Alternative to jet fuel.

Dear Alan Adrian:

google search for: biodiesel turbine

159000 hits.

It is still cheaper to use crude-based products, the consistency is still greater, the availability is still there, so crude-based is where we stay.

David A. Smith

What makes you think there is enough agricultural land available to provide enough oil to keep America on the move ?

How many hectares would have to be farmed to keep your VW van running ?

Dear Jonathan Barnes:

...

".nl" is NOT America (North, Central, or South). "Al" posted (ostensibly) from the Netherlands.

nice warm fuzzy feeling visiting there...

Vegetable oil is not a solution, quite true. How about a "bacterial" alteration to cellulose? Is there enough energy in vegetable matter et al to do the job? Just scission the molecule (just the right size), and splice on some oxygen or hydrogen (from where?)... Could we do a dry powder injection, rather than a liquid?

David A. Smith

With a little help from future technology... :-) How about covering bad land like deserts with solar cells, using the energy to make hydrogen and running our cars on fuel cells ?

Think about all the garbage us folks in the US produce. What about using that material for energy production? In fact, there is...

Now, before people jump on the topic, the profitability is still uncertain for mass adoption of the technology. However, it seems to me that this country's fastest growing resource is garbage, so why no use it for something? The energy produced could be stored in many manners (electrical, hydrogen, etc.)

Just my 2 cents.

I believe you first need to find a way to make such cells such that over their useful lifetime they create more energy than it took to manufacture them in the first place. I do not believe this is a given at this point in time.

This is irrelevant after the crude gets to be too expensive to waste driving (or flying) around... something has to replace it eventually.... And I don't mean to imply that I think it is going to happen in the next 5 years or anything.. but it's good to prepare for these kinds of things in advance...

Al...

Dear Matthew Douglas Rogge:

"Matthew Douglas Rogge" wrote >

I'd like to place big plastic bags over several capitals, and run turbines off the hot air produced by the career criminals inside. But that is just me... ;>)

David A. Smith

Less than one. Typical yield is around 1000kg of biodiesel per hectare.

Suitable biomass may also be grown in water. The use of the oceans would allow a much greater area to be used for biofuel-culture.

It's not a matter so much of the fossil fuel running out; it's a matter of the cost of fossil fuel rising.

For the sake of argument lets say the van does 10,000 miles at 35 MPG. asume biodesil at 0.9 SG, thats about 1200 kg of biodiesel.

Against your 1000 Kg of biodesil / hectare you should ofset the biodesil that would be needed to plough the land, and other fuel used in producing the biodesil to give a nett production figure.

Yeah, I guess hot air is more readily available (at least around certain major cities).

Strangely-dense biodiesel. Biodiesel density (EN) is between 0.86 and 0.89 .... if you have slide-rule, you may conveniently round that to 0.9. A 50-cent calculator has more significant digits.

I'd worked on 15,000 km at 7.0 l/100km => 1050 litres. Which is obviously less than 1000kg.

Done.

Using old technology, the energy gained with rapeseed is of the order of 4:1, if the straw is used for process energy. Energy yielf is nearly 100 GJ/ha. Sunflower is almost 50% better. Ethanol from corn yields a bit more than sunflower; 153 GJ/ha.

Ploughing isn't very energy efficient; it disrupts the soil and allows for more valuable topsoil to be washed/blown away requiring more fertiliser and pesticides.

Producing biofuel should employ exemplary practices taking into account the whole environment.

You mean for a cheaper alternative to fossil fuel?....I wish i can use water as a fuel.....its so abbundant