From home of the weather station that started it all, Marysville, CA their small town newspaper writes a scathing opinion on the California Air Resources Board.
They get it. The problem is that people that make up CARB are like clueless Al Gore clones. With a recent 340% error exposed, CARB is going along like nothing has happened. The problem is CARB chief Mary Nichols, who sees herself and her organization as above the democratic process.
Our View: Air board’s arrogance damaging
California seems intent on traveling a road to self-destruction paved with government mandates and regulations that drive businesses and jobs out of state while discouraging new job creation. A prime job-killing, business-punishing scheme is the insistence on achieving radical environmental goals, despite their real-world economic liabilities.
The California Air Resources Board has adopted a mandate that utility companies produce 33 percent of their electricity from so-called renewable resources by 2020. That’s a drastic increase over the previous 20-percent requirement, which the state still is nowhere near achieving. For some perspective, Congress, firmly controlled by a Democratic majority, refused to hike its renewable requirements even to the 20-percent level.
Compounding the state air board’s error is its arrogance. Even the state Legislature, controlled by left-leaning Democrats, failed this year to impose such an over-the-top requirement. But neither Congress nor the state Legislature’s reluctance dissuaded the Air Resources Board’s unaccountable bureaucrats from going where elected representatives fear to tread.
The San Francisco Chronicle reported that air board boss Mary Nichols says the 33-percent standard is important because it “sends a strong, positive message to the market.” The market will get the message, alright. That’s part of the problem.
The message is that California energy prices will soar, on top of the added costs of huge taxpayer subsidies that will be needed to finance so-called renewable energy sources. Wind, solar and geothermal energy are all economically infeasible without massive subsidies.
Like the huge amounts of taxpayer dollars already wasted in government subsidies for the ethanol industry, other renewable-energy endeavors are likely to face similar fates. In Spain, where large tax-financed subsidies spurred its solar industry, 50,000 subsidized solar entrepreneurs now “face financial disaster” as the government realizes it can’t afford to continue propping up the industry with price guarantees, Bloomberg reports. Not only can’t Spain afford to continue subsidies that paid 10 times the wholesale price per kilowatt-hour, but for every new “green” job created by the subsidies, more than two normal jobs were lost.
Without generous tax breaks and subsidies, wind power costs $149 per megawatt hour compared with $100 for coal, according to estimates from the Energy Information Administration.
======================================================
Read the full editorial here
IMO, CARB is a clear and present danger to the livelihood of people of California, it is unchecked bureaucracy gone mad.
Addendum:
Since November 2nd, I’m getting a 3x increase in SPAM inviting me to move to/incorporate my business in Nevada. Given what lies ahead for business in California, the idea has merit.
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“”””” philw1776 says:
November 13, 2010 at 1:21 pm
Further proof that yes, California is indeed the Lindsay Lohan of states. NFW we in NH are gonna bail these fools out financially either. “””””
Well Phil the feeling is mutual. Considering how your State is politically situated it would appear that you have had a hand in the status quo.
So we will promise to not help bailing (literally) when the sea level rises back there.
Anyway; with so few people we would hardly expect your State to offer any aid; we wouldn’t call on Rhode Island or Delaware either; we have shopping malls bigger than those States. I believe Delaware can fit in 12 different non-overlapping places in Alaska’s Arctic Natural Wildlife Refuge; and I lost count of how many times Rhode Island would fit. How did those places ever get to be States anyway ?
“”””” Kum Dollison says:
November 15, 2010 at 2:13 pm
Corn ethanol subsidies (the $0.45/gal blenders credit) end on Jan. 1st. “””””
Well that is great; that must mean that ethanol producers have demonstrated that they are economically and energetically viable without any subsidies.
So I’ll be ready and waiting to fill my tank up with cheaper ethanogas and get better gas mileage to boot.
You are right that crap can get through the peer-review process, and the fact that a study is not published in a peer-reviewed journal doesn’t mean that it is bad, and the fact the paper is not published is only one of my objections. As for the peer-review process it at least means that people besides the authors have looked at the study, maybe asked some questions, the authors will be asked to declare conflicts of interest, and may be required to provide other researchers with data and methods so that the study could be replicated. None of that took place here.
As for potential bias, one of the reasons I am dubious about the study is that it is Iowa State, in terms of energy policy they are likely to be corn advocates. In a multi-variate times series study of the type that you linked to there are plenty of opportunities to bias the outcome, even without a deliberate intent. Note that the Center has a budget of $4 million, 85% funded by grants and contracts–the funding organizations or companies are not listed. The authors cite earlier studies that are contrary to the authors’ conclusions, and are themselves surprised by the apparent magnitude of the 30 to 40 cent a gallon savings to consumers. With gasoline prices between $2.50 and $4.00, and if the ethanol were used in E10, then that would imply the ethanol was provided for free.
