Army Discovery May Offer New Energy Source

[Deleted member 93354]

There can be many reasons for housing around military bases to fluctuate greatly. Once is manpower reductions. Following the draw-down in 1991 after the first gulf war there was a huge manpower reduction. Fewer soldiers usually goes hand in hand with Government Service cuts and reduced Contracting work. Housing suffers at these times.

Now I know that chemical weapons and gases were manufactured in Aberdeen, Edgewood to be more precise. I had a friend who used to work their testing protective filters against live agents to see how long they would stand up to exposure. But I never knew or heard of Aberdeen as a storage facility for old ordnance. Johnson Atoll, an Island in the Pacific was closed awhile back after the last of the stockpiles there were destroyed. There is a place called Pueblo Chemical Depot, and a friend here says there was a depot in Idaho.

But Military bases usually have an abundance of people who don't make a lot of money. As such, their housing both on base and off is usually not as well made as is usual. Add to this that the occupants are usually temporary and don't stick around for long and the homes usually are not so well maintained.

I don't doubt that it is common belief that there is a massive stockpile of old shit buried there, but I'm not so sure that it's reality.
You can however go to this website and look at what is publicly displayed.
https://www.cma.army.mil/

Click or hover over the "What We Do" tab.

There are currently two storage facilities listed.

You are quite correct that Edgewood was the primary storage place. The problem was Aberdeen was 10 miles to NE. NE is the most common wind direction. And Aberdeen is the home of ordinance testing. The whole general area is pretty bad shape.

 

[jedijeb13]

Oh look.. another miracle compound that can have water as a primary exhaust product.

Oh wait we already have it. Its methanol. We just don't use it because people apparently want to burn 4x the CO2 in gasoline and prefer their refineries to produce CO2 in their production processes rather than sequester it.
(Methanol byproduct is water and very little CO2 when combusted. Its production methods actually consume raw tonnage of CO2 gas at an absolutely astounding rate.)

Mole ratio for combustion of methanol is 2moles CO2 per 4moles H2O as the product. CO2 is 44g/mole and H2O is 18g/mole. So when you burn methanol you will get 88g CO2 for every 64g H2O produced. So in reality you end up with more CO2 than Water when you burn methanol for a fuel.

 

[Chaos Machine]

to put that in perspective btw 220kw would get you about 1000 miles in an electric car depending on it's efficiency.

 

[Gideon]

Mole ratio for combustion of methanol is 2moles CO2 per 4moles H2O as the product. CO2 is 44g/mole and H2O is 18g/mole. So when you burn methanol you will get 88g CO2 for every 64g H2O produced. So in reality you end up with more CO2 than Water when you burn methanol for a fuel.

The fact that the fuel would be extremely deadly to humans would be the main reason and the fact that it can corrode metals. Another factor is the flame is invisible to the naked eye. This is why you will never see it as a fuel for cars.

opps meant to quote Nafensoriel

 

[Nafensoriel]

EPA internal tests concluded methanol was categorically safer for the environment and human beings than gasoline(study alternative fuels 1991). This has been proven again and again since then. Methanol is no where near as toxic as you think it is. Unless you drink it, swim in it, or huff it you are most likely not going to reach toxic levels in every day life. A major methanol spill is also correctable both for drinking water supplies and growing areas. Gasoline is far more complex a substance that is generally impossible to completely clean up.

As to its corrosion of metals methanol is only a limited corrosive. Most cars and current oil pipeline infrastructure would require minimal modifications(mostly valves and seals) to be superior to gasoline for corrosion. You'd be surprised at how few parts need to be changed out in modern engines to make them compatible to methanol. Last time I priced a conversion of my truck it was 214 dollars worth of parts and a day of labour. Side note.. methanol is used to prevent corrosion in many metals as well.

Gasoline is also far easier to ignite and reaches the point of explosion much earlier and with far less energy than methanol. It's safe to say that a significant percentage of car accidents involving a gasoline fire would not have ignited a methanol fuel. The burn is longer, and less intense than gasoline. The invisible flame issue is also stupidly easy to solve with a dye.

As to the amount of CO2 produced compared to gasoline...
Gasoline Combustion: 2 C8H18 + 25 O2 → 16 CO2 + 18 H2O
Methanol Combustion: 2 CH3OH + 3 O2 → 2 CO2 + 4 H2O

Marine methanol replacements have also shown that properly designed engines are extremely efficient during combustion minimizing unburned fuel being exhausted.

