[JAFO]

Check out this article:
http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/120/motorhead-messiah_Printer_Friendly.html

Jonathan Goodwin's company's website is at http://saeenergy.com/

VERY interesting stuff. Anyone done work with propane or hydrogen injection?

 

[Machman]

On-going discussion about Propane here: http://www.4btswaps.com/forum/showthread.php?t=818

 

[mooktank]

What about the fact that gas turbines take a long time to get running and a lot of energy input to start the cycle?

Seems like "just kicking it on" is not gonna be efficient.

The rest of the article is cool. I like the statistic saying if we converted 1/3 of our cars to diesel we would reduce oil consumption by 1.4 millions bbls of oil per day.

Americans, however, are morons and don't like diesels. I don't get it.

 

[Machman]

Americans, however, are morons and don't like diesels. I don't get it.

I think Americans want 'em, but the the US automakers are still a bit gun shy about the small automotive diesels. I say this because of the fact that VW and Mercedes dealers were moving new ones like hotcakes, and even used ones sell about as fast as they hit the lot, and command a fairly high used price.

Also, the EPA seems to REALLY hate the diesel engine..

 

[eodcole]

I don't think anyone has ever accused the EPA of making a whole lot of sense usually. I might be a simpleton but to me if we reduced the consumption of oil wouldn't the emissions in turn dramatically drop as well? It just seem that by putting all this emissions crap on vehicles is counter productive since the equipment lowers the vehicles efficiency in turn causing it to burn more fuel making more emissions. What I said makes sense to me.

 

[Machman]

I don't think anyone has ever accused the EPA of making a whole lot of sense usually. I might be a simpleton but to me if we reduced the consumption of oil wouldn't the emissions in turn dramatically drop as well? It just seem that by putting all this emissions crap on vehicles is counter productive since the equipment lowers the vehicles efficiency in turn causing it to burn more fuel making more emissions. What I said makes sense to me.

That's been one of my thoughts.. Does the EPA look at things from a standpoint of how many parts per million only, or does how much crap per mile traveled enter into the equation?

Ugh.. Time to Google, I guess..

 

[DarylB]

I don't think anyone has ever accused the EPA of making a whole lot of sense usually. I might be a simpleton but to me if we reduced the consumption of oil wouldn't the emissions in turn dramatically drop as well? It just seem that by putting all this emissions crap on vehicles is counter productive since the equipment lowers the vehicles efficiency in turn causing it to burn more fuel making more emissions. What I said makes sense to me.

Precisely. EGR on a diesel is just F#*((&#($ stupid. I'll be disabling mine after Santa Claus brings me a new ECM for the D-max.

 

[Dougal]

I don't think anyone has ever accused the EPA of making a whole lot of sense usually. I might be a simpleton but to me if we reduced the consumption of oil wouldn't the emissions in turn dramatically drop as well? It just seem that by putting all this emissions crap on vehicles is counter productive since the equipment lowers the vehicles efficiency in turn causing it to burn more fuel making more emissions. What I said makes sense to me.

I can't remember exactly where I found the article (may have been Diesel Progress E-magazine) but it described the impacts of the emissions controls and the compromises needed to get them.

Start with a basic diesel running as clean as it can, soot is almost zero.
Throw in EGR to bring down the NOx to fit the next level of emissions regs and the soot becomes a problem.
Throw on a particulate filter to solve the soot problem and you need to crank up the exhaust temps to enable it to burn itself clean (650 deg C was mentioned).
The result was about a 10% reduction in efficiency for an exhaust you could put a white hanky in front of.

I'll see if I can find the article, it was very interesting.

 

[JAFO]

What about the fact the article isn't about gas turbines?

You guys nailed it though.

What about the fact that gas turbines take a long time to get running and a lot of energy input to start the cycle?

Seems like "just kicking it on" is not gonna be efficient.

The rest of the article is cool. I like the statistic saying if we converted 1/3 of our cars to diesel we would reduce oil consumption by 1.4 millions bbls of oil per day.

Americans, however, are morons and don't like diesels. I don't get it.

 

[JimmieD]

We will probably start seeing some serious changes in attitude pretty soon. All these corporate interests are sleeping together for starters, and the Green lobby has slipped under the sheets with them. Now that they've found a way to engineer a plausible reason to boost the price of diesel far beyond gasoline they'll suddenly become much more 'acceptable', trust me on that one.

I saw diesel for $3.69 gallon yesterday, and no blasted reason it should be above $2.50 including taxes, except for NEW ULSD regs! Boys, we got screwed, and it ain't over yet. What a crock....and as a matter of fact it should still be about $1.99 gallon.

You better start figuring on it hitting $5.00 gallon pretty soon because the people have fully bent over to a phoney environmental lobby led by anti-industrial, anti-American entities. If you live another 10 years you'll see $8.00 gallon, because that's their target long-term price. Write that on the wall somewhere and look at it in a few years. Head shaking optional.

