Learned something about diesel today.

In reply to STM317 :

One of the answers to this conundrum is something like what I mentioned before- collectively funding cleanup of stuff like this.  At some point we as a society basically have to say, look, we did a lot of E36 M3 in the past that we thought was OK, or at the very least wasn't illegal, and now we realize that a lot of that E36 M3 was pretty bad, really, actually, very terrible in fact, and we just all need to collectively pitch in and chip in and deal with it.  Otherwise we're going to have streams without fish, land we can't live on, and people getting sick on God knows what all diseases and driving health care costs through the roof.  Ain't nobody wants that.  

MrSmokey said:

I’ve been intrigued about how gas expands when it’s heated ... I wonder if you could somehow make it burn better and cleaner if you could pretty much inject fuel vapor instead of raw fuel or whatever... just some weird and wacky ideas I need to get out of my head before I go and blow myself up or something 

Smokey Yunick was working on something like that in the 1980s.  Unfortunately for him he was never much on electronics.

I interned with the EPA back in the nineties.  Lots of scientists and bureaucrats, also lots of ex-military and law enforcement (you had to pass FLETC to work in the IG's office where I interned).  I'm pretty sure those folks would stomp a mudhole in anyone who cast aspersions at their dedication to the job and this country.  And, %90 percent of the cases my office investigated were either referrals from state environmental agencies or internal reports from other divisions.  EPA has too many things going on to snoop in anyone's backyard.  Glad to hear somebody finally mention Superfund, as it was set up to deal with situations such as what happened to Al.  As draconian as they are made out to be, they realize that the costs to mitigate contamination are burdensome and many landowners are unaware of contamination on their land.  If you hate the EPA you might as well hate the FBI, the IRS and every other government agency, as many do.  They are people like us, just trying to do their job as best they can.   Now back to Diesels..  I wonder if they can refit the big ships with DEF systems?  On someting like an oil tanker, would it be cost effective to convert a crude oil tank to hold DEF for consumption while sailing?

volvoclearinghouse said:

In reply to STM317 :

One of the answers to this conundrum is something like what I mentioned before- collectively funding cleanup of stuff like this.  At some point we as a society basically have to say, look, we did a lot of E36 M3 in the past that we thought was OK, or at the very least wasn't illegal, and now we realize that a lot of that E36 M3 was pretty bad, really, actually, very terrible in fact, and we just all need to collectively pitch in and chip in and deal with it.  Otherwise we're going to have streams without fish, land we can't live on, and people getting sick on God knows what all diseases and driving health care costs through the roof.  Ain't nobody wants that.  

That's what the Superfund trust is for. I guess they could reduce the minimum requirements to be considered a Superfund site so that more sites were eligible but that would mean increasing taxes, redirecting funds from other government projects or spending existing budgets more efficiently. I'm not holding my breath. Superfund does require States to foot some of the bill, and at least attempts to hold responsible parties at fault when applicable. Perhaps Al's case had some issues in one of those categories? 

Any mention of the EPA ruining performance vehicles makes me laugh so hard.  The Koenigsegg Jesko has 1600 horsepower and passes emissions just fine.

Back to diesels, here's an article that mentions these supposed "clean" diesels.  Looks like not many of them are very clean.

https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1110174_newest-cleanest-diesels-in-europe-can-still-be-very-dirty-analysis

06HHR said:Now back to Diesels..  I wonder if they can refit the big ships with DEF systems?  On someting like an oil tanker, would it be cost effective to convert a crude oil tank to hold DEF for consumption while sailing?

No, ships can't use DEF.  Mostly because when they clean up the diesel fuel that is used, it still has too much sulfur in it to make SCR robust- it would get clogged up pretty quickly and make it useless.

