Astounding stuff I saw today

[fst h2o]

Wow, someone that actually knows how the Oil Industry works. Props!

 

I work in the industry. I like to know about my future and what's going on.

[Evil_inc]

The oil industry is certainly not raping anyone. They make a mere $.08 profit per $1 of sales. Many other industries make much more, some over twice as much.

 

I'd rather not do a huge math problem, but there's no way ethanol can be as fuel efficient as gasoline. Gasoline releases more energy and produces more gaseous product.

 

Yeah sorry, i got a pice of incorrect information about the mpg of ethanol.

I assume that the oil industries would either develop ethanol fuel or otherwise buy or merdge with another company that has. I know that the oil companies do not make a wad on sales but what are the predicted cost to sales on ethanol? and if they are higher than they are now (possibly because of ease of refinery and absence of all of the drilling equitment and such) then i can only assume that ethonal would be urged onto the market with cheap competitive prices and cheaper ethanol compatibable cars. Introducing more jobs into the market, costing all business less, and pretty much making the market thrive. i cant wait.

[red930]

ExRoadie rant ON

 

The key to having an efficient fuel for internal combustion engines is the amount of BTUs contained in the fuel.

 

Regular Unleaded gas has the highest BTU content of any fuel readily available. Ethanol, Propane and Hydrogen have much lower BTU content.

 

This means that the Miles Per Gallon of each of these is much lower than pump gas.

 

Even if Ethanol was available for the same price per gallon, you would burn more fuel per mile making it more expensive.

 

The price per gallon of Ethanol, Propane and Hydrogen are already higher than pump gas.

 

Three things must happen to lower gas prices.

 

First: The Oil companies must be allowed to build new refineries. There hasn't been a new major refinery built in the United States in almost 30 years.

 

The new refineries need to be built closer to the "new" population centers and away from areas prone to Hurricanes.

 

Second: Until Nuclear power is brought back into the mainstream with pebble bed reactors, we will continue to consume fossil fuel to generate electricity.

 

If we could switch to Nuclear power for electricity generation, we could then afford to juice-up our electric vehicles. Simply moving the consumption of fossil fuels from the car to the power plant won't do us any good.

 

Three: The consumer states that have Oil and Natural Gas on land and off shore need to get off their "no exploration" high horse.

 

Do you realize that 38% of the fossil fuels produced by the United States comes from or through Louisiana? 38%. Did you know that California that doesn't allow off shore drilling gets more money from this production than Louisiana? Did you know that Florida that doesn't allow off shore drilling gets more money from this production than Louisiana?

 

FYI The recent spike in gas prices is due to the refineries cutting over from "winter" gas and fuel oil production to "summer" gas. During this time they also perform any maintenance to their production facilities. If we had more refining capacity the flow of stock wouldn't get so tight during these times and prices wouldn't fluctuate due to supply and demand.

 

ExRoadie rant OFF

Yeah sorry, i got a pice of incorrect information about the mpg of ethanol.

I assume that the oil industries would either develop ethanol fuel or otherwise buy or merdge with another company that has. I know that the oil companies do not make a wad on sales but what are the predicted cost to sales on ethanol? and if they are higher than they are now (possibly because of ease of refinery and absence of all of the drilling equitment and such) then i can only assume that ethonal would be urged onto the market with cheap competitive prices and cheaper ethanol compatibable cars. Introducing more jobs into the market, costing all business less, and pretty much making the market thrive. i cant wait.

[Guest thespin]

Here is a fairly new patent (inventor is a friend) which is a pure rotary internal combustion engine with only two moving parts that can be configured to use many types of fuels:

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?...4&RS=PN/6390794

 

To see the images, install this activex control:

http://www.alternatiff.com/install/

 

The inventor is looking for investors to develop a prototype ...

