The ethanol nightmare has arrived!

....
Jay, if your only alternative to keep flying was to drop, say,
$40K into a diesel conversion for Atlas, would you?

Jay's only choice would be the 235hp SMA diesel for about $100,000 firewall
forward. And I don't think they've made any progress toward an STC for his
PA28 model, so Jay would have to "transfer" into an Experimental
Certificate. Seeing as Jay has expressed his opinion on the government
bureaucracy rather strongly, I'd suspect his head would explode going down
that road.
;-)

WingFlaps wrote:
To supply CA's 30 GW demand you would need about 300 square kilometers
of solar panels(assuming 100W/m2). That's a truly huge area and I
think it shows why solar is not a viable solution.

300 km^2 is chump change! (Lake Mead itself is ~640 km^2.)

Want to know how much surface area it would take for SOLAR TO REPLACE
ALL OTHER SOURCES OF POWER FOR THE ENTIRE PLANET?

Here's my math and sources:

As of 2005 all consumption of power for the entire world is estimated to
be on the order of ~463 quadrillion BTUs/year (or ~5*10^20 J/year)[1].

Assuming an average of only ~3 full-sun-hours/day insolation (e.g. loss
due to clouds and low angle attentuation) and ~10% conversion (or about
100 W/m^2) you get:

365 days/year * 3 hr/day * 3600 s/hr * 100 J/s/m^2 ~= 3*10^8 J/year/m^2

So (5*10^20 J/year) / (3*10^8 J/year/m^2) ~= 1.7*10^12 m^2

Or about 1,700,000 km^2.

By comparison, the total surface area taken up by all man-made water
reservoirs is about 500,000 km^2 [2].

I don't know what the surface area of farmland is (though reference [3]
suggest it could be up to 30% of all land area), but I'm sure if only a
small fraction of it were turned over to direct solar power production
it would also suffice.

The total land surface area of the Earth is ~150,000,000 km^2 [3] so the
percentage needed is (drum roll, please!) 100*1,700,000/150,000,000 ~=

1.1%

A tad over 1% of the land surface - a little over three times the area
consumed by water reservoirs and probably much less area than that used
for farming. Another comparison is road surface area. I've seen
estimates that indicate that roads in the U.S. and UK take up ~1% to
1.4% of the surface area of those countries.[4][5] And I haven't even
considered using ocean surface area, more efficient solar conversion,
higher insolation average, or even solar power satellites.

Even at today's low PV efficiencies, there appears to be adequate area
to use solar energy to power human civilization on this planet.

[1] http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/internati...lf/table18.xls
[2] http://webworld.unesco.org/water/ihp...bpc/pag21.html
[3] http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2001/DanielChen.shtml
[4] http://www.newscientist.com/backpage.ns?id=lw1065
[5] http://www.magicalliance.org/Fragmen...d_by_roads.htm

Jay Maynard wrote:
On 2008-04-10, wrote:

Right.

Let's not bother to look at any of the details, let's just pull something
out of our ass and implement it.

If it turns out to be unworkable for reasons of economics or engineering
or both, we'll just keep pulling things out of our ass until we luck out
and get something that works.


Like Minnesota's plan to mandate 20% ethanol in all gasoline sold for road
use by 2010. Nobody has yet told me who'll pay the bills when my car's fuel
system melts into a puddle of goo that Toyota won't cover because the ethanol
percentage is too high...

Brazil’s ethanol fuel program provides a ~22% ethanol blend used
nationwide, plus 100% hydrous ethanol for four million cars. Today,
Brazil gets more than 30% of its automobile fuels from sugar cane-based
ethanol.
I guess they must be *much* smarter than you Yanks huh ?I still don't
understand why GM can't figure it our...oh, wait, GM DID FIGURE IT
OUT...in fact, much of the technology used in Brizilian automobiles is
GM, go figure !

....Ken

wrote:

Dan Luke wrote:


wrote:


Ever heard how long Alaskan reserves would last?

Long enough to develop other technologies without civilization coming
to a screaming halt in the mean time.


LOL.


Who's advocating civilization coming to a screaming halt?


No one fool.

If the natural oil runs out before finding a practical replacement,
civilization comes to a screeming halt.

It's a statement of fact.


Besides Rush Limbaugh's strawman, I mean.


And how long would the Alaskan reserves satisfy the U. S. demand?


Oil in the ground is a *good* thing to have.

Oil in the ground is about as usefull as a screen door on a submarine.


Wrong. Reserves in the ground are money in the bank. Using them up would
merely be a short postponement of the inevitable.


And how long would the the reserves in the ground satisfy the U. S. demand?

There is enough *proven* reserve in the Athabaska tar sands (Alberta
Canada) to supply 100% of North American demand (Canada, the US &
Mexico)...even with the projected growth in demend...for approximately
250 years, and that's just *proven* reserves. We know that there is a
whole lot more out there that hasn't been quantified yet...AND, it can
be extracted and processed for about $60 per barrel...and thanks to the
NAFTA deal, you guys have unrestricted access to it...though that's
likely to change if Hillary or Obama try to re-negotiate NAFTA :-(

....Ken

On Thu, 10 Apr 2008 18:35:05 -0500, Jim Logajan wrote:



The total land surface area of the Earth is ~150,000,000 km^2 [3] so the
percentage needed is (drum roll, please!) 100*1,700,000/150,000,000 ~=

1.1%

A tad over 1% of the land surface - a little over three times the area
consumed by water reservoirs and probably much less area than that used
for farming. Another comparison is road surface area. I've seen
estimates that indicate that roads in the U.S. and UK take up ~1% to
1.4% of the surface area of those countries.[4][5] And I haven't even
considered using ocean surface area, more efficient solar conversion,
higher insolation average, or even solar power satellites.

