Oil & Fuel Fuel expensive? convert your tractor to electric

[DAY]

QUOTE]

I just don't want to get stuck with a beautiful diesel tractor that I can't operate cause they don't have diesel at the local station this week, and when they do, it's $10/gallon.

JG[/QUOTE]

More and more "alternative" folks are going the home brew route, both for diesel and for ethanol. So many, in fact, that the ATF has given up issuing distillation permits, saying, "send us photos and the application when it is up and running."

There are kits that can turn a modest corn crop into a year's worth of fuel, and do it in the garage.

 

[DAY]

Electric is not the fuel of the future. It's one of the most inefficient things you could do with your fuel, would be to turn it into electricity. Wow...didn't think I would see this on TBN where people understand these things first hand. Electric cars and hybrids are some of the biggest polluters and wasteful machines on the road. If you want I will explain but please do some research on your own first before you declare things that are clearly not true, like electric cars don't pollute.

HS

It depends on which 'fuel' you use to make the electricity. Oil/coal/natgas, I agree.
Wind/solar/waterfallingdownhill (hydro) not so much

So, yes- please explain.

 

[Raspy]

Electric is not the fuel of the future. It's one of the most inefficient things you could do with your fuel, would be to turn it into electricity. Wow...didn't think I would see this on TBN where people understand these things first hand. Electric cars and hybrids are some of the biggest polluters and wasteful machines on the road. If you want I will explain but please do some research on your own first before you declare things that are clearly not true, like electric cars don't pollute.

HS

I don't think this thread is about whether or not electric cars pollute. It's about alternatives, fuel availability, cost and cutting ties with the Middle East, etc.
Are you talking about hydroelectric plants being major polluters? Or solar and wind farms being major polluters?
If electricity is produced by burning fossil fuels and then transmitted to another area where it is used to charge batteries, then the pollution is just moved to another area. Fine. But, again, it's about fuel availability and cost.
The worst of the worst is hydrogen. Where oil is used to get the hydrogen atoms and then they are compressed and used as fuel. Sheesh. Electric seems way better than that idea.

 

[Raspy]

Modern, practical electrics will not look anything like the conversions where a motor replaces the gas engine and still drives through the transmission with lead acid batteries. That is ridiculous, old fashioned, back yard project technology. Modern nickel batteries driving AC pancake motors in the wheels with efficient controllers, is more like it, but still a battery problem.

QUOTE]

Not sure I agree, Raspy. Vehicles designed to be electric will be more efficient than conversions, but that doesn't mean conversions have to be impractical. They also don't have to be back yard project technology. Check out the top links in my original post on this thread, and you'll find a large company which is tooling up to convert existing fleet vehicles like F150s etc.

Converting existing vehicles is very important, because of how long it would take to turn over the worlds one billion vehicles with new ones. You don't need a new vehicle, you need a new power source. But, I agree that it's probably best to start with cars, which do short trips, and move on to tractors etc. later, since tractors need much more working time between charges.

I just don't want to get stuck with a beautiful diesel tractor that I can't operate cause they don't have diesel at the local station this week, and when they do, it's $10/gallon.

JG

Jeff,

I think you and I are on the same page.

Some conversions have been mentioned where the engine is simply replaced with an electric motor and run from lead acid bats. That might be OK for a very limited situation, but it's not much.

Better is a conversion with modern technology like in the link I attached of a Mini with pancake motors. Wow! I wonder if a small pickup could have this and have the batteries in or under the bed? It's a lot better system than the Tesla has, which is a glorified "motor replacing the engine" system and off the shelf batteries, in a special battery bank that has problems of its own.

In the end, it's a battery problem much more than a motor or a vehicle problem. And until that gets much better, efficiency must be as good as possible to make the vehicle practical enough to be useable. Efficiency is terrible with a motor doing what an engine used to do.


PML Builds 640hp Electric MINI

 

[Egon]

Put a Tesla disc motor driving a generator with electric motors on the wheels and it may be a winner.:thumbsup:

 

[jeffgreef]

On the issue of the 'transfer of pollution' to a far away electric plant, what I have heard (from a little birdie on my shoulder) is this- the worst case scenario is an electric car charged directly from a coal fired electric plant. These are the most polluting in terms of carbon dioxide (if you consider that a pollutant) and other pollutants put in the air such as heavy metals (that end up in your tuna sandwich). But even with dirty coal fired plants, electric cars, so the birdie told me, are more efficient than gasoline burning cars. Coal is burned as efficiently as possible in the furnace, electric transmission is efficient, and electric cars use energy efficiently. A gas engine gets 15-30% efficiency at best, even with coal power an electric car is twice that, said the birdie. If your birdie has better info, quote it.

