Something new?

[jrsavoie]

https://www.agweb.com/news/business/technology/e98-fueled-diesel-engines-set-run-field-and-road

 

[MrMarty51]

So, I wonder, will our 6.5 be able to be modified to run that stuff ?

 

[JayTheCPA]

Good question. Treating the 6.56's piston is straight forward. Finding an E85 compliant injector seems like the challenge.

Like many start-ups, good idea.

Another challenge is supply. IIRC, only a few years ago we had corn production drop to the point where it started to raise the question of whether to divert all corn to food use and stop for ethanol stock. If we are going to add the nation's top fuel consumers to the slate of E85 uses, it will raise the question of sustainability.

While the article states that using E85 is more economical than diesel, the proof will come out in the numbers. At a conceptional level, burning notably more E85 than diesel is still burning more E85 even if it is less expensive per gallon. Just-cause the per-unit cost is less expensive, total consumption numbers might not make the less expensive per-unit fuel a better TCO when looking at the complete equation.

Only potential benefit I am seeing from a lay perspective is trading NOx from diesel for C02 from E85, but I do not know enough about the technology to really make any opinion in this area.

 

[Will L.]

I know many people that have e-85 compliant rigs. All of them that did long term tracking on cost said it was a wash- is it no economic savings to run the 85 versus the regular gasoline because of the increase in fuel used. Imo rebuilding engine engine to run a different fuel for fuel savings purposes there’s a big risk. Think about a different injector pump possibly, definitely different injectors and coating the pistons. Simply a better turbo and wmi can bring an improvement. A different tune is not mentioned but needing more volume of fuel at specific rpm means a tune would definitely be needed, so now that cost is equal too. If they were getting 25% increase or some similar huge savings- wouldn’t that be a factor you mentioned in every interview? Instead they are pushing plant based over crude based.

 

[btfarm]

There's that annoying "thermal efficiency" hill to climb along with the corn production roller coaster.

 

[MrMarty51]

Corn fuel will be a lot cheaper until enough people begin using it.
Then watch out.
Just saying.

 

[WarWagon]

Water and injectors don't mix. Good luck with that.

E85 fuel is hygroscopic. The ethanol in E85 can absorb moisture from the air.

Ethanol doesn't corrode anything unless the fuel is water logged.

 

[Will L.]

I am thinking maybe they solved the water in fuel issue with there wazoo injectors, and the coating on piston is to quell the higher heat of it.

The price of the corn fuel is one thing, the amount of farms going to corn optimized for fuel instead of corn for human consumption is a different issue. 2 quick examples but if you wannabe scared half way, and start feeling horrible for people in third world countries just spend some time doing google-fu.

Biofuels are accelerating the food crisis — and the climate crisis,…

It’s crazy to put more food in our fuel tanks when there’s a war on. Or when there isn’t.

www.canarymedia.com

Food vs. Fuel: Diversion of Crops Could Cause More Hunger

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

 

[Husker6.5]

@Will L., you obviously have never lived in farm country. Out of all the corn grown in America, very little of it percentage-wise is grown for human consumption - the "sweet" corn you eat off the ear, find in a can of Niblets, pop in your popper/microwave or grind up to make cornbread or cornchips. The vast majority of corn grown is "feed corn" - designed to feed livestock, cattle and hogs mainly - and is essentially inedible by humans as they are large kernels dried rock hard and the chemical composition makes them hard for humans to digest. This is the corn kernels used to make ethanol with. Ethanol production does NOT contribute one bit to the "starving people in Africa". The third kind of corn grown, a very small percentage of the total grown, is Seed Corn - which are hybrids specifically grown to provide the seed to plant for next year's crop of Feed Corn and Sweet Corn.

Corn is on its way out as a source stock for ethanol production due to the advent of cellulosic ethanol production that allows the use of any plant material - leaves, stems, stalks, branches, limbs - to produce ethanol by using an enzyme to break down the cellulose plant cell wall and release the starches and sugars inside that the yeast can then make into ethanol alcohol.

