Biofuels phail! >:}

[Alondro]

Well well well, I was right AGAIN!!!

Can we drill now?

Brazil's only well off because their land space is massive and they can grow high-energy-density sugarcane. 

As I said from the beginning, grains are a poor choice for fuel.

But I love how they only blame Bush!  Uhm, hello morons.  Liberals were the ones who pushed harder than anyone else for biofuels.  Bush gave in (he's too soft, I'd tell them to go f$%# themselves, which they like to do anyway) and now he's getting the blame.

I'll stick with my solution:  Free gas for life to whoever can kill the most people!  I'll go hide in Antarctica while the slaughter commences, and return to a newly depopulated land ready and waiting for my clone army to begin building my galactic empire!!   

[Jigsaw Forte]

You realize though that if we had cars that consumed less gasoline (thank you, SUV era) and carried less weight, this wouldn't be such a problem?

(hell, the average family could afford to lose about 100 lbs between 'em, and it'd make a HUGE impact on fuel efficiency...)

[Reese Tora]

You realize though that if we had cars that consumed less gasoline (thank you, SUV era) and carried less weight, this wouldn't be such a problem?

(hell, the average family could afford to lose about 100 lbs between 'em, and it'd make a HUGE impact on fuel efficiency...)

Heck, people could learn to not drive like butt holes, and it would save a LOT fo gas.

Every time you put yourself in a position where you have to hit the brakes, that's pennies coming out your exhaust pipe. It adds up.

[Kenji]

Eh. Just use people as fuel.
I believe Charline had first stated it...

[Stygian]

I am entirely with Jigsaw here. Not to mention that simple rationalization in logistics and management could reduce worldwide fuel consumption by huge amounts. And then there are such measures as simply building more and better railways rather than relying on flight or trailer transports, minimizing container shipping, generally having some initiative and investing in new technology... or, rather, actually in the technology that already exists, but which is not being put to good use.

Want some examples? European railways, the Toyota Prius, Dick Rutan...

Personally, I couldn't give less about the damn food prices here. Because it's not the biofuels that are the problem. Biofuels are, simply put, superior, technologically and economically. It's just that the smartasses at the head of management haven't come up with the brilliant ideas of synchronizing efforts and pooling resources yet. Or even of looking past the convenient facts they want to see, and viewing the real problems...

We need the oil for synthetic materials. We need America to lose some weight and flight tonnage. We need China to stop munching down everything it can without pause. And we need Brazil to go fuck itself. Because seriously, those people are... Do you read National Geographic? I swear to all that is unholy, if you ever read more than five issues of that magazine, you'll begin to develop a hatred for all of South America too.

[Darkmoon]

Well well well, I was right AGAIN!!!

Can we drill now?

Brazil's only well off because their land space is massive and they can grow high-energy-density sugarcane. 

As I said from the beginning, grains are a poor choice for fuel.

But I love how they only blame Bush!  Uhm, hello morons.  Liberals were the ones who pushed harder than anyone else for biofuels.  Bush gave in (he's too soft, I'd tell them to go f$%# themselves, which they like to do anyway) and now he's getting the blame.

I'll stick with my solution:  Free gas for life to whoever can kill the most people!  I'll go hide in Antarctica while the slaughter commences, and return to a newly depopulated land ready and waiting for my clone army to begin building my galactic empire!!   

Alondro, we know you're a conservative. That has been made very clear over the course of your stay here. However, the way you phrase your political posts come across as all out attacks on liberals. This wouldn't be such a big deal if the liberals were the same way, but no one on the "other side" is nearly as nasty as you are (and if they were, I'd put a stop to it, trust me).

This is a mild, but official, warning. Civility is required here, and if you can't make political posts for the sake of discussion without making it a slam on anyone that doesn't think like you, then don't make these kinds of threads.

