Lister Engine Forum
Alternative fuels => Waste Vegetable Oil => Topic started by: kyradawg on February 19, 2006, 08:04:46 PM
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Peace&Love :D, Darren
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I've been thinking about increasing compression to see if it makes up for altitude. Yesterday I reset my piston clearance to .054" That keeps the intake valve off the piston under no load and starts much better than with the .069 I'd had in it. (Don't remember doing that...I think I missed scraping a gasket off last time.)
The intake valve 'touches' the piston at .052 on mine. If I assume that's 19:1 compression it'll take some creativity in the pre-combustion chamber to go any higher.
Why not a three way valve so you can stop and re-start on dino fuel...or a CS glow plug from George....
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I thought the main problem of starting on cold veg oil is that it is very thick, it doesn't spray properly from the injector, it's more like pouring honey into the engine than fuel. It doesn't produce a fine mist which is needed for ignition.
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I thought the main problem of starting on cold veg oil is that it is very thick, it doesn't spray properly from the injector, it's more like pouring honey into the engine than fuel. It doesn't produce a fine mist which is needed for ignition.
yup, it doesn't atomise cold, so somehow you need to heat everything up, or, fit a dual injection system.
TBH the only way I see to do a practical temperate climate veggie oil only lister is to accept a ten minute preheat before starting as normal, so that's resistance wire around the fuel lines and injection system and block heaters in the head or heat up the coolant....
on bigger scales it's been done with a small donkey engine used to warm up a big engine by heating and circulating the coolant and lube oil
in many ways the whole point of the lister is it is a rugged and economical slow speed engine, so you don't start and stop it all the time, let the bugger run, just give it 30 minutes of diesel before shutdown and 10 minutes of diesel for start up
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SB118 and Guy,
Are you sure that it is the fuel being atomized that gets the mixture explosive?
Im of the school of thought that the rise in compression ratio and heat due to the displacement of compression space from the injected fuel is what gets the party started.
The reason I say this is because my ford f-250 diesel has no trouble starting on viscous fuel I just glow the plugs as normal and she fires right up!
Its not like on a gasoline engine where the incoming air charge needs to be humognious and volital in order to ignite.
Remember that in a diesel it is pressure and heat that causes combustion of the fuel not any sort of vaporized fuel or spark.
So I really think injector spray pattern plays little role.
Peace&Love :D, Darren
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The fuel needs to be atomised. It's fine to have the compressed/heated air, but it needs a high surface area to act upon. Having a puddle of cold veg oil sitting on top of your piston isn't a suitable situation to start an engine.
I run my ford transit on SVO and it refuses point blank to start without me working the fuel filter and pump with the blow torch for a few minutes.
It's the heat that does the trick.
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SB118 and Guy,
Are you sure that it is the fuel being atomized that gets the mixture explosive?
totally
Im of the school of thought that the rise in compression ratio and heat due to the displacement of compression space from the injected fuel is what gets the party started.
The reason I say this is because my ford f-250 diesel has no trouble starting on viscous fuel I just glow the plugs as normal and she fires right up!
Its not like on a gasoline engine where the incoming air charge needs to be humognious and volital in order to ignite.
Remember that in a diesel it is pressure and heat that causes combustion of the fuel not any sort of vaporized fuel or spark.
So I really think injector spray pattern plays little role.
Peace&Love :D, Darren
if you get a poor spray, eg when an injector needs serviceing or you run a different fuel, you get a "rattle" or "knock",
if you got no atomisation you got effectively no fuel exposed to oxygen (surface area of the drop) and you get no combustion
you can prove this to yourself if you like by taking the nozzle out of the injector, it'll still pump the metered amount in, and the motor won't run... do it too long and she'll hydraulic
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Guy,
Have you ever ran out of fuel in a diesel vehicle and just poured some oil down the intake? I have and it fires right up! No mist, atomisation just a puddle of fuel in the cylinder vroom! Oh yeah and a shit load of smoke.
If there was a midget in my engine compartment pouring oil in my intake I wouldnt even need a injection pump or injectors!
Your not "totally" sure you think your sure.
sb118,
The reason your having trouble cold starting doesnt have to do with spray pattern it has to do with the injection pumps ability to draw the fuel. The lift pump can only pull so hard if it can present fuel to the injection pump it will either be injected or something will break.
I understand that you guys have been told certian data and have chosen to believe it. I ask that you put your wankers back in your pants and relise its not a cock fight just a brother trying to stop the repression that has been incited by jelious folks that dont own diesels, big oil and just general haters.
Peace&Love :D, Darren
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This isn't a willy waving contest about who can preach about cold starting diesels, calm down.
I never knew that you could pull the injector on a hot engine and simply pour the fuel in. You might consider that the hot piston that the oil lands on will assist in vaporising the fuel.
I'm afraid this isn't information i've been fed, it's what i've experienced for myself, not trying to put a brother down, just trying to point out any possible flaws in the idea of reworking your head, hel if it works, you'll have solved a problem that a lot of people suffer from.
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Guy,
Have you ever ran out of fuel in a diesel vehicle and just poured some oil down the intake? I have and it fires right up! No mist, atomisation just a puddle of fuel in the cylinder vroom! Oh yeah and a shit load of smoke.
If there was a midget in my engine compartment pouring oil in my intake I wouldnt even need a injection pump or injectors!
Your not "totally" sure you think your sure.
I don't think I am sure, I am totally sure.
Your example is a quick way to kill a diesel, and note "ran out of fuel" happens to a hot engine, that will vapourise fuel by heat, BUT, unless you have a glass cylinder head you have no idea that it forms a puddle of fuel.
It has been. practically as long as diesels have been around, a rule of thumb that "if the bitch starts, there's not much wrong" and of course the inverse is true as well.
temperate climate winter, indirect injection diesel vehicle engine with electric heaters, remove the wires to the heaters and see what happens.... in my old 1900cc 4cyl renault diesel in the cold with no heaters it just will not start, with 2 heaters it just starts, with 3 its slightly lumpy but ok, with all 4 it not only starts, but runs properly from cold.
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I want to tell you people something here to put this in perspective, because I have been asked about veg oil before.
I have 2 cars, both non turbo no electronics under the bonnet renault 19 diesels, 1900 cc, indirect injection, heater plugs, 4 lungs.
One I paid 200 pounds for on ebay, the other 175, the 200 quid one I've had a couple of years, done mega miles, towed tons of shit with it, 100% reliable and returns 50+ mpg, the other one I bought a few weeks ago as a spare.
UK road diesel has a lower sulphur content and generally different formulation than american diesel.
Uk road diesel is 97 pence per litre, that's US$1.62 per litre
"red" of farm diesel is half of that, heavier heating oil a third
I won't run veg oil in my car, even though it is a cheap ass car.
I have yet to meet a veg oil enthusiast who has done serious mileage, eg 20,000 miles, eg 1000 engine hours, who has done an exhaust gas analysis and lube oil analysis and a strip and inspection.
I do know a couple of people who'se day job is analysing the combustion process inside IC engines and turbines etc etc
The Lister CS ran on a wider range of fuels than anything short of a turbine, but the one absolute sticking point for Mr Lister on what you ran in his engines was THE FUEL MUST BE A DISTILLATE.
There is a reason for that, purity.
eg it don't matter so much what you burn in the bitch, provided it, whatever "it" is, is pure.
veg oil isn't, waste veg oil especially isn't.
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speaking for myself, free per litre waste veg oil vs 40 pence per litre DISTILLATE diesel and even my old 200 quid car the DISTILLATE gets it every time.
it's not "dino" diesel, it's not "fossil" fuel, it is a DISTILLATE
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___IF___ for whatever reason I was forced into using veg oil, first off it would be mixed with pump diesel, but before it ever got that far I would get as close as I humanly could to making it as close as possible to a distillate.
why is veg oil diesel fuel cheap?
because no energy and no work has gone into distilling or cracking. DO that and it is the same price as pump diesel
is filtering enough?
no
I'd want to run it a few times through an alfa-laval (you ship boys will know what I mean) as a minimum.
course, that alfa-laval needs power to run.