Corn for ethanol fuel, like soybeans for bio-diesel, were intended as temporary, easily adapted without the need for purchasing new equipment, alternate crop use for farmers to help alleviate the fossil fuels shortage/carbon pollution. The huge advantage of biofuels are that they are carbon neutral, closed loop systems - unlike fossil fuels which takes tremendous amounts of carbon that had been sequestered away for tens to hundreds of millions of years and releases it back into the atmosphere.

 

[jrsavoie]

@Will L., you obviously have never lived in farm country. Out of all the corn grown in America, very little of it percentage-wise is grown for human consumption - the "sweet" corn you eat off the ear, find in a can of Niblets, pop in your popper/microwave or grind up to make cornbread or cornchips. The vast majority of corn grown is "feed corn" - designed to feed livestock, cattle and hogs mainly - and is essentially inedible by humans as they are large kernels dried rock hard and the chemical composition makes them hard for humans to digest. This is the corn kernels used to make ethanol with. Ethanol production does NOT contribute one bit to the "starving people in Africa". The third kind of corn grown, a very small percentage of the total grown, is Seed Corn - which are hybrids specifically grown to provide the seed to plant for next year's crop of Feed Corn and Sweet Corn.

Corn is on its way out as a source stock for ethanol production due to the advent of cellulosic ethanol production that allows the use of any plant material - leaves, stems, stalks, branches, limbs - to produce ethanol by using an enzyme to break down the cellulose plant cell wall and release the starches and sugars inside that the yeast can then make into ethanol alcohol.

Corn for ethanol fuel, like soybeans for bio-diesel, were intended as temporary, easily adapted without the need for purchasing new equipment, alternate crop use for farmers to help alleviate the fossil fuels shortage/carbon pollution. The huge advantage of biofuels are that they are carbon neutral, closed loop systems - unlike fossil fuels which takes tremendous amounts of carbon that had been sequestered away for tens to hundreds of millions of years and releases it back into the atmosphere.

Years ago I posted about industrial hemp being a better source for many things.

The fools on the hill should never have bowed to the cotton growers.

 

[Will L.]

I don’t do the studies and verify what’s right and wrong. I just see the reports and take my best guess as to which make sense and which doesn’t.
I saw the amount of corn produced for fuel, and the amount of corn needed to be produced for finishing off the production desires laid out by Norman Bourlag (sp?) and shake my head.

Norman is known as the man who saved more lives than any other man in history. credited with feeding into the Billions of people through the green aka gmo production plan. As he said- If we hadn’t went into corn for fuel production, we would have completely ended world hunger by 2004. He still pushed hard in an attempt to end it every year since and his last commentary on it before he died was mine for fuel, end hunger, then once people quit dying in 3 days from no food, let’s improve the cost of fuel for the top 10% wealthiest of the world.

So, yeah... I pull my opinion not based on me reading a couple articles or wether I grow up next to corn or an oil field, but based on the few -very best people that have improved and saved life. Not all my anti-corn fuel opinion is based on just what it does to old rigs.

 

[Husker6.5]

The point is, @Will L. is the corn used to make ethanol with is NOT corn fit for, or able to be consumed by, human beings. It is Feed Corn for animal consumption. My statements are based off of scientific fact, not "growing up next to a corn field", nor are they based off of the ramblings of a self-proclaimed guru who was more into self-promotion than scientific fact. Fact being that corn was NOT being specifically grown for ethanol production, rather Feed Corn being grown for animal consumption was diverted to ethanol production as an alternate and better paying market for Feed Corn. The amount of Sweet, or human consumable, Corn production in this country did NOT decrease with the increase in ethanol fuel production. Making ethanol from corn does NOT affect world hunger, as that corn was fit only to feed animals with, not humans. No acres of human consumable corn were taken out of production to enable more corn-based ethanol production, either.

Oh, and Corporate-owned Patented GMO Frankenfoods are NOT the answer, either. Especially as several organic farmers here in Nebraska have proved that they can get as good of yields of their crops as the Roundup-resistant, bio-engineered GMO Frankenfood crap Monsanto/Bayer, Syngenta and the other companies produce.

 

[ak diesel driver]

I think Will's, and the guy he's talking about, point was if we stopped growing feed corn and only grew edible food than there wouldn't be 3rd world hunger. It would come at the expense of the farmers not getting as much $ for what they grow. It's an idealistic approach

 

[Will L.]

Exactly.