4 days, 150 Kts....on hydrogen.

[carusoam]

So...

what does an EV cost to operate?

I have a friend... (a true statement I think...) 

Who had a Nissan Leaf...

He also had solar panels on the roof...

I inquired about the economics...

Apparently, this is a typical engineering level question...

If I ask him too many questions... I’ll probably lose my friend status...

 

I Have rocketed down the runway in a Tesla...

It would be sweet, if the solar panels on the house would come close to covering the cost of car fuel...

PP thoughts only, the only thing older than the dinosaurs in my driveway are the ones in their fuel tanks...

Best regards,

-a-

[jaylw314]

5 minutes ago, 0TreeLemur said:

What I want is a Diesel replacement for my O-360 in three years.

Diesel's nice, but once gasoline becomes financially unsustainable, diesel will not be far behind (well, except maybe biodiesel)

[AH-1 Cobra Pilot]

Anyone who considers hydrogen a viable energy use method needs to read these stories in order.

https://journalstar.com/news/local/nppd-to-burn-hydrogen-at-sheldon-station-near-hallam/article_db9cfaac-44ff-5821-9bc9-7629735432be.html

https://journalstar.com/business/local/nppd-wont-use-hydrogen-from-monolith-plant/article_8cf47ba9-0c19-51e0-87d6-c4dd5652f589.html

https://monolithmaterials.com/news/monolith-seeking-2-million-megawatt-hours-of-renewable-energy-annually-for-planned-expansion

Even without electrolysis it is uneconomical.

Edited January 28, 2021 by AH-1 Cobra Pilot

[EricJ]

3 hours ago, Hank said:

Farming and harvesting corn to make ethanol uses more fuel than the corn produces. So don't look to increasing ethanol content in your fuel to reduce your carbon footprint. In fact, as the ethanol content in fuel increases, your engine produces less power and fuel mileage also decreases. The program is simply a way to give "free" government money to farmers, today mostly large corporations farming thousands of acres.

Actually, you can make more power with ethanol, but as you mention you'll need more of it.   It's very common in the racing community for the rule sets that allow it that people run E85 to get more power without increasing boost or displacement.   It requires a retune, but it definitely provides a significant power increase.

But, yeah, as a "green" fuel it's kind of a disaster, and it has caused a ton of maintenance issues in the general street fleet.

[N201MKTurbo]

4 hours ago, jaylw314 said:

You are absolutely correct.  Attempts to justify research and policy on the economics of sustainable energy are (almost) always based on fallacy and wishful thinking.

However, that does not change the fact that there will come a day where the cost of using fossil fuels rises above the cost of other energies.  I'd prefer to be prepared for that day than wake up to it.   

I used to geek out on this stuff. I was a faithful reader of The Oil Drum (RIP). I even attended the first EIA energy symposium in DC where I met most of the posters on that forum. The general consensus from some of the smartest people I’ve ever known, is when the fossil fuel runs out, we are all screwed. There are no replacements. We will need to go back to growing our own food and depending on animals for transportation. Your Mooney will make a great weather vane on a pole in back of the barn....

[jaylw314]

2 hours ago, N201MKTurbo said:

I used to geek out on this stuff. I was a faithful reader of The Oil Drum (RIP). I even attended the first EIA energy symposium in DC where I met most of the posters on that forum. The general consensus from some of the smartest people I’ve ever known, is when the fossil fuel runs out, we are all screwed. There are no replacements. We will need to go back to growing our own food and depending on animals for transportation. Your Mooney will make a great weather vane on a pole in back of the barn....

And yet I'm somehow guessing that most of those people that believe there are no solutions for the future went ahead and had children, right?

Hydrogen is clearly not a panacea (or even an answer), but what we need from industry is ideas, innovation and willpower to find solutions for the future even if they are not economically competitive now.  I need defeatism as much as I need extra holes in my head.

I'd gladly give up my Mooney in 5 minutes if it could guarantee that your children and grandchildren had a future.

Edited January 28, 2021 by jaylw314

[N201MKTurbo]

4 hours ago, jaylw314 said:

And yet I'm somehow guessing that most of those people that believe there are no solutions for the future went ahead and had children, right?