Additionally methanol as a fuel requires almost no additives to operate in a far wider band of climates. It's also natively self cleaning compared to gasoline engines without additives and far more robust in terms of fuel contamination.

When I say "categorically superior to gasoline" I wasn't joking. The only category gasoline wins on is energy density. A problem which can be worked around by using hybrid electric drive trains or simple engine redesign. Engine redesigns that would drastically reduce the weight and complexity of most modern car engines thanks to the lower burn temp and pressure.

In fact..
The only reason we do not use methanol as a fuel today is thanks to the corn industry. Ethanol makes billions and by nature causes other farm stocks to increase in price as well. It's a win win for them so I don't blame them winning the lobby war. Just don't drink the koolaid. If energy generation was decided by basic facts and science we would use wind, solar, nuclear, and methanol for pretty much every power need. We don't because unfortunately logic isn't how governments work.

 

[Gideon]

EPA internal tests concluded methanol was categorically safer for the environment and human beings than gasoline(study alternative fuels 1991). This has been proven again and again since then. Methanol is no where near as toxic as you think it is. Unless you drink it, swim in it, or huff it you are most likely not going to reach toxic levels in every day life. A major methanol spill is also correctable both for drinking water supplies and growing areas. Gasoline is far more complex a substance that is generally impossible to completely clean up.

As to its corrosion of metals methanol is only a limited corrosive. Most cars and current oil pipeline infrastructure would require minimal modifications(mostly valves and seals) to be superior to gasoline for corrosion. You'd be surprised at how few parts need to be changed out in modern engines to make them compatible to methanol. Last time I priced a conversion of my truck it was 214 dollars worth of parts and a day of labour. Side note.. methanol is used to prevent corrosion in many metals as well.

Gasoline is also far easier to ignite and reaches the point of explosion much earlier and with far less energy than methanol. It's safe to say that a significant percentage of car accidents involving a gasoline fire would not have ignited a methanol fuel. The burn is longer, and less intense than gasoline. The invisible flame issue is also stupidly easy to solve with a dye.

As to the amount of CO2 produced compared to gasoline...
Gasoline Combustion: 2 C8H18 + 25 O2 → 16 CO2 + 18 H2O
Methanol Combustion: 2 CH3OH + 3 O2 → 2 CO2 + 4 H2O

Marine methanol replacements have also shown that properly designed engines are extremely efficient during combustion minimizing unburned fuel being exhausted.

Additionally methanol as a fuel requires almost no additives to operate in a far wider band of climates. It's also natively self cleaning compared to gasoline engines without additives and far more robust in terms of fuel contamination.

When I say "categorically superior to gasoline" I wasn't joking. The only category gasoline wins on is energy density. A problem which can be worked around by using hybrid electric drive trains or simple engine redesign. Engine redesigns that would drastically reduce the weight and complexity of most modern car engines thanks to the lower burn temp and pressure.

In fact..
The only reason we do not use methanol as a fuel today is thanks to the corn industry. Ethanol makes billions and by nature causes other farm stocks to increase in price as well. It's a win win for them so I don't blame them winning the lobby war. Just don't drink the koolaid. If energy generation was decided by basic facts and science we would use wind, solar, nuclear, and methanol for pretty much every power need. We don't because unfortunately logic isn't how governments work.

I worked in the car industry and I am telling you they will never use it as you need bigger fuel tanks and it's toxic it can adsorb through your skin and kill you. Pure Hydrogen is where the car industry will go if we stay with the internal combustion engine, no company works with methanol at all except in exotic race design. Ethanol is a waste and I agree with you as it complicates the engine design to deal with it. Hydrogen power is pure and emits no harmful emissions at all which means we can take almost all emissions equipment off and only requires a slight reworking of the fuel delivery. Hydrogen and electric will be the future and where almost all funding dollars are going.

 

[Nafensoriel]

Absorption rates for methanol are measured in hours for any significant toxicity for skin exposure. 25sq cm of exposure takes in excess of 15 minutes for localized toxicity to even get near PEL for methanol. I've worked with methanol for years and though it is a chemical that demands respect it is far from as toxic as the stigmata claims it to be. The reason is simply because of the mechanics of methanol toxicity are rather quick and sudden with no onset symptoms. Unlike 30 years ago though we have considerably more tools to deal with exposure safely and quickly than we used to and because of those tools the overall toxicity risk of methanol is greatly reduced. The fact that toxicity requires metabolization before it actually becomes toxic has become a benefit.

