas
Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC)
Alcohol fuels as ORC working fluid, 2 options:
• No-condenser option
• Fuel injected after turbine
• No-condenser, no-turbine option
• Fuel reformed to H2-rich gas, injected to engine, no turbine
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[font color="blue"]"It would be much better to put resources toward societies that require much less travel, economies that are oriented toward local subsistence and sustainability, and lifestyles that pursue needs not whims." [/font]
... also what exactly does that mean "societies that require much less travel, economies that are oriented toward local subsistence and sustainability". Nothing too ambitious here .. just the reforming the entirety of human society ... and done quickly (as it needs to be).
In the mean time, are you going to just have people driving fossil fueled autos with their GHG emissions piling up. Not a very practical approach to stopping or reducing GW.
Note I mentioned subsidizing mass transit. If everybody decides to get out of personal cars let them do that. Cheaper mass transit would facilitate such a move. I am for it!
I prefer realistic, and practical approaches to address the problem of AGW - rather than grand philosophical/religious/societal approaches. If you replace fossil fueled cars with renewable fueled cars you are preventing 'x' number of fossil fueled cars from adding GHGs to the atmosphere. This is better than everybody driving fossil fueled cars until a more perfect solution becomes feasible (alas, a perfect solution cannot be made to materialize overnight...sorry)
[font size="4"] So, how long till we reach this perfect society of zero GHG emissions from transportation? [/font] I'd love to hear something quantified. Meanwhile AGW is churning along - and gaining momentum. At some point, pretty soon it will be beyond our ability to rein in. GW feeds on itself. Thawing permafrost releases methane - 75 times the heat trapping capacity of CO2 - for 20 - 25 years - then it breaks down into CO2 and water vapor. Over 100 years methane has about 34 times the heat trapping capacity of CO2.
I can't say DEFINITELY when we reach the point where we cannot rein in GW, but I do suspect it's very close now (hopefully it's not too late). I think (hope?) that with a massive commitment to the things i suggested, if we began right now, we could do that....HOWEVER, I DON'T THINK PEOPLE WILL COMMIT TO IT. Many will hold out to do nothing except to wait for a perfect solution and thus GW will get beyond our ability to rein it in.
Here is a link to a study by the National Academy of Sciences- their conclusion: NO ONE APPROACH TO SOLVING GLOBAL WARMING WILL WORK BY ITSELF. WE NEED TO USE EVERYTHING WE CAN - IMPROVED EFFICIENCY, RENEWABLES, CARBON SEQUESTRATION, HYBRIDS AND PHEVs.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/03/20/how-to-cut-u-s-oil-use-in-half-by-2030/
... the report argues, it's tough to find any single technology that can cut oil use in half by 2030 on its own. Making conventional cars more efficient won't do it. A major push on electric vehicles won't do it. The only things likely to work are a massive switch over to natural-gas vehicles (which would, in turn, make it much harder to hit the greenhouse-gas goals) or a combination of efficiency, electric vehicles, and advanced biofuels:
Electric vehicles: The NAS report estimates that electric vehicles will catch on relatively slowly in the next few decades, even if battery costs drop by a factor of 5, because "limited range and long recharge time are likely to limit the use of all-electric vehicles mainly to local driving." What's more, it will be hard to meet long-term emissions goals through plug-in vehicles alone so long as the electric grid is still powered by fossil fuels. Still, the report notes, electric vehicles are an extremely promising way to curtail gasoline use.
Yes, indeed electric cars are a promising way of reducing GHG emissions but they take a long time to get adopted in large enough numbers to make much of a difference. Figure we MIGHT get enough hybrids and electrics sold to be about one fifth to one fourth of the entire fleet - in 20 to 25 years. Meaning at 50% GHG reduction, on average, per car - that gives you a whole 10% to 13% aggregate GHG reduction for the light transportation sector. In TWENTY to TWENTY-FIVE years! Not good enough, soon enough - BY ITSELF.
