25 Alternative Energy Strategies - 2

For homestead and/or community independence

In the first installment of this series we looked at 5 technologies for generating electricity - solar panels, other solar (thermal for heat differential mechanical energy or steam generation), micro-hydro power and wind. This post is about alternatives for basic transportation, motorized equipment around the homestead and in rural cooperative communities.

As the series is about all the alternatives, these transportation-related alternatives are numbered 6-10 out of the 25.

Part 2: Transportation & Motorized Equipment

In 1893 Rudolph Diesel published “The Theory and Construction of a Rational Heat Engine” and was eventually granted an American patent on his invention. His first models operated at about 26% efficiency, which more than doubled the efficiency of steam engines. By 1897 he’d achieved an engine that ran at 75% efficiency. Diesel demonstrated his engine at the Exhibition faire in France in 1898, and the fuel that powered it was peanut oil. It was Diesel’s vision that the engine could be used by small business owners and farmers and run on vegetable oil rather than then-expensive petroleum.

Then petroleum became so cheap that the entire transportation and farming equipment industries went with that fossil fuel instead. Now petroleum is once again becoming very expensive, and the air pollution problem from the burning of fossil fuels has become increasingly dire.

Most transportation - and some electrical generation - still uses the diesel engine. That’s some cars and light trucks, most all heavy trucks, city buses, heavy farm equipment (tractors, combines), railroad engines and ocean shipping. The gasoline engine, which uses a more refined petroleum based fuel, accounts for most of the private cars and trucks. What are the best present and upcoming alternative fuels?

6. Biodiesel

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, biodiesel fuel is made by a process of “esterification” which uses industrial alcohol (ethanol or methanol) and a catalyst to convert the oil into a fatty-acid methyl-ester fuel.

“Neat biodiesel” or B100 is usually blended with petroleum diesel. Most common blends are B5 (5% biodiesel and 95% petroleum diesel) and B20 (20% biodiesel and 80% petroleum). Most diesel engines already in use can run on biodiesel blends without any conversion or retrofits. Because transportation fleets can run on B100, the petroleum content is added primarily to extend production - there is simply not enough “esterized” vegetable oil available to fuel our transportation needs.

Biodiesel or SVO can also be used to fuel farm tractors and combines and generators and any other homestead/farm equipment that employs a diesel engine, thereby cutting the pollution and depletion of petroleum for agricultural uses.

National Biodiesel Board

7. Vegetable Oil

Even though Rudolph Diesel designed his engine to run on straight vegetable oil, the EPA does not recognize the legal use of SVO (Straight Vegetable Oil) or recycled greases (waste cooking oil in vehicles. Despite this governmental bias toward petroleum and excess refinement with alcohol, vehicle diesel engines can be converted to run on vegetable oil just fine (they need an extra pre-heating element), and many cars pull up to the back of fast food restaurants to gather the waste frying oils that restaurants usually have to pay waste management companies to haul away. The only processing required is to filter out the crumbs and leftover nuggets of food from the oil.

Vegetable oil as fuel can substitute for #2 Diesel fuel and home heating oil (a significant market in the colder states of the U.S.).

8. Ethanol

The U.S. Department of Energy maintains an informative link page on ethanol, also known as “wood alcohol.” Most ethanol in the U.S. is produced from corn grain starch, while in Brazil sugar cane is used. It can be made from any cellulosic plant material, or “biomass” such as grass clippings, vineyard wastes, wood, crop residues or even old newspapers.

Ethanol works best in gasoline engines, as it is more flammable than vegetable oils that can be used in diesel engines. Henry Ford and other early automakers believed ethanol would be the primary fuel for their vehicles before petroleum became so readily available. It’s a high-octane fuel that generates more power than gasoline. At present ethanol is mixed with gasoline in E10 (10% ethanol, 90% gasoline) and E85 (85% ethanol, 15% gasoline).

9. Electricity

Fully electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles take their electrical ‘fuel’ from the main energy grid. Which, as we all know, gets its juice primarily from coal, petroleum/natural gas and nuclear energy sources. Still, it is possible with an adequate homestead or community electrical generation system wind and/or hydroelectric sources for excess capacity generated at night to charge the vehicle’s batteries adequately for short-range driving. Electricity is electricity, no matter what generates it!

The economics of using electricity to power a vehicle can be factored on the weight of the vehicle, the condition of its batteries and the going price for electricity. It won’t work well for heavy trucks used to transport goods. Development is underway for “fuel cells” that will convert chemical energy from hydrogen into electricity while the vehicle is running. Electrical powered vehicles contribute virtually zero pollutants to the air so long as they are running on batteries. The batteries themselves and the generation technologies to charge them are another matter.

Alternative & Advanced Fuels: Electricity

10. Hydrogen

Of all the alternatives for transportation fuel, hydrogen is the one that holds the most promise as a virtually pollution-free alternative. Hydrogen is the most abundant element is the universe, and can be obtained from fossil fuels and biomass, or from electrolysis of water (2 hydrogen atoms to 1 oxygen atom).

If reliable hydrogen fuel cells are ever developed, a vehicle can potentially be two to three times as efficient as a gasoline powered vehicle while producing nothing but water as waste. At present hydrogen as fuel is mostly mixed with natural gas for use in vehicles that can use compressed natural gas, reducing nitrogen oxide emissions significantly.

Hydrogen as an Alternative Fuel

Consumer Energy Center: Alternative Fuel Vehicles.

Posts to This Series:
Part 1: Electrical Generation
Part 2: Transportation and Motorized Equipment
Part 3: Building Technologies & Direct Alternatives
Part 4: Hybrid Energy Systems
Part 5: Collective Strategies for Communities

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Filed under Alternatives, Future Planning, Homestead, Independence, Rural Development |