david morris: "Ethanol's time has arrived"

[poopfuel]

For discussion.

http://www.ilsr.org/columns/2006/062106.html

[mike_c]

1. it's a bit early in the day for me...

...but I'm out here on the left coast where it's just lunchtime now. Sun's over the yardarm somewhere, though!

[nealmhughes]

2. Ethanol is dumb.

"It's time has come," allright, for ADM.

Biodiesel's time has been here since Queen Victoria was on the throne.
Diesel invented his engine to run on vegetable oil.

[leftupnorth]

3. you're gonna need ethanol to make biodiesel

veg oil will work in the tropics, but you need to convert it to fatty acid ethyl ester (biodiesel) to make it work out side the tropics.

[Massacure]

4. not necessarily. fatty acid methyl ester works too.

[leftupnorth]

5. the "methyl" part is usually

derived from methanol, which is derived from methane (fossil gas). Also, methanol can be made from destructive distillation of wood, but ethanol is cheaper and less energy intensive.

[Massacure]

6. Ethanol is also much harder to use.

When used for biodiesel, ethanol must be 199 proof, because anything more than .5% water will kill the reaction. You can't make ethanol that pure by distillation alone. You also need more ethanol than you would methanol.

I'm sure ethanol is easy enough on a manufacturers scale, but for home brewing, methanol is probably the more forgiving way to go.

[leftupnorth]

9. absolutely correct

ethanol is easy to maintain in an anhydrous state if you have a factory, but methanol is easier on the homebrewer.

[NNadir]

7. I don't think you're aware of the melting points of ethyl esters.

It is hardly as simple as you are representing.

If one googles, "cloud point," and "ethyl esters" the true situation should be immediately clear, clearer at least than a tank of biodiesel on a late fall day in Northern Illinois.

[leftupnorth]

8. I am fully aware

of the cloud point, but if we plan on using all renewable ingredients, we have to use ethanol. the cloud point issue can be gotten around with additives,etc. Also, the cloud point is more related to the length of the fatty acid chain than the alcohol used to replace glycerol.

[NNadir]

10. I have made a mistake and I am wrong.

I freely admit my error. I was at a remote computer when I wrote my post, and did not have the data before me.

The difference between melting points associated with methyl and ethyl esters is significant, but not in the direction I assumed. I have a spreadsheet with the melting points of all methyl esters and ethyl esters of carbon acids from C-1 to C-26. For instance, methyl palmitate melts at 31C and ethyl palmitate melts at 19C. This is the difference between an oil and a wax. The melting point of methyl pentadecanoic acid, one carbon smaller on the long chain acid is 18.5 degrees. This shifting the carbon to the long chain only affords a benefit of half a degree of the ester difference. This is counter intuitive on some level, but may be related to polarity differences.

My error of memory not withstanding, I certainly wouldn't plan on using all renewable ingredients to fuel cars and trucks, at least agriculturally derived renewables. I don't think it's doable. I think it's a fantasy to suggest otherwise.

I like biodiesel as a source of lubricity in diesel engines, but it is not really a suitable replacement fuel so much as it is a niche fuel.

[leftupnorth]

11. fantasy?

it was fantasy to suggest we could land a man on the moon, but we did it. In the longview, seed crop derived biodiesel is NOT suitable, but it's a start. It also helps farmers keep their farms until we can get them all to build an algae house. I think we can replace all fossil transportation fuels with a combination of efficiency, algae(10,000 gal/acre) derived biodiesel, and diesel/electric hybrid engines fueling semi trucks to passenger cars.

Switching over to B100 for everything won't be easy, but it sure is a hell of alot easier than building a nuclear bomb or landing a man on the moon. If I remember right, just a few years ago, the biggest problem for BD refiners was reduced shelf life because of water washing. Today there are numerous plant manufacturers that offer waterless wash systems that meet or exceed BQ-9000 quality. That's just a small breakthrough, but it translates to much better fuel and longer storage life. With more and more money being dumped into R&D every day, it's only a matter of time before we overcome the obstacles that confront biodiesel.

[NNadir]

12. I get so tired of that moon analogy. It's silly.

My whole life I've been hearing Apollo and Manhattan projects, most of them about energy. When we're not having Apollo and Manhattan Projects, we're having vague "wars," against inanimate concepts, as in "The War on Poverty," "The War on Cancer," and, one of the worst of course, "The War on Terror." Personally I believe that we have to move away from the mindset that announces with confidence that everything can be solved if we throw sufficient research money at it.

When you spout this happy horseshit about B-100, I really don't think you have a sense of scale nor of economics, nor do you seem to understand the nature of climate change.

There may or may not be some rather large deserts forming. Algae doesn't grow in deserts unless they are irrigated. Some of this desertification is associated with global climate change, but more of it, I think, it tied to salinity and over use of the land. I do recognize that the theoretical yield of algae, in gallons of oil per acre - or better, liters per hectare - is high, but this is a very different matter than saying the industrial yield is high. In fact, the water has to be separated from the oil, and chemical separations are non-trivial, both in an energetic and an environmental sense. Any vast scheme will affect all of these issues.

In fact, last I looked, the entire nations of Spain, Portugal, and Greece were looking to become such deserts. Our own midwest has been sporadically dry. I'm not sure there is land or water or industrial infrastructure to make a giant algae culture sufficient to drive all of our trucks, never mind our other vehicles.

Now I'm sure I'm you'll tell me all about your thoughts on off shore biodiesel algae farms and how the algae in question grows in sea water, but as is almost the case with the much ballyhooed cellulosic ethanol stuff, there is not one algae based biodiesel plant running commercially. Moreover, I suspect that the economics of such algae farms, should they even prove technically viable, will involve some monoculture and some sterilized water. I can certainly imagine circumstances where the seas plankton suddenly is no longer plankton but "weeds."

Call me old fashioned, but I kind of am fond of the seas serving some other function than driving internal combustion engines. The fact is that it will require the processing of huge quantities of mass to effect this thing. I'm hardly optimistic that this is really a good idea.

This hand waving is a part of the problem.

[poopfuel]

13. did someone say desert?

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/06/060623094946.htm

[leftupnorth]

14. okay, you're right, there's no hope, there's nothing we can do

we're all gonna die!