[Reese Tora]

I am entirely with Jigsaw here. Not to mention that simple rationalization in logistics and management could reduce worldwide fuel consumption by huge amounts. And then there are such measures as simply building more and better railways rather than relying on flight or trailer transports, minimizing container shipping, generally having some initiative and investing in new technology... or, rather, actually in the technology that already exists, but which is not being put to good use.

Want some examples? European railways, the Toyota Prius, Dick Rutan...

Personally, I couldn't give less about the damn food prices here. Because it's not the biofuels that are the problem. Biofuels are, simply put, superior, technologically and economically. It's just that the smartasses at the head of management haven't come up with the brilliant ideas of synchronizing efforts and pooling resources yet. Or even of looking past the convenient facts they want to see, and viewing the real problems...

We need the oil for synthetic materials. We need America to lose some weight and flight tonnage. We need China to stop munching down everything it can without pause. And we need Brazil to go fuck itself. Because seriously, those people are... Do you read National Geographic? I swear to all that is unholy, if you ever read more than five issues of that magazine, you'll begin to develop a hatred for all of South America too.

Has anyone done a proper study of the TCO of a prius? I imagine the increased manufacturing costs, regular maintainance fees, and battery replacement costs mitigate a lot of the fuel savings.  And, what, 45-50 MPG? My mom owns one, and says she gets about 47 MPG on winter gas. My regular old gas burning Civic does a fine 37 MPG on winter gas, so that's a 27% increase over a good regular car.

If you figure my commute as being an average commute (about 70 miles daily) that's 1.9gallons vs. 1.49 * roughly 250 = 475 vs. 372.5 = 102.5 gallons saved = (at older gas prices, say $3.50/g) = $359 saved each year, and you paid an extra(22,000 - 16,500 = )$5,500 you make back your initial cost in about fifteen years.  That doesn't cover extra maintainance involving the electronics and battery, which you can't take to your local garage to have fixed.

(I'm still not sure if your examples are supposed to be good examples of bad examples, because I'm not familiar with europe's rail ssytem or whoever that eprson you mentioned is.)

And, how exactly do you figure that biofuels are superior?
AFAIK, they are less energy dense and require more energy to produce than oil based fuels.  The requirements of growing food to turn into fuel is an added penalty that IS very important, and can not be lightly brushed aside.  We are already over extending our capacity to grow, over using our water supplies, overusing our soil, and growing more to satisfy fuel demand will only further tax the land we grow food on.

[Brunhidden]

many experts are now coming to the conclusion that biofuels were little more then a valiant effort to bridge the gap before we simply do away with internal combustion.

the two new ideas that require no burning whatsoever are the aircar and they hydrogen car.

its simple, a hydrogen car has been kicked around for so long and in places like Norway they're already setting up roads equipped with enough stations capable of supplying hydrogen that you could easily just 'gas' up and go. the only emission is water, and all you really need is a reliable source of electricity and clean water.

the aircar is an ingenious idea i cant figure out why nobody thought of it either- your 'gas tank' is actually three large compressed air tanks under the car, and the car runs on compressed air being released into the engine. due to not having internal combustion the engine is very small, made of very light materials, is barely warm to the touch, and some concepts are virtually frictionless and don't require motor oil. the distance traveled on a 'tank' is about what you could do with a normal car, it can reach speeds of 100 miles per hour, and if you cant find compressed air you can plug it into the wall and an onboard compressor will refill your tank for 4$. as an extra emergency theres a very small gas engine hooked up to the compressor which can refill your tank if your empty- its so efficent that the designers said on a full tank of air and a full tank of gas you could drive from new york to san francisco without refueling. from what i heard you may see them on the roads in about a year from now, but for 4$ a refill i am so in.




but until those catch on and can be bought commercially- buy a damned scooter, they get 100 miles per the gallon and are dirt cheap anyways.

Complaining is good for you as long as you're not complaining to the person you're complaining about.

[Esnel Pla]

There wouldn't be such an issue with biofuels if something other than corn was used.