Even at today's low PV efficiencies, there appears to be adequate area
to use solar energy to power human civilization on this planet.


And no one except those unable to understand more than one concept at
a time thinks this is being proposed.

Some P-V, some solar thermal, some geothermal, some wind, some hydro,
some nuke, some algae-diesel; pretty soon we're telling OPEC to go
**** up a rope.

"Mike Isaksen" wrote in
news:ATwLj.9840$Ug4.1603@trndny01:


...
Jay, if your only alternative to keep flying was to drop, say,
$40K into a diesel conversion for Atlas, would you?

Jay's only choice would be the 235hp SMA diesel for about $100,000
firewall forward. And I don't think they've made any progress toward
an STC for his PA28 model, so Jay would have to "transfer" into an
Experimental Certificate. Seeing as Jay has expressed his opinion on
the government bureaucracy rather strongly, I'd suspect his head would
explode going down that road.
;-)




At least it would be open then.


Bertie

"Blueskies" wrote in message
...

"Al" wrote in message
. ..
I just happened to see a sticker on a fuel pump today that stated "may
contain up to 10% ethanol" while I was filling my car this morning. Upon
further investigation with my fuel retailer, the local fuel jobber, and
the fuel distributor here in Spokane, Washington that there is a federal
mandate to add 9 billion gallons of ethanol per year to the nationwide
gasoline fuel stream. A new twist is a 5.1 cent per gallon federal fuel
tax break to the oil companies to get this "alternative" fuel into the
market. Tomorrow (April 8) is the first day of the program and the
dealers get their price tonight. According to my sources, there is a
possibility that some retailers may opt out, however if that 5.1 cent
break is passed on to them, it won't be likely.


Worse than that, htere is NO requirement from the feds to mark the gas
pumps with the 'may contain 10%' warning. There may be a local or state
requirement to do so though. I wonder if the gas companies will pass on
the 5.1 cent savings to us (Not!) to compensate for the degraded
performance (read mileage) the contaminated gasoline provides.



There is no savings and the 5.1 cents is only to help offset the petroleum
distributors' increased cost to provide an inferior product. But enev if
there had been any savings: on a purely mathematical basis, presuming the
"closed loop" system is working correct for your computer controlled
automobile engine, based on a pump price of $3.40 USD, 10% ethanol at 60% of
the thermal content of gasolene reduces the value by 13.6 cents for a net
loss to the customer of 8.5 cents--even if they reduced the price by 5.1
cents.

Ignoring all of the compatibility issues; the 60% efficiency figure would
mean that, if "pure" gasolene is worth $3.40, then pute ethanol would be
worth $2.04 per gallon.

There are indeed a lot of people who claim that, in actual use as a motor
fuel, ethanol is actually 80% as efficient as gasolene. However, even if
that was true, a 5.1 cent rebate for the use of E10 would still result in a
net loss of 1.7 cents. So, we are clearly not receiving a good value!

Peter

Dan Luke wrote:
On Thu, 10 Apr 2008 18:35:05 -0500, Jim Logajan wrote:



The total land surface area of the Earth is ~150,000,000 km^2 [3] so the
percentage needed is (drum roll, please!) 100*1,700,000/150,000,000 ~=

1.1%

A tad over 1% of the land surface - a little over three times the area
consumed by water reservoirs and probably much less area than that used
for farming. Another comparison is road surface area. I've seen
estimates that indicate that roads in the U.S. and UK take up ~1% to
1.4% of the surface area of those countries.[4][5] And I haven't even
considered using ocean surface area, more efficient solar conversion,
higher insolation average, or even solar power satellites.

Even at today's low PV efficiencies, there appears to be adequate area
to use solar energy to power human civilization on this planet.


And no one except those unable to understand more than one concept at
a time thinks this is being proposed.

Some P-V, some solar thermal, some geothermal, some wind, some hydro,
some nuke, some algae-diesel; pretty soon we're telling OPEC to go
**** up a rope.

OPEC and oil has little to nothing to do with electricity in North
America.

--
Jim Pennino

Remove .spam.sux to reply.

On Apr 10, 2:55*pm, Cubdriver usenet AT danford DOT net wrote:
On Tue, 8 Apr 2008 09:34:01 -0700 (PDT), "Robert M. Gary"

wrote:
I believe out here in California its illegal to sell mogas w/o the
ethanol.

Good grief. So it's all true about the Left Coast?

There was talk at one point of allowing pilots to purchase non-ethanol
fuel but it didn't appear sure that anyone would actually be willing
to make it and if it would be less expensive than 100LL. The ethanol
is mandated by the state by region I believe.

-Robert

On Apr 9, 11:35*am, wrote:
Mxsmanic wrote:
M writes:
Remember, ethanol is not mixed into the fuel until the local
distribution terminal, because it can't be transported in pipelines.
Just out of curiosity, why can't it be transported in pipelines?

The same reason it can't be used in existing airplanes; pieces of the
plumbing start leaking.

--
Jim Pennino

Remove .spam.sux to reply.

Okay, that is true. However since the days of yore Indy 500 cars have
run on ethanol (or is it methanol!!). Their plumbing does not leak the
alcohol all over the engine all the time. Maybe it would if the race
wasn't over so quickly though ... hmmm.

I have a hard time believing there isn't a technical solution to this
leak problem.

It's a problem that could be fixed for new designs. Older planes are
screwed of course.

Having said all this I think the entire corn ethanol business is an
extraordinary boondoggle that's screwing the average American.

The Brazilian's do it with sugar cane / beet sugar. Now, I thought
they were more corrupt than us? Guess not.