Destructive distillation of wood produces methanol. It's wood alcohol.
If you aren't careful, you get some methanol when making moonshine as well. There is a good reason for some regulation of the liquor industry. Drinking methanol can make you blind.
Making methanol from hydrogen and carbon dioxide is rather more complicated. They do it in Iceland in order to export Iceland's bounty of geothermal energy. I think there is a pilot plant in Australia doing it with solar as well.
If I was to home brew liquid fuels on a farm, I'd stick to ethanol. Cattails in a nutrient rich bog have a very high starch yield per acre. Or there is the sorghum syrup option.
I have a mechanical engineer friend who wants to build a vehicle to run on wood, I just don't have the mechanical background to understand how. But I have made a lot of homebrew, and we are quite rich in hybrid nuisance cattails around here.
To run directly on wood, you make charcoal from the wood. then you burn the charcoal in a tank sitting on a trailer behind the car. You want to burn in an oxygen starved environment to produce carbon monoxide, which is flammable. Inject some steam and you get carbon monoxide and hydrogen gas. An internal combustion engine can run off this. In fact, that's what the earliest IC engines ran off. Gasoline came later.
In a nutshell, the further Right a Republican runs in a Blue district, the more free the Democrat is to go whackdoodle Left. Running a principled conservative in a deeply Blue district is about as effective as running a Rothbard quoting anarchy-next-week Libertarian. These whackdoole Lefties need to be challenged by someone who can theoretically win in these Blue districts. That means either independent candidates, a new third party, or RINOs.
Alas, outgreening the local Democrat does require having a plan to fix global warming -- whether you believe in global warming or not. It's about representing your district. This article is the third in a series on how to fight global warming while preserving -- nay restoring -- the American Way.
If you live in a Red state, all this is irrelevant to you.
Well, my comment was partly in jest, but there is some real seriousness behind it.
Let me preface my response by saying I don't live in a red state, I live in the Soviet of Washington. So I am not saying this from a position of irrelevance.
If you're Green, you're part of the problem. If you're a RINO, you're part of the problem. If you're a Green RINO...
It's beyond dispute that you are entirely correct in your opening point: in a blue district, it's it's a waste of time for Republicans to run Marjorie Taylor Green; she will get slaughtered in an electoral landslide every single time.
But your attempt at a corollary seems like underpants gnome logic. Going along with 75% of the left's delusions to try to win an election doesn't mean we're making headway, it just means we're being carried downstream to the deadly waterfall a little more slowly.
WRONG! A green RINO can advance part of the MAGA agenda. Recall the WTO protesters in your state a few years back. "Buy local" is a common greenie slogan.
A green RINO can be more MAGA than half the sitting Republican congresscritters. Way more MAGA than McConnel.
But a green RINO does have to differ with the current Republican consensus on some issues. Small Tent means no majority.
But we do need to be careful on how we enlarge the Tent.
Hold onto your junker! Stockpile a few if you have the land.
My 30 year old Toyota looks like crap, but I'm keeping it running. It has a computer, but it's pretty primitive and isn't accessible without plugging into it with a special plug. And the power steering is hydraulic so the car doesn't switch lanes if I scratch my nose.
(If my project to take on Facebook takes off, I might look into starting the Caveman Auto Company. Motto: just pay the EPA fine and get a real car.)
Oh I definitely plan on keeping it alive as long as I can. I'm just trying to scout out my options if and when it craps out. I just need it to have four wheels and be reliable. I'm not looking to impress anybody.
I like your ideas, and I like your taste in automobiles. I'm more of a diesel man myself; my mechanical diesels will last forever. I suppose that doesn't make me very green, but old diesels can run on biofuels, so I guess there's some potential there.
You can run on straight veggie oil if you heat it up first to drop the viscosity. (You need to boil it a while to get rid of the emulsified water if you use used vegetable oil.)
And it is possible to make dimethyl ether using the same tech as synthesizing methanol.
A big part of a car's full lifecycle environmental impact is in the manufacture of the car itself, in extracting and refining the materials from which its made.
