h a l f b a k e r yYou gonna finish that?
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There's a lot of scope here for subsidiary methane production... |
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Set the peanuts on fire and use the heat to power a Stirling engine to run the truck. |
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Or pyrolyse the peanuts in an anaerobic digester, and burn the resutant fuel gases. |
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If you drove this past my place you'd be chased by squirrels. |
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(I would've said monkeys and elephants but I don't live there.) |
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Speaking of elephants, don't they bake the notion of a peanut powered freight machine? |
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George Washington Carver would be pleased. |
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How much energy do you get from the peanuts for their cost? and how much would you sell the peanut biscuits for? |
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Peanuts contain about 50% oil by weight,
though not all of this can be extracted
easily. The oil itself has roughly the same
energy content as any other oil. |
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Incidentally, peanut-derived biodiesel has
already been produced and used (eg, see
link). |
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There's a separate unit powered by soya
beans. |
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No, silly. The soya bean crusher is
powered by a solar panel which is
illuminated by a lamp fed by the alternator
on the diesel engine. Do try to keep up. |
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If the truck were to use oil from non-edible peanuts, which are being developed by the University of Georgia (read link), then you can't make or sell the peanut biscuits. |
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Yes, I didn't understand the logic behind
that. The reasoning seemed to be "Peanut
oil is used by the food industry; therefore
peanut oil is too expensive to use for
biodiesel; therefore we must create an
inedible peanut". Daft, daft, and daft. |
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I think that the goal of the genetically altered peanuts is not to make them so that they do not have to compete with peanuts meant for human consumption by making them inedible, but merely to create peanuts which have a higher oil content and would be more suitable for use in diesel engines, making them require less processing, and to be more cost effective. (I hope that makes sense and is correct.) |
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// The truck runs on peanut oil just as Diesel himself intended // |
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Wow Johnny Diesel intended that, is there anything that man can't do. |
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Actually the very first Diesel engines ran on powdered coal, and only after it was realized that powdered coal was a very dangerous fuel did he use peanut oil. |
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Being of Italian herritage, I personally would prefer the olive-oil powered car (Alfa Romeo, perhaps?) with the olive press in the boot (in keeping with this idea). And with olives being more naturally oily I'd imagine it would be a lot easier to extract the oil. |
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The Italian Truck would have an stylish aerodynamic cab, chrome trim and a sporty sounding exhaust note and everyone would want one, except those truckers that have developed a liking for peanut biscuits. |
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"non-edible peanuts" "developed by the University of Georgia" "... therefore we must create an inedible peanut." |
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Are you effing KIDDING ME? I hadn't heard any of this. |
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Oh my stars and garters. Okay, that does seem a bit more sensible - there are oil-heavy varieties already out there that aren't much good for commercial use; these guys just want to build on that. |
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What the hell is "fossil fuel-based biodiesel?" It's either fossil diesel - aka petrodiesel - or biodiesel, aka biodiesel. What are they trying to say here? |
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I think it's regular diesel supplemented
with bio-diesel. This makes sense - it
allows you to use a wider range of bio-
derived oils and still have a useable
fuel.
And, since biodiesel is still a minority
product, there's no point in using it
"neat"
in a small number of vehicles. It makes
more sense to have 100% of vehicles
running on 1% biodiesel than to have 1%
of vehicles running on 100% biodiesel. |
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Either that or some of that decomposed dinosaur fossil fuel... organic... bio-fossil... err.. stuff. |
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I wonder if you could mix ethanol and pure vegetable oil at, say, a 70/ 30 ratio and have it work in a spark ignited engine... Well it would have about 93 octane. |
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The very first cars ran on environmentally friendly fuels such as peanut oil, alcohol and steam. But then gas and diesel became cheap and plentiful and here we are today... |
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That said, I don't think this idea would make a very economical vehicle, but [+] for the peanut biscuits! |
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The problem with a blended fuel like that is that you can preferentially lose the light fraction, causing sooting of the plugs. Also, don't confuse octane number with burn speed; diesels rev much more slowly than gasoline engines because the whole combustion reaction for heavy oil proceeds much more slowly, even under the conditions of high compression and temperature present in a diesel head during injection. |
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Well if I were to even try and implement it, I would use two separate tanks and mix the fuel right before injection. I know that diesels burn much more slowly, hence the significantly lower redlines, but I imagine with 70% ethanol the burn speed of the fuel in total would be much shorter. And I didn't confuse octane with burn speed; I remember reading that biodiesel has an octane of around 50, and reading that ethanol has an octane of 113. Simple math brought me to the 93. |
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I think we skipped over the squirrels far too lightly. It would probably be most efficient to power the truck in that manner. |
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There's already squirrel cage blowers, all that's required is a few modifications. |
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Can anyone estimate the peanuts per mile fuel consumption baring in mind the oil extracting plant may not be of the most efficient type due to the fact we wish to also use the peanuts for biscuits? |
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How many biscuits could be produced per mile using the onboard biscuit making machine? |