Gasoline is rated as a more toxic chemical by the way. Check your MSDS if you think otherwise. This is due to its effects on blood and organ tissue as well as its byproducts once it actually gets into your system. In every single way possible methanol exposure is preferred to gasoline exposure. Mainly because the symptomology is easier to identify, the effects are predictable and measured, and there are highly effective stopgap chemicals that can be administered hours after exposure for total reversal of exposure. Gasoline has none of these and extreme exposure will take years to treat.. with some effects being for the duration of your life.
Granted I'd rather not be exposed to either... but if we were to compare the two fuels the results are entirely one sided from a safety and environmental point of view.

While american automotive companies are not looking at the fuel currently this is not true for the world. There is an extraordinary amount of research being done for deployment in China and India as they have the option of rolling out entirely new systems. America would have to retrofit its entire vehicle inventory and deal with 30 years of grandfathered support for gasoline. From an economic point of view america would have difficulty switching without total governmental support. The main reason China specifically is looking at methanol for liquid fuel sources is due to simplicity of the logistics and total raw volume of production capacity. Methanol production consumes carbon and methane processing it into a form which prevents the full weight of that carbon from ever fully reentering the atmosphere. In other words in very polluted or very industrialized areas you can mitigate pollution by producing methanol fuel. The fact that biomass, natural gas, and industrial waste are all sources of methane in sufficient quantities to convert to methanol make it a very flexible fuel source.

Hydrogen production is no where near where it needs to be to replace gasoline in 50 years nor really is electricity. Methanol conversion cuts CO2 pollution massively and also sequesters methane gas production in a non GHG form. It can also do this in 20 years with governmental support. Hell in 5 years you could have 50/50 gasoline/methanol. A result which would slash fuel costs for everyone(methanol is drastically cheaper than gasoline), completely remove dependence on middle eastern oil barons, and develop a multi-trillion dollar industry while actually doing something practical and proven to help our current climate issues. Going whole hog into hydrogen and electric still doesnt solve the pollution issues of an industrialized society and our waste products. In fact it makes many of them worse.

 

[MaZa]

Regarding methanol toxicity, wasn't ethanol used as an antidote for methanol poisoning? If you accidentally swallowed a small quantity of methanol grab a bottle of vodka and go for it!

 

[jedijeb13]

I worked in the car industry and I am telling you they will never use it as you need bigger fuel tanks and it's toxic it can adsorb through your skin and kill you. Pure Hydrogen is where the car industry will go if we stay with the internal combustion engine, no company works with methanol at all except in exotic race design. Ethanol is a waste and I agree with you as it complicates the engine design to deal with it. Hydrogen power is pure and emits no harmful emissions at all which means we can take almost all emissions equipment off and only requires a slight reworking of the fuel delivery. Hydrogen and electric will be the future and where almost all funding dollars are going.

If that part is what is keeping us from using methanol as a fuel, then I should have been dead a long time ago. I have been working as a chemist in an environmental testing laboratory for 25 years and use methanol every day. I have even used it to wash oil from my hands at times and the vapors are always in the air and I have never shown any effects of exposure when taking my yearly physicals. Unless you are going to fill a swimming pool with it and swim in it, you are not going to absorb enough through your skin to kill you, or even affect your vision. Drinking it is the most dangerous route of exposure. 30ml(about a shot glass full) can begin to cause vision problems, and 100ml is the least amount required for a fatal dose, but it would be as bad or worse going down as that much pure grain alcohol so not many experience it. The conversion of methanol in the body to formic acid is what causes health problems and it is slow, so it can be treated successfully if you have accidental exposure. Gasoline on the other hand contains benzene and many other aromatic organic chemicals that are known carcinogens which may not kill quickly, but can be very nasty over time and do so with exposure to fumes or liquid on skin.

The Indy Car Series also went to methanol because it was less flammable and explosive than gasoline, but switched to ethanol in 2007. For toxicity in the environment, methanol only has a half live of 1-7 days in soil or ground water as it is broken down by bacteria. Many of the hydrocarbons in gasoline will remain for years. Where I work we have been monitoring wells around old gasoline stations that have shown high levels of weathered gasoline for years as the stuff is still leaching into the ground water years after the tanks have been removed.

 

[Flapjack]

In theory if you reduce the CO2 levels in the atmosphere enough you could turn the whole sky into a huge ball of fire. Anybody want to test this theory out?

