DanTrentfield

I'd like to clear one thing up, My idea of using gaseous propane as a possible fuel did not go as well as planned, I ran an experiment with a small lawn mower engine and with the data from the experiment, figured that propane is in no form much more advantageous than gasoline, the original question of my original thread on this, 15/16's of the emissions, Better tank capacity but similar price because of the 5x greater consumption with taxes factored in, and finally horrible combustion efficiency.

I usually don't frequent physics, being a chemistry student in college, as I have never been a fan of it, but I do have a rather unusual question to ask. Could we represent the expansion of the universe after the Big Bang with a graphing function, such as x=y¹⁰? With expansion being represented by the distance between the upper and lower arms of the function? I'm asking this question because I've been thinking (A dangerous pastime for me) that since time is essentially the non-co-occurrence for lack of a better word, of two events, could we not represent our current position on the universal timeline with line such as y=0? With the rate of expansion slowly diminishing over time as the slope of x=y¹⁰ gradually becomes less and less? If so, this also begs the question, is time slowing down because expansion of the universe is slowing down because time can be represented as the differential increase of distance between y=0 and x=y^10? Please point out where I'm wrong, I do not have any more than introductory college experience so please help me out with this.

 

LP powered vehicles do run on LP gas, the liquid turns into a gas via a carburetor type device, the LP is only a liquid while in storage on the vehicle..

Exactly the concept, I'm not an engineer, I'm studying chemistry in college (If you couldn't tell)

The problem here is that you are ignoring the fact that a litre of propane weighs about 2 grams and litre of petrol weighs about 700 grams.

 

Since the energy per gram is roughly the same you are getting hundreds of times less energy for ten times less cash.

On a mile per mile basis the propane is roughly ten times as expensive.

And there went my BTU calcuations...... Sorry everyone, my brain has officially had it's first fart of the day...... Disregard my first calculations.....

liquid propane is the fuel of choice for indoor machinery like forklifts, it's exhaust isn't quite as unpleasant as gasoline engines. When I worked for DuPont we had all kinds of vehicles running on the stuff from trucks to front end loaders. I am curious as to how you would plan to store gaseous propane dense enough to carry enough with your vehicle to give it equal miles per gallon to liquid gasoline.

 

I am not following your logic on this at all, you said you were talking about propane not LP but then you talk of compressing it into LP. Why would it be better to buy it as a gas then pressurise it into a liquid?

 

Why not use natural gas compressed into a liquid? By definition there should be much more methane available if propane is just a by product of natural gas.

 

Some cars are already made to use natural gas and sell a kit that comes with the natural gas car to pressurize the methane from a your residential source which is piped in as a low pressure gas..

True, but the reason why I was talking about LP (which I forgot to hint at) was that we could store propane as LP, and then use a thermal exchange unit to cause it to boil and turn into gas, then feed it into a combustion chamber with a concentration of oxygen, and spark it.)

True, but the reason why I was talking about LP (which I forgot to hint at) was that we could store propane as LP, and then use a thermal exchange unit to cause it to boil and turn into gas, then feed it into a combustion chamber with a concentration of oxygen, and spark it.)

Adds complexity, but brings up mileage per tank A LOT.

Your right, I neglected to credit your post which I find irritating myself. Sorry about that.

Its fine, just probability, not speed.

 

Can you link to these "gaseous propane powered vehicles" you're getting these figures from?

Excuse me *cough* *cough* Theoretical vehicles running on gaseous propane..... Not real vehicles.... I'm beginning to think that this won't go anywhere.... Surprised?

Since the discussion is specifically about Carbon14 in coal I am unclear as to why you would be talking about molten rock. Coal is not known for its inclination to melt.

 

Since Carbon14 dating is only relevant to dating organic matter I am unclear as to why you would be talking about resetting the Carbon14 clock in molten rock. Molten rock is not organic material friendly.

Oh dear I missed that part of the OP Well I was thinking of plain rocks..... like granite and limestone....

 

How did you avoid the dimensional analysis errors using US gallons as a measurement of a gaseous substance?

I used firstly the proper units to measure gas (ft³) and then converted over into gallons³ and did the 3rd root of gal³. Then using BTU's I calculated heat energy and cost/gal.

You sound like a difficult student. Did you pass? I wish I knew a whole lot more about calculus. Are you saying we can't get a handle on any law in order to prove that it exists? Explain what you mean by differential please?

Differential: A noticeable difference in the behavior of two or more specific things, For example, the line y=3x+2 is different from the line y=26x-18, and the difference between the two lines can be used to mathematically solve for many things in calculus that pertain to that specific equation. Yeah I passed, no it wasn't difficult, it's just the professor was HILARIOUS. No, no no, I'm not saying that we can't get a "handle" on a law to prove we exist..... it was my own hubris that led me down the path to that argument, and I rightfully got my rear end handed to me in it.

