ALTERNATIVE FUELS

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ALTERNATIVE FUELS

Postby Dick Winchester » Wed Nov 02, 2005 09:51

With the ever increasing price of oil/petrol and recent data that oil production is in decline what plans should we make for keeping our Cappos running.

There's a company in California (of course) that converts Shelby Cobras to run on hydrogen so a Cappo should be a doddle. :lol:
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Postby Ian Linden » Wed Nov 02, 2005 10:00

Small problem - where to put the substantial and heavy gas reservoir - I hate to think what a bespoke one (to fit in place of the fuel tank) would cost.

How about bio-fuel?
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Postby Dick Winchester » Wed Nov 02, 2005 10:16

I think the issue of hydrogen storage is not that far off being solved. There are a number of projects going on designed to address this and the results are encouraging.

Bio-fuel such as Ethanol is possible but there are real doubts over whether we can produce enough. Bio-diesel only accounts for around 1% of the market in the UK and we import a lot of that. I think bio-fuels are only an intermediate step that might just offset the growth in fuel demand which in Europe is about 1.5%.
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Postby Ian Linden » Wed Nov 02, 2005 10:28

My pet project is extensive production of bio-fuels in warm climates (fast growth) - perhaps in conjunction with reforestation of the Sahara :?:
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Postby Dick Winchester » Wed Nov 02, 2005 10:38

Brazil is warm but even there they've only managed to achieve 25% market penetration using Ethanol and a lot of that is being produced in areas cleared in the Amazon forest....
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Postby Ken Malone » Wed Nov 02, 2005 11:16

Two I've seen - one from Holland using the bits of slaughtered cows that even the meat pie industry reject - to fuel a train!! and of course the well-known phenomenon of chip fat powered cars.
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Postby Dick Winchester » Wed Nov 02, 2005 11:51

These people are trying hard......

www.green-motorsport.co.uk

How about a green Cappo championship ?? :lol:
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Postby Ian Linden » Wed Nov 02, 2005 12:42

I'm a bit puzzled about the alleged green-ness of hydrogen.

It all depends on the source of the electricity for performing the electrolysis:
  • Wind, wave, biofuelled power station- no problem
  • Nuclear - a bit iffy, depending on your view of safety and the disposal of waste
  • Coal, oil, gas fuelled and it ain't green
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Postby Dick Winchester » Wed Nov 02, 2005 13:09

I think that's fair comment Ian.

Gas is a particular problem because of course it's running out but you can use it cleanly. BP are intending to build a gas reformer plant in Scotland which splits natural gas into Co2 and hydrogen. The hydrogen will be burnt as fuel in a gas turbine power station and the Co2 will be pumped back out to an oil field where it will be re-injected and used to enhance oil production. Roughly the same technique can be used with coal.

Tidal current energy is my preferred option. It's 100% predictable and reliable. But - electrolysis is currently quite inefficient so more energy goes in than you get out. But - if you haven't got a choice this isn't so important. It can also happen on a distributed basis.

Offpeak nuclear is certainly an option.
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Postby Ken Malone » Wed Nov 02, 2005 14:21

Dick Winchester wrote:Tidal current energy is my preferred option. It's 100% predictable and reliable.

I was sitting watching the power of the tide every day last week and thinking the same - surely there must be some way to properly harness such dependable force - or don't we yet have the right science to do it?
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Postby Dick Winchester » Wed Nov 02, 2005 14:51

There are number of companies trying to get technology into the market - for example - http://www.marineturbines.com . Up here in Bonny (well rainy today) Scotland there are perhaps three companies attempting to do this with different technologies. We have huge tidal current resources... 7kts plus in some places.

Unfortunately they all suffer from that classic UK problem of underinvestment. Consequence is that one wave energy company recently got bought out by a German company and another has found a market in Portugal and is having to build out there.
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Postby Ian Linden » Wed Nov 02, 2005 15:51

Dick Winchester wrote:Unfortunately they all suffer from that classic UK problem of underinvestment. .....


The government has the wrong investment model. Instead of giving grants, they should offer a premium for electricity generated from green resources for a start-up period. If the enterprise is mismanaged and fails, the taxpayer pays nothing. This would ensure the money follows success, rather than financing failure, which often happens.