Theoretically, you can make ethanol out of any kind of grain. Corn is a HORRIBLE choice. It zaps the topsoil, its a bitch to grow, and it raises prices everywhere. Not to mention, the ethanol that corn produces is not as good of a biofuel as other ethanols.

Why ethanol made of weeds and such isn't being pursued more is beyond me... I do know now though that ethanol is definitely getting its name smeared. Gasoline around here is now comprised of 10 percent ethanol, and because of this, you get less miles to the gallon. Gas prices are ridiculous. Food prices are going up. It'd be easy for people to put the blame on alternative fuel..

If you want my opinion, I'd say oil profiteers are behind it.

[Stygian]

I expected your response, Reese, and I will address the points quickly and efficiently.

Firstly, the TCO of a Prius is less than optimal, but Toyota knew that when they built it. They actually lost quite a lot of funds over the Prius. But they built it anyway, mainly as a testing platform, to see how hybrid technology would work in production cars. And, using that info, they have advanced the technology and understanding that both they and others employ quite a bit, in the ten years that the Prius has been around. It also greatly improved their worldwide image...

Secondly, I am talking pure application when it comes to the fuels. Yes, ethanol and methanol both are significantly less energy dense than gasoline. And really, no fuels have anything on diesel when it comes to economy. However, alcohols like methanol and ethanol burn better at higher compression and higher temperatures, and develop more power than gasoline nonetheless. This increases fuel efficiency considerably. All you have to do is modify the engines so that they can cope with the stress of the higher compression and optimize them toward the newer fuel. In production, this is so easy that it's nearly shameful; the main problem is material corrosion and constraint, actually, not engine block tolerance. And there are cars from Saab, for example, that easily take both types of fuel, simply by varying compression.

Also, mixing methanol with gasoline can even further increase the power of an engine, due to the self-oxygenization within the fuel rising significantly, allowing the more energy-dense gasoline, which requires about... oh, eight to ten times the amount of oxygen to burn as efficiently, to provide significantly more power. Mud racer cars, most notably, take this even further by throwing nitrous oxide into the mixture as well.

And, yes, corn is an absolutely horrible choice. Sugarcane, as grown in Brazil, on the other hand seems the optimal choice, providing about eight times as much fuel by the acre. The plants themselves grow better as well, and provide a good amount of spill biomass that can be burned and used to power refineries.

[Reese Tora]

Gasoline around here is now comprised of 10 percent ethanol, and because of this, you get less miles to the gallon. Gas prices are ridiculous. Food prices are going up. It'd be easy for people to put the blame on alternative fuel..

If you want my opinion, I'd say oil profiteers are behind it.

Or maybe consumers are just good at putting 2 and 2 together.

I expected your response, Reese, and I will address the points quickly and efficiently.

Firstly, the TCO of a Prius is less than optimal, but Toyota knew that when they built it. They actually lost quite a lot of funds over the Prius. But they built it anyway, mainly as a testing platform, to see how hybrid technology would work in production cars. And, using that info, they have advanced the technology and understanding that both they and others employ quite a bit, in the ten years that the Prius has been around. It also greatly improved their worldwide image...

Right, but how much of that extra TCO translates to use of palstics, fuel for transport, and fuel for electricity?  Toyota's image be damned, what's the net impact on oil use?  I don't know what it is, but it's not the green and happy image that is being projected.

Secondly, I am talking pure application when it comes to the fuels. Yes, ethanol and methanol both are significantly less energy dense than gasoline. And really, no fuels have anything on diesel when it comes to economy. However, alcohols like methanol and ethanol burn better at higher compression and higher temperatures, and develop more power than gasoline nonetheless. This increases fuel efficiency considerably. All you have to do is modify the engines so that they can cope with the stress of the higher compression and optimize them toward the newer fuel. In production, this is so easy that it's nearly shameful; the main problem is material corrosion and constraint, actually, not engine block tolerance. And there are cars from Saab, for example, that easily take both types of fuel, simply by varying compression.