Ethanol was added to gasoline due to lobbying and political pay-offs by Archer Daniels Midland, which received lucrative subsidies. That’s the “real world.”
I didn’t say “always” increases fuel consumption, just for the actual vehicles on the road. Here’s some data from Consumer Reports:
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/mileage-takes-a-hit-with-ethanol-blend-use-report
I would believe that a modern engine optimized for ethanol would get the same miles per Btu from ethanol as a modern engine optimized for gasoline does from gasoline. I would be very skeptical that a vehicle optimized for ethanol burning ethanol would get more miles per gallon than a vehicle optimized for gasoline burning gasoline , given the disparity in Btus per gallon, even given your anecdotal evidence. If you’ve been able to build such vehicles perhaps you are wasting your time posting here and should be pursuing an entrepreneurial opportunity.
No, I would eliminate the tax breaks for all.
Almost, but not exactly right–what would be nice if all energy sources in the US market had the same tax treatment, no subsidies, and no mandates.
I thought the Navy stopped running convoys in WWII. Petroleum companies receive no special protection, most of US petroleum consumption is sourced from the United States itself or near neighbors, Canada, Mexico, and Venezuela. Even if the US greatly reduced its oil consumption, there is no reason to believe that defense spending would decrease.
All US taxpaying firms can deduct their expenses, write-off bad investments, and accelerated depreciation is the norm, it is not some special subsidy for Big Oil.
And there is no need to enforce a uniform standard on “the world,” nothing that Iran, Russia, Mexico, etc. do with their petroleum industries means that the US consumer and taxpayer should be forced to support uneconomic industries like ethanol, wind, solar, etc.
That fact these “alternative energy” industries depend on mandates and subsidies to exist means that they are wasting scarce economic resources, that investors could have allocated more efficiently to meet consumer needs. If these alternative energy sources were efficient and saved resources they wouldn’t be “alternative” and they would be competitive in the marketplace. Resources spent in these industries represent waste, not greenness.
Larry makes some very good points which need to be emphasized. However , he needs to check the rhetoric such as Brazilian slave labour and put the same effort into checking his facts there as he has done in the USA.
Reading his posts, I think that he needs to write a book on the subject, covering the matter globally with the same diligence.
Points to clearly note
1. Every dollar spent on home grown bioenergy is a dollar import saved
2. Every dollar spent on biofuels is a dollar not spent on fossil fuels
3. Every home dollar circulates through the local economy
4. Every gallon of biofuel bought reduces the total demand for fossil fuels.
Whilst these can apply to say wind energy, the efficiency of wind energy is so low plus it has hidden subsidies such as back up power, that dont apply to biofuels, so that those benefits are negated.
Another point that he made is that the production of ethanol actually increases the volume of animal feed available.
It seems to me that we have a good balance of biofuels available, ethanol in less warm climates and biodiesel in warmer. This gives a good global spread and enables the productive use of a vast swaths of marginal lands. Increasing biofuel production also reduces demand and thus prices for fossil fuels.
Sorry I was distracted.
Further points to note are the so called hidden energy or woe betide CO2 inputs of biofuels. This again is misrepresentation. The growing and harvesting is undertaken with biofuelled vehicles. No hidden input there. Similarly the processing generally uses or aims to use all the biowaste as process fuel.
Thus we have a very efficient closed system.
Fertilizers and such, well yes but they can and are being reduced or completely negated.
“”””” Andrew30 says:
November 13, 2010 at 10:41 pm
Kum Dollison says: November 13, 2010 at 9:30 pm
“No CO2 is “Added” to the atmosphere.”
So the land is tilled with oxen, the seeds are planted by hand and grown without fertilizer, herbicides or pesticides, then harvested by hand; you use hand pumps to extract the needed water from the ground (or use hand made clay catchments); peal, cut and mash it by hand and ferment it in hand made clay barrels; distill it using sunlight and magnifying glasses, bottle it with hand pumps. Carry it to the city on bicycles, and measure it out with a flask.
You ignore the inputs, that it why it works in your mind.
“No CO2 is “Added” to the atmosphere.”
You are delusional.
Kum you are a source of misinformation. “””””
Now everybody knows that burning ethanol or any bio-fuel will put CO2 in the atmosphere.
And we have it on good peer reviewed authority, that any man made or anthropogenic CO2 put into the atmospehre will remain there for 200 years; some say for thousands of years.
So it doesn’t matter that growing corn or other plants for bio-fuels takes CO2 out of the atmospehre; so did whatever was growing there prior to planting the bio-crops.
So if you have to wait for 200 years or more for the bio-fuel CO2 to leave the atmosphere; you haven’t gained a thing over burning a fossil fuel.
All I care about is how soon I can put it in my tank and how cheap will it be.