An ancient diesel - 300D? - may get poor fuel mileage and belch out a bit much exhaust. But that initial impact of making the car has been amortized across a whole lot of years. Each year of continued use, versus replacement, adds little to the total impact.
•Compressed air cools as it leaves the chamber. This means in hot hellholes like Arizona your car will cool you and the general area for free. Some early designs even had a picnic compartment after the exhaust to keep your food cold. Of course this means you want gas for frozen places and compressed air for hot places.
•No noise, no real emissions besides cold.
Nowadays there are a few companies working on compressed air cars and compressed air motorcycles, but who knows how much success they will see.
Imagine being able to flank roving government warlords with a fleet of silent air powered dirtbikes.
I have read about them in Popular Science magazine decades ago. I think the fundamental problem is range limitation.
There is also an issue of energy loss from compressing. As you compress air it heats up. As the heated air is stored, it cools down. Much energy lost unless the air is cooled as it is compressed (slow) or the compressed air tanks are very well insulated.
With some ingenuity and redneck engineering I'm certain an even better design could be made.
In regards to the range it's probably be best for semi-local or short range use. While there are efficiencies in everyone using the same power source, such as 110v wall outlets or gasoline, I think the major efficiencies come from using whatever is appropriate for the task. For long range coal rail, for cities nuclear and electric, for unconnected or irregular areas air zeppelins, for urban and short scale use air cars and bikes.
It would require a lot of different infrastructure and may inevitably homogenize into a single source but I think energy homogenization generally comes from economics rather than convenience. That said if the different industries could maintain vertical monopolies over their own supply chain they might stand the test of time.
"They are quiet." It makes them more dangerous to pedestrians, who don't hear them coming. I believe that injuries to pedestrians have increased due to this, but the stats are hard to find the because the mass media don't like them.
A lot of confounding factors as well, such as police standing down after the riots.
I agree that the safest way to reduce noise would be to target the noisiest vehicles first and get the ambient level down before introducing overly quiet vehicles.
But there are a lot of other factors that could be fixed to make things safer for pedestrians. Having no turn lights during the phase in which pedestrians are allowed to walk would help.
And reducing the visual noise that drivers in core cities have to deal with so they could focus more on pedestrians would help. For example, instead of just relying on One Way signs (which can easily get lost in the noise), use the same paint conventions for one-way streets as we do for divided highways. That is, curbs and parking lines on the left (when driving in the correct direction) should be yellow. One should be able to tell by road paint alone which direction a one-way street goes.
Rrrgh! Backup beepers. A good idea, but do you really need to signal the entire neighborhood that you are backing up? How about a phased array to concentrate the noise just behind the vehicle backing up?
Ditto for train horns. Beam the signal on the straightaways. Cone signal if approaching a turn.
I read a story that a magazine writer or editor tracked down the inventor of the back-up beeper, perhaps with the intention of killing him but found that he was already dead.
And those thumper cars, with the bass noise makers. I hope that those are gone forever. Doubtless their owners will have their own section in hell.
I'm in. Can I make methanol at home?
Destructive distillation of wood produces methanol. It's wood alcohol.
If you aren't careful, you get some methanol when making moonshine as well. There is a good reason for some regulation of the liquor industry. Drinking methanol can make you blind.
Making methanol from hydrogen and carbon dioxide is rather more complicated. They do it in Iceland in order to export Iceland's bounty of geothermal energy. I think there is a pilot plant in Australia doing it with solar as well.
If I was to home brew liquid fuels on a farm, I'd stick to ethanol. Cattails in a nutrient rich bog have a very high starch yield per acre. Or there is the sorghum syrup option.
I have a mechanical engineer friend who wants to build a vehicle to run on wood, I just don't have the mechanical background to understand how. But I have made a lot of homebrew, and we are quite rich in hybrid nuisance cattails around here.
To run directly on wood, you make charcoal from the wood. then you burn the charcoal in a tank sitting on a trailer behind the car. You want to burn in an oxygen starved environment to produce carbon monoxide, which is flammable. Inject some steam and you get carbon monoxide and hydrogen gas. An internal combustion engine can run off this. In fact, that's what the earliest IC engines ran off. Gasoline came later.