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To all the bio diesel (and indeed listers camshafts were wrong) people I have only one comment.
There ain't no such thing as a free lunch.
yeah, you can run a listeroid on veg, but that free lunch thing means you get to do more work, like more strip inspect and cleans, more lube oil changes and purification, more accurate control of fuel / air / head temperatures, and ultimately more consumption of spare parts, more valve grinding, more sets of shells
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If ___I___ had to burn bio diesel and my source of power, and had no choice, I would burn it to make steam and run a steam engine, then I'd use some of that power to make a DISTILLATE for my more valuable motors, like the lister.
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Replying to myself here
One thing I have realised as I get older.
People tell me "this shit works" and I say "tell me again in ten years when that motor is scrap"
you get a lot longer perspective as you get older, "does it work" don't matter as much as "will it stay working"
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as a lover of diesels i have owned my share from toyota corrolla to vw rabbits to farm tractors. i have owned 2 cummins diesel trucks, and my vw beetle tdi has in excess of 300k miles. bottom line is this would i run wvo in my dodge cummins... hell no. tear down on the engine is a nightmare, and the injector pump costs a small fortune. would i run it in my vw tdi... again hell no. would i run it in my lister.... lets see .. i can break it down and decarbon it myself in 15 minutes, i can put an all new injector pump or injectors on it in less time than that. i can buy parts for it dirt cheap. heck i can even buy a second engine with the money i save using wvo in the first year.... would i run wvo in a lister ... hell yea i am running wvo in a lister the money i save each and every year can buy another engine. my goodness this ones a no brainer. bottom line if after owning a lister for some time you dont feel confortable decarboning the engine or swapping a part like the injector pump, it is time to find another hobby. i met a guy once that said their farm had a lister when he was a boy and he would get bored and take the engine apart and rebuild it for fun... WHEN HE WAS 8
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"will it stay working"
I drive a Ford, the answer to that question is ALWAYS no :D
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I envy you guys that have been motor heads a long time. I took up another passion at about six years old and besides 'normal' curiousity (took apart the lawnmower engine) I knew nothing at all about diesels. My first one was the generator that supplies the power to my new home....It's an Onan and it didn't run. The learning curve was VERY steep for me.
The first diesel engine I ever owned was a Lister just more than a year ago, (six more diesels followed in less than two months and then two more :-\)
This morning it's minus 13 degrees F and before the day is out four diesels will have run. Cold starting is a fact of life.
If the injector spray doesn't matter why is it there and why won't the engine run right when they dribble?
If heat doesn't matter why have those funny plugs hanging out of the grill?
If veggie worked as well as 'distillate' nobody would pay extra for dino fuel.
In the state of Idaho ALL J.R. Simplot, Idaho Power and Treasure Valley Canal diesel vehicles run on bio-diesel made in the Simplot plants. Simplot is the frozen potato king and the richest guy in the state. He produces 88,000 gallons an hour of WVO, 24/7.
Simplot bio is higher priced than red #2 diesel which is $2.13/gal.
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Guy,
Your glow plugs arnt vaporising the fuel they are raising the compression ratio.
Before you start skirting my point lets think about it in a diesel the fuel is lit off by heat the heat comes from compression the glow plug is simply a way to artifically raise the compression ratio to a point where the fuel is easily lit without using engine componits that can withstand such high cylinder pressures for long peroids of time. CHECK OUT MY ORIGNAL POST!
Rocket,
Anyone that loves their injection pump should run veggie oil it has a much higher lubricity than diesel fuel hense lower friction and operation temperatures. (BIG OIL HATES US)
Hotater,
Big oil hates us but say they love us and you believe them!
Dribble/leaking injectors effect performance because it disrupts injection timing nothing to do with spray pattern.
Spray pattern is stressed because with a thin fuel it shows weither or not the pintel and seat of the injector is in good condition.
Heat IS compression.
Veggie is flat out better in EVERY way than diesel.
Better lubricity, higher cetane# and is renewable
My truck when running on canola oil has more power less diesel knock and is easily twice as smooth when running.
Peace&Love :D, Darren
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Guy,
Your glow plugs arnt vaporising the fuel they are raising the compression ratio.
the glow plug is simply a way to artifically raise the compression ratio to a point where the fuel is easily lit
Peace&Love :D, Darren
Umm, i think you'll find glow plugs are called glow plug, because they, umm, glow. Because they get hot.
How would a heater plug increase the compression? I'm genuinely confused now.
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Guy,
Your glow plugs arnt vaporising the fuel they are raising the compression ratio.
no they aren't
you need to learn about something called "free electrons"
free electrons are what you need to get a flame front burning, the more you have the faster it burns, stick an alloy head on a petrol (gasoline) engine and it absorbs more free electrons than iron, so the flame front is slowed down, so you can run higher compression ratios.
I NEVER said glow plugs were vapourising the fuel
glow plugs elevate the mean energy levels in the combustion chamber, so less free electrons are lost to the cold material, so more remain to propogate the flame front, so enough are present to get proper ignition.
Before you start skirting my point lets think about it in a diesel the fuel is lit off by heat the heat comes from compression
technically it's "energy" in heat form.
guess what happens in a heated / compressed gas?
aye, more free electrons.
look up brownian motion, electron shells, etc
the glow plug is simply a way to artifically raise the compression ratio
no
glow plug makes no measuareable difference to compression ratios or pressures, not even 1 psi
that's a fact
to a point where the fuel is easily lit without using engine componits that can withstand such high cylinder pressures for long peroids of time. CHECK OUT MY ORIGNAL POST!
you're about 5 miles up the wrong path there.
cylinder pressures aren't that high in real terms, and as the piston moves the flame front burns, there is NO "bang", creating more gas to fill the increasing volume, in an ideal world maintaining an even pressure throughout the power stroke.
Rocket,
Anyone that loves their injection pump should run veggie oil it has a much higher lubricity than diesel fuel hense lower friction and operation temperatures. (BIG OIL HATES US)
viscocity is higher, particulates are higher, injection pumps are designed to work with diesel, maintained they will last decades.
Hotater,
Big oil hates us but say they love us and you believe them!
Dribble/leaking injectors effect performance because it disrupts injection timing nothing to do with spray pattern.
nope
atomisation = max surface area for volume of injected fuel = max surface area for free electrons to interact = steady flame front speed = steady cylinder pressures = useful power stroke = low bearing loads = long lasting engine + efficiency.
Spray pattern is stressed because with a thin fuel it shows weither or not the pintel and seat of the injector is in good condition.
nope, see above
Heat IS compression.
nope, compression generates heat, doesn't help spray patterns or atomisation one iota
Veggie is flat out better in EVERY way than diesel.
nope, it is inferior in every single way, EXCEPT cost, and that is only because it is a crude, unrefined non-distillate fuel.
Better lubricity, higher cetane# and is renewable
My truck when running on canola oil has more power less diesel knock and is easily twice as smooth when running.
Peace&Love :D, Darren
exhaust gas / oil / bearing material analysis?
no, didn't think so....
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Peace&Love :D, Darren
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Guy,
Im sorry for disagreing with your omnipatant posts please forgive my feable minded ideas.
There must be somthing in the water that got me thinking that the cs valve idea is a good one and my theory solid!
You've taken almost everything that I have said out of context and would probablly do so again if I was to rebute.
I think anyone can see where you are coming from.
Brothers please read what I have posted because I am really proud of the ideas Ive put forth.
I even gave myself a clearer understanding of whats going on!
Believe me veggie oil IS the way to go.