As I recall, the grand Prix cars that ran on high alcohol fuels had very poor fuel economy; that is they used a lot of gallons of fuel to go a shorter distance; so even if they had power; they had to carry a bigegr gas tank load.
The 1.5 litre 135 degree Vee-16 Centrifugal supercharger BRM engine of the early 1950s used high alcohol fuels; it had such a high supercharger pressure, that it almost equalled the actual geometric compression ratio of the engine. At its peak in about 1954 the supercharger pressure was about 5.6 ATA; I think the compression ratio was only about 6:1 The optimum RPM for letting out the clutch to take off was about 7,000 RPM (crankshaft). The drive shaft was a 2:1 reduction taken from the center of the crankshaft. Talk about a fantastic engine; that was it. Too bad it wasn’t fuel injected; but had ordinary (semi) carburettors. !.95 inch bore and 1.90 inch stroke as I recall; 91 cubic inches and about 700 max horsepower in 1954. Had a ferocious torque curve that increased torque with engine RPM because of the centrifugal supercharger, at a very steep rate; so if the wheels started to slip, the RPM went up and so did the torque so you couldn’t 4-wheel drift the damn thing.
But it sure made one hell of a lot of noise going down the straights.
In the 1930s Alpha Romeo also built a 135 degree Vee-16 but it was 3.0 litres, and unsupercharged. Both of them were twin overhead camshaft hemi head designs.
Lets be clear I did not say they “used slave labor” I stated that they used near slave labor — poorly worded perhaps, but I think a fair statement as I was referring to a farm harvest economy built on the backs of some 500,000 impoverished cane cutters barely surviving on piece work wages that typically come to about $1.35 an hour in extremely poor work conditions. Many of them suffering lung fibrosis as a result of their work in the fields. There were 312 worker deaths reported between 2002 and 2005 and 82,995 work related injuries reported. Not exactly what Americans would consider acceptable work conditions.
The point being that the Brazilians have an unfair cost of production advantage because they use harvest labor that is so poorly paid that it would be impossible for U.S. companies to compete even with mechanized cane harvest, since current mechanical harvest technology causes increase crop damage compared to hand cutting and lower actual yield from the field.
Perhaps that is why Brazil’s Ministry of Labor has an anti-slavery division that goes on raids to free agricultural slave labor.
As reported by By Kevin G. Hall of Knight Ridder Newspapers reported in Sept 2004:
” Earlier this year, however, the government acknowledged to the United Nations that at least 25,000 Brazilians work under “conditions analogous to slavery.” The top anti-slavery official in Brasilia, the capital, puts the number of modern slaves at 50,000. “
I would offer this CNN report as evidence that my statement was not just rhetoric but a well demonstrated fact that abusive labor practices are rampant in Brazil and part of the reason they can produce sugar cane ethanol at such low prices.
http://articles.cnn.com/2009-01-09/world/brazil.slavery_1_slave-laborers-debt-bondage-anti-slavery-international?_s=PM:WORLD
Or this report from the Joseph Korbel school of international studies at the University of Denver.
http://www.du.edu/korbel/hrhw/researchdigest/slavery/agriculture.pdf
Larry
Larry, thank you for your clarification. I felt it stemmed from a US perception that anything less than USD10 per hour was slave labour. Its a sad fact that the vast bulk of the world exists on far far less than that.
Thus bio-fuels with community pricing structures help get both work and dollars into peoples pockets as well as help build viable communities. The problem is the Corporation and its profit/stakeholder creeds. Thats why wind power cannot work.
Look forward to reading your book
George E. Smith,
Plants grow, they take in CO2 from the atmosphere. They die. They rot. They release the CO2 back into the atmosphere. Instead of waiting for them to rot, we process the starch, and, or cellulose, and release the CO2 into the atmosphere, ourselves. What’s so hard to figure out about that?
And, you think that is the same as digging up coal, or oil, and burning it? Really? Peer Reviewed, huh? Whatever.
Let me give you a hint. You get more than enough corn oil from an acre to run the tractors, trucks, and trains in farming, and transporting the ethanol.
The cellulose from the cobs returns, well more than enough bio-gas from the lignin to power the process, produce the fertilizer to raise the crops, and supply excess electricity.
The manure from the cattle fed with the DDGS is also available for anaerobic digestion to produce methane, and have an excellent dry fertilizer left over, Or the DDGS can, themselves, be used as an excellent fertilizer, and insecticide.
But, what the hey? I’m just a Delusional, Misinformationalist.
I should have said, “Cobs, and 1/3 of the Stover.” That’s what Poet, and, now, Dupont-Danisco are using.
Just some anecdotal evidence to add to the discussion.
