I’m writing to you about the high gas prices. Right now, gas is almost $5.00 a gallon in Eastern N.C. In some states, it is $7.00 a gallon. There is away to lower gas prices. That is to mandate that all vehicles, be flex fuel vehicles. They would be able to run on gasoline, and methanol. Methanol can be made from coal, natural gas, human waste, and animal waste. Methanol is cleaner to make, than gasoline.
Right now, methanol prices are about $1.07, to $1.13 a gallon. But there is one problem. If you fill up your car with methanol during the winter, and it is very cold outside, then your car won’t start. But if you were to make a blend called M85, then it will start fine. M85 is 85% methanol, and 15% gasoline. With current gas prices, M85 would go for about $2.10 a gallon.
We also need more refineries. I say let hog farmers, and other farmers set up methanol refineries. These would be small refineries. Making about 10,000 gallons a day, or 60,000 gallons a week. Hog farmers could turn their hog waste into methanol. They could then use it to run their farm equipment, and sell some of it.
If a hog farmer doesn’t want to make methanol, then he can sell, or give away his hog waste.
Now, if a company has a refinery at a location, and that refinery produces gasoline, then that company can build one refinery in that area, that makes methanol. And making methanol is cleaner, than making gasoline. Lets set the date for all new vehicles being flex fuel by May 10, 2023.
This will not bring down gas prices fast, but it will bring them down. If your vehicle was built in 1995, or after, then your vehicle can be made flex fuel. It will cost about $400.00 to make your vehicle flex fuel.
There is one more. For 6 weeks, lets pay gas station owners that are not yet selling M85, $3,000.00 a week. They must have at least one pump for M85. Next to that pump, they will have to have this sign on display.
===========================================
Attention
If your vehicle was built in 1995, or after, you can convert your vehicle to run on gasoline, and M85. It will cost $400.00 to convert your vehicle to flex fuel.
=================================================
So that is what the sign will say. After 6 weeks, the payment would end. It would start on May 31, and end on July 11.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
On Friday. I got a phone call from Rep. Murphy’s office. It was from one of his staff members. He said that he agreed with my proposal. Using hog waste to make methanol would help hog farmers.
We have lots of natural gas here in the U.S., so we can make lots of cheap methanol. Combine that with gasoline, then you can create M85. That can be used in the winter, and in places that gets cold in other times of the year.
So pitch your idea to the auto and farm and gas industries: there’s money to be made it will happen.
“Mandate”? Stop trying to make us do what YOU want.
I got the idea from Robert Zubrin. There are already mandates for vehicles. Such as seatbelts, and airbags. You also can’t buy a car that uses leaded gasoline. With flex fuel, you can use methanol, or gasoline. That is what Europe should be doing. Instead of mandating all vehicles be electric by a certain year.
Methanol is something that can be done right now. An electric vehicle is hard to start in the winter. While pure methanol won’t start on a cold winter day, M85 would. With just 15% gasoline, and 85% methanol.
That would mean less gasoline, and that would then mean less oil would be needed. Less oil that is needed, would then mean that Russia, and OPEC countries would make less money.
Methanol probably should have been the choice as a fuel additive instead of ethanol. It doesn’t use corn, so doesn’t require food crops to make it. Also, it doesn’t legally have to be denatured to prevent people from using a fuel plant to cover moonshine operations. Downside, IIRC is it’s a slightly lower energy density than ethanol, but probably wouldn’t make a noticeable difference when used at 10-15%. And, I’m pretty sure an vehicle that can bur 10% ethanol can burn 10% methanol, both are alcohols. In fact straight methanol and methanol blends are very common racing fuels. It’s used by sprint cars, top alcohol dragsters, and Indy cars before they switched to ethanol. Unfortunately, in the gasoline additive wars politics won.
My problem is in your first paragraph. Mandate.