 

[Dougal]

I saw diesel for $3.69 gallon yesterday, and no blasted reason it should be above $2.50 including taxes, except for NEW ULSD regs! Boys, we got screwed, and it ain't over yet. What a crock....and as a matter of fact it should still be about $1.99 gallon.

I believe that this time of year the diesel market is distorted by demand for home heating oil.
It's a good time for them to crank up the price.

 

[mooktank]

What about the fact the article isn't about gas turbines?

You guys nailed it though.

"Whenever the truck's juice runs low, the turbine will roar into action for a few seconds"

“Check it out. It's actually a jet engine,"

That's a gas turbine...

 

[garand]

I've seen too many of these "wonderful energy saving" technologies that always had some major flaw in the reasoning that went into them to not be very skeptical of 600hp and 60mpg. For starters, how efficient is the turbine itself?

 

[Mikel]

I've seen too many of these "wonderful energy saving" technologies that always had some major flaw in the reasoning that went into them to not be very skeptical of 600hp and 60mpg. For starters, how efficient is the turbine itself?

The problem with turbines is that they are wonderfully efficient at the right RPM's, but suck (literally) outside that range. For this reason they work very well in planes, but not in road vehicles that stop, go, accelerate, decelerate...

 

[DragonsBane]

Home Heating Oil

The excuse that home heating oil is causing a shortage is a real crock. When HHO hit $1.89 a gallon I ripped out the oil furnace I had and replaced it with a wood burner. When I did have an oil furnace it burned, and ya'll gonna love this, #2 DYED DIESEL. Everyone here in PA as far as I know gets #2 dyed diesel from all the HHO companies. These corporate baboons have got everybody bullshitted into thinking HHO is something different. they are both one in the same. And kerosene is a more refined form of diesel fuel. And alot of jet liners burn kerosene.

I used to due repair outages at a few refineries and I can tell you this. The sulfur they pull out is used for other things like sulfuric acid and for some fertilizers. They are not losing money with the new ULSD regs. They are actually laughing all the way to the bank.

On top of that, diesel fuel is one of the first things to come off crude in the distillation column. It was actually considered waste until someone figured out it would run a compression ignition engine.

Found what I was looking for.


http://www.energy.ca.gov/gasoline/whats_in_barrel_oil.html

 

[averagef250]

That article sounds like a total crock. I was a GS in the Navy, spent a lot of time on and inside turbines. Yeah, 500 pounds can make 20K horsepower, but they are not efficient on smaller scales. Turbines can take full load right off start up, but they take considerable energy to start and they're very complex to govern. Not to mention crazy expensive. Didn't they try this stuff in the 50's and realize it was a bad idea?

 

[xyz12383318]

Inspiring thread

It sure has me thinking. I have been riunning lots of WVO and put a 6bt in my Suburban and will soon have a 4bt in my Scout. I have been dooing a lot of WVO conversions and believe in them because they work great. The thing that got my attention was the natural gas injection. Maybe someone can help me think through this. How is natural gas measured? How many BTU's are in that measurement, how much is it, and how far could a guy get on said amount of natural gas? Would it enhance the burn of the injected fuel like diesel, biodiesel, or WVO? Is there a downfall of using too much like with propane? Any thoughts?

 

[xyz12383318]

Answer 1

http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/byfueltype.htm

 

[HardCharger]

Also, the EPA seems to REALLY hate the diesel engine..

Thats funny you should mention that. I REALLY hate the EPA myself. And this is coming from someone who leaves the kitty on and takes his oil to be recycled. Anyway, rant off...

:happyfinger: EPA :happyfinger:

 

[toolmanoffroad]

It sure has me thinking. I have been riunning lots of WVO and put a 6bt in my Suburban and will soon have a 4bt in my Scout. I have been dooing a lot of WVO conversions and believe in them because they work great. The thing that got my attention was the natural gas injection. Maybe someone can help me think through this. How is natural gas measured? How many BTU's are in that measurement, how much is it, and how far could a guy get on said amount of natural gas? Would it enhance the burn of the injected fuel like diesel, biodiesel, or WVO? Is there a downfall of using too much like with propane? Any thoughts?

I have my own nat gas wells, and have been trying to find a compressor so that I can pump overnightinto tanks, and then use it the next day in one of my trucks. So far I havent found anyone that will sell me one because its not "city gas" that has been through a dryer/filter etc. I have two scrubbers to take out water and would add on more but they still say no... NG has about half the BTUs of propane, but if its free then I could pump in as much as I wanted.... ill keep working on it though After this last ice storm, I am switching both my generators over to NG so that I dont have to stand in line at the gas pump with all the crazy people yelling that your buying too much gas! good luck...