I own a Ford FFV truck. On E10 I average about 19MPG, on E85 I average 16.5MPG. I didn’t do any controlled studies, nor did anybody pay me (I take donations 😉 I run my truck under all sorts of load conditions, and those are my numbers. E85 maybe cheaper per gallon, but I have to buy more of it to go the same distance.
My personal opinion, is that the E85 business is a load of hogwash, and once you add in all the additional and REOCCURRING costs (including CO/CO2) I don’t see the point of it.
Kum Dollison
But, what the hey? I’m just a Delusional, Misinformationalist.
Yes . Nice to have admitted it .
Yes, Greg, but it has an extremely high Octane rating (114 vs RBOB’s 84.) As a result, the newest engines such as G.M.’s 2.0 L TDI (in the 2012 Buick Regal achieve virtually the same mileage as straight gasoline.) It’s possible that when the new Delphi Heated Injectors hit the market in the fall of 2012 E85 in such an engine might get Better mileage than straight gasoline.
You are also badly ignorant of basic physics .
Power and energy are 2 very different things .
The specific energy of Ethanol is 24 MJ/l
The specific energy of E85 is 25,7 MJ/l
The specific energy of E10 is 33 MJ/l
The specific energy of pure gasoline is 35 MJ/l
As you nicely see , the energy content of a liter of fuel decreases by 50 % when the ethanol content goes from 0 to 100 % .
So with an engine optimised for gasoline and an engine optimised for pure Ethanol so that the efficiency is equivalent , the mileage of a pure ethanol engine will be 50 % less than a pure gasoline engine .
This is just trivial energy conservation law that you cannot fight against .
Saying anything else is indeed delusional misinformation .
The Ethanol used as fuel will be better than gasoline the day when the price of gasoline per liter will be about 50% more than the price of ethanol without subsidies .
This day is not today and it will not be in 2012 either .
But when it comes , everybody will begin to use ethanol because it will simply be everyone’s interest .
Then there is another major issue – energy efficiency of Ethanol production from field to wheel .
This is much debated and many papers are written about that because it is indeed not obvious if the energy used to produce Ethanol and byproducts is more or less than energy contained in Ethanol and byproducts .
A paper (source is government so it is biased but it gives other references whith other conclusions for those interested) is here : http://www.transportation.anl.gov/pdfs/AF/265.pdf
While this energy balance seems positive for sugar cane in Brazil , it is doubtful for corn in US .
The least that can be said is that here , like in climate “science” there is no consensus and that controversial hypothesis about byproducts are dominating the picture .
Of course the energy balance doesn’t say anything about profitability where the question is no more energy but whether producing ethanol competitively can make profit .
The answer to this last question is a resounding no everywhere but in Brazil and that’s why big corporation producing ethanol in US and Europe are getting taxpayer’s money by truckloads .
And even that did not not prevent bankrupcies and closures of Ethanol plants when the price of gasoline went down and the subsidies didn’t increase .
For the long term the only remaining question is the energy balance for other sources than sugar cane .
If it is positive then it will be one day economically profitable .
If it is not then there is a fundamental physical as well as economical problem .
“”””” hotrod ( Larry L ) says:
November 15, 2010 at 9:43 pm
Grey Lensman says:
November 15, 2010 at 7:14 pm
Larry makes some very good points which need to be emphasized. However , he needs to check the rhetoric such as Brazilian slave labour and put the same effort into checking his facts there as he has done in the USA.
Lets be clear I did not say they “used slave labor” I stated that they used near slave labor – poorly worded perhaps, but I think a fair statement as I was referring to a farm harvest economy built on the backs of some 500,000 impoverished cane cutters barely surviving on piece work wages that typically come to about $1.35 an hour in extremely poor work conditions. Many of them suffering lung fibrosis as a result of their work in the fields. There were 312 worker deaths reported between 2002 and 2005 and 82,995 work related injuries reported. Not exactly what Americans would consider acceptable work conditions. “””
I’m not one to make light of overworked people.
So you are saying that with a farm worker population of 500,000 there were 104 deaths each year for those three years.
So how many migrant Mexican (long time legal and illegal) farm workers die each year in just California’s Central valley; say just between Modesto and say Bakersfield ?
I’m familiar with the area between Fresno and Visalia; and I would not be surprised to hear that 100 die each year in just that area; and there’s nothing like 500,000 of them in the area; not even 1/10th of that.
I’m also familiar with what those people get paid; the legal ones; long time resident US citizens who migrate along the entire west coast; make more money than the Cesar Chavez United farm Workers Union members; and they have better work conditions than the Union workers; their employers (often Armenian Family Farmers) value their work and treat them well.
The illegal ones can only get work , by working for their Coyote masters; and those Coyotes come in every minority ethnic stripe; and oppress their own kind. The key feature of those kind of jobs is that word “illegal”. Those jobs are only available for “illegales”, and the moment they get amnestised and become legal they will lose those jobs; which will then go to a new flood of illegal workers.