But they do have emissions controls, which are pretty neat.  Many of the cruise ships have scrubbers installed into them- where water is spayed down into the exhaust stream.  This does capture a large amount of the NOx and PM- making and acid that then needs to be neutralized before putting back into the ocean.  It's a pretty cool set up, as we've had the pleasure of touring the engine control room (and even the engine room) on a cruise ship.

For a long time, I had thought DEF/SCR would work, and that cruise ships would have ample supply of urea to inject into the exhaust...  especially with the heavy drinking that goes on.

Now I've suggested to supplement their base that they use to neutralize the acidified water with potash- which is what you get when you burn wood, aka paper.  And they have a lot of paper to dispose of on board.

There is an international agreement to stop using bunker fuel for ships, too.  This with the emissions controls retrofitted will do a lot to help the ocean and our ports.

In reply to alfadriver :

Water in the exhaust absorbs NOx?  I'm going to have to do some reading.

Knurled. said:

In reply to alfadriver :

Water in the exhaust absorbs NOx?  I'm going to have to do some reading.

It does like the sky and turns it into N2, O2, and HNO2, and the latter part is an acid that needs to be turned back into a base before discharge.

But that's also known as acid rain....

I do think you may need liquid water instead of water vapor though, since much of the exhaust is water after combustion.

(I did a quick search for Wet Scrubbers)

joining the party late (but had to wait for the angst to calm down)

This article quite frankly pisses me off.  A lot.  It is purely political heart-strings surrounded by very little hard evidence and zero sources.  Honestly, it sounds like Jenny McCarthy from 5 years ago.

There is truth in the article, but it is trying to lead you to the conclusion that "diesel = death and dismemberment" and I can't stand unfounded propaganda.  Give me numbers.  Give me sources.  Give me references.

Even if I hated diesel, I wouldn't cite this article as an argument.

Regarding the biodiesel... It does take a considerable amount of chemical energy in the form of Methanol and Lye (not really much kinetic energy) to make, but the only reason to make biodiesel is so that it is compatible with diesel engines.  Rudolph Diesel designed his first engine to run on peanut oil.  Our subsequent thirst for fossil fuels led us down a different path, so diesel engines were instead engineered to use a thinner fuel.  The answer there is simple... engineer diesel engines to run on vegetable oil and skip the conversion process.

It is true that IC engines make yucky stuff when they internally combust, but using a biologic source for fuel takes out the biggest part of the equation - where we get our carbon FROM.  Right now we're digging it up from way below the ground, burning it, and dumping it into the biosphere.  Using biologic mass to create fuel means that the plants had to first take the carbon out of the atmosphere.  With obvious caveats, this reduces the carbon emissions part to nearly a wash.

Unfortunately, even if we used all of our significant surpluses of crops and make it all into oil, we would only cover about 10% of our energy consumption.  That was the number 10-15 years ago from one of the Biodiesel books I had read.  We humans sure do like to burn E36 M3, don't we?

In reply to Curtis :

Isn't something like 70% of the crops we grow used to feed livestock?

We not only like to burn things but we also like to eat a lot of meat.  And we've crossed over from feeding livestock on scrub land that is unsuitable for farming, to growing corn and feeding them that, and then pumping them full of antibiotics so they don't die from their horrible diet.

I don't know the numbers.  A huge proportion goes to livestock, another huge chunk gets exported, and a surprisingly large amount gets bought by the government where it rots in tax-revenue-funded warehouses.  I just always half chuckle/half cry when people wonder why the environment is changing when we keep burning 93 billion barrels of oil every day - digging up carbon from underground and spewing it up here when we have plenty of carbon already up here.

I, personally, go shopping for free-range, organic meats every year.

Definitely close on the proportions- it's more money for a farmer to grow and sell feed or ethanol corn now than just about any other crop (soybeans only JUST came up to $105 a bushel, they were far less thanks to the Orange one) so many really don't grow "food" anymore.

Funny enough, even in my red state many of the people here are staunch environmentalists, though you wouldn't know it from our vaunted "leadership"- probably largely for the same reasons!