The future might be See Phy.org: Tiny red crystals dramatically increase biogas production.

Another contender is hydrogen, but they may serve different applications because hydrogen is typically stored under great pressure or very cold.

No, hydrogen is great for power plants and all, but the flame temperature SHEESH! You'll melt the engine block of a semi in a split second, I'm going out on a limb here and trying to figure out a way to use gaseous propane which is a by product of natural gas refinement (Including Methane) to power a driveshaft in a midsize sedan for greater fuel efficiency and such.

It's been speculated that hydrogen.. at the right pressure is a metal (been theorized since the creation of the current periodic table which is why its the only gas in the metal section, and also thought to be in Jupiter's core).. Wouldnt such a material be easier to fuse than say.. regular hydrogen gas? obviously its a solid its coulomb limit is much different, its proton's spacing being much closer than in a normal gas form. Does make interesting questions in regards to its superconductivity.. would it even reach that state? or would it be similar to pure uranium and just.. "not"

Wait wait WHAT? gases turning into metals without fusion? Show Sources, I MUST KNOW!

 

Can you link us to information regarding buses using gaseous propane? Everything I see is using LPG.

Excuse me, thanks for pointing that out..... *LPG Buses*

The price of petrol is mainly tax.

Also, the cost per gallon isn't the right metric. How much per kilometre?

Gasoline is ~$0.07/mile, and with propane falling 4/5 short of gas on efficiency we get about $0.008 for a gaseous propane powered vehicle with an MPG of 10 versus a gasoline powered vehicle with an MPG of 25. As I said. MUCH cheaper. The problem is getting a gaseous propane engine to work.....

There are no laws of nature.

 

If there were then you couldn't break them.

 

Nature does what it does through cause and effect. But the effect can only be guessed at because the cause can never be defined completely and the means by which it operates is poorly understood.

Hahaha..... that reminds me of an old argument I had with my calculus professor...... "How can you tell if a law exists if it's unbreakable and there's no differential to calculate the value of the law by?" *After sputtering the calculus professor stamped and shouted* "Because you can! you just can! how can you tell if we exist without knowing what non-existence is in it's entirety? Because we exist!". He always reminded me of Otto Leidenbrock from Journey to the Center of the Earth....

So I've been working on this thread http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/93574-propane-versus-gasoline/and I would like to know, is there any specific algae that produce large amounts of natural gas? I'm not a biology buff so....

OK so I've been working this out in another thread http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/93574-propane-versus-gasoline/and I've come up with the following facts for propane when compared to gasoline: Propane is ~900% cheaper than gasoline (with a 5-7 times greater consumption factored in) given it's average market value in gaseous form is $0.02 compared to $1.80 for Gasoline. Propane only produces 15/16th's of the Co ₂ that a 5o₂+2C₈H₁₈->16Co₂+18H₂o gasoline combustion reaction does, as propane only produces 3Co₂ in a C₃H₈+5o₂ reaction (Times 5 for the consumption rate), so it is slightly more environmentally friendly. Now I know that buses and larger industrial and commercial vehicles use propane, but what would be the viability of say a midsize sedan using a gaseous propane engine and still being able to achieve at least 80 mph from an engineering standpoint?

If you want to compare prices you should probably do it on a per kilogram basis (or better yet a per Joule basis).

None of that matters since much of the price of gasoline is tax. If people started using propane instead then the government would tax propane instead.

Forgot to factor that in...... stupid taxes..... Anyways, economically speaking wouldn't worldwide market demand drive up value to narry a few cents shy of what it is?

There are other legal implications involved. For example, I work for a bank. Some of our employees carry iPhones for work,issued by the company. These phones are used to access private systems within the company that contain bank records, customer information, etc. Providing a universal back door into iPhones compromises all the security of any system that phone can connect to.

*Opens Back door to all phones* *Evil Genius Samuel Jackson from Kingsman (Haven't seen it) drains the bank accounts of everyone in the US* *Laughs wildly* That's the news headline we'd see if this backdoor thing went through.

Well, i think that there cannot be a set of some laws which determine the behavoiur of every particle in the universe.

We come across many videos which shows objects which does not follows the laws which we think are final.

I may be wrong but still i will like to hear your views on this so I posted it in Speculations.