Hydrogen is clearly not a panacea (or even an answer), but what we need from industry is ideas, innovation and willpower to find solutions for the future even if they are not economically competitive now.  I need defeatism as much as I need extra holes in my head.

I'd gladly give up my Mooney in 5 minutes if it could guarantee that your children and grandchildren had a future.

The age of petroleum has only been around for about 150 years. Humans have been living on this earth for eons. They will still live on this earth when it is all gone.

[N201MKTurbo]

FWIW,

This plane flew for 9 days on avgas with two people in it....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rutan_Voyager

 

[steingar]

There are no renewables that can compete with oil. None.  Oil is a near miracle.  Think about it, a gallon of gas can accelerate and move a one and a half ton vehicle at 60mph for 30 minutes.  That is a crapload of energy in a very compact package.  But fossil fuels are an expendable resource.  Oh, maybe we'll all get wiped out by a plague or smote by an asteroid, but barring catastrophe sooner or later we'll run oil.  To exacerbate the situation all the renewables need oil for their manufacture.  So when the price of oil rises the price of the renewables will too, and fossil fuels will still be cheaper.  Fossil fuels will always be cheaper than anything save nuclear, and that's dead on arrival unfortunately.  Unless someone develops break ahead fusion (they've only been trying fo the last 70 years) the situation will only get worse.

[N201MKTurbo]

When motorized transportation first started, it used renewable fuel (wood) it quickly switched to fossil fuel (coal). So far the only viable renewable fuel is wood, If we switched to it to replace our current energy usage, there wouldn't be a twig left on this planet.

The one long term energy solution would be nuclear, but that fuel is finite too. Even fusion has a renewable problem, tritium, go look that one up...

Edited January 28, 2021 by N201MKTurbo

[AH-1 Cobra Pilot]

2 hours ago, N201MKTurbo said:

FWIW,

This plane flew for 9 days on avgas with two people in it....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rutan_Voyager

 

No, it was actually diesel.  Two engines; the gasoline engine was shut down at altitude.

[N201MKTurbo]

Just now, AH-1 Cobra Pilot said:

No, it was actually diesel.  Two engines; the gasoline engine was shut down at altitude.

No diesel,

In November 1985, the aircraft was rolled out, fitted with world-flight engines, an air-cooled Teledyne Continental O-240 in the forward location and a liquid-cooled Teledyne Continental IOL-200 in the aft location.^[7] Both were fitted with wooden, variable-pitch electrically actuated MT-Propellers.^[8] The plan was for the rear engine to be operated throughout the flight. The front engine was intended to provide additional power for takeoff and the initial part of the flight under heavy load.

 

I actually touched that airplane once at Oshkosh 87. I know I wasn't supposed to touch it, but I did.

[AH-1 Cobra Pilot]

Just now, N201MKTurbo said:

No diesel,

In November 1985, the aircraft was rolled out, fitted with world-flight engines, an air-cooled Teledyne Continental O-240 in the forward location and a liquid-cooled Teledyne Continental IOL-200 in the aft location.^[7] Both were fitted with wooden, variable-pitch electrically actuated MT-Propellers.^[8] The plan was for the rear engine to be operated throughout the flight. The front engine was intended to provide additional power for takeoff and the initial part of the flight under heavy load.

 

I actually touched that airplane once at Oshkosh 87. I know I wasn't supposed to touch it, but I did.

I just read that Wiki article.  Apparently my memory fails me, or they changed the engine before the flight.

[AH-1 Cobra Pilot]

"So far the only viable renewable fuel is wood, If we switched to it to replace our current energy usage, there wouldn't be a twig left on this planet."

Remember when the eco-junkies in the 1980s would proudly display bumper stickers that said, "Split Wood, Not Atoms"?

Edited January 28, 2021 by AH-1 Cobra Pilot

[aviatoreb]

4 minutes ago, AH-1 Cobra Pilot said:

"So far the only viable renewable fuel is wood, If we switched to it to replace our current energy usage, there wouldn't be a twig left on this planet."

Remember when the eco-junkies in the 1980s would proudly display bumper stickers that said, "Split Wood, Not Atoms"?

Yup - I remember that bumper sticker. I went to school at UC Berkeley, and I worked as a student up the hill at Lawrence Berkeley labs that had a good bit of high energy physics research. And I remember distinctly a car with that bumper sticker in the parking lot of one of the big experimental apparatus.

