Innovative grocery chain H.E.B. is opening up the market for retail sales of E85 ethanol fuel in Texas.
No one drives more than Texans do. Our cities are huge and sprawling, with downtown business centers located huge distances from where people live in suburbs or exurbs. My observation on Dallas is that no matter where you live or where you are going it always takes 45 minutes to an hour to get there, and the same is true for most of the state. Here in Texas we literally live in our cars. I keep a laptop in my pickup because it's easier to just sit in the truck and work for a few hours than to take the time to drive home to my office after having driven all the way into town. In fact, I'm parked at a McDonald's using their wireless internet right now.…
Article comments
26 - Dave Nalle
But wouldn't it be more efficient to syphon it directly out of animal sphincters? I'm sure the technology is feasible.
There's actuallly an awful lot of methane gas out there that goes to waste. I remember in high school a schoolmate (whose father was a notable senator) lighting his farts on fire and producing a prolonged blue flame about 2 feet in length.
But on a more serious note, I've noticed that our local landfill vents methane gas from their underground piles of garbage and burns it at the top of the vents. If they capped those vents and stored the gas it could likely be used to fuel their garbage trucks.
We need to think about things like that.
Dave
27 - Victor Plenty
Methane comes from microbes inside the animal, which is a pretty good environment for those microbes, but not their ideal environment because the animal's digestive system is also trying to do a lot of other stuff related to keeping the animal alive.
This makes methane production inside the animal highly variable. In fact, the highest methane production occurs when the animal's digestive system is not working properly. (That's why we get bloated when we eat things we can't easily digest, like undercooked beans.)
People who want a reliable methane source will take the animal waste products and put them into a bioreactor or digester designed to make the methane-producing microbes as happy as possible, which is much easier to build when you take out all that tedious effort of keeping larger livestock alive and healthy.
28 - Victor Plenty
Landfill methane tapping is only the first stage of landfill mining. The total volume of methane bubbling up in landfills might be enough to power the garbage trucks, maybe. It probably isn't enough to do much more than that.
Beyond that, it will be harder to capture the methane once people start mining the landfills, after we reach the point where they are effectively the richest veins of usable ore to be found anywhere near the planet's surface.
Hopefully, by the time that is happening on a regular basis, we'll be getting enough energy from more reliable systems, generated from sources such as high-efficiency solar cells. If we can manage that, we will not need the landfill methane as anything more than a transitional stopgap.
29 - Dave Nalle
Just seems like a shame to me to burn off all that methane as they are doing now when they could put it to some sort of use.
Dave
30 - Mark Saleski
the town i used to live in heated and powered all the equipment in the recycling center from the landfill methane.
31 - Victor Plenty
I agree, Dave. I'd like the methane put to good use.
I hear it's great rocket fuel.
32 - Joey
I can see it now:
"I AM THE MAYOR OF BARTER TOWN!"
33 - Dave Nalle
Good lord, isn't that a Mad Max reference of some sort?
Dave
34 - Joey
Yes, I admit I saw the movie... remember the underground methane production facilty, it was run by the swineman.
35 - Gene Matocha
Joey: You're off base with the comment about Hybrids. City driving is where the electric motor is used the most; it primarily provides an acceleration boost which is the most inefficient "mode" of an ICE. Current hybrids don't have large enough batteries to provide extended use on the highways.
Dave:
Great post. Thanks. I take some issue with your dislike for small cars, but that's subjective. ;)
Also, please help spread the word that "polution" as defined by the EPA does NOT INCLUDE GREEN HOUSE GAS EMISSIONS (C02)!
You make the comment that "A modern engine produces very little pollution to start with, and if you run it on E85, it produces almost none."
Unfortunatley most people today would read that and think that applied to greenhouse gasses as well. It doesn not.
It only applies to NOX and other particulate emissions ("polution" as defined by the EPA/DOT) but NOT to C02. Currently all the "alternative" fuels produce roughly the same C02 emissions as gasoline. The only way to significantly reduce C02 emissions from ICEs is to improve efficiency (MPG)...changing fuels won't get you there.
Most people are are not aware that for every gallon of gasoline consumed, 20 POUNDS of C02 are produced. This sounds impossible as a gallon of gas only weighs ~7lbs, but once you realize that the atomic weight of carbon is 6 and oxygen is 8, and that those two O atoms come from the atmosphere, it becomes obvious.
To visualualize this, a 20lb tank of C02 is about the size of a scuba tank. So however many gallons your gas tank holds, in a very real sense, you're releasing that number of scuba tanks worth of C02 into the atmosphere. Imagine 15 or 20 scuba tanks in the back of your truck and opening them one by one as you drive down the road. Then reloading once a week when you refill your tank.
That said, I am very much in favor of gas "alternatives" and am going off to find an HEB near me. I think incremental steps are necessary and beneficial. But don't think it's an environmental silver bullet.
Thanks!
36 - Phil
I read an article in Mother Earth News long time ago about a Pig Farmer that got a railroad tank car- cut the end out and buried it verticilly(?) filled it with pig dropings and water then placed another caped cylinder inside ( close tolarence) so the gas would build up inside it. As the gas was produced it raised the inside cylinder and pressurized the gas by the weight of the cylindeer. He piped it to his house for cooking and heating etc. Pumped it to cylinders for storage and also ran his equipement on the botteled gas.. Pumped out the old material, pumped in the new, keep on keeping on.. That's my lie and I'm sticking with it......... LOL
37 - Jamie Waldron
Hi all,
I have heard two competing theories about the Greenhouse effect and the solar cycle and would like to postulate a variant of my own.
The first theory is the one of which everyone has heard. That is that the one that doesn't take into account the solar cycle at all and supposes that all of the global warming to date is due to our emitting greenhouse gasses and the erosion of the Ozone layer due to our hydrocarbon emissions.
The competing theory brings to the table evidence to support the theory that our sun is presently in a state where the amount of solar radiation hitting the earth's atmosphere is significantly lessened and that the earth would be in a mini-ice-age without our current greenhouse gas production. This theory, based on mapping of the solar cycles, also accounts for the last ice-age along with the 250 to 350 year cooling cycle during the medieval times. There is some contention amongst historians about the actual dates involved but most agree that it started some time in the 16th century (1500's) and ended in the 19th century (1800's).
What I would like to postulate is that humanity in all its inherent vanity has once again overestimated its part. Regardless of whether you follow the belief of creation or evolution, it is a given that the earth existed before humanity and will most-likely exist after we're nothing more than ruins and memory. The sun has existed for even longer. I would tend to believe that our greenhouse gas emissions have a much smaller effect upon global warming than the solar output does.
I am not saying that we shouldn't do something about it before it gets out-of-hand; but I am saying that our point-of-focus shouldn't be whether or not we "save the earth." The worst we'll ever achieve is to make the earth uninhabitable for humans. We'd be hard-pressed to even wipe out all life on earth; much less destroy the earth and I think a campaign that states the truth would get through to a larger percentage of the self-serving species known and Homo-Sapiens. Rather than "Save the Earth," shouldn't we be crying "Save Humanity, save your Children and save Money while you're at it?" I think that'd be a good slogan for E85.
Regards,
Jamie Waldron