Energy Continued

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Energy Continued
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Fuel Additives

• Increase octane rating by increasing amount of
  oxygen.
• Ex. Methyl t-butyl ether
• Ethanol, methanol

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Advantages

• Increase fuel burning efficiency

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Disadvantages

• Can be bad for the environment, MTBE
• May not mix well with gasoline at higher
  concentrations
• Have a lower energy output

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Energy output

• Gasoline 30 MJ/liter cost- 3-/gallon
• Ethanol 22-23 MJ/liter cost 3-4/gallon
• Methanol 16 MJ/liter cost 1 gallon
• Nitromethane 11MJ/liter

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Methanol Fuel

• Produced from natural gas
• Similar toxicity to gasoline
• Less explosive, burns with an invisible flame
• Has been used as a fuel in Indy car and CART
  racing.
• Less expensive than Ethanol

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Ethanol Fuel

• Produced from fermentation of corn and sugar cane
• Most regular engines can handle E-10, 10 ethanol
• Must be distilled to remove water and get high
  percentages of ethanol

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Drawbacks

• E-100 is about 34 less efficient than similar
  gasoline based engines
• Requires energy to grow and distill

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Advantages

• Does not contribute additional CO2 to the
  environment
• Burns cleaner than gasoline with additional
  oxygen source

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Ethanol

• Is used in auto-racing, IRL will use E-100,
  starting this season.

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Nitromethane

• Fuel additive that produces oxygen when burned
• Used in Drag racing, nitro burning cars
• Usually in a mixture with methanol
• Provide less energy but about 2.3 times the power
  of gasoline when burned in a given amount of
  oxygen.

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Nitrous oxide

• Sometimes called NOS
• Provides oxygen to increase the efficacy of a
  gasoline burning engine.

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Electricity

• 50 of electricity in the US formed from burning
  coal
• Process is only about 40 efficient

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Hydropower

• Uses water from Dams to spin turbines
• Provides 9 of Us electricity, mostly in the
  western US.
• Most dam sites already dammed
• Can effect the natural environment
• Relatively clean energy and renewable

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Tidal Power

• Uses large tidal flows to produce energy
• Largest in France, along the Rance River
  installed in 1967
• About 80 efficient
• Requires large tidal flows and special geography

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Nuclear Power

• Nuclear fission- heat from nuclear reaction used
  to produce steam.
• 20 of US energy from nuclear fission, about 100
  power plants
• In the rest of the Western world it represent a
  larger percentage

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Percentage of energy from Fission

• France 76
• UK 27
• Japan 36
• Germany 28

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Advantages

• Relatively clean energy
• No greenhouse emissions

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Disadvantages

• Hazardous waste is produced
• Danger of a release of radioactive particles into
  the environment

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Two types of Fission plants

• Breeder reactors
• Convert U-238 is converted to Pu-239 which is
  fissable
• However, Pu-239 is low melting so this must be
  controlled at lower temps.
• No breeder reactors in US but are used in France
  and other countries

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Wind Power

• Estimated 1-3 of solar energy converted to wind
• Use wind to drive a turbine
• US third behind Germany and Spain in wind energy
  produced
• Requires a large capital investment

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Disadvantages

• Intermittent
• Onshore not the best looking
• Can be harmful to birds, and noisy