Better to use the cattails. See https://www.amazon.com/Alcohol-Can-Be-Gas-Revolution/dp/0979043778/ref=asc_df_0979043778/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=312202813865&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=6744570723607301557&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9009714&hvtargid=pla-717150374552&psc=1&mcid=719f5bfa39393c79820f202c5f9317e5&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI3rSKvISphAMVwTjUAR2QNAggEAQYAyABEgJVvPD_BwE
You lost me at "Green RINO".
For those just tuning in, your reaction is reasonable. This article is a continuation of a LONG line of reasoning going back to Rule 8: Leave No District Unchallenged https://rulesforreactionaries.substack.com/p/rule-8-leave-no-district-unchallenged
In a nutshell, the further Right a Republican runs in a Blue district, the more free the Democrat is to go whackdoodle Left. Running a principled conservative in a deeply Blue district is about as effective as running a Rothbard quoting anarchy-next-week Libertarian. These whackdoole Lefties need to be challenged by someone who can theoretically win in these Blue districts. That means either independent candidates, a new third party, or RINOs.
Fortunately, there are many possible types of RINO: https://rulesforreactionaries.substack.com/p/making-a-difference-in-2024
And since Team D has effectively gone brown https://rulesforreactionaries.substack.com/p/opportunities-abound-the-democrats
There are lots of green RINO opportunities. And yes, a green RINO can be very reactionary on many issues: https://rulesforreactionaries.substack.com/p/rule-11-exploit-the-environmentalists That is, deep environmentalists are Trumpier than Trump.
Alas, outgreening the local Democrat does require having a plan to fix global warming -- whether you believe in global warming or not. It's about representing your district. This article is the third in a series on how to fight global warming while preserving -- nay restoring -- the American Way.
If you live in a Red state, all this is irrelevant to you.
Well, my comment was partly in jest, but there is some real seriousness behind it.
Let me preface my response by saying I don't live in a red state, I live in the Soviet of Washington. So I am not saying this from a position of irrelevance.
If you're Green, you're part of the problem. If you're a RINO, you're part of the problem. If you're a Green RINO...
It's beyond dispute that you are entirely correct in your opening point: in a blue district, it's it's a waste of time for Republicans to run Marjorie Taylor Green; she will get slaughtered in an electoral landslide every single time.
But your attempt at a corollary seems like underpants gnome logic. Going along with 75% of the left's delusions to try to win an election doesn't mean we're making headway, it just means we're being carried downstream to the deadly waterfall a little more slowly.
WRONG! A green RINO can advance part of the MAGA agenda. Recall the WTO protesters in your state a few years back. "Buy local" is a common greenie slogan.
A green RINO can be more MAGA than half the sitting Republican congresscritters. Way more MAGA than McConnel.
But a green RINO does have to differ with the current Republican consensus on some issues. Small Tent means no majority.
But we do need to be careful on how we enlarge the Tent.
Is it even possible to get a car that's not a computer anymore? Once my old Forester dies, what's a basic / analogue guy like me to do?
Hold onto your junker! Stockpile a few if you have the land.
My 30 year old Toyota looks like crap, but I'm keeping it running. It has a computer, but it's pretty primitive and isn't accessible without plugging into it with a special plug. And the power steering is hydraulic so the car doesn't switch lanes if I scratch my nose.
(If my project to take on Facebook takes off, I might look into starting the Caveman Auto Company. Motto: just pay the EPA fine and get a real car.)
Oh I definitely plan on keeping it alive as long as I can. I'm just trying to scout out my options if and when it craps out. I just need it to have four wheels and be reliable. I'm not looking to impress anybody.
I like your ideas, and I like your taste in automobiles. I'm more of a diesel man myself; my mechanical diesels will last forever. I suppose that doesn't make me very green, but old diesels can run on biofuels, so I guess there's some potential there.
You can run on straight veggie oil if you heat it up first to drop the viscosity. (You need to boil it a while to get rid of the emulsified water if you use used vegetable oil.)
And it is possible to make dimethyl ether using the same tech as synthesizing methanol.
