Recently we were contacted by a visitor who is interested in Rankin Cycle Generators and Stirling Engines. He shared the following thoughts and we wanted to put them here to stimulate discussion and help him find an answer. Directly below is his question and below that is a response from an engineering consultant we've worked with on past articles and projects. Question: Hello I have noticed an explosion in Stirling engine and rankin cycle generators recently, all of which are either powerd by gas, diesel, oil or the sun. Despite weeks of web searching I have been unable to locate any manufacturers...
Ecovative Design is a company located in Green Island New York dedicated to solving the problems that styrofoam creates in our environment by developing compostable solutions. Their two flagship products, Ecocradle and Greensulate replace styrofoam packaging you might find around your computer or TV set and insulation you might otherwise be using in the walls of your home.Ecovative's solutions use a combination of mushroom roots "mycelium" and local feedstock (which means in can be made on site anywhere in the world, further reducing the impact of transportation in use). This might include cotton gin trash, buckwheat hulls or hazelnut husks....
The world today is much different than it was a mere 200 years ago. Change is not surprising; it is a result of development, growth, and life itself carried out. Ian McHarg, in a speech entitled The Planetary Disease of Man stated, "We are engaged at adaptation for survival at every level -- cells in you, tissues in you, organs in you, you in a community, you in an ecosystem, all ecosystems in a biosphere -- all are engaged in trying to find a creative fit (I. McHarg 640)." A disconnect from the natural realm has led humans to live...
The Discovery Science channel ran a series a few months ago called Ecopolis, which discussed a number of promising new technologies to help citizens of a hypothetical future city deal with critical needs such as energy, food, water, transportation, and waste disposal. Each episode featured four technologies from which Nobel prize-winning energy scientist, Dan Kammen, selected a winner. On the episode entitled A World of Trash, the winner was biochar, a sort of charcoal that can be produced by the pyrolysis of organic materials. Pyrolysis is the process of heating a substance to a high temperature in the absence...
When it comes to transportation, no battery technology comes close to the energy density of liquid hydrocarbon fuels. Whether they be derived from ancient or recent biomass, the energy density of hydrocarbon fuels is many times that of even the most advanced battery technology. And energy density is one of the most important metrics when it comes to transportation energy, because you have to carry the energy with you. For the sake of this article, I am only focusing on mass energy density, not volumetric energy density. Volumetric energy density doesn't usually come into energy discussions until the topic of...
The other day while pondering the effectiveness and durability of different "clean car" options available on the market, specifically flexfuel cars vs. veggie oil vs. EV, I began considering which fuel type would be the most convenient if the grid went down and suddenly gasoline became unavailable. I've heard that up here in Northern California when the power has gone out in the past, nobody can pump gas because the pumps run on electricity and furthermore, nobody can accept credit cards. This would mean an EV couldn't be charged unless you had solar panels at your house. Veggie oil might...
One of our readers recently submitted the following question: After reading Robert Zubrin's book Energy Victory I have two questions. Can ethanol production facilities make or be converted to make methanol and are sugar beets being used to any significant degree in Colorado to produce ethanol as a substitute for corn?These are great questions. The sugarbeet industry in Colorado produces refined sugar, a commodity that has seen large price fluctuations over the years, making it a difficult business in which to achieve consistent profits. The Great Western Sugar company once had more than a dozen sugar beet processing plants in...
Consider this, ethanol burns stronger and cleaner than gasoline and can be grown within the United States and other nations that have a climate which supports corn or switchgrass. The energy density of Ethanol is substantially less than conventional gasoline (31.1MJ/kg vs 47.1 MJ/kg) but it burns stronger because it's less volatile (i.e. higher octane) and you can cram more of it into an engine cylinder without it auto-igniting. There is an ongoing debate about the true energy and CO2 savings that Ethanol fuels provide, and we have written about it here, here, and here, but let's skip that for...
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