[Bioconversion] Re: [Stoves] Re: ethanol-only fuel for cars & stoves - demo house - Philip Anderson

[Harmon Seaver]

    Firstly, can we migrate this discussion to the bioconversion list
where it rightly belongs, rather than stoves? Unless you actually want
to confine the discussion to the design of an ethanol burning stove,
that is.
    Secondly, I myself would never consider buying a ethanol-hybrid
vehicle. A diesel-hybrid, yes, absolutely, I'd love one. Diesels are
far more economical and efficient than any spark engine will ever be,
last a lot longer, and are just so much simpler and nicer to work on.
Veggie oil as a fuel is also just so less problematic than ethanol. I
can wash my hands in veggie oil, even petro diesel, with no
consequence -- try that with gasoline or ethanol or a blend of the
two, and you've got serious problems.
    Think about it, eh? Ethanol is a very addicting drug which will
*always* be heavily regulated. And rightly so. It is, in fact, a much
more dangerous drug than heroin, much more harmful to the body and
just as addicting for all practical purposes. You will never, in this
world, see pure ethanol available as a fuel, and, for that matter, you
can't use 100% ethanol  as a vehicle fuel anyway, at least not in
North America. Brazil is warm enough, maybe they don' t have the
problem, but in most of the US, during the cold months if you try to
run 100% ethanol in an engine, you will find it very difficult to
start a cold engine, due to ethanol's propensity to absorb water,
which then precipitates out on the cold cylinder walls and quenches
combustion. That's why they have E85, the lowest mixture that will
actually start.
    And frankly, when you start talking about "plug-in" hybrids --
well, only in Amerika, eh? You say "only" $24,000 for solar cells to
feed that hybrid? Only in obese, gluttonous Amerika would that sound
reasonable.

    But please, if you want to continue this conversation, let's do so
in bioconversions.


On 4/24/06, Philip Anderson <usandersons at adelphia.net> wrote:
> Ethanol as cook fuel in US demo house:
>
> A belated comment on the discussion about burning an ethanol-petroleum fuel mixture in stoves:   When I proposed dropping home-ethanol production for cooking fuel, in favor of purchasing auto-fuel ethanol in the future, I assumed that would be only ethanol, not a petroleum mixture like E-85.
>
> I assumed that pure ethanol will one day be mass-produced for car fuel, and so it would be widely, cheaply available to fuel home cookstoves.   It may interest you Stovers who haven't heard that PROVEN technology of the PHEV, "plug-in hybrid electric vehicle" (versus just "hybrid" vehicles) which greatly reduces the need for combustion fuel, may enable cellulosic ethanol to replace petroleum fuel for PHEVs in the near future.
>
> The amount of ethanol needed (or any combustion fuel) for PHEV's will be very little, due to increased, purely electrical operation from plug-in charging, and so the scale of ethanol production needed to power the combustion side of the PHEV may be do-able, using cellulosic ethanol.  This is per Prof Andrew Frank, Univ of California - Davis, where plug-in hybrid technology has been refined and proven:
>
> "The reality today is that the car companies have been focused on ever-larger trucks and vehicles that get lower and lower fuel economy but do meet stricter emission standards. They are however emitting more CO2. The PHEV can reverse these trends since the vehicles that we have constructed (! 8 vehicles built & tested tat UC-Davis) show not only zero emission operation on a daily basis but when using gasoline only, the fuel economy is more than double the conventional car. If a vehicle travels 40 miles a day commuting to and from work and the vehicle travels 15,000 miles a year the effective gasoline mileage for a PHEV is over 250 miles a gallon. Or compared to conventional car, the PHEV will use about 1/10th the liquid fuel. This fact makes bio-fuels such as ethanol from cellulostic materials and biodiesel practical since we can supply 1/10th of our current oil energy use from croplands and waste agricultural products. In addition, as batteries improve, the electric range of the PHEV can increase reducing the need for liquid fuel further. "    from Renewable Energy Access . com website: http://www.renewableenergyaccess.com/rea/news/story?id=44254
>
> So maybe ethanol will be widely available and affordable for both PHEVs and ethanol cookstoves in the home?  If one-season harvest crops, like switchgrass are used for the ethanol, then that's sustainable and secure combustion fuel for personal transportation and cooking.
>
> Neat, huh?  Add to this sustainable combustion fuel source, a clean and sustainable electric fuel source --charging from photovoltaic panels-- and we have a completely sustainably fueled PHEV or EV.  The PV system needed to charge the batteries of a PHEV for 289 miles weekly use (41 miles daily use), independent of the hybrid's in-motion charging, is a 4600* watt array, which costs $24,000+  (*250 watt-hours per mile, given 3.92 days of sunshine per week).
>
> This $24,000+ PV price-tag is not really a discouraging price because the array would pay for itself in 12-14 years and then provide free transportation-electricity for another 35+ years, which save $2,210 in gasoline costs annually.  This is all presuming $5 /gallon, which the Europeans are already paying and which we may pay before too long as the real price of peak-oil fuel.  Costs per gallon will likely go up higher than $5 /gallon over the 50+ year lifetime of the PV array.
>
> Anyway, this is all a good case for ethanol fuel, for stoves and cars, if it can be produced sustainably and cost effectively, such as via the cellulosic scenario.
>
>
> Philip Anderson      US Andersons @ Adelphia.net
>
> mobile:   301 335-6051
>   home:   301 865-3642
>     fax:   301 865-3642
>
> 11801 Pine Ct
> Monrovia MD 21770   USA
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--
Harmon Seaver