Also there was a certain Nobel prize winner there who had all sorts of other such stickers on his car.

[Hank]

4 hours ago, steingar said:

There are no renewables that can compete with oil. None.  Oil is a near miracle.  Think about it, a gallon of gas can accelerate and move a one and a half ton vehicle at 60mph for 30 minutes.  That is a crapload of energy in a very compact package.  But fossil fuels are an expendable resource.  Oh, maybe we'll all get wiped out by a plague or smote by an asteroid, but barring catastrophe sooner or later we'll run oil.  To exacerbate the situation all the renewables need oil for their manufacture.  So when the price of oil rises the price of the renewables will too, and fossil fuels will still be cheaper.  Fossil fuels will always be cheaper than anything save nuclear, and that's dead on arrival unfortunately.  Unless someone develops break ahead fusion (they've only been trying fo the last 70 years) the situation will only get worse.

Yep. The talking heads on TV have been predicting for my entire life that will happen soon. The first date that I remember for "no more oil" was 1975, and they've been easing their predictions further out as the dates have passed without a trace of the beginning of starting to look like we might be facing depletion sooner rather than later . . . . . . Kind of like the other talking heads who insisted that we would have massive global climate change, cooling off so much between late 1970s and 2000 that food crops would be decimated and mass starvation would begin at the turn of the century [two decades in the future when reported, two decades in the "it didn't happen" past now]. Now they're doing the same old song and dance with global warming and sea level rising . . . . .

[N201MKTurbo]

25 minutes ago, Hank said:

Yep. The talking heads on TV have been predicting for my entire life that will happen soon. The first date that I remember for "no more oil" was 1975, and they've been easing their predictions further out as the dates have passed without a trace of the beginning of starting to look like we might be facing depletion sooner rather than later . . . . . . Kind of like the other talking heads who insisted that we would have massive global climate change, cooling off so much between late 1970s and 2000 that food crops would be decimated and mass starvation would begin at the turn of the century [two decades in the future when reported, two decades in the "it didn't happen" past now]. Now they're doing the same old song and dance with global warming and sea level rising . . . . .

Depletion is real, it has been mitigated by the perfection of precision horizontal drilling. Time will tell how long that will carry us. The crisis won’t be when we run out, it will be the day demand outstrips supply. The price of gas will go up like GameStop stock!

I used to ask people at what price would they stop buying gas? Nobody seems to understand the question. I say “what if gas was $50/gal”.  Would you still buy it? They usually answer “they can’t do that, I need my gas”. 

Think about a world where it would cost more to drive to the store than the cost of the groceries.

I have been places where fuel is very expensive (Tahiti) I’ve seen a 50cc scooter with 6 people on it.

[AH-1 Cobra Pilot]

1 hour ago, N201MKTurbo said:

Depletion is real,

Do you realize that after a well field is depleted, it often still has 85-95% of the crude remaining.  Enhanced recovery techniques can improve the extraction a great deal to almost 50%.  Thus, even previously depleted fields might produce more oil now or in the future.

[EricJ]

9 hours ago, Freemasm said:

Can you expand on this? Gasoline has a higher energy content than ethanol. That is evidenced by the required fuel flows/shaft HP for the given engine. You alluded to that. Ethanol has a higher Octane rating (and is a octane booster) which allows for higher compression ratios. Taller pistons, milling cylinder bases, etc. to increase CR, I can understand. Can you educate me on the "tuning" you reference?  It would be appreciated. Continental is building me a stroked, 9.6:1 Lyc clone O-360. It will have variable, programmable timing and Electronic fuel injection. As mentioned, any knowledge you can share here would be appreciated (I'm so f'ing ahead of myself here. I'll probably have forgotten by the time I could use it).

Another interesting point I've heard that needs citation. Racer types blend ethanol and gasoline for an even higher octane rating. This curve is parabolic (reverses itself). The blends are greater than the Ethanol or Gasoline alone. Can only assume they form some very strong bonds. Can anyone verify/expand on this?

