If you want to make a battery check this video out by Robert Murray Smith. I have watch a lot of his videos on different batteries but this one actually seems like something that might be buildable at home. The chemistry behind it is very interesting I do vaguely remember discussing it when I was involved with the solar car team back in the 95 at NHTI. I think Robert is correct that this could be a very long lived battery.
To play with the battery. Simply get a thin Graphite Plate 100% pure or as close to it as possible. Then cut an aluminum can and cut a plate the same size. Get a piece of towel or something that can separate the two plates soaked in water. Use a test meter take a reading then place in a pan and apply heat and take readings as the heat is applied.
I ran a test of a more crude experiment running four of these cells and lit an LED for 12 hours. As long as it had heat it worked. I think maybe better build construction that is scaled up with better materials could add potential.
I was following him thats how I discovered this. Ive been following Graphene tech pretty much since it was discovered.
Most of the plastics to liquid fuel systems arenât a whole lot different then a closed retort for wood. You have to be really careful not to use plastics with chlorine in them as well.
Not necessarily. They require heavier equipment. It costs more energy to grow and harvest it. Im personally not a fan of lugging large rocks around. Maybe you are. I didnât mention sugarcane, but they did find a nitrogen fixing bacteria in it and it can be processed by hand. I did mention sweet Sorghum which is grown in that area I believe only requires loose hay equipment and a press, you donât need to boil it down for ethanol purposes. I will stand corrected, someone on this site actually makes it.
If you plant soybeans closely like 10" spacing, they quickly crowd out weeds. They can also be harvested with light hay equipment and a thresher. Sunflower may not be a bad option, but they have fairly high nitrogen requirements, and you still need a thresher and an oil press. Either one isnât too terribly bad with limited equipment.
This will be news to farmers. Given that soybeans only reach maybe 2 ft in height they are susceptible to weed competition.
Regarding economics, there are good reasons why sugar beet production has superseded cane for sugar. Economics. Beet sugar production has been established as the lowest cost sugar process and source.
I think sugar cane is a 2 year crop too? As for sorghum, if it was so viable a sugar source it would be employed commercially.
People around here started drilling beans 30 years ago around here. They form a nice canopy. They do not block out everything though, you are correct.
Do you have a source for that information?
The US, Canada, and Europe have subsidies and tariffs for price support. I like Beet sugar it has flavor unlike cane sugar.
It is employed commercially for flavorings and it grows further north then sugarcane does. It is too labor intensive. but ethanol yields can be 400gal/acre. It is also a yearly crop, unlike beets that are 18-24 months.
Back in the 70âs I meet a guy that heated his house with ethanol, he grew 1 acre of sugar cane, mowed it like hay, just enough to process, ran it through an old ringer washer, then had 2 electric water heaters (1) for fermentation(80deg.), the other to distill(170 deg.). used an oil furnace.
He probably had to change out the nozzle on that, but that really isnât a big deal. I wonder if the exhaust got you drunk. A lot of the older ones donât burn 100% of the fuel⌠lol
I believe the way soybeans are managed is with herbicides, the greatest advantage being with crops genetically modified to withstand the sprays. Otherwise every weed known would overtake them. In more traditional practice soybeans would be one year in maybe a 3 or 4 year crop rotation with other crops aimed specifically at thinning out the broadleaf weed population.
Canada abandoned all support or protection for our domestic sugar industry under the terms of NAFTA decades ago. The entire industry disappeared, being unable to compete with US subsidized sugar. At the time the industry was abandoned our sugar had the lowest production cost globally. Ironically now US production has shifted to beets for the better economics.
Our growing season is 120 days max. I have grown beets years ago on an experimental scale, they achieve full size in 100 days. They are a surprisingly rich source of sugar and molasses.
yes. You burn down the weeds. You could cultivate them but you almost have to go with wider rows to get a tractor down and there isnât enough leeway in case the tractor bounces. then they donât canopy as fast so you have to do it more times. You get a higher yield with a close spacing as well. However, with a small plot, you could probably use a garden wheel type of cultivator to roll through fairly quickly.
Yes, Canada did. I think you mentioned that before but I forgot. Canada remains a net exporter to the US (but that includes sugar products) You are more likely importing Mexican cane sugar via refinement in the US as the US is the #2 importer of sugar in the world and most of that is raw cane sugar. Mexico and Brazil are the top 2 countries we import from but we import from like 20 countries. And it is tightly regulated.
There was a price divergence starting back in 2016 between cane and beet sugar. Beet sugar was lower. Currently, there is a shortage of beet sugar in the US because of weather and beet sugar costs more.
Most commercial baked goods use cane sugar because it supposedly browns better. I like the flavor profile of beet sugar better as a sweetener though.
I stand corrected on the season. They are a biannual, but you harvest for sugar the first year, and seeds the second year if they overwinter.
They are also fairly tricky to grow to optimize sugar production because you need to monitor nitrogen and they deplete the soil. They are best following a grass like rye or wheat and on a 3 year rotation. And you still have to get out and hoe them because they take a long time to canopy. I am not saying you -canât- do it, but digging rocks wouldnât be my first choice.
Iâve heard thereâs a preference for beet sugar, I assume that applies to the molasses being a bit different. Brown sugars are made with some molasses added back. Refined white sugar ought to be the same from any source.
I agree with your points about weeding etc. Beets can be overwintered in mild areas, or protected under stacked bales, or kept in a root cellar and planted out in the spring again. They produce a lot of seeds per plant, so itâs not hard to keep up a seed stock.
I think the weed issue is pretty much a draw between the 2 crops, in a traditional farming style both will require cultivating and hoeing and some hand weeding. Rock picking should be no factor unless required to prepare the seed bed as would be needed for any crop.
On the extraction side though, soybeans require specialized heavy duty equipment, whereas the beets just need a wash and cook which can be done on any scale, with any range of gear, the solids can be fed directly to livestock.
The distillation can be efficiently carried out in a modified domestic hot water tank.
So though the oil processing is interesting, I have to say the alcohol production is far a more accesible and reliable process.
And, apologies for diverting the thread, I think this aspect has been examined enough for the public discussion.
The one thing I know about suger beets is you have to get then from the field to processed ASAP. My grandfather talked about it back in the 50s somewhere around here there was a beet factory but he said it was too far away and had too many farms feeding it already. That by the time his beets got there the sugar content would drop too much apparently they test the content when you drop them off. For the home system it wouldnât be a big deal just harvest as you can process. But I keep that in mind when I pick my beets I make sure to only pick beets I can can right away. I havenât tried sugar beets but I always thought it would be interesting to try for fun.