Energy - new and improved.

[nelg]

Lets use this thread as a place to discuss recent findings and improvements in energy production and utilization.

Holographic Solar
A novel approach to concentrating sunlight could cut solar panel costs

Also, from another thread....


Scuderi Split-Cycle Engine

and

ETHANOL BOOSTING SYSTEMS

 

[JBark]

Those holographic solar panels look pretty damn cool. Wouldn't mind a bunch of those on my roof.

I'm loving all the wind farms that are going up around Iowa. With all the wide open farmland, there's plenty of space to put in windmills. I thought they might be an eyesore, but after they're up, it's really very cool looking. Such a wierd contrast of old world/new world. It's definitely odd seeing these high tech pieces of equipment sitting right next to old farms. Even cooler when the farm has an old windmill.

The latest batch in north central Iowa is right along the road I take when traveling between my parent's place and my inlaw's place. It's very surreal and hypnotizing when you're driving down a perfectly straight road that is surround by the huge windmills with slowly turning blades.

 

[ShootMyMonkey]

The split-cycle engine seems to be a pretty cool idea ... if only it was already available. It seems like it would be great for the here and now, but it doesn't really do much for the long run. If we could get them right now, and make off with that kind of reduced consumption rate. The theory seems pretty sound, but I'm waiting to see an implementation. Especially one that makes use of things like different displacement in the combustion cylinders.

Still, there are a host of other designs that seem to make entirely more outlandish claims about their efficiency and combustion power and so on, and actually have prototypes, not that anyone has actually popped them into a car.

e.g. -- http://www.ox2engine.com/ Seems to be a common design with the whole pistons-riding-on-a-cam idea. Don't really get to see much going on, though. Only thing that makes me wonder is that they actually have Caroll Shelby in their boat.

http://www.axialvectorengine.com/index.htm Much the same idea, only with opposing pistons. These guys actually have some numerical claims - 205 HP + 650 lb-ft of torque out of a 1.5L 12-cylinder weighing under 100 lbs... Apparently, it's attracted Duesenberg enough to attempt their Torpedo concept using a turbocharged version of one of these. They're claiming some crazy fuel economy like 70 mpg while still making 300 hp.

 

[Sxotty]

A factor of 10 vs. 100-1000 that seems pretty crappy to me. The best thing about solar concentrators with lenses that are bulky and unsightly is that you could repair the solar collector.

If these panels allow the replacement of the PV material only then that would definitely be a plus but I think the other material will liklely wear out as well. The problem is if you sandwich the silica between glass you throw out the whole thing.

A shortage of silica? Hmm strange that ever been to the beach

Anyway another example of the tortoise like pace of innovation. "the idea has been around since 1980s" and only just now they are getting around to it eh...

 

[Sxotty]

Here is some info on mixed alcohol production from biomass
http://www.fuelandfiber.com/Archive/Fuel/Research/Holtzapple/holtzapple.html

If we used only garbage as a raw material, we could replace seven percent of all the gasoline currently consumed," he says. "If we used all the waste biomass available -- including forestry and agricultural wastes -- we could replace all 130 billion gallons of gasoline we use each year.

That is most of the gas we use in a year btw

 

[nelg]

Taken from a post mine in another thread....

Biorefinery Breakthrough

A guy driving a forklift spears a bale of straw the size of a stack of mattresses. Then he stuffs it into a whirring shredder that reduces the 1,000-pound rectangle of dry oat stems to a fluffy, fibrous state. These steps (Nos. 1 and 2 in the illustration at right) are the first in making ethanol motor fuel at Iogen's experimental plant in Ottawa. Built next to a former Air Canada hangar at the edge of the municipal airport, the factory is really a big science project aimed at learning how to make alcohol on a commercial scale from nonfood biomass like straw. If Iogen succeeds--and it is getting close--it will have the technology the world needs to kick its gasoline habit.

 

[nelg]

Simpler and Cheaper Clean Coal Technology

Vattenfall's technology modifies a conventional coal plant, by burning the fuel in pure oxygen instead of air (which is mostly nitrogen). Conventional coal plants generate a flu-gas mixture of mostly nitrogen with some carbon dioxide and water; capturing the carbon dioxide is expensive because it takes a lot of energy to separate the carbon dioxide gas from the nitrogen gas. In oxyfuels technology, the flu gas is mostly carbon dioxide and water, the latter being easily condensed and removed -- yielding pure carbon dioxide, which can be collected.

 

[JBark]

Taken from a post mine in another thread....

Biorefinery Breakthrough

This is the one to watch, folks. Cellulosic ethanol production is at a minimum 3-4x more efficient than current ethanol production. It uses virtually no fossil fuels, has no CO2 emission during production, and can use just about anything that's made up of cellulose (any plant material). Just think of the huge volume of waste you get from something like the paper industry or the logging industry, and all of this could soon be used to produce ethanol.

It's not going to save the world, but it's a good step in the right direction. Even a small decrease in fossil fuel usage can have a big impact on supplies and prices.

 

[nelg]

This is the one to watch, folks. Cellulosic ethanol production is at a minimum 3-4x more efficient than current ethanol production. It uses virtually no fossil fuels, has no CO2 emission during production, and can use just about anything that's made up of cellulose (any plant material). Just think of the huge volume of waste you get from something like the paper industry or the logging industry, and all of this could soon be used to produce ethanol.