Peace&Love :D, Darren
that's bull and you know it
the CS valve raises compression, which raises the amount of free electrons, which means when the cold engine absorbs extra there is still enough left to propogate a flame front, that ain't me putting a spin on something, or putting anyone down, and having an agenda, that is basic engineering fact.
I burn about ten litres of diesel a day on average, and it cost me US$1.60 odd a litre, and I could get all the WVO I could use for absolutely nothing, and I won't use it, because it is inferior.
it is as much a false economy as using cheap and inferior lube oil, hey, why not use WVO for lube oil too? it WILL work and you lister WILL run on it, many hundreds or thousands of hours.
I _might_ someday consider running the lister on WVO, that will be AFTER I get myself an alfa-laval, and AFTER I build myself a slow filter bed........
don't matter WHAT diesel or heating oil or any similar distillate oil rises to in cost, cos everyone else is going to face the same rises, and my old lister is still a far more efficient motor than anything more modern / faster revving, so I will ALWAYS be ahead of the curve.
when oil rises to 150 bucks a barrel then vehg oil will be economical to distill purify, and then I'll run it no worries, and I'll STILL be ahead of the curve.
at the moment I can save more every year by insulating and efficiency than I can ever hope to save by running WVO alone.
as of today if I chose I could switch from the grid to the start-o-matic and cut my electricity and heating bills in half, using distillate fuel.
a single 45 gallon drum of distillate fuel will last my lister long after the grid goes down and everything descends into anarchy, before that drum of fuel runs out I'll be busy trying to keep away everyone attracted to my burning lights, and that includes the state in the form of police and so on, who will claim their need is greatest...
If I wanted to burn un-purified WVO the ONLY two things I would consider would be a small turbine or a furnace
do yourself a favour, get a clue and download
http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel_library/EthylWVO.pdf
these are people who did a SCIENTIFIC analysis and comparison
note DOUBLE the iron content in oil analysis vs the diesel distillate engine, that suber lubing WVE was wearing out the engine TWICE as fast as diesel, note the LOWER torque and BHP, not seat of the pants crap and wishful thinking, fact.
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In the first days of bio diesel a good friend got a distributorship. I got samples for the VERY large gold mines that I sold steel to. Four mines tested it and rejected it on several fronts, BUT said additional components or processes might make it worth while in the future. FYI--Nemont Gold is delivered about 300,000 gallons of diesel a week.....Barrick Gold Strike is much bigger.
I have a BUNCH of WVO and WMO stored, but just don't have the time to MESS with it. Too much else to do....and somebody else is buying red diesel. ;)
One of these days I hope someone buys the property that would like to use the natural hot water to help filter alternate fuels and wants to fund a semi-automated system...but then I still have a LONG way to go to get WVO and they deliver diesel....sometimes bio is more trouble than it's worth.....to me anyhow.
Oh, I have a 7.3 L PowerStroke and I pre-heat it before starting on these brisk below zero mornings.....I preheat it with LISTER power!! It's the only thing that cranks reliably. ;D
I've always understood Cetane is lower in veggie than dino. Check it out.
I LOVE big oil companies!! They do what I can't and charges me less for oil than the 'sensitive' water companies charge for what most everybody gets for near free!!
Earth First-- we'll drill the other planets later.
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Guy,
I hear you brother and I really am sorry that the man has you so fooled.
Gez I did not want to have to go through all of this but if it stops just one drop of diesel fuel from being burnt to me it is worth it.
I said that veggie oil has a higher lubricity than diesel. I did not make any statement as to the lubricity of wvo because no two batches are the same.
From my experiance there is a lot of negitive propaganda on the jonrney to forever site BUT if you have the ability to read between the lines there is some good info.
Dude whats your point about the cs valve you just like to talk about them?
Please make me understand how a fuel that has a higher cetane # and higher lubricty is substandard to diesel crap!
Screw wvo my goal is to propagate awareness that there is a better fuel than diesel and we can grow it.
WVO is fun and if all your concerned with is economics cool but its chump change compared to the cash crop of straight vegetable oil.
I am not sure that you understand what cetane is in relation to a diesel engine?
Cetane can be measured by specific gravity canola oil atoms have a higher molecular weight than diesel which is directly related to the cetane number of a fuel.
Hotater you have been mislead!
Guy do a little research on Rudulf Diesel he is the guy that cam up with the whole compression ignition thing. His motors ran on guess what? VEGETABLE OIL!
Here's what happened Diesel built an engine that ran on veggie oil. Henery Fords model T ran on ethanol. Then some rich folks in Texas and other various places struck oil well shit what are we going to do with this shit a bunch of elbow rubbing and a few killings later Diesel being one of them. Diesels dont run on veggie oil anymore and Henery's T well that's for gasoline.
Please dont subscribe to thats my story and I am sticking to it.
Oh and by the way Irac has nuclear weapons ::) Big oil didnt say that did they?
I Darren Price Frye from personal experiance do solomly swear that my 1987 Ford f-250 has more power, less engine noise, faster start up and a smooth organic feel that is undescribable when running on vegetable oil (canola/rape).
Believe it or not
Peace&Love :D, Darren
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Mr. Diesel running his engine on SVO had more to do with availability and utility than some act of "benevolence".
Same with Ford and "alky".
As an aside, I remember hearing or reading once, that originally, Diesel intended to and tried to run his engine on "powdered coal", which was a dismal failure.
The economic fact is that producing petroleum fuel(s) is less labor intense (cheaper) and contains more potential energy per weight and volume (more portable) than VO.
The attraction for me to WVO is the "No" or very low cost.
It is more of a hassle dealing with it than just going to the filling station. It all factors in.
Kevin
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cetanes, yeah, I can give you a textbook definition if you like, and octane, and alkanes, and flash point
I can even tell you that the way cetane and octane etc are calculated, in a ricardo or the modern equivalent, a whole host of other factors are tightly controlled, and what really fucks them up if you try and use them as gospel for a motor such as a lister is induction air temperature, unless you run LOTS of preheat to get it up to just below 70 celcius, and injection timing, which is always (from memory)
13 degrees BTDC
these (analysis) engines and ratings are there so you can compare one fuel to the next, they do not tell you which fuel is "best" because that depends on the specific application and therefore engine.
diesels, otto diesels, semi diesels, TVO, you name it I worked on em.
Genuine lister was DESIGNED for
a/ Distillate fuel ONLY
b/ viscocity <50 seconds redwodd @ 100 farenheit
c/ asphalt <0.5%
d/ sulphur <1%
e/ calorific value >19000 btu/lb
f/ s-gravity <0.88
bloody stupid to say because the first diesel ran on peanut oil then peanut oil is best, there wasn't a bloody petrochem industry then, fuels where what you could find, hell theres a whole history lesson in things like how producer gas was accidentally discovered and all the rest of it.
you want an "evil megacorp" argument? Ok you can have one.
1/ No such thing as "big oil", it's "big energy"
2/ energy is like heroin addiction, the addict denies he is addicted, won't give up, and needs more every year for the same hit
3/ "big energy" might fan the flames of addiction, but it isn't exactly a challenging task
4/ in REAL terms fuel now is cheaper than when my dad was a lad, it's only "expensive" for those of use who remember pre 1973 and have rose tinted glasses
5/ "big energy" might be a "dealer" and "pusher" for our "drug" of choice, but my god is it ever a quality product, with fabulous quality control from batch to batch.
6/ big energy might be all those things above, but never overlook the "BIG" in "big energy" economies of scale means they can do things you can't even dream of, and THAT means efficiency, and that means maximum calories per of usable fuel out for minimal calories of fuel in and used in production, they can beat any home set up by at least three orders of magnitude, that's 1000 times less waste energy that you or I can do it for.