In reply to GIRTHQUAKE :

Hey now, soybeans are food for humans too.

There's a stupid stigma against soy for some reason.  Probably because aggressive vegetarians use it to make faux meats.  If you use it for what it is, instead of doctoring it to make it pretend to be what it isn't, it's pretty good.

I'm not a "vegetarian" but I appreciate a lot of meatless cuisine.

Knurled. said:

In reply to GIRTHQUAKE :

Hey now, soybeans are food for humans too.

 

There's a stupid stigma against soy for some reason.  Probably because aggressive vegetarians use it to make faux meats.  If you use it for what it is, instead of doctoring it to make it pretend to be what it isn't, it's pretty good.

 

I'm not a "vegetarian" but I appreciate a lot of meatless cuisine.

Some of the stigma against soy comes from those who are opposed to GMOs, since soybeans and corn make up most of the GM crops.  

I also ready somewhere something about soy and estrogen...forget exactly what, but if you eat too much (and again, not sure how much constitutes "too much") it can screw with your body's chemistry.  

Knurled. said:

In reply to GIRTHQUAKE :

Hey now, soybeans are food for humans too.

 

There's a stupid stigma against soy for some reason.  Probably because aggressive vegetarians use it to make faux meats.  If you use it for what it is, instead of doctoring it to make it pretend to be what it isn't, it's pretty good.

 

I'm not a "vegetarian" but I appreciate a lot of meatless cuisine.

Agreed. 

Interesting how diesel bashing became agriculture bashing.

Antibiotics are given to sick animals to make them well, just like they're given to sick people.  There was a period of time that antibiotics were used to promote growth, but the FDA hasn't allowed that since 2017.  There are withdrawal periods, between when an animal can be given antibiotics and harvested.  There are USDA inspectors monitoring processed meat, and trace back protocols in place to find the source/farm if antibiotics are found in meat.

GMOs... not sure I want to pick at that scab.  There's nothing you eat today that's not technically a "GMO," you have Gregor Mendel and his peas, and Reginald Punnett and his squares to thank for a lot of it, but Native Americans/Mesoamericans were ahead of the game.  Google, teosinte.

No denying tariffs have hurt ag commodities, but the weather hasn't done them any favors.  We have a lot of farmers that weren't able to harvest their crops, soybeans left to rot in the field due to weather.  Fall of '18 was crazy wet.  We had some shady grain elevators changing contract terms mid harvest, and lying about moisture and damage percentages, fully taking advantage of the tariff situation.  There were a lot of grain silos built though out the country so farmers could store their produce, and wait out the market.  What sucks even more was the wet spring, delayed and/or flooded out planting '19, so about the only thing a lot farmers could grow this year is late soybeans.  So we'll wind up with a market flooded with beans, driving prices even lower.  It's going to hurt a lot of folks.

My political leanings could probably be figured out from combing through my posts, but I've voted 3rd party in the past 3 presidential elections.  Regardless, I'd like to point out that I once called our previous POTUS "Obummer" here on GRM, and was damn near carried out on a rail.  Do we have a double standard that "The Orange One," here and "Cheeto Bandito" I've seen in other threads gets a pass?

In reply to bigdaddylee82 :

IMHO, there's a difference between plants and animals that were bred for specific characterizations vs plants and animals where the DNA was specifically altered for a specific characterization.

And to the point of growing fuel, Rapeseed has a higher yield of oil per acre than soy does- 1000kg oil/ ha vs. 375 for soy.  So, on a scientific basis, I really don't understand why soy vs. other things.  Then again, I also don't understand why we do the same for corn vs. sugar beets up north or cane in the south in terms of making fuel alcohol.  Makes no sense at all.  Seems like ag is using the wrong crop to solve a problem.