As for alternative fuels. An aquaintance of mine lives with his wife on a small farm over in Nevada; he’s far to smart to live in California. He runs his farm including his tractor equipment on fuel he concocts from the used fat from a donut shop in the local town. I have no idea how he gets around various laws and such; but he has lived thatw ay for years. If the donut shop goes belly up because kids will be forbidden to eat donuts; then I guess he will have to think of something else.
It’s great that he can do that; there’s not enough donut shops to provide fuel for all of us.
But more power to you ethanol fans; have at it; just don’t ask me to subsidise it; I don’t eat donuts either. And it’s good that you can run your operations entirely on your own fuel output; that leaves more fossil fuel that is available to the rest of us.
I’ll tell you what is “Delusional.” Trying to make mileage calculations w/o taking into consideration the “Burn Characteristics” of the fuels involved, and ignoring Real World Empirical Evidence.
And, if “Brazilian Cane” Ethanol is so hot, maybe you can explain why we’re “Exporting” American Corn Ethanol (Unsubsidized) to Brazil, and beating Brazil’s pants off in the Global Marketplace.
Yes, you would be correct if you qualifications were correct (possible), but they are not.
First and most important. The volumetric energy content of the fuel does not matter, what matters is how much useful work you can produce from the energy contained in the fuel. This is where everyone misses the boat and goes off on a wild goose chase.
Useful work extracted from the fuel is the only thing that matters for fuel economy and that depends on a lot of other issues than just the fuel energy available to burn.
There are fundamental differences in how spark ignition 4 cycle internal combustion engines perform on pure hydrocarbon fuels (gasoline) and high ethanol content fuels. These differences are inherent in the different characteristics of the fuels.
A typical highly developed gasoline engine has a thermal efficiency of around 33%, turning that fraction of the fuel energy released into work.
As pointed out in an earlier post:
http://www.epa.gov/otaq/presentations/gni-mjb-051303.pdf
Optimized ethanol fueled engines have already reached thermal efficiencies of 41%. This is done by using very high compression ratios which dramatically improve thermal efficiencies of all otto cycle engines. These are compression ratios that are simply impossible on conventional gasoline and barely achievable on very expensive racing gasolines. This is why high performance gasoline engines can produce more power on high octane gasoline, it allows the engine to run higher compression ratios (among other things).
In addition to the thermal efficiency of the actual combustion process there are other aspects of the engines operation which are more efficient with alcohol based fuels due to their higher heat capacity/latent heat of evaporation. As a result of those differences between gasoline and high ethanol content fuels you get other operational advantages.
Higher degree of fuel cooling of the intake air which increases maximum charge density due to a cooler intake air charge.
Higher intake air charge cooling effect on the intake valve, which allows the engine to operate at higher heat load without melting the valve, or decreasing its strength so much that exotic metals are used. This also scavenges what in a gasoline engine would be waste heat that went into the cooling system and brings it back into the combustion chamber.
Due to the high cooling power of the latent heat of evaporation of the fuel in a high ethanol fuel engine, the compression stroke is more isothermal. More of the heat of compression is used to vaporize the fuel rather than increase cylinder pressure. This results in a reduction in work to compress the intake air charge and a cooler air charge at peak compression. This reduces heat loss to the cooling system, reduces heat load on the engine for a given power level and increases the delta T from the cold to the hot side of the heat diagram.
High ethanol fuels also produce more moles of exhaust gas for a given amount of intake air when burned than gasoline, which changes the shape and duration of the pressure in the cylinder. Although peak cylinder temperatures are slightly lower (EGT – exhaust gas temperature) typically drops about 200 deg F. you get more work out, because this allows the engine to work harder without causing heat damage. It also results in a higher average cylinder pressure throughout the power stroke. (pressure does not drop as rapidly as it does on a gasoline fueled engine as the piston descends the cylinder due to higher latent heat of the exhaust gas ).
The net result of that is that a given engine fueled with a high ethanol fuel blend will accept load at lower rpms than the same engine will on gasoline. This means the driver can spend less time in lower gears, can shift up earlier and has less need to down shift for hills. Users of E85 conversions report that on gasoline, their car would constantly down shift to pull hills on certain stretches of road where once converted to E85 the car was perfectly happy to simply pull the hill in a higher gear, and engine rpm would not drop enough to trigger a down shift. Likewise users towing heavy loads that used to cause over heating could now easily pull the load without causing any heat issues or down shifting to ease the work load on the engine. Engine rpm (ie gearing) is a major factor in fuel mileage. Any change that allows the engine to perform fewer revolutions to cover the same ground will reduce fuel consumption per mile.
