T-Pain Is On A Boat: [Electric Boats] Re: Regeneration Free Lunch

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

[Electric Boats] Re: Regeneration Free Lunch

Keith, add "resale" to your list.

I appreciate the plug for biodiesel. Unfortunately there are problems with biodiesel: lack of regulations, gelpoint standards, availability, varying feedstocks that lead to varying at-the-pump quality, agricultural displacement, fuel pump seal failures, manufacturer warrantee problems, and a host of others.

Oddly, 5%-20% of any crappy-as-you-can-get biodiesel added to dinosaur diesel, always seems to produce cleaner burns, less deposits, more power, better fuel mileage, and more well behaved 14 year old children.

So individuals have to educate themselves to the biodiesel downsides prior to using it. No marina in their right mind would serve it, since it is still unregulated and hated by the petroleum industry.

I use it in all my cars (not the electric GEO), buy from one source, and know it is not made from palm oil (horrible agricultural, biodiversity, and forest displacement issues).

There is currently no disposal problem with waste oils that make good sources of biodiesel. Rather the opposite: the waste oil business is really pissed at biodiesel for making their business competitive. They used to be able to charge restaurants and tortilla chip factories to "dispose" of their used vegetable oil. Now they have to pay to get it, then sell it to a host of industries that you would probably rather not know about.

Mark Stafford

--- In electricboats@yahoogroups.com, "aweekdaysailor" <aweekdaysailor@...> wrote:
>
> Reality check.
>
> If green were really the goal, we should all be running diesels with biodiesel/oil from McD's fry machines (which there are maybe more of than boats). Won't work for cars (too many)- but for recreational boats? Very doable and we'd be solving a disposal problem to boot.
>
> My "electric" boat really runs on nasty old coal. Not much I'll grant, but that's where 80% of the power comes from. I want regen for range, not because it's "green"...and LiPo's may make that desire moot.
>
> If we were to do something called a "balanced scorecard", ranking different propulsion options using the following on a 1-10 scale
>
> Noise Level
> Smell
> Reliability
> Robustness
> Safety
> Range
> Convenience
> Weight
> Pollution
> Initial Cost
> Total Cost
> Power
>
> I bet diesels would win hands down. Except for noise, smell, maybe convenience...it's the better choice. So why do we hate them so much?
>
> Probably noise, smell and convenience - and these are all aesthetic considerations.
>
> The other driver is, I suspect, initial cost when faced with the task of re-powering a boat for $10K that is only worth..$12K?
>
> So what I think we here should be doing is figuring out how electric boats can fulfill that promise - quiet, renewable, affordable, easy, reliable, and so on.
>
> We have a long way to go. Meanwhile, install solar panels on your house, drive a hybrid, and use biodiesel in your boat* and you can smugly tip your hat to Al Gore next time you see him.
>
> -Keith
>
> *convincing marina fuel docs to switch to biodiesel should be a no brainer. Mark S. - maybe a good baby step?
>