Also, mixing methanol with gasoline can even further increase the power of an engine, due to the self-oxygenization within the fuel rising significantly, allowing the more energy-dense gasoline, which requires about... oh, eight to ten times the amount of oxygen to burn as efficiently, to provide significantly more power. Mud racer cars, most notably, take this even further by throwing nitrous oxide into the mixture as well.

And, yes, corn is an absolutely horrible choice. Sugarcane, as grown in Brazil, on the other hand seems the optimal choice, providing about eight times as much fuel by the acre, and better quality fuel at that. The plants themselves grow better as well, and provide a good amount of spill biomass that can be burned and used to power refineries.

If the efficiency is increased, why does gas milage decrease?

[Faerie Alex]

Not to mention, the ethanol that corn produces is not as good of a biofuel as other ethanols.

Could you please elaborate on this? Having recently taken a chemistry course, my (albeit limited) understanding is that ethanol itself is a uniform product. Now, I agree with you that corn may not be the best source to derive ethanol from...but I don't see that any other source would produce a different derivative that you could still call ethanol.

[Jigsaw Forte]

Not to mention, the ethanol that corn produces is not as good of a biofuel as other ethanols.

Could you please elaborate on this? Having recently taken a chemistry course, my (albeit limited) understanding is that ethanol itself is a uniform product. Now, I agree with you that corn may not be the best source to derive ethanol from...but I don't see that any other source would produce a different derivative that you could still call ethanol.

The problem isn't that ethanol isn't ethanol, it's that corn ethanol has a different Cost Per Whatever compared to other sources of ethanol (cane, algae, hemp...)

Corn is not, shall we say... efficient because we're only harvesting a small amount of the plant (the seeds) for fuel. Sugarcane produces a much higher percentage of the plant that is harvested, but the energy needed to break it down may not be efficient enough to counter this. Hemp is debatable, but since so much of the plant has SOME sort of use, it shouldn't be ruled out without some consideration. Algae is almost 100% harvestable, but the equipment needed to yield the highest amount of algae per acre means there's a high cost of entry.

A huge consideration of using ethanol over ordinary gasoline is that the majority of our cars aren't BUILT to take ethanol. So whatever benefit it has is lost on the wear-and-tear ethanol incurs.

In other news, I saw a small fleet of zapcars in today's 4th of July parade. The ostrich-egg SmartCar seemed to be a bigger crowd pleaser than the ZapCars, though I chalk that up to the whole "Having four wheels" thing.

[ShadesFox]

Thing is that the only reason that corn was even considered was that corn is heavily subsidized.  That is why, in the US, you get everything using corn syrup to replace sugar.  Farmers grow so much and dump it on the market because the government guarantees a minimum price for corn and cuts the farmers a check.  Meanwhile all the corn on the market drops prices to almost nothing.  The extremely cheap corn seemed attractive because it was so damn cheap.  Then when biofuels came in that changed.

Not that it will mater before long anyways.  The real show stopper is going to be the ridiculous amounts of water the whole affair will take.  There isn't enough water and it will start cutting into the price for tap water and all crops and anything else that uses water (aka, everything).  Really, there is/was a corn ethanol plant planned in Florida in a county where there are already drought conditions and last I heard they were having a fit because if/when it opens it would be the 3rd largest consumer of water.  Mind you this is in an area where there are already water shortages.  I've not checked on the situation lately but I'm pretty sure that the ridiculous water situation in the world (and yes, this is a global problem) has not been resolved.  This will ALSO continue to be a problem even if you get into other weird types of ethanol like the cellulosic type.

The real solution is to let gas prices get high so that people will stop being jackasses about driving and learn how to walk, or bike, or carpool.

[Valynth]

Here's a solution to the water problem:  take salt-water.  Then distill the water from the salt in the same way we distill alcohol from water.  Ta-da!

[Stygian]

If the efficiency is increased, why does gas milage decrease?

Because shit fuck argh puke bloody Rumsfeld grease bricks.

...