There is a lot more to fuel mileage per gallon than the raw energy content of the fuel burned. It includes changes in the thermal efficiency of the engine and secondary effects like changes in driver behavior due to the increased willingness of the engine to accept load due to the better low rpm behavior of E85 and its higher average cylinder pressure, and behavior under load allowing it to use higher gearing more often.
The high cooling power of high ethanol blends also allow the engine to run at leaner fuel air mixtures under load, that if used on gasoline would melt pistons or valves. The wider flammability limits of ethanol also reduce misfire (which all engines have to some extent), so you get some “free power strokes” that would not happen on gasoline.
High ethanol fuel blends also burn considerably faster than gasoline at max power rich mixtures which results in more efficient use of the energy released, as it more closely approximates the ideal instantaneous energy release of an ideal engine, and less energy is thrown away by fuel still burning when the exhaust valve opens as can happen on gasoline fuels which cannot evaporate and burn in the time available before the exhaust cycle ends.
Net result is that computing fuel efficiency based only on the raw stored chemical energy of the fuel is a fools errand. You have to consider the entire operating system and the many small effects that stem from changes in fuel behavior.
Last but not least the higher exhaust gas volume of high ethanol fuels is very turbocharge friendly causing them to spool the turbo quicker improving drive-ability and improving throttle response. They also reduce heat load on the turbocharger hot side turbo helping to keep the turbo within design temperature limits at high power operation.
The ideal optimized FFV in my opinion would be small displacement turbocharged engine with variable boost capability that tailored the peak boost pressure to the fuel used. On high ethanol fuel blends it would run boost pressures as high as 35 psi, and on straight gasoline would run lower boost to prevent engine damage of about 14 psi. It would get high efficiency on both fuels by working them at their respective operational limits. Due to its low displacement would use very little fuel at highway cruise when you only need 15 -20 hp to maintain highway speed but could develop 300-400 hp for acceleration on demand.
You can believe the theory or the folks that have actually played with high ethanol fuel blends. I have never met a person with a performance car that has ever been disappointed after converting to E85. Most of them get more power and cheaper fuel costs per mile, engines that don’t over heat under hard use and are generally more user friendly than a high strung gasoline engine operating on the edge of destruction.
Pay your money and take your choice.
Larry
Kum Dollison says:
“I’ll tell you what is “Delusional.” Trying to make mileage…” & etc.
‘Delusional’ is a type of crazy, no?
What is insane is burning food for automotive fuel in a world where over a billion people subsist on less than a dollar a day, when there are billions of barrels of untapped fossil fuels readily available. Food prices have risen rapidly since ethanol was mandated, resulting in riots from Mexico to Bangladesh.
Crazy, nuts, delusional, insane, wacko. Take your pick.
The Starch in that Yellow Field Corn was going to feed cattle, to be eaten by “Rich” people. It wasn’t going to anyone making “$1.00/day.”
Mexican Tortillas are made from “Mexican White Sweet Corn.” Mexican White Sweet Corn sells, totally independent of, and for a whole lot more than U.S. Yellow Field Corn.
The Demonstrations in Mexico came about as a result of a corrupt, and inefficient Mexican Agricultural, and Food Industry. The answer, as it turned out, was the importation, a few months down the road, of Cheap U.S. Yellow Field Corn. This was, in turn, I suppose, incorporated into the Tortillas that were exported back to the U.S., taking pressure off of the White Sweet Corn Prices.
After the speculation bubble in 2008 Corn Prices continued to drop while ethanol production continued to increase. By the way, ALL of the New ethanol plants being built, now, and in the future, are to use Cellulosic Feedstocks.
Kum Dollison,
You need to understand the economic principles of marginal cost and substitution. Protests over rapidly rising food prices since the introduction of ethanol have occurred worldwide, not just in Mexico. Why do you think the price of sugar has risen sharply beginning at the time ethanol legislation was being proposed?
If ethanol was a good idea, the market would have brought about the switch without requiring heavy taxpayer-funded government subsidies.
Smokey, your Sugar chart begins in 1999. IIRC, it was Dec. of that year that Oil was selling for less than $10.00 bbl. Today, Oil is selling for $82.26 bbl. This, in spite of the fact that we’re producing considerably more oil today than we were then.
It’s called “5% Annual Growth in Emerging Markets (China, India, Brazil, etc,)” Smokey.
I’ve already explained Mexico, and Tortillas. In Egypt the Bakers went on strike. In India, and China the government instituted “Export” Controls. Australia had a severe drought. So did Argentina, I believe.
In the U.S. a bunch of Wall Street Speculators thought the Iowa/Northern Midwest Floods had wiped out the Corn Crop. I cautioned everyone who would listen that the farmers would replant with fast-growing seeds, and, likely, produce a normal crop. Which they did.
A year later, corn was back to $3.30/bu.
Correlation is Not “Causation,” Smokey. Watching the Climate Wars should have taught you that.