Back at the beginning of Tesla, I suggested (in an essay on sff.net) that rather than heavy, poisonous batteries, a better solution was to store the energy as compressed air in COPVs. Use it to run a compressed air reciprocating engine (there have been prototypes), and equip the car with an in-board electric compressor and multi-fuel generator for when you couldn’t get to a compressed air station (or recharge at home). I also favored thorium-cycle power reactors, including small, lifetime-fuelled ones for locomotives, alongside revival of the US rail network. I didn’t have a good solution for heavy trucks, other than going back to trains, but the whole thing would work inside a market economy, unlike the current universal windmills and poop electrification fantasy.
This biggest objection anyone raised was the prospect of COPVs exploding in crashes. I countered by pointing out my truck had 20 gallons of liquid fuel in a tin can just behind my butt. If it ruptured in a crash I should better hope for instant trauma death rather than experience burning to death in a gasoline fire. I have a nice collection of large third degree burns. I don’t have to imagine what that would feel like.
Have you ever tried to run something with an air motor? Typically, 10 HP compressor to run 1/2 HP motor. Thermodynamics is a bitch.
What part of “energy storage” confused you? Was it the mention of COPDs? Abbreviations can be difficult. This isn’t some technology I just dreamed up. You can look it up! There’s even a Wikipedia article! Hint: “Compressed Air Car.”
The compressed air energy storage raises its head now and again.
William Barton, does it work? How big and heavy is the tank to get any reasonable range? I could do the numbers but you appear to have already done so. What are the compression losses due adiabatic temperature rise?
That kind of trolling never works, and only serves to make its deployer look like a bit of boob. Read the Wikipedia article, which explains the state of the art in words of one syllable or less!
I always liked Musk’s quip that Wikipedia was 90% accurate, it’s just not clear which 90%. But the fact is, you can follow up with an article’s references and find out. It doesn’t take a genius to figure this stuff out, merely the ability to ready beyond a 4th grade level.
Btw, in my prior post I meant COPVs, not COPDs. Not only are abbreviations difficult, tpying is hardest of all!
Last week, I sent Rep. Greg Murphy an email about methanol. Here is the email I sent.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Dear Rep. Greg Murphy,
I’m writing to you about the high gas prices. Right now, gas is almost $5.00 a gallon in Eastern N.C. In some states, it is $7.00 a gallon. There is away to lower gas prices. That is to mandate that all vehicles, be flex fuel vehicles. They would be able to run on gasoline, and methanol. Methanol can be made from coal, natural gas, human waste, and animal waste. Methanol is cleaner to make, than gasoline.
Right now, methanol prices are about $1.07, to $1.13 a gallon. But there is one problem. If you fill up your car with methanol during the winter, and it is very cold outside, then your car won’t start. But if you were to make a blend called M85, then it will start fine. M85 is 85% methanol, and 15% gasoline. With current gas prices, M85 would go for about $2.10 a gallon.
We also need more refineries. I say let hog farmers, and other farmers set up methanol refineries. These would be small refineries. Making about 10,000 gallons a day, or 60,000 gallons a week. Hog farmers could turn their hog waste into methanol. They could then use it to run their farm equipment, and sell some of it.
If a hog farmer doesn’t want to make methanol, then he can sell, or give away his hog waste.
Now, if a company has a refinery at a location, and that refinery produces gasoline, then that company can build one refinery in that area, that makes methanol. And making methanol is cleaner, than making gasoline. Lets set the date for all new vehicles being flex fuel by May 10, 2023.
This will not bring down gas prices fast, but it will bring them down. If your vehicle was built in 1995, or after, then your vehicle can be made flex fuel. It will cost about $400.00 to make your vehicle flex fuel.
There is one more. For 6 weeks, lets pay gas station owners that are not yet selling M85, $3,000.00 a week. They must have at least one pump for M85. Next to that pump, they will have to have this sign on display.
===========================================
Attention
If your vehicle was built in 1995, or after, you can convert your vehicle to run on gasoline, and M85. It will cost $400.00 to convert your vehicle to flex fuel.