I feel like facepalming. Either he's not telling the truth, or it's as simple as the fact that a regular car engine is not optimized, compression- and injection-wise, to deal with that kind of fuel. So, the burn becomes less efficient. Most probably it's because the ethanol offsets the optimal mix by letting the gas burn too fast to start with, and then 'choking' it before it's burned through all the fuel. If you want the process to be as efficient as possible, you need more oxygen. And that just might be the very reason that mud racer cars apply the nitrous oxide in the first place. I don't know how well those engines work when it comes to air intake, but I imagine that they use neither superchargers nor turbo, so...

[Jigsaw Forte]

The real solution is to let gas prices get high so that people will stop being jackasses about driving and learn how to walk, or bike, or carpool.

The problem is that you can't let this happen without it having huge economic impacts due to the cost of transportation of goods, let alone people. (It'd be even worse without the internet offsetting some of the transportation/shipping issues, but it's far from eliminating it because of the inefficiencies of any given shipping system... No matter what the payload is for any given day, the mailman still comes by your house.)

If it were to get high enough that we could suddenly switch to a new combustion source, that'd be one thing, but since our only real option now is to find non-combustible sources, we're effectively fucked and overdue for some major economic drama.

[Reese Tora]

If the efficiency is increased, why does gas milage decrease?

Because shit fuck argh puke bloody Rumsfeld grease bricks.

...

I feel like facepalming. Either he's not telling the truth, or it's as simple as the fact that a regular car engine is not optimized, compression- and injection-wise, to deal with that kind of fuel. So, the burn becomes less efficient. Most probably it's because the ethanol offsets the optimal mix by letting the gas burn too fast to start with, and then 'choking' it before it's burned through all the fuel. If you want the process to be as efficient as possible, you need more oxygen. And that just might be the very reason that mud racer cars apply the nitrous oxide in the first place. I don't know how well those engines work when it comes to air intake, but I imagine that they use neither superchargers nor turbo, so...

Well, I don't think he's lying, because I've gotten the 'lower gas milage' thing from multiple people.  Possibly they've all been mislead (it would not be the first time that a large body of people were misled by a minority intending to profit from it.), but... wikipedia has a figure of about 3% milage drop with E10 fuel, but notes that ethanol is a higher octane than standard gas(it has E85 as 104 octane where regular gas, here in CA, is 87 octane).

Energy density is energy density, it's the maximum amount of work you can extract from the fuel at best efficiency.  Modern engines are designed to be as efficient as possible, gas milage is a function of the engine efficiency, the gear train efficiency, and the weight of your vehicle.  If you use ethanol, you reduce the average energy density, and you change what is the most efficient concentrations and timings to extract work from your fuel.  Modern engines, notably on flex fuel cars, can conpensate for these changes, but you are still putting less energy per gallon into your car.  you carry more fuel capable of doing less work, and that has an effect on your milage.

Yes, we need to reduce our dependance on oil, yes we need to switch to alternative power supplies, no none of them will be as good as gasoline for power or convenience, but it's a sacrifice that needs to be made before it becomes a mandated choice, and a sacrifice that needs to be made if we are going to cut down on the polution we put in to the air daily.  It's a sacrifice, and we have to make it, and it is NOT better, and telling me that "oh, it's better, that's why" pisses me off because I feel it cheapens the sacrifice to call it anything else.

If you can show me where you got the information that ethanol somehow magically boosts the energy density of gasoline when you mix the two, I'll concede the point, but simple math says that you're going to ahve a lower energy density...  90% of 1 plus 10% of .64 is not going to be greater than 1.

[Valynth]

Yes, we need to reduce our dependance on oil, yes we need to switch to alternative power supplies, no none of them will be as good as gasoline for power or convenience, but it's a sacrifice that needs to be made before it becomes a mandated choice, and a sacrifice that needs to be made if we are going to cut down on the polution we put in to the air daily.  It's a sacrifice, and we have to make it, and it is NOT better, and telling me that "oh, it's better, that's why" pisses me off because I feel it cheapens the sacrifice to call it anything else.

