While ethanol is a disaster, it's interesting to see the many people that look at it as a viable alternative energy and fuel, and search into how they can make ethanol on their own.
Regular ethanol has been extremely destructive to numerous small engine power equipment, and during the winter time we notice many of the snowmobiles, chainsaws and generators at the small engine repair shops as the alleged biofuel continues to destroy the parts and engines of the products, even though some proponents continue to pretend it's completely safe to use, while the equipment of ethanol users is destroyed, and in some cases becomes dangerous to use because of the potential consequences of getting stranded; as in the case of snowmobiles or motor boats.
Some even continue to claim the very expensive fuel and poor mileage (as far as it relates to vehicles) is inexpensive. But some studies have shown the price of gasoline would have to reach about $2.33 a gallon to be the equivalent of the high cost of ethanol.
So it can be understood why people that like to experiment and try things out would want to make their own ethanol for the purpose of accomplishing the task, it's hard to know why other than that someone would want to put it in any type of equipment they use.
Making ethanol is of course nothing new, as people have known how to make ethanol for a long time, using fermentation and the distillation of sugar and starch crops. Some of the obvious crops still used today to make ethanol are corn, cornstalks and sugar cane (in Brazil). Other crops used are potatoes, wheat and peelings from fruit and vegetables. Grass and wood chips or sawdust can be used as well, among many others.
It takes a lot of this stuff to even make one gallon of ethanol, as it takes about 10gallons of crops or other material to make a gallon of the fuel additive. So picture wanting about 10 gallons of the stuff. You'd have to have access to about 100 gallons of raw materials in order to make that much. It would take a ton of work just to gather that much together, even if someone was willing to give it to you to work with.
So what's the process on How to Make Ethanol?
To turn raw materials into ethanol, it requires five steps:
Conversion
Fermentation
Distillation
Filtration
Dehydration
Whatever material you decide to use, it has to be converted by the sugars being broken down in the process. That's either done manually or by adding an enzyme.
In the fermentation part of the process, you're at the creation of alcohol stage, and so add yeast in a similar way you would if you were making wine.
The next stage in How to Make Ethanol is to use a still for the purpose of separation of the alcohol from the rest of the liquid. This is called Distillation.
For the next two steps you filtrate the liquid in order to remove the impurities in the liquid as well as the excess water remaining.
Materials needed to make ethanol:
A lidded plastic bucket or barrel
Yeast
Fruit
Hydrometer
Because the liquid will start to ferment once the fruit or raw material is broken down, you should only fill it to about one-third full, or you'll end up with a messy overflow of the ethanol.
When using yeast, don't think in terms of the type you'd use for making bread. Rather, to make ethanol, us the type you would acquire from a store with supplies to make wine. That type of yeast is tolerant to ethanol.
Once you add the yeast to the mixture, use the hydrometer to measure the sugar content. Once you have that figure, cover up the barrel.
Simply let it sit for several days while checking the sugar content once a day. What you're looking for is the sugar content in the mixture to gradually decrease until there's zero sugar left in the ethanol. That will usually take about 10 days.
When that part of the process is completed, the mixture should be immediately distilled, or you risk damaging whatever equipment you might put the fuel into.
This could be an enjoyable experiment to have fun with, but doing this allows you to see the number of things involved with making ethanol, the high amount of inputs, and how a lot can go wrong with it while it's being made, which could damage your equipment.
In the end, it can be fun learning how to make ethanol, but I sure wouldn't really want to use it other than in something old to learn the damage it can cause.
Showing posts with label Power Equipment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Power Equipment. Show all posts
Monday, February 2, 2009
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Ethanol in Chainsaws: Disaster Waiting to Happen
Ethanol destroying chainsaws, even after being cleaned up
It seems that nothing runs good with ethanol in it, including chainsaws.
Many so-called experts have supposedly cleared automobiles for use with ethynol, but a large number of consumers still say they are having troubles with them. Snowmobile owners have been up in arms in the northern states over the breaking down of their snowmobiles from the use of ethanol in their engines.
When you research what some of the real experts - the mechanics - are saying, they start telling you the techniques you'd need to employ to take avoid the ethanol problems, or hopefully prevent them.
That's the problem, you just about have to be an expert, or at least very familiar with engines (which most people aren't), to even have a chance at preventing damage to or even salvaging your power equipment.
From hoses to valves, and other parts of engines, you have to take certain precautions to keep them from damaging your chainsaws. The amount of time, and in some cases with additives - extra price, it quickly becomes a much heavier burden to even use your small engine tools.