[Smoken Joe]

The lower BTU's can be offset by higher octane. ExR has a point about oil refinerys the people that redesign the old ones make some serious bank. The old not in my back yard concept hard at work as usual. Actualy Methanol would be a pretty good idea with very high octane making up for the low BTUs They were used in the indy cars for a wile with very good results and if done in quantity it could be cheap. How are you really going to compete with just sucking someting out of the ground and seperating the best parts for gas and the worst for heating oil. Yes they do change the fule some but not to nearly the extent as the alternate fules. The same not in my back yard concept also makes it hard for any seious enviromental projects too. No one wants to live in the real world.

 

 

Ironicly many of the dual eletric cars use more fule than the gas only ones. The US just needs to stop making land crusers that waste 2 gallons of gas to pik up a slurpy.

[Evil_inc]

Here is a fairly new patent (inventor is a friend) which is a pure rotary internal combustion engine with only two moving parts that can be configured to use many types of fuels:

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?...4&RS=PN/6390794

 

To see the images, install this activex control:

http://www.alternatiff.com/install/

 

The inventor is looking for investors to develop a prototype ...

 

yeah, there have been several rotary engines made and some of the most famous designs were during the 1970's when hippies roamed the earth. It is a good concept overal and i dont know why it didnt catch on. This is the newest rotary design engine that i have seen, and when i was a little kid (i inspired to be an inventor) i desigen the basic concept of one without the previous knowledge of its existence, thats when i found all of this out.

[OceanSeasforMe]

cmay119, yes, along those lines; but any fuel is applicable.

 

Neezer, yes, and yes and no. Under the right circumstances it is possible to obtain a more btu's from the mix. The motor addresses how to obtain more btu's from the fuel.

 

ExRoadie, Spot on. The one refinery the guy is trying to build (Arizona?) is being red tape tied by the erviro nuts. Other than that it has been 20 + years since we have built a new refinery in America. Seems they would rather have the plants and squirrels win rather than risk spilling a naturaly occouring compound back into its natural environment.

 

I am pro nuclear also.

 

Our inability to process different oils also increases our prices. I think we are mostly set up to use light sweet and the heavy stuff we do not buy as much of. Had we the ability to process more of the heavy (impure) oil, it would help decrease prices also. (IMHO)

_______________________

And nope, not a rotary engine.

[red930]

FYI The Octane in fuel has nothing to do with the BTU content. Octane is a measure of the resistance to "knock" or pre-detonation versus compression ratio.

 

link goodness...

http://auto.howstuffworks.com/question90.htm

[fst h2o]

I agree with your first two posts ExRoadie. The third is somewhat mixed. While a few states do limit production, many others have more wells authorized for drilling than there are rigs available for the work. I live in Wyoming, and work all over Wyoming, Colorado, Montana, North Dakota and South Dakota. All of these states have issued permits to drill a huge number of wells. At the current rate of producing a new well, the project I'm working on has two rigs running, and enough work for two years of constant drilling.

 

ExRoadie rant ON

Three: The consumer states that have Oil and Natural Gas on land and off shore need to get off their "no exploration" high horse.

ExRoadie rant OFF

 

 

The octane rating does not have anything to do with how much energy is produced from the ccombustive reaction. It is merely a number that represents a fuels resistance to knocking, premature combustion due to high compression of the gas. Gasoline has an energy density of 125,000 BTU/gal, while ethanol has an energy density of only 84,400 BTU/gal. That means an ethanol engine would have to be 48% more efficient than a gasoline engine to break even with gasoline as a fuel source. Unless a gasoline engine's efficiency is less than 67% it is impossible for ethanol to break even in energy production.

 

As to "Just sucking something out of the ground", you are sorely mistaken. It costs hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars to produce a moderate oil well in the United States. It then needs to be trucked to an oil refinery, which cost at least fifty million dollars (the refinery not the trucking), if not much more. Next, the parts of the crude that are converted to gasoline need to be trucked to the filling stations and then into your car. I personally think that's a lot of work done on something that only costs about $2.00 per gallon before tax (roughly $0.50 per gallon of federal and state tax).

