[geeks] electric cars

[Sandwich Maker]

" From: "James Fogg" <James at jdfogg.com>
" 
" > > A careful calculation of the requirements for 100% soybean oil
" > > conversion from fossil fuel showed that a beanfield equivalent to a
" > > square 500 square miles on each side in size could replace all our
" > > fossil fuel needs.
" >
" > I am having trouble parsing that sentence, James.
" 
" Soy oil is an excellent direct substitute for diesel fuel.
" If the USA were to decide to switch from fossil oil to soy oil we would
" need a soybean field 500 square miles in size. Such acerage would
" produce enough soy oil to meet our current fossil oil demands. This
" includes the the demand if all gasoline engines were converted to
" diesel, or if soy were converted to a lighter fuel to replace gasoline.

there are hitches.  svo [straight veg oil] has to be heated to ~160
+/- [eg. with coolant] to be thin enough to sub for fuel oil.  this is
fine for 18-wheelers, not good for vehicles that spend most of their
time shut off and/or with short duty cycles.

biodiesel is made by taking the triglyceride and splitting the long
chain fatty acids off the glycerine backbone ant attaching them to
alcohols instead.  alcohol is consumed in the process, glycerine
produced as a byproduct.

the big point for biodiesel is that it is naturally thinner and
doesn't need heat, but there's still a problem: wax point.  soy
biodiesel is only good to about freezing before starting to form wax
crystals; canola biodiesel only a few degrees colder.  wax will plug
your filters in no time...  a little bit below that and your fuel
turns solid.  i've only seen one co claiming to have an antigelling
additive.  barring that, we northerners can't use b100 [100%]
biodiesel in the winter.  b20 - 20% bio/80% petro - doesn't have
winter problems but of course is only a partial solution.

btw biodiesel works fine in oil furnaces where it's known as bioheat.
also btw a dirty little secret is that while they've just drastically
cut allowable sulfur in diesel, home heating oil is unregulated and
can legally have astronomically high sulfur content - thousands of
times what diesel can have.
________________________________________________________________________
Andrew Hay                                  the genius nature
internet rambler                            is to see what all have seen
adh at an.bradford.ma.us                       and think what none thought