CO2 is not a pollutant.  CO2, infact, keeps our plants alive.

If anything, using the underground sources actually PREVENTS an even larger environmental disaster.  As I've pointed out time and again, underground oil is constantly sinking.  Once it sinks far enough, all that oil decays into methane.  This methane then gets released into the atmosphere.  Given that methane is about 6-8 times more powerful of a green house gas than CO2 is, I've got to say it's actually better for humans to turn the oil into CO2 and face a slow warming of the earth rather than the sudden massive eruption of methane that will occur once the oil pockets sink far enough.

Oh, and currently our entire solar system is experiencing a heat wave of about the same or greater percentage change than the earth has faced.  Kinda odd that, it's almost as if we're giving ourselves too much credit.

[Reese Tora]

I never said CO2, there are other polutants. 
I never said we need to stop using oil, just that we need to stop depending on it as a fuel; it can run out, maybe it will begin to in my life time.  Oil is what modern technology breeds on.

[Brunhidden]

Why ethanol made of weeds and such isn't being pursued more is beyond me... I do know now though that ethanol is definitely getting its name smeared. Gasoline around here is now comprised of 10 percent ethanol, and because of this, you get less miles to the gallon. Gas prices are ridiculous. Food prices are going up. It'd be easy for people to put the blame on alternative fuel..

people have been tinkering with using algae, an ingenious solution as algae can be harvested every day, bags of it can absorb emissions from industry and use it to grow, and done correctly can double its biomass with frightening efficiency.

the problems are as follows

1- up until recently algae study has been at the ass end of science, and thus people who know how to grow algae in hi density concentrations like we would need can be counted on one hand. they're like rockstars now, in the science community.

2- to use straight plant material like algae, corn stalks, or other nonfood portions of plants you must break apart the fiber structure that makes the plant so rigid. talk to anyone in the paper industry- cellulose is a wonderful thing you can make tons of stuff from, but breaking it apart so you can use it in the first place is an arduous and sometimes expensive process.

Inanimate objects are classified scientifically into three major categories - those that don't work, those that break down and those that get lost.

[Azlan]

Algae also happen to be a keystone of life on this planet.  It is the primary producer of oxygen, outstripping all the forests across the continents, and they are one of the two primary producers (the other being bacteria) upon which a vast majority of ecosystems are based. 

We humans always do things in excess, yes we can grow it in isolation from the natural environment, and yes only specific types are optimal for the process.  However, it will not be long before we are engineering it to be more optimal for growth, environmental conditions or other such factors.  Invariably someone will make a mistake, a mistake that can effect the ecosystems of the entire world.  A fundamental change in humanity has to occur before I would ever want to see us chipping away at a building block of the ecology of the Earth.

[Brunhidden]

What he said.

and somehow we have arrived back to the future predicted in the 60s and 70s- tanks of algae scattered anywhere theres water and sun, all human civilization depends on it for food and fuel now that oil is nonexistent and the collapse of the honey bee has destroyed all of our other crops.

enjoy your bowls of green mush every meal while you can, that genetic engineering thing means that itll get ticked off enough eventually to become a high nutrient blob of angry chlorophyll.

I look to the future because that's where I'm going to spend the rest of my life.

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

As long as we get our Soylent Green, I'll be happy.

[Stygian]

If you can show me where you got the information that ethanol somehow magically boosts the energy density of gasoline when you mix the two, I'll concede the point, but simple math says that you're going to ahve a lower energy density...  90% of 1 plus 10% of .64 is not going to be greater than 1.

There's nothing 'magical' about anything except the way you manage to avoid the parts where I talk about the oxygen richness of the fuel formula. Gasoline requires a significantly higher amount of oxygen to burn. Methanol and ethanol both contain much more oxygen per gram. Mixing the two together in the right amount helps the gasoline burn more efficiently under the right circumstances. But in such a tight space you still need as much air as you can get and the right compression.

