Interesting article in today's Sunday Telegraph Business section on the developments in ethanol as a fuel to rival petrol.
www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/20...l
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Roger
I read frequently, but only post when I have something useful to say.
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In parallel to this I heard on radio 4 recently that when Diesel made his engine it was meant to run on peanut oil or similar.The then emerging oil companies saw the opportunity to sell mineral based fuel.It has even been suggested that this had something to do with his mysterious death,one for the conspiracy theorists.
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Yup, peanut oil was one of the options he had in mind, although ISTR coal dust was also a possibility? Anyway, it's for that reason that so many people are able to adapt their engines with preheaters to use vegetable oil as fuel (something all manufacturers should do anyway), and why people like me use biodiesel which is derived from vegetable oil.
If I wasn't saving towards building a new house and could spare the cash for a third car, I'd buy myself a nice old Merc 300D, get a fuel preheater fitted and run it on veggie oil. If I could spare even more cash, I'd buy a second Merc 300D to use for bodyshell spares, take the engine and chassis and get it converted into a veggie-powered diesel trike. Then I'd let the beard grow longer, the belly grow rounder, buy myself a red bandanna to tie round my head and go cruising down to Spain. In fact, if I don't have the new house built before I'm forty I'm doing that anyway.
PS in the absence of said motortrike, the belly is heroically doing its bit.
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andymc
Vroom, vroom - mmm, doughnuts ...
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That's right, andymc - Diesel originally set about designing an engine to run on pulverised coal. It had a nasty tendancy to blow up during testing; one such accident is said to have nearly killed him, hence the change to investigating oils as fuels instead.
If I'm not mistaken, the difficulty with adding ethanol to petrol is that the ethanol causes rubber components (such as fuel hoses) to degrade prematurely.
Like making modern diesels suitable for biodiesel, its one of those chicken and egg situations whereby if the fuel was readily available, buyers would demand cars that could run on biodiesel or ethanol. But there won't be demand for the fuels until people drive cars that can use them...
Regards,
- Gromit
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In parallel to this I heard on radio 4 recently that when Diesel made his engine .....
Some engineering historians believe that it was wrong for compression-ignition engines to become known as diesel engines. Dr Rudolf Diesel's first patent, taken out in 1892, was for an impractical engine. Herbert Akroyd Stuart and Charles Richard Binney took out patents in 1890 for an engine which would work. The manufacturing rights for this engine were taken over in 1891 by Richard Hornsby & Sons Ltd of Grantham and they produced the "Hornsby-Akroyd Patent Oil Engine" to the inventor's original design. These engines were actually on sale before Diesel took out his first (impractical) patent. Diesel's first practical engine was not constructed (by Adolphus Busch of St Louis) until 1897.
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L\'escargot.
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"Patent Oil Engine"
Presumably a marketing term rather than an actual patent? Shame...
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"Patent Oil Engine" Presumably a marketing term rather than an actual patent? Shame...
The engines were produced on a royalty basis, which was paid to the patent holders.
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L\'escargot.
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Just to elaborate, the Hornsby-Akroyd engine was the world's first commercially successful oil engine. Herbert Ackroyd Stuart was a Yorkshireman, and Richard Hornsby was from Grantham in Lincolnshire.
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L\'escargot.
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What goes round comes around. I used to use Cleveland Discol (5% ethanol) shortly before it disappeared in the 70's, and it was promoted as clean-burning. Then there was gasahol in the US, which has/had about 10% ethanol. I assume the oil companies are somewhat ambivalent about it, and they've certainly got to hand it to the Brazilians, with their 'network of more than 300 ethanol plants'. Wonder if I could grow one... :-)
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Brazilians have been using what they call hydrated alcohol for about 20 years (I think it's really methanol, but whatever it is, if you drink it, you die today or tomorrow). The petrol also has varying proportions of the same stuff in it, which is somewhere around 15% to 18% and has a low octane rating (eighty something). Much more recently they can buy "dual fuel" cars which will take any proportion of either fuel. "Alcool" is about 30% cheaper than petrol, but that's about the difference in fuel economy (mileage) too. So if you are on a long journey and can?t buy fuel (there are plenty of big empty spaces in Brazil), then petrol?s the answer. If you want power, then alcohol is what you need, which an absolute pig to start on a cold morning, but when the engine?s warm it?s fantastic. Diesel cars are not allowed, but pick-ups and 4x4s are. They put alcohol in the diesel too which makes it flammable and especially dangerous for people like visiting yachtsmen who need to top up their tanks and do maintenance, as the campaign warning everybody of this danger is long gone.
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I put petrol in the fuel tank and diluted ethanol in the windscreen washer bottle.
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L\'escargot.
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Its a total disaster in Brasil using sugar cane based ethanol hardly anybody uses it beacause it gums everthing up.On my last contract in Sau Paulo state I never saw anybody use it.
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Very interesting. I'm not anti ethanol at all, but reading this with an open mind leads me to these points.
The claim of ten thousand jobs made by Nash (Saab MD) appears unsubstantiated. It was first presented to a group of MPs by a consortium including Saab, from press releases I can find. I'd be interested to know if this was plucked out of the air - if not, they should say how they arrived at it.
The government is offering a 20 pence per litre rebate on tax for this stuff. Morrisons are selling it a 2p per litre below unleaded.
If ethanol produces 70% less CO2, then a car using 5% ethanol will produce 3.5% less CO2 overall, unless my maths is wrong. As according to the DFT there are 20 million (taxed) petrol cars on the road, then a reduction of 3.5% in that number is only seven hundred thousand, not one million.
Finally, the 70% CO2 reduction figure is achievable only by using a type of factory that produces a LOT of nitrous oxide, according to the report to be found on the research section of the British Sugar website. British Sugar were one of the consortium I mentioned above. (Nitrous oxide is present in the atmosphere where it acts as a powerful greenhouse gas - wikipedia). Compared to producing unleaded fuel, there is a 35,614 percent INCREASE in the amount of this gas produced. That's a LOT of extra greenhouse gas to..um..slightly reduce another greenhouse gas.
Oh, and from 2010 it will be a legal requirement that all fuel sold in the UK from forecourts will be 5% ethanol, apparently.
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Oh, and from 2010 it will be a legal requirement that all fuel sold in the UK from forecourts will be 5% ethanol, apparently.
This should please the petrol sniffers!
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L\'escargot.
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"in Brasil using sugar cane based ethanol hardly anybody uses it beacause it gums everthing up"
Are they leaving the sugar in, then? Ethanol should burn perfectly cleanly (think meths burner) as any drag racer will testify.
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Apparently it burns to hot and cooks the valves and seals or the quality control is poor and product can vary so people leave it alone.Even the cars specially built (they have an ALCOOL logo on the boot)for this fuel have the same problem.
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Its a total disaster in Brasil using sugar cane based ethanol hardly anybody uses it beacause it gums everthing up.On my last contract in Sau Paulo state I never saw anybody use it.
Perhaps it wasn't sufficiently refined.
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L\'escargot.
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