A big part of a car's full lifecycle environmental impact is in the manufacture of the car itself, in extracting and refining the materials from which its made.
An ancient diesel - 300D? - may get poor fuel mileage and belch out a bit much exhaust. But that initial impact of making the car has been amortized across a whole lot of years. Each year of continued use, versus replacement, adds little to the total impact.
The longer a car lives, the greener it gets.
As a driver of a 30 year old car, I agree with this message. (Plus, I am now exempt from getting a state inspection.)
I once read about compressed air cars and became a big fan. Here's some dudes discussing it generally.
https://forums.aaca.org/topic/396661-compressed-air-powered-automobile-do-any-exist/
They are a popular idea in permaculture for a few reasons.
•A few compressed air passive gathering devices have been developed, most popularly the Canadian trompe. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trompe
•Vehicles can be very light with few moving parts
•Compressed air cools as it leaves the chamber. This means in hot hellholes like Arizona your car will cool you and the general area for free. Some early designs even had a picnic compartment after the exhaust to keep your food cold. Of course this means you want gas for frozen places and compressed air for hot places.
•No noise, no real emissions besides cold.
Nowadays there are a few companies working on compressed air cars and compressed air motorcycles, but who knows how much success they will see.
Imagine being able to flank roving government warlords with a fleet of silent air powered dirtbikes.
I have read about them in Popular Science magazine decades ago. I think the fundamental problem is range limitation.
There is also an issue of energy loss from compressing. As you compress air it heats up. As the heated air is stored, it cools down. Much energy lost unless the air is cooled as it is compressed (slow) or the compressed air tanks are very well insulated.
But it does have potential for regenerative braking without batteries. But even there, I believe there are bulk issues.
The trompe design carries away the heat through the flowing water.
https://practical.engineering/blog/2020/1/14/what-is-a-trompe
With some ingenuity and redneck engineering I'm certain an even better design could be made.
In regards to the range it's probably be best for semi-local or short range use. While there are efficiencies in everyone using the same power source, such as 110v wall outlets or gasoline, I think the major efficiencies come from using whatever is appropriate for the task. For long range coal rail, for cities nuclear and electric, for unconnected or irregular areas air zeppelins, for urban and short scale use air cars and bikes.
It would require a lot of different infrastructure and may inevitably homogenize into a single source but I think energy homogenization generally comes from economics rather than convenience. That said if the different industries could maintain vertical monopolies over their own supply chain they might stand the test of time.
"They are quiet." It makes them more dangerous to pedestrians, who don't hear them coming. I believe that injuries to pedestrians have increased due to this, but the stats are hard to find the because the mass media don't like them.
A lot of confounding factors as well, such as police standing down after the riots.
I agree that the safest way to reduce noise would be to target the noisiest vehicles first and get the ambient level down before introducing overly quiet vehicles.
But there are a lot of other factors that could be fixed to make things safer for pedestrians. Having no turn lights during the phase in which pedestrians are allowed to walk would help.
And reducing the visual noise that drivers in core cities have to deal with so they could focus more on pedestrians would help. For example, instead of just relying on One Way signs (which can easily get lost in the noise), use the same paint conventions for one-way streets as we do for divided highways. That is, curbs and parking lines on the left (when driving in the correct direction) should be yellow. One should be able to tell by road paint alone which direction a one-way street goes.
Good ideas. Better than putting deer-whistles on EVs or the reverse of back-up beepers, to make them make noise.
Rrrgh! Backup beepers. A good idea, but do you really need to signal the entire neighborhood that you are backing up? How about a phased array to concentrate the noise just behind the vehicle backing up?
Ditto for train horns. Beam the signal on the straightaways. Cone signal if approaching a turn.
I read a story that a magazine writer or editor tracked down the inventor of the back-up beeper, perhaps with the intention of killing him but found that he was already dead.
And those thumper cars, with the bass noise makers. I hope that those are gone forever. Doubtless their owners will have their own section in hell.
Noise cancellation for the bass notes of loud diesel engines would be about the price of a bitchin car stereo. Or maybe less.