=================================================
So that is what the sign will say. After 6 weeks, the payment would end. It would start on May 31, and end on July 11.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
On Friday. I got a phone call from Rep. Murphy’s office. It was from one of his staff members. He said that he agreed with my proposal. Using hog waste to make methanol would help hog farmers.
We have lots of natural gas here in the U.S., so we can make lots of cheap methanol. Combine that with gasoline, then you can create M85. That can be used in the winter, and in places that gets cold in other times of the year.
So pitch your idea to the auto and farm and gas industries: there’s money to be made it will happen.
“Mandate”? Stop trying to make us do what YOU want.
I got the idea from Robert Zubrin. There are already mandates for vehicles. Such as seatbelts, and airbags. You also can’t buy a car that uses leaded gasoline. With flex fuel, you can use methanol, or gasoline. That is what Europe should be doing. Instead of mandating all vehicles be electric by a certain year.
Methanol is something that can be done right now. An electric vehicle is hard to start in the winter. While pure methanol won’t start on a cold winter day, M85 would. With just 15% gasoline, and 85% methanol.
That would mean less gasoline, and that would then mean less oil would be needed. Less oil that is needed, would then mean that Russia, and OPEC countries would make less money.
Methanol probably should have been the choice as a fuel additive instead of ethanol. It doesn’t use corn, so doesn’t require food crops to make it. Also, it doesn’t legally have to be denatured to prevent people from using a fuel plant to cover moonshine operations. Downside, IIRC is it’s a slightly lower energy density than ethanol, but probably wouldn’t make a noticeable difference when used at 10-15%. And, I’m pretty sure an vehicle that can bur 10% ethanol can burn 10% methanol, both are alcohols. In fact straight methanol and methanol blends are very common racing fuels. It’s used by sprint cars, top alcohol dragsters, and Indy cars before they switched to ethanol. Unfortunately, in the gasoline additive wars politics won.
My problem is in your first paragraph. Mandate.
Back at the beginning of Tesla, I suggested (in an essay on sff.net) that rather than heavy, poisonous batteries, a better solution was to store the energy as compressed air in COPVs. Use it to run a compressed air reciprocating engine (there have been prototypes), and equip the car with an in-board electric compressor and multi-fuel generator for when you couldn’t get to a compressed air station (or recharge at home). I also favored thorium-cycle power reactors, including small, lifetime-fuelled ones for locomotives, alongside revival of the US rail network. I didn’t have a good solution for heavy trucks, other than going back to trains, but the whole thing would work inside a market economy, unlike the current universal windmills and poop electrification fantasy.
This biggest objection anyone raised was the prospect of COPVs exploding in crashes. I countered by pointing out my truck had 20 gallons of liquid fuel in a tin can just behind my butt. If it ruptured in a crash I should better hope for instant trauma death rather than experience burning to death in a gasoline fire. I have a nice collection of large third degree burns. I don’t have to imagine what that would feel like.
Have you ever tried to run something with an air motor? Typically, 10 HP compressor to run 1/2 HP motor. Thermodynamics is a bitch.
What part of “energy storage” confused you? Was it the mention of COPDs? Abbreviations can be difficult. This isn’t some technology I just dreamed up. You can look it up! There’s even a Wikipedia article! Hint: “Compressed Air Car.”
The compressed air energy storage raises its head now and again.
William Barton, does it work? How big and heavy is the tank to get any reasonable range? I could do the numbers but you appear to have already done so. What are the compression losses due adiabatic temperature rise?
That kind of trolling never works, and only serves to make its deployer look like a bit of boob. Read the Wikipedia article, which explains the state of the art in words of one syllable or less!
I always liked Musk’s quip that Wikipedia was 90% accurate, it’s just not clear which 90%. But the fact is, you can follow up with an article’s references and find out. It doesn’t take a genius to figure this stuff out, merely the ability to ready beyond a 4th grade level.
Btw, in my prior post I meant COPVs, not COPDs. Not only are abbreviations difficult, tpying is hardest of all!