Then again, the difference is nothing like what it becomes if you use nitromethane, or use hydrazine... There's an example, once again, of fuels that have a lot lower energy density, but that are simply put more powerful because they are more explosive and have higher explosion velocities.

[Reese Tora]

hmm, that's interesting.  Perhaps you could link some materials that show this(the chemical formulas for turning gasoline vs. ethanol, oxygen content of the two liquids, something of that nature), because it just doesn't sound right to me.

Most modern engines adjust fuel mix, oxygen content, etc. to maximize the percentage of fuel burned; if you achieve 99% fuel burn with both fuels, in an engine and transmission that transfers the same percentage of energy to the tires for both ethanol and gasoline, then the oxygen content is irrelevant, the amount of work will be dependant on energy density. 
Aside, it looks like the levels of oxygen in gasoline are federally mandated in the US to be no more than 2% in order to reduce pollutants.  I think I did find the article that your information is from here; an interview with a guy who makes ethanol for a living.  I'd consider it suspect without a corroborating source.

There is an EPA report that indicates a drop in fuel efficiency with reformulated fuels that have been oxygenated, including fuel to which ethanol has been added which indicates a 1-3% drop in fuel efficiency.

Note that changing from conventional gasoline to RFG, which is oxygenated,
results in a one to three percent fuel economy loss

http://www.epa.gov/otaq/f99040.pdf

I'm sorry, but the idea that you're suggesting just seems so silly to me that I'd like to see some supporting evidence.  I'm not going to say it's impossible, or that it couldn't happen, but so far I only have your word for it.

[Faerie Alex]

hmm, that's interesting.  Perhaps you could link some materials that show this(the chemical formulas for turning gasoline vs. ethanol, oxygen content of the two liquids, something of that nature), because it just doesn't sound right to me.

Gasoline (or at least, octane)=C8H18 or CH3(CH2)6CH3 (all numbers subscript)

   H  H H H H H  H  H
    |  | |  | |  |  |  |
H-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-H
    |  | |  | |  |  |  |
   H  H H H H H  H  H

Ethanol=CH3CH2OH (all numbers subscript)

    H H
    | |
H-C-C-O-H
    | |
    H H

So technically, ethanol does have oxygen in its formula. I *think* that one molecule of octane will require a greater number of O2 molecules to burn, but mainly because it is a larger molecule (8-carbon chain vs. 2-carbon chain).

[gh0st]

has anyone ever thought of kinetic energy, besides in the form of energy conservation...imagine a giant round block of steal taking the place of an engine, gain power by going downhill switch gears perfectly to keep speed going up hill, recharge stations that keep it going, or just park on a hill... industrial clutch made of carbon fiber mixed in molten steal. giant gear to gear ratios, and just for aesthetic looks make it look like it came out of a steam punk comic book.

[GabrielsThoughts]

a teenage student at MIT  came up with a way to harness the excess energy we use when we walk, dance, or run across a surface with specially designed tiles using some kind of kinetic prioncipal. All I can remember  about her is that she was working on a way to make the tiles for exterior use, but for the time being her tiles are being considered for use within malls and shopping centers. I wish I could remember her name.

[Tapewolf]

has anyone ever thought of kinetic energy, besides in the form of energy conservation...imagine a giant round block of steal taking the place of an engine, gain power by going downhill switch gears perfectly to keep speed going up hill, recharge stations that keep it going, or just park on a hill... industrial clutch made of carbon fiber mixed in molten steal. giant gear to gear ratios, and just for aesthetic looks make it look like it came out of a steam punk comic book.

IIRC they were doing this with buses about 10 years ago as an experiment.  I don't remember where, though.  Basically it had an enormous flywheel slung under the bus which stored the energy.  It stopped at particular bus-stops which had an electric motor in the curb, so that when it 'docked' it would spin the flywheel back up.

**EDIT**

Sorry, that would have been trams:
http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/industry/1284351.html

...though the bus thing has also been tried: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gyrobus