An increasing number of people are complaining about the abnormal number of problems with their chainsaws, ethanol in snowmobiles, generators, among a number of other small engine machinery used in the summer like lawnmowers, weedeaters and tillers.
Small engine mechanics confirm this saying their shops are as full as they've ever been with machinery that has broken down.
Some mechanics are also getting a little concerned about taking in the ethanol-damaged equipment, as many times they clean it, as with chainsaws, and have to bring them right back from using them in the field because ethanol leaves behind a hidden residue that can't be spotted with the naked eye.
A recent story about someone bringing a chainsaw in to be fixed, had the mechanic completely cleaning up the carburetor and the daiphrams, putting in fuel and air filters, and it started up in the shop ok. The owner took it out to use it, and after running for five minutes, had to bring it back to be looked at.
Ethanol can clog up just about everything, as in the real life example above, you can clean everything you can think up, and it still continues to fall apart. When the owner brought back the chainsaw after it broke down again, the next time around the lines would have to be checked to see if they were corroded.
Who wants to go through that with every small engine piece of machinery we have? It's ridiculous.
Another factor for the small engine industry is the concerns over safety and liability issues, as not only is there the equipment breaking down problem, but people could be hurt directly or indirectly from the failure of the products they manufacture.
In conclusion, valves can clog up, little metal parts rust, carburetors destroyes, as well as other small, but needed components.
Draining the ethanol based gas from the tanks isn't enough either, as I mentioned earlier, because of the residue - which is the component in ethanol that does the damage - will remain in the engine and chainsaw parts unseen.
While it doesn't work real well, some people have been helped slightly by adding Stabil to their non-2-cycle engine equipment. They unwittingly think that taking the ethanol mixed gas out that it will prevent the damage, but they are wrong.
Should you use ethanol in your chainsaws? Not at all if you can help it. There's nothing we can do to keep the engines and parts from gumming up and eventually failing.
Even the mechanics admit after cleaning it up there's not much they can do to prevent our chainsaws from being damaged again and again. We need to drop the ethanol hoax now. Think of the problems about to be released if the pressure to increase the mixture goes through!
It seems that nothing runs good with ethanol in it, including chainsaws.
Many so-called experts have supposedly cleared automobiles for use with ethynol, but a large number of consumers still say they are having troubles with them. Snowmobile owners have been up in arms in the northern states over the breaking down of their snowmobiles from the use of ethanol in their engines.
When you research what some of the real experts - the mechanics - are saying, they start telling you the techniques you'd need to employ to take avoid the ethanol problems, or hopefully prevent them.
That's the problem, you just about have to be an expert, or at least very familiar with engines (which most people aren't), to even have a chance at preventing damage to or even salvaging your power equipment.
From hoses to valves, and other parts of engines, you have to take certain precautions to keep them from damaging your chainsaws. The amount of time, and in some cases with additives - extra price, it quickly becomes a much heavier burden to even use your small engine tools.
An increasing number of people are complaining about the abnormal number of problems with their chainsaws, ethanol in snowmobiles, generators, among a number of other small engine machinery used in the summer like lawnmowers, weedeaters and tillers.
Small engine mechanics confirm this saying their shops are as full as they've ever been with machinery that has broken down.
Some mechanics are also getting a little concerned about taking in the ethanol-damaged equipment, as many times they clean it, as with chainsaws, and have to bring them right back from using them in the field because ethanol leaves behind a hidden residue that can't be spotted with the naked eye.
A recent story about someone bringing a chainsaw in to be fixed, had the mechanic completely cleaning up the carburetor and the daiphrams, putting in fuel and air filters, and it started up in the shop ok. The owner took it out to use it, and after running for five minutes, had to bring it back to be looked at.
Ethanol can clog up just about everything, as in the real life example above, you can clean everything you can think up, and it still continues to fall apart. When the owner brought back the chainsaw after it broke down again, the next time around the lines would have to be checked to see if they were corroded.
Who wants to go through that with every small engine piece of machinery we have? It's ridiculous.
Another factor for the small engine industry is the concerns over safety and liability issues, as not only is there the equipment breaking down problem, but people could be hurt directly or indirectly from the failure of the products they manufacture.
In conclusion, valves can clog up, little metal parts rust, carburetors destroyes, as well as other small, but needed components.
Draining the ethanol based gas from the tanks isn't enough either, as I mentioned earlier, because of the residue - which is the component in ethanol that does the damage - will remain in the engine and chainsaw parts unseen.
While it doesn't work real well, some people have been helped slightly by adding Stabil to their non-2-cycle engine equipment. They unwittingly think that taking the ethanol mixed gas out that it will prevent the damage, but they are wrong.