I was fascinated to read about a proposal to tap the energy from the temperature difference in the Pacific deeps, and bring it ashore as liquid hydrogen. Apparently it is so vast that even large scale exploitation would make no discernable difference to it. http://www.nrel.gov/otec/what.html
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Postby Dick Winchester » Wed Nov 02, 2005 16:43

I agree but because the "city" is very reticent to invest in any technology sector then without grants it would be very difficult to get the technology to a point where it can be used. In the US the private sector has already recognised the opportunity and they are pouring huge dollops of money into the whole new energy sector. Here, it's difficult to get private sector funding until you're actually making money so if we scrapped the grant system then there would be a lot less going on.

A friend of mine was involved on the fringes of the OTEC project. It ran for probably 20 years. They had some demonstrator projects that worked pretty well but it was all too early. I think the US stopped funding work in the late nineties but some other countries are still involved.
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Postby Lisa Balsom » Thu Nov 03, 2005 00:01

The idea of green energy is a very attractive one, but the trouble is, even with massive investment, where do you put it?

Anywhere near population, the N.I.M.B.Y.s get involved, in the country, the ramblers and London expats get involved and a recent idea to put wind turbines out at sea was challenged by fishermen who said it would ruin their catch.

On this issue it appears you can't please most people most of the time.
Personally I think wind turbines look great.

Convincing people to sacrifice for the planet is a difficult task.
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Postby Dick Winchester » Thu Nov 03, 2005 12:25

I don't mind wind turbines it's just that they're hugely inefficient. Intermittent and unreliable. We've got a new wind farm near us and they spend more time not generating power than they do generating it.

Where do you put it? Tidal current generation is nicely hidden offshore underwater and wave kit does best well offshore as well. Offshore wind is being touted up here as a good thing for fisherman because it provides a haven for them.. When I was operating mini-subs in the 70s on offshore structures one of our biggest problems was bad visibility due to too many fish gathering around them !! So the argument now is that rather than take all the old N Sea platforms out they should just leave them there because they act like an artificial reef..
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Postby Ian Linden » Thu Nov 03, 2005 13:48

Perhaps just mount the wind machines on the old North Sea platforms, generate hydrogen and pipe it ashore down the otherwise redundant oil pipelines?
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Postby Dick Winchester » Thu Nov 03, 2005 14:38

Not a daft idea Ian. That has been seriously considered.

One of the problems though is getting enough wind turbines on the platform with sufficient spacing to stop them interfering with each other aerodynamically. So you'd probably need to put in additional turbines somehow or just have a couple of really huge ones !!

Some of the steel platforms are also getting a bit long in the tooth now although the big concrete ones will probably last for ever!! The pipelines could be a problem though... Some of those are very old now.

From a wind capture standpoint though it would be good. Nothing in the way to slow it down!
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Postby Murray Betts » Tue Dec 06, 2005 12:32

Sorry to resurrect an old topic, but I've been 'hors de combat for a month! :oops:

My preference is for bio based fuels immediately.

What the politicians seem to overlook is that it's already too late. It'll take a decade or 2 to even level off the effects already under way, whatever we do today.

Current energy users are heavily hydrocarbon fuel dependant in one form or another. Technology exists and is reasonably well developed and understood to use hydrocarbon fuels, so the obvious thing is to find a way of providing the fuel in as "green" a way as possible. Currently that's bio.

Bio is purely a political issue, the places in the world where the production would be most efficient aren't generally the places where the fuel would be used, and the "west" are continually striving to gain control over the sources of HC fuels so wouldn't feel comfortable with relying on bio-fuel coming from the tropical band.

After all, bio-HC is simply solar energy in another form, and plants are quite effective at doing the conversion.

It reminds me of a tale about a technical institute tasked with trying to devise a process to convert low grade vegetable matter into high grade foodstuffs for 3rd world applications. After $millions were spent, someone pointed out that cows do it quite well already.

OK, bio isn't the ultimate solution, but it can be done NOW and there are really very few drawbacks and negligible risk. Just do it, and buy a little more time.

...and as a post-script, some years ago when there was the big drive for gas powered electricity power stations (cheap to build, gas was cheap, and relatively little toxicity) I said to everyone that burning gas in power stations was crazy, and now look. Natural gas is just too versatile an energy source to stuff it all into power stations. What's going to come into my kitchen when all the gas is gone (or Russia decide they don't want to supply us)? Electricity, I suppose.

Politicians eh? :roll:
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