 

The lower BTU's can be offset by higher octane. ExR has a point about oil refinerys the people that redesign the old ones make some serious bank. The old not in my back yard concept hard at work as usual. Actualy Methanol would be a pretty good idea with very high octane making up for the low BTUs They were used in the indy cars for a wile with very good results and if done in quantity it could be cheap. How are you really going to compete with just sucking someting out of the ground and seperating the best parts for gas and the worst for heating oil. Yes they do change the fule some but not to nearly the extent as the alternate fules. The same not in my back yard concept also makes it hard for any seious enviromental projects too. No one wants to live in the real world.

 

I don't know if I'm reading this correctly, but it sounds like you are trying to violate the laws of thermodynamics. The energy released during a reaction is what it is. It cannot be changed. It is possible to harness more of the energy released during combustion as work through more efficient engines, but not increase the amount of energy released during the combustion.

Under the right circumstances it is possible to obtain a more btu's from the mix. The motor addresses how to obtain more btu's from the fuel.

 

Well, I suppose I didn't want to do a huge chemical engineering problem (I'd hoped to have left them behind with graduation), but I suppose I need to.

[ooztuncer]

Interesting subject(s) - except hobos and potato cars.

 

We understand that gasoline gives more energy (heat) than ethanol per volume under same conditions. However, I have some questions about production, distribution, accessibility, and future of gasoline:

 

1) Infrastructure you need to build is $$$$$$$$$ (like fst touched above - i am a civil engineer by trade and worked almost a year on preparing bids for industrial facilities, there are very few companies than you think (internationally) that have the knowledge of know-how/design an industrial facility, specifically refineries).

 

2) Then comes all necessary environmental cautions, maintenance costs, legal obligations - $$$$$$ (continuous costs)

 

3) Then comes life span of the refinery / non-applicable technological improvements in 30-50 years (irony)!! (new production techniques costs $$$$$$$ - and probably very very few refineries change their original designs - I am not even thinking the downtime / capacity reduction effects on local and national economy on any change - refineries work non-stop unless something is broken, lol).

 

4) Then entrance / competition in oil industry - almost impossible, especially after 90's mergers. (direct effect on prices)

 

5) Side effects of OIL, like wars (already mentioned earlier in another thread, it's all about prize every government is going after). FYI, currently USA gets only 5% of their oil from middle east what about in the future?

 

I have very limited knowledge on tax and land use permissions in USA so I cannot go deep in that discussions. However in developing countries (Turkey per say) due to lack of sufficient penalties, firms have unethical bookkeeping habits. Accordingly, government's easiest way to collect tax is OIL. It affects ALL industries (think of transportation, mining, construction, manufacturing, retailing, service industries). 3 years ago refinery exit of 1 liter (1 / 3.5 gallons) oil cost was $0.4 (including profit) but end users were paying $2.8 per liter. Go figure...

 

After all my hate against the firms and governments (not against the gasoline itself, lol) what would be change by using ethanol? Can somebody explain? In the big picture, can ethanol have more advantages and can compensate 48% efficiency decrease? What if somebody figures out under different conditions (like changing the variables in PV=NRT) ethanol would produce 160,000 btu per gallon? The comparison of efficiency of the engines is good but missing the biggest point - cost.

 

Edit: typos

[fst h2o]

The amount of energy released during combustion could be changed by changing the conditions, but I don't think you could change them enough to where ethanol would produce that much energy. I'm slowly working on some simplified equations and math to show how the energy is created and where it goes. Not as simple as PV=nRT, but simple none the less. Unfortunately I do have to do some work today, so I probably won't have it done until tomorrow. After all, I need to save some money for upgrades...

[MoJo Risin&#39]

I then asked him why he hates Bush. He gave me all of this garbage I see on the news everynight.

 

I really think it's sad that the youth today is so brainwashed they can't even think for themselves.

Kudos for keeping an open mind and comparing unsubstantiated rhetoric and bias to fact. A young man with your maturity is ahead of your years. You might face opposition at times, but don’t be intimidated. If you live life with open eyes, the light will pour in. Don’t simply drink the Kool Aid from either side of the aisle. Take it all in. Sort it out. Make a knowledgeable decision and stand by it.

 

I would also commend your parents or whoever raised you.