But, I agree with the poster that said this is not as much about pollution as it is price, availability and politics. I don't want to keep giving money to ***** Bin Bimbo's family in Saudi Arabia. I want to use fuel, or electricity, from the US supplying US jobs. :thumbsup:

 

[houstonscott]

Don't know about a little birdie, but when electric power is generated you lose about 50% in the power lines between plant and your substation, then you lose more when you step it down to 440, then you lose more when you go to 220 and then you lose more when you put it into a battery, then you lose one more time when you take it out of the battery. Put on top of that the pollution laws for the power plant are less than on your car, allot less. The most efficient thing you could do is to burn the diesel in your car, they are more efficient and pollute far less than a power plant. Burning it under your hood is the best and most efficient place to burn the fuel. Its just a matter of physics. Electric cars or tractors are all losers unless the fuel comes from solar, hydro, or nuke, and those are not good choices for charging something like cars or tractors. Plowing one row and waiting 24hrs to recharge would be as stupid as charging 12hrs to move less then 40 miles, thats why 25% of hybrids are bought by government where there is an agenda, and the rest sit on the lot. Sales of leafs and volts never happened, they are a gigantic flop. Less than 1000 have been sold between the two models to date, in anyones opinion thats a dud and would be cancelled ASAP if it were not for politics and the fact that the US government owns GM.

HS

HS

 

[Raspy]

Put a Tesla disc motor driving a generator with electric motors on the wheels and it may be a winner.:thumbsup:

I have no idea what you're talking about. Please expand on what you mean. An electric motor, driving a generator, that drives more electric motors? Is it perpetual motion?

 

[Raspy]

Houston,

I don't know of anyone who is advocating plowing one row and waiting 24 hours to recharge. Clearly, the electric vehicle has a battery problem and, until it gets worked out it will not directly compete with internal combustion. But, that doesn't mean the idea has no merit. Clearly electric is a fabulous way to go if we can get the required power to the wheels cheaply and efficiently. It really doesn't pay to look for a weakness in something and imply that it will never be more than a government plot unless it can do better in every conceivable situation.

Sooner or later we need to cut our ties with the Middle East. I'm tired of making them fabulously wealthy and always wondering if we are about to go to war over oil, or what the price may be next week, aren't you? By the way, now the speculators are involved and oil futures are being traded and priced by imagined fears that speculators can exploit. There is no shortage, just instability and fear. Fortunes are being made simply from fear as millions of citizens just want to go about their daily lives and buy some fuel for their vehicles. Oil company profits are way up since the recent rise in pump prices.

As far as hybrids go, they are not a failure. They are more efficient than conventional gas engine drive systems because they simply use the battery to allow shutting off the engine as much as possible without noticing it. Not on long hauls, but around town at signals and while coasting. They are not electric cars. It's just an efficiency trick that doesn't really solve much, but helps a little.

I don't know what agenda you are referring to, but I do feel the general public, and this may include you, has an aversion to looking at anything new. Hence the problem of continuously sending billions more to our enemies and big oil and investors, while proclaiming "everything else is a failure" or, "nothing can be done" or "it's just a government plot".

Big profit is simply the American way of charging what the market will bear. It's your own countrymen, in many cases, taking advantage of you and your hard earned dollars because they can. And you are assisting them by arguing against any possible alternatives just because they are not perfected and need more development.

Wouldn't it be better to see what we can do and fit the technology to our needs the best we can? A lot of people drive a small distance to work every day and could easily use an electric car that they plug in. But, unfortunately the cost for these cars is way too much to look at it as practical. It works well, but costs too much at this point. More competition and better designs might remedy that problem if we choose to be interested. I am.

 

[Egon]

I have no idea what you're talking about.

A Tesla hydrocarbon burning disc turbine running a generator.:thumbsup:

 

[Raspy]

A Tesla hydrocarbon burning disc turbine running a generator.:thumbsup:

Ahhhh! Nikola. Sorry, I was thinking of the other Tesla. :ashamed:

 

[jeffgreef]

Houston-

I just researched sales of Leafs and Volts. The Leaf has sold over 9,000 units. Volt sales have been around 1/4 of that. The Volt costs more.