7/ WVO + biodiesel or whatever you want to call it simply aren't an alternative, nobody understands just how much we use NOW... 88 million barrels per day.....
8/ the USA DAILY demand in the 3rd quarter of 2005 was 20.77 million barrels per DAY, you produced 8 million.... the ENTIRE production of ALL the americas, north and south, including all the offshore oil and canada, greenland, etc etc etc, is BARELY enough to supply the United States ALONE....
9/ the former USSR, western europe, china, india and the rest of asia used 13 million barrels a day, TOGETHER.
10/ where are you going to grow this biodiesel? because without petrochem byproducts such as fertilisers you aren't going to grow shit, never mind enough food to feed yourselves... how you going to transport it? where is the energy coming from to refine it?
NOW I'm here to tell you something.
Do you REALLY want to know why a hell of a lot of the world hates america?
Well, you take a listeroid engine built by people on a wage that wouldn't keep the average westerner supplied with bog (toilet) paper, and then you take that fucking great lump of cast iron and you crate it up in fucking great lumps of wood, and then you ship the bastard half way around the world, and THEN start whining about economic and ecological sustainability.
You any idea how much of that cheap "dino" fuel powered energy you consumed to get that lump in your back yard so you could whine about people burning dino fuel?
Did you paint the bitch? what in? what was the paint made from?
What do you use for lube oil?
How about the paper for gaskets and fuel filters? thought about the ecological aspects of that and how much dino fuel power went into it?
you never thought about these things and did the numbers, you don't have to, you are fortunate to be a citizen in what is by far the most energy rich country the planet has ever seen.
I am NOT trying to start a flame war here or bash the yanks, but I gotta tell you the one thing you CANNOT do is start banging the enviornmental drum about big oil, capitalism, and sustainability, when your road to PERSONAL sustainability is paved with kilowatt hours that other peoples cannot even dream of having at their disposal.
Now, if you picked up an old american made engine local to you, you would have disarmed my entire argument, as it is you need to save all the energy used in building your listeroid, shipping it to you, painting it, making all the spares you use, making all the consumables you use such as gaskets and filters (and shipping them to you too) before you can even start on trying to claw back some of the energy used in making your WVO, before you can even start on being energy neutral.
Of course if you were to turn around and say "balls to the eco shit, I'm doing this cos it is CHEAP and I am a tightwad" then hats off to you, but it is bogus to draw a line under GETTING a listeroid and then maintaining a listeroid and claiming that all anyone is allowed to consider is the fuel you use. no fair.
like I said, not a flame or antagonistic, so I hope it don't come accross that way, two peoples separated by a common language and all that.
it's a shame but emissions push harder than economics, but anyway, here's a decent paper (authorised by the SAE so it ain't crap) about free electrons in combustion, diesel specifically.
http://delphi.com/pdf/techpapers/1999-01-0549.PDF
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Good post, Guy--
There have been some pretty good essays done on tracking caloric energy from 'cradle to grave'. Solar "free" energy is one of the most expensive when the energy used for the technology is tallied up. Hydrogen cars are an economic joke.
I saw the miles of wind turbines on South Pass/Elk Mountain Wy. last week. I can't help but wonder if they'll last long enough to pay for themselves at a million $ a copy. How much oil did they 'cost' versus what they save? They stand on top of the Overthrust Belt oil deposits...wouldn't it have been better to use the million dollars for a hole in the ground that nobody has to LOOK at?
I'd like to see the actual figures on cultivating, growing, harvesting and processing oil seeds and come up with a net figure of acreage farmed to acres of economic yeild. Farmers in this area typically run 100% cultivation to yeild. Water, fuel, fertilizer, and seeds are all MAJOR expenses. Land is $100/acre.... with water is $3,000.
Where a farm could do well on bio is by planting the corners (round irrigation pivots, square fields) with drought resistant oil crops and using the oil to run irrigation pumps. That's already being done in the Third World. In this country it's much cheaper to use on-grid electricity to run pumps and put a swing-out extension on the pivots to water the corners and grow something that SELLS.
I'd much rather keep acreage in soybeans and corn to feed the hogs, cows and chickens I eat and keep the oil wells producing.
What else is oil good for? What would we do with it if we didn't burn it or turn it into something else?
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What else is oil good for? What would we do with it if we didn't burn it or turn it into something else?
It's a human thing, you assume the thing that YOU do or touch is all there is, so everyone assumes running cars is like 90% of world oil use, it ain't, it's a minor amount, still a hell of a lot, but a minor amount.
Industry uses vast amounts, especially if you correctly include agriculture in industry and logistics (transport) of all those goods and services into industry, for axample all plastics.
But, industry uses even more vast amounts of energy, staggering amounts... for example making 1 kilo of aluminium (raw pure ingot, not alloy) from alumina takes a shade under 16 KWh, this is AFTER you mine the bauxite and AFTER you smelt to alumina, and we produce over 25 million tons a year now, so 25,000,000 x 1,000 x 16 = 400,000,000,000 KWh per annum for this alone, that's a CONSTANT day and night consumption of about 500 million kilowatts
medicine uses vast amounts (syringes and other equipment) and don't forget tyres, coatings such as paint, lubricants, fact is you can't touch anything not involving oil, not even food (fertiliser)
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Kevin,
Mr Diesel and Ford where both wealthy folks and men of vision do you really believe that they were scrounging around for what ever fuel was available?
Mr Diesel was inventing a new technolgy doesnt it make sense that he would use what he believed to be the best fuel possible?
I think the oil industry has tampered with history long enough!
Peace&Love :D, Darren
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Dawg,
Your quote: "Mr Diesel and Ford where both wealthy folks and men of vision do you really believe that they were scrounging around for what ever fuel was available?"
Yes, as a mater of fact I do. You can't sell a machine that needs a fuel that isn't readily available.
Kevin
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Greetings from australia!
This is my first post so I'll keep it brief:
1) I measured the compression on my 12/2 (With change over valves)
starting : 16.9:1
Running : 14.9:1
This was with .052 head clearance (as delivered). As a result I've decided to run full time with the c/o valves screwed in.Seems to help with the used ATF mix that I'm running until i can get hold of veggie.
2) Ever heard of the BRONS/HVID system? Also known as the vapourising cup system. Diesel is dribbled under gravity into a small cup in the cylinder head and then ignites from compression alone. Whilst it vapourises when the cup is hot, compression has to light the puddle when cold. I have a couple of these motors.Must be the wierdest (/most touchy) system around.
Keep up the good work, great site!
Brian Gilmartin
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wvo in a lister is a no brainer. here are the dollars and sense.
cetane levels for diesel in america are around 40 most wvo is higher around 50
vegetable oil will varnish injectors over time so additives or some steps need to be used to correct this
admittedly running diesel is easy but very expensive
given a life of engine A on dinodiesel and engine B on wvo
given that wvo has 10% less btus than dinodiesel
if engine A lasts 100,000 hours and engine B 50,000 and engine B needs two new injectors and 2 new cylinders and pistons and injector pumps requiring a couple hours to swap and about $500 in parts to last as long as engine a including fuel additives and extra oil changes.
but over the 100,000 hours engine A uses 100,000 liters of fuel at 1.60 a liter and engine b uses free waste oil costing nothing
lets see engine A $160,000 in fuel. engine b $500 in parts and a few extra hours
how long before you all give it up arguing that it makes sense to burn anything but wvo or biodiesel... in a lister cs or listeroid
start your lister on high speed diesel, switch to wvo before shut down switch back. which in real use would be for oil changes. not real hard
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lets see engine A $160,000 in fuel. engine b $500 in parts and a few extra hours
which is more valuable?
the smelter or the axe?
(you'll either get this or you won't)
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I'd like to see the actual figures on cultivating, growing, harvesting and processing oil seeds and come up with a net figure of acreage farmed to acres of economic yeild.
