tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5811749743523633503.post3699030676456122009..comments2024-03-20T11:36:53.907+00:00Comments on Restoring Mayberry: Public transportation 2: Hummers and boozeBrian Kallerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11082602126850605083noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5811749743523633503.post-34495530390319210652010-11-13T23:51:33.837+00:002010-11-13T23:51:33.837+00:00Hi Brian. Yes I am working my way backwards thru R...Hi Brian. Yes I am working my way backwards thru Restoring Mayberry and getting new perspectives. Having a blogger with a journalist's ability to write is a real plus. I am assembling a home made ethanol still for possible use next summer using a solar collector as the energy source. I stockpile a fair amt of corn for our livestock. It might double as a backup to more conventional alcoholic beverages. The major disadvantage to home ethanol is you can only get to about 95% WITH THE REST H20. i HAVE AN OLD CARBURATED GMC truck which is old enough to have replaceable jets and my tractor is a 1972 John Deere with the same technology. Should be fun. I am not spending any $ and using solar instead of natgas or electric to distill will certainly shift the EROEI and I will try to calculate those numbers. Take care of that cute young'un.sv kohohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11058401490041584973noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5811749743523633503.post-40625418498078301122010-11-12T19:16:54.485+00:002010-11-12T19:16:54.485+00:00SV Koho,
Thank you -- I've read your blog wi...SV Koho, <br /><br />Thank you -- I've read your blog with interest, and it has a new follower. <br /><br />I certainly agree it is not feasible to produce enough ethanol to power our current society. I thought it might be feasible, though, to produce the much smaller quantities needed for public transit -- especially in the opening years of a crisis, as a way of easing people into a different arrangement. I could be wrong -- so far, this is theory.<br /><br />I agree with you that rail lines would be better. Is anyone planning to build them, however? If neighbourhood groups assembled the training and materials to build tracks, would higher-order powers allow them to stay? Again, my questions are not rhetorical, just food for thought.Brian Kallerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11082602126850605083noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5811749743523633503.post-59998520279180700652010-11-12T18:10:25.474+00:002010-11-12T18:10:25.474+00:00Good post Brian. I as well as others have also mad...Good post Brian. I as well as others have also made the same blog observations regarding cost effective ways to move folks. I lived in La Paz(Mexico) for a while and they have several transportation options. There are the large regional buses, the smaller older city buses and then vans and old suburbans and even sedans with hand lettered numbers and names in the windshield, none of which I could ever reliably decode. I just would board, give the 5 peso fare and ask my fellow passengers if this vehicle would take me to where I wanted to go. If not they would tell me which van to catch and I would pop out and wait. The vans could be flagged down which was a real advantage and everyone was genial and seemed surprised to see gringos riding. Some times my fellow passengers would recommend a particular bus instead of the vans. It was always a far better deal than taxis or renting cars which most americans opted for.<br />The ethanol option is pointless as most authors familiar with the concept of EROEI have noted. It is better just to use petroleum which has 30% more energy per gallon and is devoid of water which makes ethanol damaging to older engines and fuel systems. It is better to feed people instead of engines. Putting in rail lines is far far more cost effective than repairing roads which only last less than a decade while rail can go many decades with only minimal attention(look at India) and steel rail bridges cost a fraction of what concrete car and truck bridges cost and they go up very quickly. Allied bombers would take out German rail links and they would be back in operation in days. Try that with your typical US interstate highway model.sv kohohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11058401490041584973noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5811749743523633503.post-16720414213372184012010-11-12T13:00:34.730+00:002010-11-12T13:00:34.730+00:00Dooberheim,
It’s a good point -- I admit I have ...Dooberheim, <br /><br />It’s a good point -- I admit I have never performed distilling myself, nor converted a car to run on alcohol, although I understand that many engines on the road could be converted by a mechanic. In writing this, though, I hoped that I could plant the idea among local officials and organizers, who could investigate how feasible such a project would be in their area. <br /><br />I agree that ethanol could not support our present consumption, but do you believe it would be useless even for public transit? What about fire engines or ambulances? I’m not asking rhetorically -- it's important to determine these things for the future.Brian Kallerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11082602126850605083noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5811749743523633503.post-44562799154712785842010-11-12T09:21:17.907+00:002010-11-12T09:21:17.907+00:00One issue with using ethanol as a fuel, as describ...One issue with using ethanol as a fuel, as described here, is that straight distillation only gets you to 95% alcohol. This alcohol can be used as a fuel in a vehicle that has been converted for it, but that vehicle cannot be then run efficiently on gasoline. Also, 95% alcohol cannot be blended with gasoline - the water comes out of solution. To get to 100% alcohol requires the addition of benzene and a second distillation.<br /><br />It takes the caloric equivalent of 20 gallons of gasoline to feed an average American for a year. The average American driver uses 500 gallons of gasoline every year. Even cutting that to 50 means 2.5 times more land that must be cultivated. Especially if it's land close to cities, I'm not sure how practical it would be to run vehicles on ethanol.<br /><br />DKdooberheimhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09424251153222882950noreply@blogger.com