Ha ha ha....... of course not EVERY particle in the universe is governed by the same laws (Laws of physics for example) it doesn't work like that, That's why we assigned them into groups, like the laws of thermodynamics versus Mendel's laws in Thermal Dynamics and Biology. You can't build a city with just one type of building can you? That's why there are hundreds of sets of scientific laws, each pertaining to it's own niche, some even bridging over into other little subgroups of laws with laws from various groups to explain why said proton went in said way. Science is diverse you know...

Then you've clearly never driven through the desert on an empty highway where driving a 100MPH feels like your standing still.

 

Things don't just materialize in front of you. A deer suddenly appearing in front of you after you've come around a blind bend is when you get into trouble. A deer that you see approaching the road off in the distance when there's no other objects around to hide it isn't going to be an issue.

 

This kind of problem is important even for satellites today, although the scale is different. It's due to the speed at which objects move in space with no atmosphere to slow them down. Then even tiny lightweight objects such as a paint chip can be traveling at several times the speed of a bullet and would kill any astronaut unlucky enough to be on a spacewalk in its path.

 

Fortunately objects in space are also easy to detect. The main issue is how much debris there is to avoid.

 

All objects in Earth orbit down to the size of a baseball are tracked and satellites or the ISS must occasionally move in order to avoid collisions. Satellites that have lost the ability to maneuver become a threat since they may be hit creating many more pieces of debris.

 

The ISS can has shielding material that can offer some protection but I think there's a gap in what it can handle and debris that's tracked. Because of this, I believe there are plans to move the space station into a higher orbit that's not as dense with space junk.

 

Space junk has become a serious issue since there's so much of it. A large collision could suddenly create much more debris which could cause a chain reaction of collisions making satellites that depend on orbits in high traffic areas such as geosynchronous orbits no longer viable. It's a statistical problem which has already been worked out for determining a tipping point for the density of items which I believe we are very close to surpassing.

Exactly what I've been trying to use statistics and logic to prove to zapatos.....

 

1. Definitely not mute since we're talking about it. If you mean "moot", I disagree. It's not debatable really, and it's not that the subject is too uncertain. Because:

 

2. It IS non-realistically debatable, but not for the reasons you list. It's not debatable because of the intrinsic nature of god(s) to be magically unobservable. Without direct empirical observation, we can easily attribute anything claimed to be from gods to natural causes. Trying to disprove god(s) violates methodology that requires a theory to be falsifiable. Not false, but capable of being shown to be false. You can't do that with god(s) who can't or refuse to be observed. So actually, the science "side" of the debate is that it can't take a side if it can't observe supportive evidence to form an hypothesis, conduct experiments, and make predictions based on consistent, repeatable outcomes.

 

Science is NOT the tool to use in this instance.

Yes which is why my money is on neither. *Science doesn't apply* WHOOSH over my head. (About the moot versus mute, I hate English because it has so many spellings of the same word, for instance you have Enquire versus Inquire and other silly stuff like that.) My native Swedish is much better.

Probable, but not known. Probability based proofs are always dubious, you don't know who's knocking on your door until you open it. You can say "It is probably Emily, my girlfriend, knocking because she and I made plans to meet at my house at five o'clock for dinner, which is the hour now." but it could be the mailman, or a random salesman, you don't know until you open it.

 

Or not.

That's for LP, we're talking gaseous propane. But you're right, LP is expensive as heck.

Better to address the cause than try and treat the symptoms.

True, True. Judge sanctioned backdoor access is scary, but a team of elite, government sanctioned, hackers looking to chew through every bit of your information is scarier. I side with Ajb.

They're both hydrocarbons, they're both nasty, which is more sustainable, economical, environmentally friendly, and efficient? Lets look at some chemistry below

Propane's chemical structure is C₃H_8, it has less carbon than gasoline whom's chemical structure is 2C₈H₁₈ and therefore produces less Co₂ with a 5o₂ reaction.

Propane gas isn't very powerful when it comes to combustion, although it produces more heat than gasoline, it isn't as explosive under pressure and you need more of it to have an explosive reaction

Propane is wayyyyy cheaper than gasoline, as the average price of gasoline is $1.80/gal, versus the average price of propane is $0.02/gal. (Gaseous form)

Propane can be stored more efficiently than gasoline as it can be compressed into LP at around 28-140psi.

Propane engines consume around 5-7 times more fuel than gasoline engines.

Propane can be found as a by-product of refining natural gas.

Propane engines' performance is significantly lower than gasoline engines' performance.

Overall tally Propane 4 Gasoline 3, Statistics: Propane produces 15/16th's of the Co₂ that gasoline produces, Propane is ~900% cheaper with consumption factored in, Propane is a renewable resource as it is a by product of refining natural gas, Although your engine will be more expensive, it's cheaper in the long run, and although you lose performance, you save $1,872 a year if you fill up your 20 gallon tank weekly.