My understanding is that the latent heat is much higher with E85, and the octane is higher, so running much more timing advance can be done than with typical gasoline, and without the typical heat-shedding problems that usually come with running a lot of spark advance.   So it's a happy place in the tradeoff space for a lot of people when it comes to practicality and reliability.   You don't need huge changes to the cooling system, like you usually do when increasing power output significantly, and you don't have the knock sensitivity and tight tuning constraints that usually come with gasoline.

I know a number of people running E85 in engines tuned for it, and they get a lot of additional power and not a lot of overheating issues with much less attention than is usually needed to the cooling system.  

There are downsides, though.   Most of the guys buy it by the barrel and transport it with the car, and you HAVE to use it or it goes bad, much, much more quickly and much worse than gasoline.   Enough people here use it that they have a bit of a barter economy where if somebody has a supply they're not going to use it goes to somebody who can use it before it goes bad.  The entire fuel system has to be made compatible or the ethanol may create a lot of problem with seals, gaskets, materials, etc.   This is mostly a problem with older cars (which is what most race cars are made from), but when it creates problems they can be pretty bad.

Anyway, you can search around for "E85 tune power gain" or something like that and you'll probably find a reasonable amount of literature.   Some of the local tuner/fabrication shops do a lot of business on E85 dyno tuning for performance.   The gains are very real.   You can get there with race gas, too, but it's a different set of tradeoffs.

Edited January 29, 2021 by EricJ

[N201MKTurbo]

3 hours ago, AH-1 Cobra Pilot said:

Do you realize that after a well field is depleted, it often still has 85-95% of the crude remaining.  Enhanced recovery techniques can improve the extraction a great deal to almost 50%.  Thus, even previously depleted fields might produce more oil now or in the future.

Most oil fields in the world is already in that mode.

[McMooney]

just a thought, how much in our fuel system would have to change to support E85?

[carusoam]

Somebody mentioned compression ratios...

So I invited @Sandman993 to stop by...

I think sand is a fan of the high compression pistons...

Best regards,

-a-

[steingar]

17 hours ago, AH-1 Cobra Pilot said:

Do you realize that after a well field is depleted, it often still has 85-95% of the crude remaining.  Enhanced recovery techniques can improve the extraction a great deal to almost 50%.  Thus, even previously depleted fields might produce more oil now or in the future.

It just doesn't matter.  Sooner or later the stuff is going to be gone unless we develop technology to replace it.  We aren't going to, because nothing is cheaper than oil (except anything having to do with nuclear fission or fusion).  Sooner or later the price of oil is going to outpace what most people can pay for it.  When that happens things will be a real mess.  Thankfully I should be safely dead by then.  

[N201MKTurbo]

History books will have a chapter about the energy age just as the bronze and iron ages. They will marvel at how we squandered it with things like airplanes. 

But in the mean time, where can i get cheap avgas?

[Sandman993]

On 1/29/2021 at 12:26 AM, carusoam said:

Somebody mentioned compression ratios...

So I invited @Sandman993 to stop by...

I think sand is a fan of the high compression pistons...

Best regards,

-a-

I doubt that E85 or even E15 will ever be used in aviation fuel. I would be surprised. There’s a myriad of issues. I’m in the boat business, we make a nice living on fuel systems trying to endure the E15. We see around 1500 boats per year and I reckon around 20% are fuel related. Firstly, it attracts water, secondly, it’s shelf life is limited. Aircraft, like boats are known for extended periods of non use. Unless they have some magic I don’t know about, to extend life span, I can’t see that working out. And what about the lead? How they gonna work that out?
 

as for the high compression pistons in this airplane, I enjoy a little more output about anywhere, but it comes in handy at higher altitudes. Along with the power flow exhaust system, the little engine works well in this configuration. Sips gas.

My best buddy has a c182 and I can take off behind him, reach 12,000’ before he can... not by much, but...and then, I’m off to the races, in another few minutes, I’m in another zip code. Granted, a 182 isn’t a racehorse, but it climbs pretty well and it’s a fuel gobbler. You gotta pay for all that cabin space and parasite drag.

He always complains about the lack of shoulder room... but he admits the Mooney is an efficient platform. When we fly to dinner together, and the ship gets in stride, I’ll look over at him with a grin and I usually get the nod. He calls it the magical Mooney.

talk about hi jacking a thread... sorry.