RX-EtOH

Not to sound pompus, but i think it's time for some real alternative fuel debate. I've read a lot on the forum about the benefits of hydrogen as a combustable fuel. there is no debate that the combustion of hydrgen produces zero corbon dioxide, or noxious gases associated with other potential fuels. The problems with hydrgen as a fuel source is in the production, transportation and storage of the fuel. The two primary methods for hydrogen gas production are through electrolysing water, or stripping the hydrogen off of natural gas and other petroleum products. The first method is slow, and requires tremendous amount of energy. The later produces CO2 as a byproduct, which defeats the purpose of using Hydrogen fuel to avoid green house gas emissions.

The next problem with Hydrogen is how to store the gas once you have created it. once again there are two options. A high pressure tank ~4000psi, or as a metal hydride, where the hydrogen is temporarily bound to a metal. The problems with a 4000 psi tank are obvious, it's a serious safety concern. If you're ever curious break the valve off of a gas cylinder. The metal hydride tank is extremely heavy. whether empty or full you would be hauling around a couple hundred pounds of metal shavings. The other problem is fueling the tank would take an extremely long time, ie hours.

For these reasons, I think using hydrogen as a combustable fuel is, at least for now, out of reach. Personally I'm a huge fan of bio-ethanol. All the studies completed so far on the subject, with the exception of one have found a positive energy balance with the production of ethanol from corn. it is true that the neither the US nor anyone else currently produces enough corn or any other feedstock to address the US's appetite for gasoline. That is why there are processes being developed to extract ethanol from cellulose biomass. The US currently produces enough cellulose based biomass to produce 270 billion gallons of ethanol annually. That is twice the current consumption of gasoline. Current estimates by the NREL put the energy balance from biomass higher than the energy balance for gasoline
There are advantages and dissadvantages with any fuel. one problem with ethanol that would specifically effect the rotary engine, is that ethanol is much more compressible than gasoline, 15:1 rather than 10:1. It does burn much cleaner and far cooler than gasoline. I'd be very interested in trying to modify a renesis engine to run on 180 proof ethanol. Again the trick pwould be increasing the compression ratio, which i'd like to do without simply adding a turbo or supercharger. anyway, I'm sorry if this post is a little long, but I think it's worthy for debate.

brillo

I'm all for alternative energy for cars, I think that for the short to medium term (5-10 years), hybrids are the way to go for most people, since city driving is what hurts us the most in fuel economy and it best uses the existing infrastructure. Given the size of the U.S., I doubt one alternative will dominate, but between clean diesel, hybrids, and eventually fuel cells, we should be able to reduce our dependence on foreign oil.

I'll tell you what is ironic to me, is that the age of the hybrid car is becoming a reality as a result of a republican president’s foreign policy which is supposedly anti-environment and who is allegedly is fighting a war to protect big oil’s interests. How funny is that?

What a lot of people don’t realize is, Toyota is fast on its way to becoming the biggest car company in the world. Toyota is also the biggest innovator or hybrids, and actually makes about $1,500-$3,000 per vehicle it sells (the non hybrid ones). So what does that matter? Well, Toyota can afford to eat the cost of making all its models hybrids due to there profit margins, and use that as leverage to gain market share as the hybrid car company. They are building a plant here in Texas to produce trucks and SUV’s, all of which will have hybrid options. How much does that have to scare Detroit who’s last bastion of profitability is in trucks and SUV’s? Toyota is going to force the other automakers to offer hybrid options just to keep up.

I want a hybrid rotor..... Anybody have about 200 spare rechargeable batteries?

RX-EtOH

Hybrids are great. They are definitely a step in the right direction. But gasoline/electric hybrids, are simply a stop gap. the point of alternative fuels is to replace gasoline. The amazing thing is that there is already infastructure and technology in place to support an ethanol fueled economy, Bazil has been using 85% ethanol and 100% ethanol fuels since the 80's. they were able to cut their petroleum imports by 70%. All the major car manufacturers currently make ethanol compatible engines in their cars. All this technology is already here, and currently being used. But you don't hear much about it, excepting forums of course.

RX-EtOH

just a side note, but with bio-ethanol, if someone called your car a rice rocket, it would be true.....

NomisR

I think the one thing truly keeping Hydrogen from being a viable source of energy is it's storage, transportation and fueling. From what I've read so far, Honda has developed a solar power fueling station possible to be based at home which produces enough hydrogen for one tank per every 8 hours (or something similar) from water. If such is the case, this would provide an extremely clean method of producing hydrogen for everyday use and should be possible to improve upon it.

NomisR

How are we going to create the steam though?

However, speaking of which, would it be feasible to use electricity and steam instead of purely electricity as power?

Slims8

Yeah, or we can just put our feet through the floor and do the Flintstones.

