I used to think converting coal to hydrogen was a good idea. Carbon sequestration can be much cheaper if you consider cultivating trees for more building materials or simple burial, both trap CO2 in the terrestrial biosphere for at least several decades. Keep that up for 100 years and we would...
One thing many people don't realize is how non-constant the sun is in terms of an energy source. For centuries we have observed sunspots and they are always changing. There is historical proof that the thermal energy from the sun drops during periods when there are no sunspots. It appears as...
Less than 5% of my time is spent solving or reviewing actual engineering problems. The rest of my time is spent doing tasks that could be completed by CAD designers, drafters, checkers, machinists/fabricators, technicians, and hourly production assemblers. This doesn't count time spent on...
Hi REDMANE that is awesome. Can I ask a few questions?
The truck doesn't need to warm up on $2 diesel before switching over to your biodiesel, even on cold days?
No modifications to the fuel lines (new seals)?
How often do you change the oil?
The processor sounds like an expensive setup. You...
I always think TR or Globalspec are going to lead me to the supplier of my dreams, but later I always end up finding what I need via Google.
It seems like TR or GlobalSpec just want to give you to an unorganized list of the paying advertisers that generally might match your search string...
When a leading politician talks about getting more women into a certain profession to address a "skills shortage", I suspect that politician is concerned about the apparent lack of diversity in that certain profession. Being overtly concerned about such a thing is to reveal a misunderstanding...
I'd been thinking about coming up with some way to mimick the process of photosynthensis since that's how plants do some things we would really like to do: convert solar energy into hydrogen and/or high-energy electrons, split water, and sequester carbon for example. Coming up with synthetic...
And now for something completely off-topic
I was wanting to convert a motorcycle to burn used cooking oil, but diesel-powered motorcycles only currently exist as military prototypes in support of the "one-fuel-forward" tactical requirement. Someday there might be demand for these commercially...
This may contain a good well-to-wheels comparison of biodiesel vs. H2.
http://www.uic.edu/depts/ovcr/iesp/MUSES/Wang.ppt
Not showstoppers, but problems I see with biodiesel: Water, fertilizer, fuel, labor, and capital are all needed to make biodiesel, and there problem is not enough arable...
Tax advocates argue about which tax will encourage energy conservation. We lack the political fortitude to do what we should instead - boycott Middle East oil.
Cutting off 20% of our (USA) supply would certainly increase prices for us significantly in the short term. It would drive a cultural...
Diesel has come a long way, with higher available rail pressures & valve speeds, and better particle filtration. But upgrading from 30mpg to 70mpg won't ultimately solve our dependence on Middle East crude, just prolong it by making oil reserves last even longer. If they were really our friends...
The roadmap to a hydrogen economy is going to have difficulties and the destination is still going to be imperfect. After all, even ignoring the relatively insignificant NOx emissions, any hydrogen power plant would not have "zero-emissions" - water vaper is one of the greenhouse gases ;)...
Hydrogen can be had fairly easily from coal and natural gas, two plentiful domestic energy sources. In both reactions CO2 is a product, and if done in a factory the CO2 could be captured more easily for sequestration. Organic sequestration at this point (without emission) is possible now but...
Living in Florida since '92, this engineer can't help but observe the machine that produces hurricanes (it's simpler than you might think) and imagine what kind of monkey wrench we could throw in there. Maybe there is some need for hurricane to happen, but I can't imagine what it is. Lava flows...