Kum Dollison,
Why try to conflate the price of sugar with a barrel of oil? You can’t eat oil. The rest of your examples amount to the same kind of cherry-picking.
My response was to suggest that producing more fossil fuels makes much more sense than using food in place of gasoline. Your opinion is obviously different.
I recommend that you put the keyword “ethanol” into the WUWT search box, and get up to speed. There’s a lot of good info there. The bottom line is that if ethanol needs huge government subsidies, it is a bad idea. Here’s a quick econ [my minor] refresher for you:
1. Government is force
2. Good ideas do not have to be forced on others
3. Bad ideas should not be forced on others
4. Liberty is necessary for the difference between good ideas and bad ideas to be revealed
Subsidies are government force and almost always a bad idea, because they mis-allocate resources by subverting the free market.
“”””” hotrod ( Larry L ) says:
November 16, 2010 at 9:42 am
TomVonk says:
November 16, 2010 at 5:25 am
Kum Dollison
…………………………
There are fundamental differences in how spark ignition 4 cycle internal combustion engines perform on pure hydrocarbon fuels (gasoline) and high ethanol content fuels. These differences are inherent in the different characteristics of the fuels.
………………..
Optimized ethanol fueled engines have already reached thermal efficiencies of 41%. This is done by using very high compression ratios which dramatically improve thermal efficiencies of all otto cycle engines. These are compression ratios that are simply impossible on conventional gasoline and barely achievable on very expensive racing gasolines. This is why high performance gasoline engines can produce more power on high octane gasoline, it allows the engine to run higher compression ratios (among other things).
So Larry, I have a question; and perhaps you have the answer since you know a lot about ICEs.
I don’t know if it is current law (EPA regulations) but I know it used to be; that it was illegal to sell a passenger automobile in the USA that would NOT run properly on regular (87 Octane) gasoline. Now manufacturers could suggest or even “recommend” that you use “premium” gas; 91 Octane; but they could not require it; for any model they sold in the USA.
The reason for this restriction was to specifically eliminate high compression ratio engines; and the reason for that desired end result was that the very high peak burning Temperatures and pressures inside high compression ratio engines are the very conditions that cause the engine to burn the air itself and create NOX. The nitrogen in NOX is not an impurity or additive in the fuel; it is simply the atmopspheric nitrogen the engine ingests.
Theoretically; you could eliminate the fuel, whose only purpose is the heat the working fluid (the air), and provide the heating energy with say a laser; assuming of course you can find a laser wavelength that would be strongly absorbed in pressurized hot air; and such an engine will still create NOX if it is high enough compresssion ratio and operating Temperature.
So that was the argument given for eliminating high compression ratio engines. The hot Porsche and other sporty cars all recommended using 91 octane premium; but they could not require its use; the car had to run just fine on 87 octane. Like I said I don’t know if this was changed.
One reason the hot car makers recommended premium fuel was that it would help them maintain the myth that their cars would go 50,000, or 100,000 miles without any service. Using 91 octane fuel would delay the onset of knocking, as carbon built up in their engines.
Now I understand perfectly how high compression leads to higher thermal efficiency; if you can use high octane fuel to prevent knocking. High compression engines also generate much higher peak bearing loads, than do lower compression engines; and supercharged engines operate with lower bearing loads than high compression non-supercharged engines.
So now what is the story for alky burning engines; how do they get around the NOX problem; or do they use cat converters to fix the NOX problem.
The high compression engine also because of its higher thermal efficiency, generates less waste heat; so it needs less radiator cooling; and supercharged engines are a real cooling problem. And of course I understand how you can drive the Kompressor off a turbo in the exhaust.
The Wankel engine went down the tubes because of thermal efficiency concerns since it is difficult to get a high compression ratio as I understand. Well maybe that is all changing with flex fuels.
“”””” TomVonk says:
November 16, 2010 at 5:25 am “””””
Mother Gaia to Tom Vonk !!
Say Tom,
A while back you presented a couple of guest papers (as I recall) covering a “proof” that CO2 could NOT warm the atmosphere.
I believe the gist of your presentation was that under the stated condition of “local thermal equilibrium” the nitrogen or oxygen in the atmosphere delivered “heat” to the CO2 just as much as the CO2 delivered to the N2 or O2; so there was no net warming.
Well as you know, I have a thermometer in every single atom or molecule; so I know the Temperature of every single one of them.
You humans define Temperature in terms of the mean kinetic energy of a whole bunch of molecules; which range over a distribution that is of Maxwell-Boltzmann form. Due to an argument by GE Smith; the time averaged kinetic energy of any single molecule is the same as the mean energy of the large assemblage; which is how I know the Temperature (eventually) of every single one of them.
Now LTE presumes that everything is at the same Temperature (in the closed system) so in your gas mixture containing CO2, the Temperatures of the CO2, and N2, or O2, and anything else are all the same.