Here's an analysis along those lines from the UK:
"Road transport in the United Kingdom consumes 37.6 million tonnes of petroleum products a year.(5) The most productive oil crop which can be grown in this country is rape. The average yield is between 3 and 3.5 tonnes per hectare.(6) One tonne of rapeseed produces 415 kilos of biodiesel.(7) So every hectare of arable land could provide 1.45 tonnes of transport fuel.
To run our cars and buses and lorries on biodiesel, in other words, would require 25.9m hectares."
<http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2004/11/23/feeding-cars-not-people/>
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....but, how much oil was used in the production of the hectare of rape seed? How much fuel does it take to press and process the seed? What is the 'net' result of growing your own fuel?
To a farmer farming a section (square mile, 640 acres) which is the norm here, to take a hundred acres to grow enough Canola to farm the rest would be in increase in work and less income, but a cheaper fuel bill next year.
The primary question I get from farmer in this area is this-- "How much land do I have to take out of *cash* production to supply my fuel?" and then there's this one-- "So after I farm all year and get the crops sold, I then have to press seeds and make fuel all winter instead of go to Arizona and play golf ?"
This is Canola country, but it's a VERY hard sell to ask a sho nuff farmer to farm his own fuel in addition to what makes his living. It's going to take "Big Energy" to invest in plants that takes oil seeds in return for fuel credits.
The reason diesel tractors are so popular and economically feasible is because they save labor. It does no good to start a labor intensive enterprise to feed the tractor.
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i looked into growing my own fuel and have leanings toward doing it. i have good farm land in wisconsin and can grow enough oil seed, sunflowers being my choice, to produce 100 gallons of fuel per acre. using organic methods it takes about 1/10 of that to grow it and reduce it to oil. there are additional steps besides filtering to be usable in a diesel engine, the first being degumming, which i seem to recall being washed with water.. unfortunately those notes are on the puter at the farm. the economics are not bad when you consider that organic fresh cold pressed sunflower oils sells for a small fortune and you can use the left over for your fuel. it also provides a survivalist like myself a backup to there being no more fuel. it saves well in seed form. and only really breaks down bad after it is pressed.
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Procrustes,
In the UK about 40% of our road vehicles run on diesel, mainly the commercial vehicles, and about 40% of the cars. Everything else is gasoline, apart for a few LPG and electric and steam cars!
The figures that you found rather assumed that everything ran on biodiesel, which clearly can never be the case.
The truth is that we do have spare arable land here, which could be turned over to growing oil seed rape. The oil produced could be used to make locally produced biodiesel, in the same way that some German Farming co-operatives are now doing.
IMHO, growing oil crops is never going to replace all the petroleum fuel needed for road transport and farming, but it could possibly be used to offset possibly 10 or 20%.
For this to become viable, petroleum oil will have to remain at around $60 per barrel, to help stimulate these alternative renewable fuel markets. So long as we have cheap petroleum, these markets and alternatives will struggle to develop, unless they are given a Government incentive - such as has occurred in Germany.
If, I were to run my vehicles and my household requirements solely on rapeseed oil, I would be looking at about 5000 litres per year, which I think is about 30 acres of rape, which is clearly not practical for every household.
Consequently every household will continue to use a mix of fuels and electricity generated from a mix of fuels. If one particular fuel becomes cheaper, as a result of other fuels rising in price, then the energy industry will move in and utilise it. They always use the cheapest fuel. Once that was coal, then it was gas, and now it may be coal again.
The UK energy policy has got way-laid by environmentalists and anti-nuclear institutions. Britain only produces 2% of the worlds CO2. Even if we cut that by 50%, it would be a drop in the ocean compare to the ever increasing outputs from China, India and the USA.
Experts, and well respected government scientists are now saying that we must start building new nuclear plants immediately, there is no other option, otherwise we will face severe power outages by 2010, 2012.
Whilst I personnaly am not a nuclear proponent, I tend to agree, that the time for deliberating is over and we must act now. Typically a nuclear power plant takes 8 to 10 years to build before it starts generating. 9 of our 13 remaining 1st generation plants will be decommissioned by 2010. There will be a shortfall of about 20% of the electricity requirement by 2010.
This is why I am investing in 75 year old Lister technology, and finding my own personal alternatives.
Ken
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Experts, and well respected government scientists are now saying that we must start building new nuclear plants immediately, there is no other option, otherwise we will face severe power outages by 2010, 2012.
Whilst I personnaly am not a nuclear proponent, I tend to agree, that the time for deliberating is over and we must act now. Typically a nuclear power plant takes 8 to 10 years to build before it starts generating. 9 of our 13 remaining 1st generation plants will be decommissioned by 2010. There will be a shortfall of about 20% of the electricity requirement by 2010.
This is why I am investing in 75 year old Lister technology, and finding my own personal alternatives.
Ken
technically speaking we SHOULD have started building aa minimum of five new nuke plants at least five years ago, and started more in the interim, but short term shareholder interests don't sit with 20 year plans on investment infrastructure.
what probably will happen is shortages breeding crash build programmes with corners cut
TRUE STORY
I was talking to someone last week who contracts within the industry, doing a lot of the trends and analysis stuff, some REALLY fascinating stuff there but unfortunately I don't feel able to repeat what were private conversations in a public forum, however, he was telling me that he was speaking to someone senior in our energy generation industry, and they casually dropped into the conversation in a rather throwaway "everybody knows this" manner that "the UK" is pulling investments out of the USA as fast as it can.
eg build a widget factory in the US and like it or not the US government has control over production and costs
pure speculation on my part now, but it is a known fact that the USA are world kings at per capita energy consumption, so it stands to reason that if there is a "wall" they will hit it first, and any investments based on US soil will be affected.
I see india and china are both discussing building pipelines to iran / iraq
the thing that troubles me most is I live in devon, which used to produce a third of the UK's milk and a third of the meat, and for some two or three years now I can drive miles through the country and hardly ever see any fields with livestock in them.
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you are correct on two points. first that nuclear power is the answer. it is cheap, clean, safe, and renewable. the reason we dont have as much in america is pressure for the oil oligarchy and politics. second, that white christian america is being destroyed by design and enemies in high places have been moving in settlers (lured with free food housing medical....) that are neither white nor christian while changing the laws to impede manufacturing and the production of wealth. america grew strong and rich when there was liberty to produce. now instead of imports bearing the tax burden, it is american business and its people. this has caused a movement of production from this country to other countries. this has been done by design and americans had better wake to their destructions. our children will not inherit the blessings of liberty but the chains of slavery for our slothfulness. rather than accept their chains and drink at the tit of their over priced oil, i will go the extra step and work the extra hour to become as self sufficient as possible. despite their continuing to enact administrative laws (such as banning lister imports) to limit my ability to do so
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The figures that you found rather assumed that everything ran on biodiesel, which clearly can never be the case.
My post caused some confusion. Hotater was wondering about the viability of oil crops, so I posted those figures to demonstrate that in fact biodeisel can't be regarded as a solution to our energy woes. I agree that biofuel will mitigate our energy shortfall. There are environmental costs though, namely the conversion of rainforest fo rape field.
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Rocket....Don't go blaming your (american) forces that are "globalizing", it's a world thing. Same thing happens here in Canada. There's some pretty powerful people out there divvying up the world between them and we (you and I) don't count. I just heard your government is selling off 5 or 6 of your biggest ports (NY, San Fran...etc.) to a Saudi Arabian company to run.
Stan
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they arent my forces or my government. i belong to a different kingdom with a different king and different laws. they handed the panama canal and the pacific ocean deep sea port to china a few years ago. it is nothing new. only difference is i have been awake to their destructions for sometime.. just waiting for the sheep to wake up and darn if they arent very sound sleepers.
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Rocket, how many crops/year can you get out of sunflower in your neck of the north?