There is no way the FDA is out there to protect us and our hobby of eating.

alfadriver said:

And to the point of growing fuel, Rapeseed has a higher yield of oil per acre than soy does- 1000kg oil/ ha vs. 375 for soy.  So, on a scientific basis, I really don't understand why soy vs. other things.  Then again, I also don't understand why we do the same for corn vs. sugar beets up north or cane in the south in terms of making fuel alcohol.  Makes no sense at all.  Seems like ag is using the wrong crop to solve a problem.

At a guess, corn and soy are both grown using proprietary seeds owned by large companies. They in turn buy votes to get them subsidized by the feds so farmers will plant them. Sugar beets, rapeseed and cane aren't industrial crops, so no subsides. 

In reply to Toyman01 :

I was trying to keep it more scientific than political... 

But if people are really serious about alternate sources of fuel, it does need to be brought up.....

In reply to alfadriver :

Unfortunately it's not a scientific discussion because the science isn't considered, just the money and where it ends up. We may have to depend on other countries to develop those fuels. 

bigdaddylee82 said:

Interesting how diesel bashing became agriculture bashing.

Antibiotics are given to sick animals to make them well, just like they're given to sick people.  There was a period of time that antibiotics were used to promote growth, but the FDA hasn't allowed that since 2017.  There are withdrawal periods, between when an animal can be given antibiotics and harvested.  There are USDA inspectors monitoring processed meat, and trace back protocols in place to find the source/farm if antibiotics are found in meat.

GMOs... not sure I want to pick at that scab.  There's nothing you eat today that's not technically a "GMO," you have Gregor Mendel and his peas, and Reginald Punnett and his squares to thank for a lot of it, but Native Americans/Mesoamericans were ahead of the game.  Google, teosinte.

No denying tariffs have hurt ag commodities, but the weather hasn't done them any favors.  We have a lot of farmers that weren't able to harvest their crops, soybeans left to rot in the field due to weather.  Fall of '18 was crazy wet.  We had some shady grain elevators changing contract terms mid harvest, and lying about moisture and damage percentages, fully taking advantage of the tariff situation.  There were a lot of grain silos built though out the country so farmers could store their produce, and wait out the market.  What sucks even more was the wet spring, delayed and/or flooded out planting '19, so about the only thing a lot farmers could grow this year is late soybeans.  So we'll wind up with a market flooded with beans, driving prices even lower.  It's going to hurt a lot of folks.

My political leanings could probably be figured out from combing through my posts, but I've voted 3rd party in the past 3 presidential elections.  Regardless, I'd like to point out that I once called our previous POTUS "Obummer" here on GRM, and was damn near carried out on a rail.  Do we have a double standard that "The Orange One," here and "Cheeto Bandito" I've seen in other threads gets a pass?

The issue is not the genetic modification per se.  To go on the record, I'm fully in support of breeding and that sort of thing; please don't lump me in with the loonies who hear "genetic modification" and thing its some sort of mutant crop.  What concerns me is the practice of modifying crops to make them resistant to certain poisons, and then spraying mass quantities of those poisons on the food.  There have been several instances where that's gone wrong, and continues to cause consequences.

Per alfadriver and Toyman01's discussion, yes, rapeseed would make a far better biofuel....and its hard to see how politics is NOT at play in why it isn't.  Then again, I knew a guy who claimed that diesel brewed from algae would be the next hot thing, and somehow that research seems to have dropped off the radar.  :-/

In reply to volvoclearinghouse, Toyman01 :

These things can easily be used to separate those who are serious about the environment and those who are not....  As I see it.

Same goes for how people see transportation changing.

If we can somehow keep it engineering and scientific, well.  But we can't even do that at work, when we are an engineering company.... (not related subjects, just the idea that science and logic define paths)

If we're talking about industrial crops, how about hemp?  I've read that it produces more wood pulp per acre than trees, it puts nitrogen back into the soil, also produces a large amount of oil, and a hoard of other positive qualities.  I feel that crop would be a lot more beneficial than corn or soy.