I am rather dumbfounded that the NAS suggests using natural gas cars considering the infrastructure and auto manufacturing costs required (which will slow adoption). It makes much more sense to make methanol from the natural gas and use that in cars which can be designed to use Methanol (and ethanol) much more cheaply (and efficiently) than to manufacture cars to use natural gas (Honda has a natural gas powered Civic that costs about $9,000 more than gasoline Civic).
Link to the actual NAS report: http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18264
Searchinger's study concluded ethanol production from corn in the U.S. would inevitably cause deforestation to accelerate in the Rainforests of the world. From 2004 to 2012 ethanol production increased almost fourfold deforestation of the Amazon rainforest DECREASED ~80%. Critics of TS's simplisitic reasoning had always asserted that it was not a simple connection, if any, between ethanol production and land use changes in the Brazil or the Amazon.
[link: http://www.mongabay.com/brazil.html|Deforestation in the Amazon - Mongabay]
http://www.mongabay.com/brazil.html
[font size="3"]"Since 2004 the rate of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon has fallen nearly 80 percent to the lowest levels recorded since annual record keeping began in the late 1980s."[/font]
the 'attacks' you refer to (criticism of Searchinger) I did not create. I only read the criticisms of the Dept of Energy, Michael Wang of the Argonne National Laboratory (creator to the GREET model -- which no doubt you know nothing of) , of Oak Ridge National Laboratory (Kline and Dale) and other qualified scientists, researchers and environmental economists from Government and academia.
.... Now, to be sure, when you are speaking for a Government agency, or a university the administrations of both entities ABHOR controversy, and review everything you publish and that is for public consumption. Therefor, the administrations of such entities do NOT ALLOW anybody to say somebody is a 'fraud' or the like. However, the misuse/missapplication of data, the wild, unsupported assumptions used by T.S. etal in his study on ethanol GHG emissions - in particular ILUCs leaves no doubt as to the veracity and validity of his 'conclusions'. No people writing and speaking for the Dept of Energy, or the Argonne National Laboratory can - for political (small 'p') reasons - come right out and say somebody is a fraud but when you read the points they raise in their criticisms such a conclusion is obvious and unavoidable.
Here's a little bit, for those who are interested, in Searchinger's 'study' of ethanol's GHG emissions - he used a quantity of ethanol to compute ethanol's GHG emissions which was DOUBLE THE QUANTITY OF GALLONS OF ETHANOL THAT THE GOVERNMENT LIMITED ETHANOL PRODUCTION TO FROM CORN. NOW, DOES THAT SOUND LEGITIMATE? OR LIKE FRAUDULENT METHODOLOGY?
.. ALSO he recieved (and the journal publishing the study results) heavy criticism BECAUSE NOT ALL THE DATA NEEDED TO CHECK THIER RESULTS WAS MADE AVAILABLE TO OTHER RESEARCHERS. THIS IS INCREDIBLE AND CLEARLY A SUSPICIOUSLY FRAUDULENT WAY OF PUTTING FORTH A STUDY'S RESULTS. No real scientist or researcher would ever put out a study without making ALL the supporting data that was used available for other researchers to examine. PUBLISHING A STUDY MEANS MAKING ALL THE RELEVANT DATA AVAILABLE TO OTHER RESEARCHERS.
Here is what the Dept of Energy had to say re TS's assertions re corn ethanol's ILUC:
http://www1.eere.energy.gov/bioenergy/pdfs/obp_science_response_web.pdf
DOE Response based on contributions from Office of Biomass Program; Argonne National Lab, National Renewable Energy Lab, Oak Ridge National Lab, Pacific Northwest National Lab; USDA
Recently, the issue of greenhouse gas emissions resulting from indirect land use change has been a topic of much media attention and public debate. There is very little peer-reviewed literature on the role of biofuels in this relationship between biofuel production and land use change. Fortunately, researchers around the world are working to understand these issues better through detailed modeling and technical analysis.
