Re: [Amc-list] Disposing of gas, oil, brake fluid and coolant

[adh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Sandwich Maker)]

" From: Archimedes <Freedom@xxxxxxxx>
" 
" 
" >" Ethylene glycol (and the new-tech, safer alternative propylene gycol)
" >" is produced from natural gas.  If dumped on the ground and thus
" >" returned to the environment, it does create a toxic "plume" wherever
" >" it lands; but once again it is biodegradeable -- within six to eight
" >" months, nature will have reclaimed its components.
" >
" >except for heavy metals dissolved in it, if there are any.
" 
" 
" Keep in mind that heavy metals are already present in rocks and dirt
" naturally; and there are bacteria that can digest or otherwise make
" use of all of them.

true.  there's a mining sub-business that uses bacteria to leach
marketable heavy metals from mine sludge ponds and tailings.  but you
don't want heavy metals floating around in the soil where they can
contaminate ground water we might want to use.  if soil microbes lock
them up as fast as they handle the glycol, then there's no problem...

" >there's a company that pushes propylene glycol as a coolant, whose
" >name escapes me.
" 
" 
" Sierra?

could be; sounds vaguely familiar.

" >one dirty little secret of biodiesel is the massive amounts of
" >glycerine that's produced as a byproduct.  if all current users of #2
" >diesel / heating oil could switch to biodiesel [not that we could grow
" >or make that much], the byproduced glycerine would flood existing
" >markets for it 100x over, and you wouldn't be able to give it away.
" >research is just starting to find what else it could be used for.
" >antifreeze maybe?  even that wouldn't make much of a dent.
" 
" 
" Some of us in the biofuel community here in Richmond run SVO (straight
" vegetable oil) in their diesels, specifically because there really is
" little in the way of "byproducts" (other than some food particles in
" your filter and a strange exhaust smell) using SVO.  I'd like to, but
" I'm not that adventurous.  Besides, it's getting harder to find free
" vegetable oil because there are so many people chasing it down now.

as i understand it, svo works best in engines that run a high duty
cycle, as it needs to be heated to about coolant temps to get its
viscosity down to petrodiesel levels and inject properly.  obviously
there's plenty of spare heat for this while the engine's running;
getting started is the problem, usually handled with a separate
startup/shutdown tank filled with a lighter fuel.

by comparison, all you have to do with biodiesel is pour it into the
tank.

i'm told that both biodiesel and svo produce exhaust that tends to
smell like french fries or popcorn.

" The quantity of glycerine produced also varies greatly depending upon
" the type of alcohol used.

that's a surprise!  at first glance i'd think it would be a fixed
fraction of the vegetable oil - a triglyceride - used.  perhaps this
is a side effect of imperfectly-controlled small scale chemistry.

" As biodiesel increases in popularity, there are going to be a lot of
" uses discovered for glycerol; just because so much of it will be
" available.  Many uses are already well-studied:
" 
"         http://www.webpages.uidaho.edu/~bhe/pdfs/asabe066223.pdf
" 
" It's going to be interesting to watch various fuel options develop
" over the next few years.  With every oil field in the world declining,
" and with China and India finally becoming mobile, the energy market is
" going to be a very dynamic place.  I doubt most of us will be running
" our AMC's on petrol in twenty years.

agreed!  i like the potential of butanol for spark engines - see
www.butanol.com - but they've yet to show a practical large-scale
fermentation process.  if they could get butanol levels up to 8% in
their fermentation they'd be home free, because it would separate by
itself, but their microbes choke at 2%.
________________________________________________________________________
Andrew Hay                                  the genius nature
internet rambler                            is to see what all have seen
adh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx                       and think what none thought
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