Sorry, seriously, I don't think these are going to make it in the '8 for a while due to horsepower factors. I can't see (not yet anyway... I'm sure it will happen) a 238 hp steam or electric powered car that is reliable and reasonable.

rotarygod

Try this.

http://running_on_alcohol.tripod.com/index.html

Aoshi Shinomori

What would have to be done to a car exactly to make it run on ethanol?

RX-EtOH

to make your car run on ethanol, first you have to be sure all the components in the car are compatible with ethanol. Ethanol can degrade some plastics and rubbers that are are compatible with gasoline. in oder to increase efficiency you'd have to raise the compression, which can be done by adding a turbo, or supercharger. ethanol also has a higher heat of vaporization, which basically means it does not vaporize as easily as gasoline, but this is only a problem when the engine is cold. to solve that problem you'd have to come up with a means of warming the fuel, or use gasoline to start the engine and then switch to ethanol after the engine is warm. You may have to change ther thermostat, since ethanol burns at a much lower temperature. The main jets should also be changed to run a richer air fuel mixture. you can find more specifics at

http://running_on_alcohol.tripod.com/id32.html

RX-EtOH

180 proof ethyl alcohol, has the equivalent octane rating of 115. higher octane means less knocking, and lower likelyhood of detonation.

Xyntax

I wonder if an Ethanol-running Renesis would make more power than what we have right now. If so, current and future owners will be easy to switch to using Ethanol. I'm all for alternative fuel, because what we're doing right now is old technology. There's still lots of room for improvement.

robertdot

I think if you just drive at high RPMs for awhile, then dump wanter onto the block it will make lots of steam. Put the turbine above that, and there you go...

wakeech

not without an absolute ton of boost. alcohol is an extremely low energy fuel, like propane (which is another not-terrible alternative and easily converted) or deisel (which i think the wankel might have trouble running because of the mathematical maximum compression ratio... i think it's only 24:1 or something...??).

gasoline is still cheap, makes lots of power, and gives us well running, quiet, trouble free motors. it's a shame that we can't all just jump into biodeisel from recycled oil products!! better for many greenhouse gasses, cleaner than refined deisel (i suppose still more expensive without serious capital commitment for now...?) because you can make it from food grade materials, and apparently has nice smelling exhaust (like popcorn butter or some such).

RX-EtOH

It is true that you probably will not have a ethanol powered wankel and a gasoline running wankel running at the same power output. but with enough tweaking, you might be able to pull it off. Ethanol is a low energy fuel, but i is also much more compressible than gasoline. 115 octane 180 proof EtOH, vs. 93 premium pump gas. if you're at all curious, check out this link
http://www.journeytoforever.org/biof...earth/me1.html

as far as running on deisel, I don't know the compression limits of a rotary engine, but modern deisel engines run between 12:1 and 26:1 compression rations. so if the limit is truly 24:1 there should be no problem runing on biodeisel.

Tamas

iTrader: (1)

Well, apart from ethanol and hydrogen, how about getting the Renesis to run on natural gas? Something like what buses and some taxicabs use already.
In Europe, having cars that run on both natural gas and the usual gasoline is fairly common - it's just switched over from one fuel to another. Gas is significantly cheaper, so that would help in keeping the cost down. As far as I know, there is no major need to alter much in the engine (at least not on piston engines)... sounds like a good solution to me.
Sure, the power on natural gas is somewhat lower as far as I know, but I'd love to have the option to run with a bit less power for less money whenever I wish and then, switch to gasoline if I want the higher HP.
An obvious disadvantage of running on natural gas is to lose a significant amount of trunk space (maybe almost all of it), but I wouldn't mind that either. Also, having the gas tank in the trunk would upset the weight distribution, so that needs to be dealt with as well.
What do you all think? Would this be feasible to do?

steve@vivid

About the less horsepower thing. The energy produced in gasoline and other fuels is measured in BTU's (British Thermal Units). This measurement is usually compared pound per pound. Due to the fact that the only web sites I could find that had BTU's for ethanol were VERY much for using it as a replacement for gasoline they only give the rating as 76,000 BTU's per gal because it sounds higher. If my math is correct that is roughly 10,232 BTU/lb (natural gas isn't far off from this number but its measured per cubic foot instead of per pound). Petrolium based fuels are rated higher than any other fuel source gasoline produces roughly 19,000 BTU/lb. The only fuel that rates higher (contradicting my last statement) is Hydrogen it produces 52,000 BTU/lb BUT that is in liquid form I'm not sure what it would be in its gaseous state. So in my world those of us who like fast cars would have a gasoline powered weekend warior and a slow daily driver that is economical possibly alternative fuel. Its to complicated and costly (for now) to have a car you can switch between fuels and get max performance. But maybe someday.