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Can you make a yummy biscuit with just dried up peanuts and rainwater? Do we need on board chickens for egg production? |
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The truck would have to be big enough to carry peanuts for a 100 mile range. It would also be required to produce saleworthy peanut biscuits. It would also need to carry the driver and 2 to 3 extra passengers as required and provide for the guard dog and possibly the chickens. |
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// biodiesel has an octane of around 50 // |
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Gasoline fuels for spark-ignition are given a notional "Octane Number" (R+M)/2 by comparison to 2-Dimethyl 3-Dimethly Butane (The multi-branched form of Octane) with a notional Octane Number of 100. Aviation fuels (AVGAS) are typically 110 Octane (by adding aryl compounds) and unleaded gasoline for lad vehcles about 92 Octane. |
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Diesel fuels are assigned a "Cetane number". This is similar to an octane number but compares the blended fuel against pure Cetane (C30H62) in its linear form - no isomers. |
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There is no meaningful equivalence between Octane numbers and Cetane numbers. |
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However, your idea of premixing the fuels immediately before injection - the same way that many "self-dosing" 2-strokes add their lubricant - is good, provided that you can control the viscosity of the heavy fraction at low temperatures. Below about 279 K, peanut oil goes cloudy and its viscosity rises rapidly, enough to confuse a basic dosing regulator system. |
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If you're going for ethanol, why not just ferment the peanuts and go for an all-ethanol system ? |
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//hy not just ferment the peanuts and go
for an all-ethanol system// I suspect this
would be woefully inefficient. First, you
need bugs that will eat fats rather than the
usual sugars (probably possible). But then
you have huge efficiency issues in any
biological interconversion. |
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// huge efficiency issues in any biological interconversion. // |
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But more acceptable environmental credentials. |
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This is a wild, whacky, off the wall idea, but, well, why not use things for what they're good for ? Peanuts are good to eat and nutritious. It's possible to make peanut flour and peanut butter. Yes, use peanut oil as a lubricant or a biodesel feedstock, by all means, but if you have an edible food product why not use it for that ? |
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If you want ethanol, grow sugar cane....... if you want starch, grow potatoes. |
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Hmmm, chopped boiled potatoes and roasted peanuts fried in dark rum, sugar syrup and peanut oil, over a fire of peanut shells ? Anyone want to try it ? |
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Would peanut-allergic persons be in peril when stuck in traffic behind one of these trucks? Perhaps the trucks should be painted a special colour and carry emergency kits equipped with Benadryl and epinephrine syringes. |
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Is there any way to find the octane equivalent of biodiesel? |
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What if the peanuts are burned (including the shells?) to boil water for a steam engine or a converted diesel engine? |
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//What if the peanuts are burned//
There'd be no biscuits then. |
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True, but if it is that much more efficient, then you wont need the money from selling the biscuits. And maybe you can eat some of the peanuts. |
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Actually, [Canuck] has a point there. Suddenly, minimal emissions are not just nice, but vital. |
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Just had a thought - to make them stand out, if Planters would allow it, we could specify that the driver of any peanut-powered vehicle be required to wear a Mr. Peanut outfit. Not only would they be very visible, but they would also look pretty spiffy with top hat, monocle, spats and a walking stick! |
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//they would also look pretty spiffy with
top hat, monocle, spats and a walking
stick// I've always found it works for me. |
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I have tried to resist, but have failed.
The Alfalfa Romeo?
The Renault Legume?
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Designed by Farina, no doubt.... |
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We'll see your Hah!, and raise you a Heh Heh ... |
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And I'll chip in a Mwahahaha! |
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Oops! There goes the hand dryer... |
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[Canuck], you just made my day. |
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So if the truck does 40MPG (imperial) and a gallon of peanut oil weighs 3447.302 grams |
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If we extract just 25% of the oil from each peanut we need 13.8kg of peanuts for |
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A peanut crush speed of about 8 peanuts per second should be sufficient if each peanut weighs .5 gram. |
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Which gives us 10kg of raw materials for biscuit production. At a rate of 3gram per second. |
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You get 1 biscuit each 30 seconds. We may need to microwave cook the biscuits! |
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I think a key component of peanut butter
is the oil. Incidentally, is it just my
imagination, or have the health nazis
brought about a reduction in the salt
content of peanut butter lately? |
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What [BJS] said about burning burning shell and all in an external combustion engine. Carrying around a crusher, a separator and a box o' biscuits is just silly. |
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To the peanut powered truck driver the most important aspect of his vehicle is that it produces biscuits that taste good. Also at traffic lights he has a chance to sell his biscuits to offset the purchase price of peanuts. |
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Peanuts are expensive. The only way to economically run this truck would be to have a commercial biscuit product whose sales sponsor the fuel. |
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Mayhap. I think it would then be more economical to have a peanut crusher at a fixed location, with a biscuit store and a filling station attached. Not as whimsical maybe, but better. [ ] |
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Maybe you have a point there. I say raise biscuit taxes, they are a luxuary item and use profits to subsidise peanut oil. |
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