In OTL the explosion of gasoline powered vehicles wouldn't have been possible without advances in the refining of petroleum. Before these advances, gasoline was considered an "expensive by product", and the majorty of cars where either electric, or combustion using a different fuel. Ethanol, (also known as drinking alchohol) is easy to mass produce, so easy in fact that humans have been mass producing it for thousands of years for the purpose of getting drunk, and can be used in internal combustion engines. Let's say gasoline remains an expensive by-product, so the majority of car manufacturers begin mass producing cars that run off of ethanol instead. How does this effect the evolution of human culture and technology?
WI: Ethanol Vehicles the norm from early on?
- Thread starter ArKhan
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Since we're talking 'early on', by which i assume we mean ~1900, thats not an option.
Except a lot of crop is grown for animal feed, & that can double as fuel grain. The food value doesn't get lost if it's "slurried" for ethanol; just the sugar is taken out. Also (as mentioned), there's methanol; if an inexpensive process to convert wood to alcohol can be found (it's harder to do, since the wood "resists" in a way I don't understand...MattII said:
), every timber & pulp mill can be turned into a fuel refinery. (There are places with piles of wood chips hundreds of feet high.)Then there are more exotic ways: using bacteria or algae to produce alcohol in tanks (like the big oil storage tanks).
Fact is, it's easier to re-engineer the cars to use a different engine that runs on natural gas or propane or liquified coal gas or something...
Stirling engines, anyone?
The oil industry began by producing kerosine (lamp oil), and that was the main focus during middle-late 19the century. The kerosine lamp spread over the world and made humans less dependent on daylight. The oil refineries produced a lot of non-kerosine. Some of it could be sold (like vaseline) while others was seen as useless - the main Dutch oil refinery in Indonesia pumped the gasoline over a cliff and burnt it during decades.
But sooner or later the light bulb (or any mean of lightning driven by electricity) would start supplementing the kerosine lamp, thereby lowering the need for kerosine. And then the oil producers (or more exactly, the oil refiners) would need to find new markets for their oil products.
Gasoline is simply a wonderous fluid with very high energy content. If you want a powerful but light engine, for a car or airplane, it is the logical answer. Ethanol is, just as batteries in the early 20th century, a far worse alternative.
But sooner or later the light bulb (or any mean of lightning driven by electricity) would start supplementing the kerosine lamp, thereby lowering the need for kerosine. And then the oil producers (or more exactly, the oil refiners) would need to find new markets for their oil products.
Gasoline is simply a wonderous fluid with very high energy content. If you want a powerful but light engine, for a car or airplane, it is the logical answer. Ethanol is, just as batteries in the early 20th century, a far worse alternative.
Today's corn ethanol has an energy return on energy invested of 1.2:1. Early gasoline use should be at least fifty times better than that, and doesn't require valuable agricultural land. The only reason ethanol would become dominant is Rule of Cool.
Shadow Master
Banned
AFAIK, ethanol is a better fuel than gasoline. isn't it true that an engine that is designed for pure ethanol has the same fuel efficiency as gasonline, but more HP?
E 85/15 is a clever bit of subterfuge on the part of oil companies, as it seems too prove that adding ethanol to your tank makes your car have to fuel up more often, and that therefore the ethanol must be a worse fuel.
OTOH, the octane rating of ethanol is actually higher than gasoline, and IIRC this rates how much compression the fuel can take to yield the maximum power output (or something like that).
Gasoline burn best at what, 8.1 or so? But ethanol doesn't hit it's stride till around something like 13.9 or thereabouts?
So we can see that ethanol added into a gasoline mixture is not going to boost fuel efficiency, if the engine is using the compression ratio for maximum efficiency for gasoline. And if the engine were to be set to use the proper setting for pure ethanol, then the gasoline will not burn properly, thus giving even worse fuel efficiency.
Only when pure ethanol is in the tank, and the engine is set to purn it at maximum efficiency, will you be able to see the true power of ethanol over gasoline. I think that this was the reason Henry Ford origanally wanted to use ethanol.
Thoughts?
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Shadow Master
Banned
Well, it would mean that there would be a brief time when folks were able to make their own fuel for their personal transportation vehicles.
Of course, then the big companies would try and step in and squash the ethanol fuel business, and then we would see the majority of cars running on the products of the 'big ethanol' instead of 'big oil' companies, but still some folks, knowing the truth, would continue making their own fuel.Or electrics. As late as the 1910s, electric cars outnumbered gasoline cars.
i heard once that Ford original planned to use Ethanol to fuel his model-T.
if this true i don't know. but it would make nice POD
if this true i don't know. but it would make nice POD
ethanol needs land and farmers.
effectively you let food compete with energy, which is bad, as in 2 billion people starving bad.
effectively you let food compete with energy, which is bad, as in 2 billion people starving bad.
Nope. Ethanol & methanol have less energy per pound.Shadow Master said:
Not sure about octane in relation to non-hydrocarbons...but ethanol does enable an IC engine to run at higher compression. Gasoline engines today are commonly 9.5-10:1, thanks to improved combustion chambers (better burn & less detonation), & up to 15-16:1 is credibly routine for alcohol. (That's why drag racers use it.)Shadow Master said:
Actually, all the ethanol does is prevent detonation. It means compression can be higher. Fuel economy is unaffected; in fact, if power is held constant, economy should climb.Shadow Master said:
Did you not read what I wrote?anotherlurker said:
Shadow Master
Banned
Hmmm. That isn't my understanding, but then again, maybe things have changed in the last few years.
I remember reading about a Japanese car that was able to use either fuel, and had sensors to detect the type of fuel that was currently running through the engine, and somehow adjust the compression ratio on the fly to burn the fuel most effectively. The article was either in Popular Science or Popular Mechanics some years ago, and was clear on the part about the fuel efficiency remaining the same, but the power being greater (zero to sixty) in less time, which seems to agree with the bolded part of your quote.
Electric cars are good for cities, but back then the batteries weren't good for anything but urban travel.
It's 2013, and none of those things are commercially viable. They are not available in the time period where the future of the vehicle industry is decided, and I don't really understand why you're bringing them up at all.Except a lot of crop is grown for animal feed, & that can double as fuel grain. The food value doesn't get lost if it's "slurried" for ethanol; just the sugar is taken out. Also (as mentioned), there's methanol; if an inexpensive process to convert wood to alcohol can be found (it's harder to do, since the wood "resists" in a way I don't understand...
Then there are more exotic ways: using bacteria or algae to produce alcohol in tanks (like the big oil storage tanks).
Fact is, it's easier to re-engineer the cars to use a different engine that runs on natural gas or propane or liquified coal gas or something...
Stirling engines, anyone?