The debate surrounding the impact of biofuel production on land use patterns was sparked by two studies in ScienceExpress—an advance web version of Science Magazine. These studies focused on the impact of biofuel production on land use patterns and the associated GHG emissions implications.
As some of the first peer-reviewed studies on the topic, they require much further work, refining assumptions, improving datasets, and strengthening of the models used. In addition, these two studies neglect to account for local forces behind land use change which some experts state are by far the primary drivers of deforestation. It is reasonable to expect that rigorous, peer-reviewed, science-based land use models will show that indirect land use change impacts of biofuels production are far smaller than these articles suggest.
The Searchinger study ("Use of US Croplands for Biofuels Increases Greenhouse Gases through Emissions from Land Use Change"
claims that biofuels production in the US, whether by corn or switchgrass, will trigger harmful land use changes elsewhere, in response to higher agricultural commodity prices, and thereby lead to huge GHG increases initially. The study claims that no greenhouse gas benefits will occur for the first 167 years of corn ethanol production.
[font size="3"]The Searchinger study contains some unrealistic assumptions and obsolete data. The key issues are as follows:
• The study assumes a corn ethanol production scenario of 30 billion gallons per year by 2015,[font color='red'] which is double the amount established by EISA [/font](see Figure 1). To meet the new RFS, after 15 billion gallons, biofuels must come from feedstocks other than grain, and primarily be produced from cellulosic feedstocks, such as agricultural wastes and forest residues.
• The study relies on a worst-case scenario by assuming that land use and deforestation in 2015 will mirror that which occurred in the 1990s. Better land management practices and avoided deforestation credits, if adopted, could reduce deforestation rates. In fact, deforestation rates have slowed down over the past decade.
• The assumption that corn exports will decline by 62 percent is contradicted by historical trends. As Figure 2 shows, U.S. corn exports have remained fairly constant at around 2 billion bushels per year throughout the entire growth phase of the ethanol industry. Specifically, the 2007 exports represent a 14% increase compared to 2006 level, while US corn ethanol production has reached close to six billion gallons that same year.
• The premise that dramatic land use will result from U.S. corn ethanol use production is flawed. US corn production for food and feed has increased by 1 percent per year for the past two decades. Moreover, Figure 3 shows the increase in protein-rich U.S. Distiller Dry Grains (DDGS) exports, which are growing significantly as U.S. corn ethanol production expands. DDGS export growth will be a growing contributor to the global food supply.2
• One scenario analyzed in the study incorrectly assumes the conversion of US corn cropland to switchgrass. No farmer would convert corn acreage to switchgrass as the value of corn will most likely exceed that of a non-food crop. Furthermore, a DOE/Oak Ridge National Laboratory study found that more than 1 billion tons of biomass resources are available in this country (Figure 4) without displacing corn cropland.
1 Facilities built before December 2007 are exempt from GHG reduction requirements. Future corn-starch ethanol will have to meet a GHG reduction of 20%.
2 DDGS can partially replace the nutrient value of corn as animal feed. However, they are not directly interchangeable and some modifications to feed rations are needed
There have been other criticisms made of TS's Ethanol GHG study which are much more pointed but they came from outside the United States -presumably where Big Oil's money and funding influence can be considered to be less significant.
BTW the amount of ILUC (unsuppported by empirical evidence) added to Ethanol's GHG emissions by the Dept of Energy is about 1/10 the figure computed by Searchinger et al.
Others might be interested to know, as some interesting background,... that Timothy Searchinger, when he co-authored the 'study' of ethanol's GHG profile, worked at University of California Berkeley which not long before TS's study was published, had received a $100 million grant (mostly from EXXON- Mobil). The highly unusual thing about the grant is that EXXON had a rather large 'string' attached to the grant - EXXON-Mobil required that they have a seat on the board which decided which studies would be funded by said grant. This was UNPRECEDENTED in public university grants funding of research.