Do you have hard numbers on exactly how efficient an electric vehicle is over a gas/piston engine? Electric transmission is not 100% efficient, but gas cars are only 20% efficient, not the best way to use fuel.

Do you want to keep buying fuel from the Saudis and Venezuela, and sending our brave sons and daughters over there to die for our access to their resource?

I want a tractor that uses a cheap, domestically produced fuel that is always available, and I want that tractor to do everything it needs to do. Rather than complaining that the technology isn't there yet, I want to prod JD, NH and Kubota to get their b***s in gear and produce that tractor.

JG

 

[Oldchuck]

Jeff, I appreciate your attitude but I wouldn't go holding my breath that the big guys will do anything cutting edge. They are still dragging their feet on biodiesel.

Probably the only way to go about it, at least for a few years, is to build your own. I'm no electrical guy and wouldn't figure to actually do the engineering but I think in just about any area there are guys who have played around with electrical conversions. I know some people have made some real nice one-off electric cars. There is an active electric vehicle forum with some pretty heavy technical experience. Very few though seem to be thinking in terms of tractors. It's time there was.

Now where can I find a tractor in fairly good shape with a blown engine?

 

[Raspy]

Houston-

I just researched sales of Leafs and Volts. The Leaf has sold over 9,000 units. Volt sales have been around 1/4 of that. The Volt costs more.

Do you have hard numbers on exactly how efficient an electric vehicle is over a gas/piston engine? Electric transmission is not 100% efficient, but gas cars are only 20% efficient, not the best way to use fuel.

Do you want to keep buying fuel from the Saudis and Venezuela, and sending our brave sons and daughters over there to die for our access to their resource?

I want a tractor that uses a cheap, domestically produced fuel that is always available, and I want that tractor to do everything it needs to do. Rather than complaining that the technology isn't there yet, I want to prod JD, NH and Kubota to get their b***s in gear and produce that tractor.

JG

When you try to factor in the real inefficiencies of oil, it really looks terrible. Consider the tanker that transports it thousands of miles running on oil, the refining process that wastes some, the trucking industry that transports the finished product all over the country running on internal combustion, the building and maintenance of all the gas stations that require cars and trucks to be driven there, the pollution control parts and maintenance industry that overseas gas and diesel engine emissions with all of it's transportation and bureaucratic infrastructure, etc. It goes on and on. It's just laughable when some folks try to ignore all that and declare that electric is inefficient, so no good. Sure it's inefficient, but in many ways it can be far more efficient than oil. But again, as you mentioned, getting the war machine out of the picture is a gigantic benefit. Plus we just can't afford to keep sending so much money overseas. Sooner or later the naysayers that insist on living in the past will have to move forward a bit and at least take a look at what we might do next. But to be affective we have to give alternatives an honest look. We have to give them a chance to be developed with the hope that we can find another way to satisfy our interests that might do away with the significant problems associated with oil.

Oil is great, it has been great and it will continue to be great. That's what lead to it being such a problem. It gives so much. But it's time is beginning to pass. If nothing else, it's simply a cost issue. If it was 50 cents a gallon and infinite in it's volume from a US source, great, but it's not.

I hate big brother and the over reaching pollution controls we have on vehicles these days, for a number of reasons, but I also grew up in Los Angeles and remember my eyes watering, not seeing the mountains and having to breath carefully to avoid choking. Later, I spent some time in Shanghai China and found out what real air pollution was! Sheesh. It makes LA seem tame. Burning oil as fast as they can and living in the exhaust stream.

If we had a better battery, we'd have more electric cars right now. I hope the price of oil drops soon. But even if it does, I hope we continue to research and develop electrics in spite of being able to point out their shortcomings. I suppose there were a lot of folks that didn't want one of those newfangled Model Ts when they had a perfectly good horse.

 

[jeffgreef]

John-
I think you're right on track. An interesting battery technology to keep an eye on is ceramic capacitors. There's a Texas company (EEstor) that claims to have one that will store 10 times the power of a lead acid for the weight. Quite a claim, and they have not produced a prototype yet. Maybe just a dream, but fascinating none the less. It would make elec tractors work.

Another aspect that is not in the public discussion is the simple fact that world oil production cannot increase much if at all in the next ten years, and then will have to decline. No one wants to talk about this inconvenient truth, if you'll pardon the expression. World energy demand will increase as China and India grow, so oil prices must increase, even if not astronomically. For that reason, I think elec conversions of anything with an internal combustion engine in it must be looked at seriously, as soon as possible.

JG