It's not going to save the world, but it's a good step in the right direction. Even a small decrease in fossil fuel usage can have a big impact on supplies and prices.

I agree.

 

[ShootMyMonkey]

Cellulosic ethanol production is at a minimum 3-4x more efficient than current ethanol production. It uses virtually no fossil fuels, has no CO2 emission during production, and can use just about anything that's made up of cellulose (any plant material). Just think of the huge volume of waste you get from something like the paper industry or the logging industry, and all of this could soon be used to produce ethanol.

Hm... I was under the impression, though, that the yields of cellulosic ethanol production are lower than that of regular grain-based methods.

In any case, while this may work out cheaper in the long run (i.e. making use of what would otherwise be waste), I still question the use of ethanol as a fuel for automobiles in the first place. It will only make the greenhouse gas production worse, and the EPA's stats will just cloud that by the fact that the percentage per unit volume of exhaust is better.

At the very least, it is a renewable fuel.

 

[Simon F]

, I still question the use of ethanol as a fuel for automobiles in the first place. It will only make the greenhouse gas production worse...

Errr... surely it is carbon neutral so would simply maintain the status quo.

 

[Mintmaster]

Simpler and Cheaper Clean Coal Technology

They say "yielding pure carbon dioxide, which can be collected."

Any more details on that? Collected how? I don't see how this really makes it cleaner. I guess it stops nitrous oxides, but I always thought automobiles were far and away the biggest contributer of that.

Does this make carbon sequestration easier somehow? Not that I'm a big believer of this anyway, especially for currently existing plants.

 

[Mintmaster]

Errr... surely it is carbon neutral so would simply maintain the status quo.

I can see how that's true for ethanol produced from corn, but I can't imagine we'll be replacing all the plants that are used in cellulosic production. As it is, most of the materials that JBark is talking about eventually wind up in the trash and in solid form. All that carbon is going to wind up in the air, so it's unlikely to maintain the status quo.

 

[KimB]

I can see how that's true for ethanol produced from corn, but I can't imagine we'll be replacing all the plants that are used in cellulosic production. As it is, most of the materials that JBark is talking about eventually wind up in the trash and in solid form. All that carbon is going to wind up in the air, so it's unlikely to maintain the status quo.

Well, why would corn be different from any other biological source? The carbon comes from the air in the first place.

 

[_xxx_]

The first two might be interesting, but this:

ETHANOL BOOSTING SYSTEMS

is

        (\(\_
     _.o o`\\\\
    ("_     ))))
     '---'  ((((          .=,
         )   )))___.-""-./=;\\\
        /    (((         \  ))))
       ;                  | |//
       /\          |      | (( .
      (  \    /__.-'\    /   )  o
     / /` |  /    \  \  |        O
    / /   \ ;      \ (\ (          o
    \\_    ||       || ||          o
     \_]   ||       || ||         oOo
          /_<      /_</_<     o0Ooo.

 

[Simon F]

The first two might be interesting, but this is....

...a {s|h}ource of methane ?

 

[_xxx_]

Actually, I just desperately wanted to use my fav new ASCII find...

 

[Sxotty]

They say "yielding pure carbon dioxide, which can be collected."

Any more details on that? Collected how? I don't see how this really makes it cleaner. I guess it stops nitrous oxides, but I always thought automobiles were far and away the biggest contributer of that.

Does this make carbon sequestration easier somehow? Not that I'm a big believer of this anyway, especially for currently existing plants.

Yes it makes carbon sequestration way way way easier.

But you still have to have a place to put it and they usually don't.



Youguys on the ethanol kick should really look at the link I posted it is a much better process than ethanol and the product (mixed alcohols like tert butanol, iopropanol etc.) have a much lower capor pressure which means they could be mixed with gasoline products right now and shipped in a pipeline unlike ethanol which must be added later making it much more expensive.

Also the lower vapor pressure makes it so they are chearp and easier to handle and more closely match the paramaters of gasoline.

 

[JBark]

Yes it makes carbon sequestration way way way easier.

But you still have to have a place to put it and they usually don't.



Youguys on the ethanol kick should really look at the link I posted it is a much better process than ethanol and the product (mixed alcohols like tert butanol, iopropanol etc.) have a much lower capor pressure which means they could be mixed with gasoline products right now and shipped in a pipeline unlike ethanol which must be added later making it much more expensive.

Also the lower vapor pressure makes it so they are chearp and easier to handle and more closely match the paramaters of gasoline.

I've read about the mixed alcohol from biomass stuff before, and I can't figure out why it isn't used more. It seems like a really good process, but there's got to be some reason why there's almost no commercial use of it.

Maybe it falls between the cracks when it comes to incentives (like the $.50 ethanol and $.50/$1.00 biodiesel incentives), so investors aren't interested? Or maybe there's some patent/licensing issues? That's about all I can think of.

 

[WhiningKhan]

Actually, I just desperately wanted to use my fav new ASCII find...

Well that was indeed impressive, but did you really regard that as HS or were you just desperate to find something to diss? Ethanol _does_ improve knocking resistance and allows higher boost. Surely you have seen, e.g., Saab's 100% ethanol concept car?