Quinn
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My .02...
If only it was as easy as building more nukes. I'd be all for it. Maybe you guys can solve a couple of my objections to nuclear energy.
1. How long do you have to store the longest lived radioisotope produced in the making of nuclear electricity before it's "safe"?
2. If you amortize the whole storage expense (secure and monitored) in any real world reasonable way, what does it add to the cost of a kwh to store said waste for specified time period.
3. What is the lifespan of a good nuclear plant? How much does it cost to decommision said plant? How much does that add to the cost of a kwh?
4. How can you guys who are distrustful of big government think they will do a good job at this? Nuclear energy is totally immersed in big governments.
I'm genuinely interested in hearing the analysis.
Finest regards,
troy
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1) Much longer than me or anybody that remembers me will be around....10,000 years, I think?
2) That is a cost of doing business. When my cousin and I were reading about the "coming years of free (nuke) power" in mid 50-s Popular Mechanics he said nothing that good will ever be free.
He just retired from Southern Power where he oversaw seven nuke plants.
3)50 years, but most have been taken out earlier. The cost is whatever it is...again, the cost of doing business that the customer eventually pays. It's no different than reclaiming a mine or capping a well or cleaning a super fund site.
4) I never said I trusted them, but what are the options? You want a nuke next door that was designed and built by the lowest bidder with no oversight? The only people WE can hire and fire is through elections. We just got to hang them on a hook when we hire them and only turn them loose to do good things.....and WATCH them!
How much tourism dollars have been lost to the hydro plants of the West? What ARE wild run salmon really worth? How much diesel in burned hauling coal from Wyoming to points east to turn into electricity. (one hundred, hundred ton coal cars every ten minutes through the Platte Valley. 24/7)
Why DOES every kitchen need a can opener and an egg beater powered by dino fuel ?? Does hair not dry by itself anymore??
Nuke power is over-ripe for massive standardization--- If three or four designs were hammered out to utilize varying conditions of cooling water, access, ect....then all would be cheaper and engineers could transfer and inspectors would only have nine million pages of specs and regs instead of the seemingly endless supply of them now.
The real problem with government is too much of it with a mission statement of "keep my job".
By re-designing every thing from scratch it keeps the private sector beholding to the tax money spenders....Just exactly HOW many schools need to be designed?? Any school district *should* be able to buy a set of plans for ANY school in the world for $5K....but they pay millions. It's the same with nukes, refinerys, mines, hospitals, courthouses and cop shops.
...it's also why they dig ditches to put water lines in just after the street has been paved. :-\ :-\
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I see now why I confused hotater and MrLister. Here's what I said:
Here's an analysis along those lines from the UK:
"Road transport in the United Kingdom consumes 37.6 million tonnes of petroleum products a year.(5) The most productive oil crop which can be grown in this country is rape. The average yield is between 3 and 3.5 tonnes per hectare.(6) One tonne of rapeseed produces 415 kilos of biodiesel.(7) So every hectare of arable land could provide 1.45 tonnes of transport fuel.
To run our cars and buses and lorries on biodiesel, in other words, would require 25.9m hectares."
<http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2004/11/23/feeding-cars-not-people/>
Whereas I should have said:
Here's an analysis along those lines from the UK:
"Road transport in the United Kingdom consumes 37.6 million tonnes of petroleum products a year.(5) The most productive oil crop which can be grown in this country is rape. The average yield is between 3 and 3.5 tonnes per hectare.(6) One tonne of rapeseed produces 415 kilos of biodiesel.(7) So every hectare of arable land could provide 1.45 tonnes of transport fuel.
To run our cars and buses and lorries on biodiesel, in other words, would require 25.9m hectares. There are 5.7m in the United Kingdom.
<http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2004/11/23/feeding-cars-not-people/>
My point was that the UK requires 25.9m hectares of rapeseed to fulfill its road transport needs, whereas the UK consists of 5.7m hectares.
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1. How long do you have to store the longest lived radioisotope produced in the making of nuclear electricity before it's "safe"?
isotopes are EITHER long half life, OR dangerous, in the radiation sense.
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Procrustes-- I'm easily confused...especially when I don't know exactly how many acres or sections a 'hectar' is? :D
I think you made my point-- free energy is VERY expensive.
After spending a year with the Uncle in a Third World country many years ago, I figured the price we pay for oil is well worth it to have flush toilets that actually go somewhere besides the gutter and roads without ruts.
We buy comfort with what flows from the ground nearly free. We drive a tractor instead of grow food for an ox. We grow food for sale and buy food cheap. Fuel cost are slow to be assimulated in the economy, but don't ever change direction.
Reality is unhandy sometimes, but durable.
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Troy,
Your beautiful and anyone that thinks different is simply wrong!
Peace&Love :D, Darren
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Dear Hotater and other illustrious group members,
Just to get a little fact check, here's a typical quote concerning one of the isotopes we have to deal with from high level nuclear waste:
"The rate of decay of a radioactive isotope is called its half-life, the time in which half the initial amount of atoms present takes to decay. The half-life of Plutonium-239, one particularly lethal component of nuclear waste, is 24,000 years. The hazardous life of a radioactive element (the length of time that must elapse before the material is considered safe) is at least 10 half-lives. Therefore, Plutonium-239 will remain hazardous for at least 240,000 years."
So even if you compute some ridiculously low number for storage cost per kg per year, the sum is still fantastically high, making nuclear more expensive per kwh than hiring poor people to run on treadmills to make electricity. Many very smart engineering types think it's not just difficult to store the waste securely and safely for that long, it's impossible.
So ignoring the nuclear proliferation problem of plutonium (an unavoidable byproduct) which make lovely bombs for terrorists (even dirty bombs just to distribute the stuff), and ignoring the fact that we have less than two decades worth of mineable uranium, and ignoring the decommisioning costs, which typically run 1x to 2x the cost of building the plant, and ignoring the typical cost overuns to get it built in the first place (1.5x to 3x original projected cost are typical), and ignoring the costs of a big whoops (the USSR lost more money on chernoble than all the money it ever saved on energy costs from all of its nuclear plants), it all boils down to the right tool for the right job.
Nukes are not that tool. It's just too expensive to deal with the waste for a quarter of billion (with a B) years. (strike that. It's Million with an M. EMMMMM. Million.)
Facts supplied to support all of that upon request.
Not a tree hugger, more like a spreadsheet guy. I do like trees though...
Not a flamer, not a troll, I want an answer just as bad as you guys do.
Finest regards,
troy
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Peace&Love :D, Darren
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in northern wisconsin we can only grow 1 crop per year.
in response to the nuclear power issues. i trained at the feet of galen winsor the nuclear physicist that design and managed the plutonium recovery plant in morris illinois in the late 70s and was also the one sent into three mile island to inspect the core.
nuclear power is cheap plentiful and safe. and there is no such thing as nuclear waste. that is a myth created by the oil cartels
the government has spent billions of dollars building underground holes for nuclear waste but not an ounce has ever been put in the holes. the reason why.... i will say it again... there is no such thing as nuclear waste. why did they dig the holes? maybe for their underground cities for when they reduce the worlds population like they are always talking about.
here is the physics and economics. uranium oxide known as yellow cake costs $10 a pound. nuclear fuel rods (invented for metalic uranium fuel and used because of the stupid rules which abound for reactors) are placed in the core to burn. the burn is ejection of neutrons which split atoms.... yellow cake is approximately 99 percent inert (usless dirt) Uranium 238 and 1 percent fissionable uranium 235 the 235 splits.. ejects neutrons some split addition uranium, others are absorbed by the U238.
when U238 absorbs a N it goes through a double beta decay (ejects two electrons) and mutates into plutonium. the plutonium is very valueable on the order of $30,000 a lb and more.
what about the nuclear waste? there is no nuclear waste. all the isotopes have value in medical, food industry, agriculture, research.........