So your postulate is correct, in that all of the molecules of whatever species interract with each other and exchange energies; but each and every one of them has the same Temperature; which means over some reasonable time frame the time averaged energy of each molecule is the same; regardless of what species of molecule.
There would seem to be no controversy here; and I’m sure that Smith for one; agrees with that postulate.
However that is also moot; because of the requirement for LTE, which can only exist in a closed system.
But in the earth atmosphere I do not have a closed ssytem; and energy can be injected into any group of molecules; and I can keep track of exactly where it goes.
In particular LWIR thermal Radiation photons in the range of 13.5 to 16.5 microns, can enter the region; and get captured by CO2 molecules; which then move to an excited state; the so-called bending mode of vibration.
Now none of this escapes my attention; and any one of those CO2 molecules that is thus excited; now has a different and higher Temperature after it captures one of those photons. The other gases N2 and O2 are unaffected by those LWIR photons; but the condition of LTE is now violated, and the system is no longer in equilibrium.
BUT ! pretty soon that CO2 molecule is going to undergo collisions with the N2, and O2, or Ar, and even with H2O molecules; and that excess energy that the CO2 molecule got from the captured photon, is going to get spread around among all the other molecules until even I can’t tell where it all went; except the temperature of the whole collection has gone up just a scoche; and the mean KE of each molecule regardless of species, is now higher than before.
So your postulate is of course correct; but only while the system IS in LTE, and the introduction of additional energy to the system; however accomplished, will disrupt that LTE condition until that new energy is passed around to to all the molecules in the system.
Energy losses that might occur as a result of spontaneous thermal radiation according to the BB law, will also be equilibrium disruptive until molecular collisions spread out that lost energy as well.
Think of it this way; if you leave the poker in a bucket of water; the whole system will come to thermal equilibrium at some common Temperature. If you then put the poker in the fire; and get it red hot; and then put it back in the bucket of water; the thermal equilibrium will be broken; and the new introduced energy will be spread around until the bucket of water and the poker reach a new and presumably higher common Temperature. You can’t put the water from the bucket in the fire, without putting the fire out; but you can communicate heat to it via the intermediary ; aka the poker.
Yes to my knowledge that is correct all cars must have a “limp home” mode that allows them to run on regular fuel even though they might recommend premium fuel (like my WRX does). They do that by running a stupid rich fuel air mixture (for cooler combustion) and modify the ignition timing to allow it to run on the low octane fuel without detonation (knocking). The engine design I mentioned would handle this easily as it would simply drop boost pressure if it detected knocking. Most modern engine management systems actively monitor for knocking and pull timing and richen the fuel mixture as needed to stop it in time to protect the engine (most of the time).
If the driver insists on abusing the engine in spite of running low octane fuel it will eventually cause engine damage (usually a broken piston ring land).
NOX is not a major issue with ethanol fuels due to their cool burning combustion. NOX formation requires high cylinder pressures and temperatures and the 200 degree F drop in EGT usually solves the problem. In fact E85 and ethanol are often used to “assist” a car that is just slightly failing NOX limits on Colorado’s IM240 test. Toss in 2-3 gallons of E85 and retest and they frequently will pass.
All modern cars control NOX with catalytic converters — the so called 3 way cats, have one matrix to control unburned HC another to complete combustion of CO and a third to control NOX.
Larry
“”””” NOX is not a major issue with ethanol fuels due to their cool burning combustion. NOX formation requires high cylinder pressures and temperatures and the 200 degree F drop in EGT usually solves the problem. In fact E85 and ethanol are often used to “assist” a car that is just slightly failing NOX limits on Colorado’s IM240 test. Toss in 2-3 gallons of E85 and retest and they frequently will pass.
All modern cars control NOX with catalytic converters — the so called 3 way cats, have one matrix to control unburned HC another to complete combustion of CO and a third to control NOX.
Larry “””””
Thanks Larry. I’m still a bit puzzled as to how you get the thermal efficiency up while keeping the burning Temperature down; but I’m more than happy to take your say so; since you evidently have put a lot of time into this issue and technology. There was a time; when I knew all about hot cars and what made them tick; and zoom too. I actually went to school with a chap by the name of Bruce McClaren; well he was two years behind me; and his dad was a racing enthusiast. Bruce won a racing scholarship, as a result of his performance in one of the NZ Grand Prix races; and that sent him to England for a year with the Cooper Team; who were then on top of the heap with their Formula three racers; built with a one lung Norton or similar 500 CC rear motorcycle engine. And he eventually went on and got his engineering degree from the UofA; my alma mater. A chap by the name of Denny Hulme followed Bruce to Europe later on the same sort of scholarship deal. I know Bruce died in a crash; but I don’t recall what happened to Denny; but he had a successful F-1 career.