Should you use ethanol in your chainsaws? Not at all if you can help it. There's nothing we can do to keep the engines and parts from gumming up and eventually failing.
Even the mechanics admit after cleaning it up there's not much they can do to prevent our chainsaws from being damaged again and again. We need to drop the ethanol hoax now. Think of the problems about to be released if the pressure to increase the mixture goes through!
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Ethanol Destroying Most Types of Power Equipment
At the end of last month the growing grass roots opposition to ethanol received a boost as a state legislature, David Campbell, introduced a bill that would ban ethanol from being blended with gasoline in the state of New Hampshire.
One report said, "Equipment repair shops all over the Northeast report growing problems with engines caused by gasoline containing the current EPA-mandated 10 percent ethanol, or “E-10” gas. The engines, many of which are two-cycle, weren’t engineered to accommodate the differing characteristics of E-10 fuel, leading to an array of problems, including hard starting, erratic running, internal damage and eventual failure."
If this is happening in the northeast, it's happening everywhere this type of equipment is being used. It's either being underreported, neglected, or equipment users aren't aware of the cause behind their equipment failures.
This is similar to bad gas in a car which has damaged the device which measures how much gas is in the tank. You don't know it until a number of people discover they've been victims of the same problem, and figure out it has come from the same cause.
With all this being done at the "E-10" level, think of what will happen at the "E-15" or "E-20" level, which is being pushed unethically by the ethanol industry.
"There’s lots more of that to come if EPA allows E-15, E-20 or higher ethanol blends to come to market," says Kris Kiser of OEPI (Outdoor Power Equipment Institute), a Washington trade group.
So why is this outrage being perpetrated upon people?
Kiser says this:
“We’re now using less gasoline across the country, so the ethanol lobby is trying to force more ethanol onto the market."
If that were to happen, Kiser says most “'legacy equipment'-outdoor equipment engines made before 2008" will break down.
Some state bureaucrats form the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services are discouraging Cambell in his fight saying the state won't receive gas under the current federal ethanol mandates if he pursues this course.
But as Cambell said, "if New Hampshire bans it we’ll be the first state to do it, but if 10, 20 or 30 states eventually come along I say it will stop the idiocy."
I think he's right. That many states banning it will undermine the completely misguided, and in some cases, unethical, foisting of ethanol upon the public.
Many of the supporters behind the legislation are owners of snowmobiles, weed whackers, chainsaws and outboard boat motors, or any other similar equipment. Once word gets out on the terrible damage to users' equipment, it shouldn't take long before the ethanol debacle is finally and thankfully buried.
One report said, "Equipment repair shops all over the Northeast report growing problems with engines caused by gasoline containing the current EPA-mandated 10 percent ethanol, or “E-10” gas. The engines, many of which are two-cycle, weren’t engineered to accommodate the differing characteristics of E-10 fuel, leading to an array of problems, including hard starting, erratic running, internal damage and eventual failure."
If this is happening in the northeast, it's happening everywhere this type of equipment is being used. It's either being underreported, neglected, or equipment users aren't aware of the cause behind their equipment failures.
This is similar to bad gas in a car which has damaged the device which measures how much gas is in the tank. You don't know it until a number of people discover they've been victims of the same problem, and figure out it has come from the same cause.
With all this being done at the "E-10" level, think of what will happen at the "E-15" or "E-20" level, which is being pushed unethically by the ethanol industry.
"There’s lots more of that to come if EPA allows E-15, E-20 or higher ethanol blends to come to market," says Kris Kiser of OEPI (Outdoor Power Equipment Institute), a Washington trade group.
So why is this outrage being perpetrated upon people?
Kiser says this:
“We’re now using less gasoline across the country, so the ethanol lobby is trying to force more ethanol onto the market."
If that were to happen, Kiser says most “'legacy equipment'-outdoor equipment engines made before 2008" will break down.
Some state bureaucrats form the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services are discouraging Cambell in his fight saying the state won't receive gas under the current federal ethanol mandates if he pursues this course.
But as Cambell said, "if New Hampshire bans it we’ll be the first state to do it, but if 10, 20 or 30 states eventually come along I say it will stop the idiocy."
I think he's right. That many states banning it will undermine the completely misguided, and in some cases, unethical, foisting of ethanol upon the public.
Many of the supporters behind the legislation are owners of snowmobiles, weed whackers, chainsaws and outboard boat motors, or any other similar equipment. Once word gets out on the terrible damage to users' equipment, it shouldn't take long before the ethanol debacle is finally and thankfully buried.
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