rods are called spent after approx 3 years in the reactor. these spent fuel rods are not spent but enriched. enriched as in more radioactive, more powerful, and more valueable. the $10 a pound yellow cake has been spun into material more valueable then gold or platinum.
bottom line is they lie... they lie alot. the reason is to steal from us. they sit on trillions of dollars of isotopes while making us pay for the storage. they tell us the stuff is so poisonous that one ounce can kill 50,000 people. Galens joke was he would take an ounce and slug it down with a beer and say.. i do that to piss them off so they have to bury me in a lead lined coffin 3,000 feet deep.
the most famous accidents in the history of nuclear fuel are 3 mile island and chernobyl. both were staged on purpose. at 3mile island it was the day fema was created and they needed a test, so they scrammed the reactor 3 times until they were able to crack one percent of the fuel rods and by law had to shut down the reactor. again the fuel rods were created to isolate metalic uranium from the water so it would not oxidize but the 3mile island reactor used uranium oxide so there was no need to ever shut it down.
the second and maybe more famous accident was chernobyl. america designed and built that reactor. it was powered by unshielded uranium oxide until american engineers told the potatoe farmers that they could increase output 50% by switching to metalic uranium. of course their scientists liked the idea because metalic uranium creates metalic plutonium which is easily chemically extracted for making bombs. the russians took the bait. the unshielded metalic uranium reacted with the water U + H2O = UO + H2 pretty simple reaction even for potatoe farmers to understand. as the levels of free hydrogen rose above 4% it only took a spark to blow the reactor up. end of story.
until we can clean the rats from the district of corruption, i will look to burn wvo in a listeroid.
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It is indeed, all about conservation. So, on that note, how about this:
http://www.canadiandriver.com/articles/gw/vw1litre.htm
It's a ~300 mpg Volkswagon and it's not a hybrid. Holds two folks and some gear and it doesn't look like a turd either.
Or how about this:
http://www.worldcarfans.com/news.cfm?newsid=2050607.004/country/gcf
It's a 70-80 mpg mercedes with room for four and plenty of luggage along with all the comforts.
We can and we will learn to conserve, hopefully before we damage our economy too much.
Finest regards,
troy
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These are great concept cars. But Mercedes already has an 80 mpg diesel, the Smart Fortwo. They make it with four seats too.
I can buy one in Canada. But i can't buy one in the US. Guess what US agency won't let me?
Russell
It is indeed, all about conservation. So, on that note, how about this:
http://www.canadiandriver.com/articles/gw/vw1litre.htm
It's a ~300 mpg Volkswagon and it's not a hybrid. Holds two folks and some gear and it doesn't look like a turd either.
Or how about this:
http://www.worldcarfans.com/news.cfm?newsid=2050607.004/country/gcf
It's a 70-80 mpg mercedes with room for four and plenty of luggage along with all the comforts.
We can and we will learn to conserve, hopefully before we damage our economy too much.
Finest regards,
troy
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Maybe somebody should remind these idiots they're designing cars that have no streets smooth enough to drive on.
What difference is mileage if the first pot hole totals the car??
You WON'T catch me riding in a carbon fiber roach waiting for for the stomp.....even if they AND the fuel is totally free of charge.
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Maybe somebody should remind these idiots they're designing cars that have no streets smooth enough to drive on.
What difference is mileage if the first pot hole totals the car??
You WON'T catch me riding in a carbon fiber roach waiting for for the stomp.....even if they AND the fuel is totally free of charge.
Hell, Jack, you live about 50 miles past the end of everything. I don't think you fit their demographics anyway. ;D
I'd like one, but I don't know where I'd hang the gun rack.
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Hi Guys, (why not guys & girls? ??? Something about Listeroids and Y chromosomes, don't you agree?)
In any case, I'm always astounded at how a thread about starting on crappy wvo evolves into discussions of world energy needs. I'd just like to mention the real-life problem found at Chernobyl. Though the Russians (the old USSR) was not noted for their rampant environmental ethic, somehow several hundred citizens willingly sacrificed their lives pouring loads of concrete from a helicopter onto a nuclear meltdown. Subsequently, the government evacuated about a hundred square miles of city and farmland because of contamination by nuclear isotopes which will remain toxic for several thousand years to long-lived animals like ourselves. I seriously doubt that they (the Russians) did it because of any plot by western oil companys. Interestingly, rodents and some other short-lived animals have re-occupied the lands, and seem to be thriving. Radioactive isotopes are unlike any other toxic material, in that while they can be caught and isolated with extremely expensive processes, their radioactivity can never be "de-toxified". Radioactive atoms run down (throw off those additional particles until they attain a stable isotope) at their own rate, independant of anything mortal humans are capable of. Alteration of the nucleus of an atom by adding extra neutrons or protons is what happens all day every day in stars like our very own sun. That is why, IMHO, any nuclear process active enough to produce heat belongs at least 93 million miles away from my back yard. I think humans are just too corrupt/greedy/ignorant/stupid/mistake-prone to safely use nuclear power to run a toaster. Better to do without the toaster than risk contaminating our only home. Maybe freezing in the dark really is an attractive alternative to an early death from radiation induced cancer? Having watched family members go through the dying process with all the comforts of western medicine, it really doesn't look like much fun. Just my $0.02. Thanks for reading my personal rant, ;D
Ray
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Peace&Love :D, Darren
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thats an interesting post about chernobyl, but totally fabricated
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The BBC ran an interesting program on Chernoble and evidently they are taking tourists through one abandoned town but they have to wear radiation monitors and when they start to beep you have to run back to the bus and get out of town. Not my idea of a holiday ::)
Stan
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Welllll, I didn't live, nor have I ever visited Chernobyl. I did visit Hiroshima in June of 2004. Anyone who really believes radiation induced sickness is a hoax, needs to visit the Peace Museum there. And, if that is a hoax, the huge scar running down the back of my wife's great-uncle's neck from when he was a child of 8 just outside the blast zone is not a hoax. I saw it, and no jive is going to convince me it isn't real. Incidentally, none of the people living in Hiroshima will talk about the bomb. Too many awful memories. What this has to do with Listeroids is beyond me though. Sigh-ning off,
Ray :-X
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you visited hiroshima, you mean it wasnt a nuclear wasteland for thousands of years. tell us about all the people walking around with cancer or two heads... wait thats right cancer rates in hiroshima are actually half the national average
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I served on five nuclear attack submarines never further than 150 feet from the reactor for months on a time. When I was junior I slept over a thermonuclear warhead with, (subroc) 34 millirem an hour at the warhead skin. I still have all my fingers and toes too.
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isnt it amazing that a nuclear submarine reactor powered by 98% radioctive U235 is safe with only a few inches of shielding, but commercial reactors running only 1.5% U235 need yards thick concrete and millions of dollars of redundant systems even though they go cold as soon as you drain the water from them
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Not to mention the fact that commercial reactors are run by engineers while navy reactors are run by enlisted with a 1.5 year tech school.
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lgsracer would you say the navy reactor would fit in a one car garage or would it take two?
.... it isnt rocket science you pile up rocks fill the tank of water they sit in, they start to burn and boil the water. you drain the water they stop burning. hydrogen in the water is a neutron reflector. without the water it doesnt react. easier then fueling a wood stove. it is being stolen from us by people that are economically enslaving us. they use lies and our fears to do it.
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The reactor and its primary sheilding would probably fit in a large three car garage, its the secondary systems that are much bigger. Steam turbines 4 sets two for proplusion two for AC generations 6 megawatts in the newer subs. All the other pumps for cooling and condensate excetera. The whole back half of a submarine is two decks high and is all engineering systems.
The S6G reactor plant consists of the reactor coolant, steam generating and other support systems that supplies steam to the engine room of United States Navy's Los Angeles class submarines. The 688 class engine room powers two steam turbines that propel a single-shaft rated at 30,000 horsepower plus the electrical generation system. The S6G reactor plant was originally designed to use the D1G core 2 reactor first used on the CGN-25 Bainbridge class of guided missile cruisers rated at 148 MW. All submarines following the SSN-719 were built with a D2W reactor rated at 165 MW. The D1G-2 reactors are being replaced with D2W reactors when the ships are refueled.
U.S. Naval reactors are assigned three-character designations consisting of a letter representing the ship type the reactor is designed for, a consecutive generation number, and a letter indicating the reactor's designer.
The ship types are: "A" for aircraft carrier, "C" for cruiser, "D" for destroyer, or "S" for submarine.
The designers are: "W" for Westinghouse, "G" for General Electric, and "C" for Combustion Engineering.
Specifications are classified, but the S6G can propel a Los Angeles Class submarine at 25+ knots in open water and 30+ knots while submerged.
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So this is where the "Peak Oil" thread went. I wasn't much interested in WVO, so I didn't follow it here until now.
I see Darren is knocking heads over here too. I like you Darren, but you seem over invested in New Age Holistic Save Mother Earth from the Conspiricy theories. You believe in unrealistic solutions to energy problems due to a lack of scale perspective. You seem willing to be responsible for your future, and have a willing desire to do the right thing, you just don't really know what that's going to be when the time comes. None of us really do, but you hold forth like you DO know. I knew everything once, then I grew up and my dad seemed alot smarter too.
By the way, I don't think many of us believe that oil is Mother Earth's lubricant for the earth's tectonic plate system.
I presonally believe that the true value of oil is about $400 per Bbl, (not from me, an oil services banker opined thus, and said something is wrong when bottled water costs more per pint than oil) and we are depleting it too fast. Oil is a complex hydrocarbon glop that can be used for so many important things. Burning it for heat seems stupid. It takes so long to make. The problem with oil has been the ease of getting it, heck, it used to squirt out of the ground! Then it is so easy to transport, store and use! During the steam era, you just sprayed it into the boiler furnace intead of shovelling coal in. Much cleaner too. Oil made internal cumbustion engines possible. I know you read that Dr Diesel wanted to use VO, but that's because Germany did'nt have any petroleum. Look for the realistic aspect of this. He tried coal because Germany has alot of it. But Dr. Diesel did not invent the Internal Combustion Compression Ignited Heat Enigne. He incrumentally improved the fuel delivery system that helped lift IC from Semi-diesel to the engine we know today. Early Hot bulb engine were sometimes called crude oil engines, because the low compression ratio and various proprietary combinations of fuel delivery, water injection, hot bulbs, torches, spark system, externat combustion chambers etc. allowed the use of locally available, unrefined oil to be used.
I once read a book about power generation that was published in 1918. What an eye opener. That was before the Petroleum industry got a near monopoly. Every mill, mine, powerhouse etc. derived power from the cheapest available source, and there were many! That is where we are headed in the future. This is NO mistery, because it has happened before.
Alot of guys posting here are OLD. They have seen alot over the years, and accumulated alot of engineering knowledge. Some of us have developed some erronious conclusions along the way. It's to be expected. But generally our perspective is pretty long. I'm willing to bet that your a Democrat and you think Al Gore is right on about the environment.
I think he's certifiably insane. But we still have a challenge ahead as we evlove to another power source, even if we disagree about global warming or an ice age. So we have common ground here.
Oil was handy when we needed it. Now I think we will be 'deversifying our power portfolio' with new sources blending in as oil gets more expensive. Will your Lister be able to use the new fuels in a cost effective way? I just read about fuel costs of diesel, VS WVO + overhaul costs. This is a realistic calculation that GuyFawks does not wat to get into. That old book of power was very much into those kinds of decisions. That's what power engineering is all about. Cost, Availability, Time. Scale and Proportion. Unintended consequences. Will we make mistakes in the future? Yes. Will we live with the result? Yes. Will we find solutions? Yes. Nature is self adjusting, and the super high standard of living in the USA cannot be sustained in a global economy unless we are actually that much more productive. Eh, Ubermench?
About the power of the atom: Jimmy Carter defunded fusion research, the literal birth of clean atom power. That man really went out of his way to ruin this country. (my rant)
Scott E
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Peace&Love :D, Darren
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I knew everything once, then I grew up and my dad seemed alot smarter too.
a good for nothing alcoholic once said something very sensible to me
when I was 20, I knew everything and my old man was an asshole
when I was 30, I knew quite a bit and my old man wasn't as dumb as I thought
when I was 40, I didn't know so much and my old man knew a lot more than I thought he did
Will your Lister be able to use the new fuels in a cost effective way? I just read about fuel costs of diesel, VS WVO + overhaul costs. This is a realistic calculation that GuyFawks does not wat to get into.
I'll get into it, as / when / if I need to, for now the economy of the lister means I can run it long after 99% of other diesels become uneconomical
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Scott,
GREAT POST!!!
Sometimes I feel guilty that I'm not paying for access to this site.
Another wacko take that drives me nuts is from those who think adding fluoride to drinking water is not really to help keep their chicklets in their mouth, but a scam to "drug" them into "submission". :P (Way of subject, I know...sorry).
The Germans (Nazis) didn't invade North Africa for nothing, and they didn't spend resources during an all out war to develop "synthetic" petroleum substitutes to "save" the environment.
Kevin
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Glad to see there's more consensus and middle ground developing.
Great post Scott.
Gore WAS robbed. Of common sense. There are times when I think he has a very tenuous grip on reality as we know it.
I think both the Democrats and the Republicans are musicians making sweet music on the deck of the Titanic to calm the masses as the lower decks flood. I am glad to see that there are others out there working the pumps and getting the life boats in order.
If forced to choose, I vote Republican every time. Although if we could get an electable Libertarian candidate, now that would be a worthwhile national debate.
Finest regards,
troy
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The political system is set up to insure a lack of unity in the population!
Has anyone noticed how the core beliefs of the two major parties are intended to mislead and blend good and evil?
There is no right or wrong party and thats just the way they want it.
For example republicans are generally pro life and pro god great, sounds like good stuff right?
Is it pro god to destroy the little untouched nature reserves that we have?
Is it pro life to invade others lands and kill them for their natural resorces or to implement the death penality?
Then theres the democrates they stand for improved health care and better education.
Are they providing better health care to the un born children they are willing to kill?
Is someone better educated that believes its ok to kill a child?
You see the system is geared to cause cliques in the ignorant and to overwhelm the educated.
We are one people and it is one earth we as earth citizens need to take the power back from the oppressive greed oriented officals. Love your brothers and sisters look for the common ground between us its there if you want it to be.
If we can put pride aside and god first we will see that there is a job for all of us if we embrace our nature. Peace and harmony will be found.
Peace&Love :D, Darren
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Darren,
". . . look for the common ground between us . . . " Hear, hear. Everyone's different, reinforce the positive - always. The politicians will divide us if they can because that's what gets them elected. On other issues, we can agree to disagree. :-\
Ray
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What pray tell do politicans of either the left or the right know about Listers?? I mean I know Al Gore invented the Internet ( :) ) but really gentlemen don't talk about three things in polite company. Religion, Ladies and Politics... lets keep things polite :P
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Sooner or later no matter what the forum religion and politics creap in.
It makes for a great read if all parties can be respectful and so far I haven't read a thing here that turns me off.
Besides, I haven't started quoting Marx yet lol....
Seriously how can you understand a philosophy of alternative energy or off grid living without understanding the motivation of the man who builds a system.
Is it an eco-bunker, cottage or a home to far from the hydro poles. What "Joe Blow" thinks is a reflection of his system demands and I for one like the idea of knowing the man as well as his Lister.
Doug