The other side effect of reducing the CO2 levels is that plants would start to die off.

The more CO2, the better plants thrive. All the tree huggers out there have it backwards. They want to reduce the CO2 level, when in fact they should be wanting to increase it.

After all, we humans are the problem, right???

Then once all the things that need higher levels of oxygen die off due to suffocation, then the world can start over again and new things can "evolve" from goo again and then hopefully "evolution" would not take the same path again.. right?

The previous 3 lines are sarcasm. And evolution as taught in screwls is absolutely impossible.

The trees huggers have been misled and duped. "Global warming" and now "climate change" has always been about power and control, picking winners and losers, and putting the US at a disadvantage over rival energy producers. These people use emotional arguments to convert non-free thinkers into zealots, preaching what has essentially become a religion at this point. It's no different than gun control, LBGTQXYZ rights, and half the other stupid shit Americans devote billions of dollars and hours fighting about. In the end, these are all machinations of Russia designed to weaken America from within (search for 45 Communist goals).

Americans are stupid and short-sighted. Russia is playing the long game. Everything from the demise of our industrial might, to our debt to the Chinese are the result of Russian efforts to weaken us. At some point soon, Russia will be ready to pull the trigger, and we will be in a global conflagration with Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran. All without the money, industrial power, military might, and energy capacity that we had in WWII.

 

[naib]

Regarding methanol toxicity, wasn't ethanol used as an antidote for methanol poisoning? If you accidentally swallowed a small quantity of methanol grab a bottle of vodka and go for it!

sort of... ethanol isn't an antidote, it is a compound the liver has a higher affinity to break down.

methanol's toxicity comes from what it is broken down to in the body -> formic acid
Ethanol is Metabolised into compounds that can be dealt with

you drink methanol (what is found in antifreeze) its bad
you then are given alcohol at regular intervals then the body will not break down methanol as fast and thus producing a lower concentration of formic acid

 

[Nafensoriel]

Regarding methanol toxicity, wasn't ethanol used as an antidote for methanol poisoning? If you accidentally swallowed a small quantity of methanol grab a bottle of vodka and go for it!

Just because its a safety issue..
Technically yes in an absolute worst case scenario you can delay treatment of methanol exposure with pure ethanol. Vodka would have limited effect.

The mechanic of methanol toxicity is a secondary metabolite. Methanol itself is completely nonreactive within your body. The problem is unlike ethanol methanol breaks down into formic acid, formaldehyde, and formate. The most serious of which is formic acid and the primary cause of symptoms.
The reason drinking ethanol can(and was historically used) to treat methanol exposure in emergency cases is because until methanol is broken down in your liver it is not toxic. Slamming your liver with alcohols that your body can process actually slows down its ability to process methanol which greatly increases a persons ability to process it out safely.

If you for some reason drink methanol in a high enough dose to cause harm do not self treat please. Go to a hospital and they will administer an ADH inhibitor which will be significantly more likely to save your vision.

 

[sfsuphysics]

How much energy to make the powder? Means nothing if it's many fold its output. Also assuming the material is consumed in the process? Or is it recoverable? If so how much and what is needed to reclaim? Is the 220KW the total the 1kg can make, or just what it can make in 3mins? Lacking so much important detail.

Ok morning math time kiddos (i.e. excuse math mistakes)

For example, we have calculated that one kilogram of aluminum powder can produce 220 kilowatts of energy in just three minutes.

Ok as a physics teacher this is cringe worthy, killowatt is power not energy, but ok power x time = energy so 220kW x 3 min x 60sec/1min = 39600 kJ, or 39MJ of energy.

Now how much energy does it take to make 1 kilogram of aluminum, this is the kicker, because aluminum is EXTREMELY energy intensive to actually "make". Well a quick google shows to mine aluminum takes *drumroll* anywhere between 227 to 342MJ of energy to make 1kg of aluminum from raw ore, so about 6 to 9 times more energy is required to get the aluminum than you'd get from the aluminum.... *wah wah waaaaaaaaaa* . Now there is a silver lining, in that in only takes about 11-17MJ to recycle 1kg of aluminum (one of the reasons old cans are such a value), so technically you could make energy from this, but eventually you'd run out of recycled aluminum as a "fuel" and then you'd have to go back to mining. So at best this is a portable battery source, as others have mentioned, this is not a net energy producer.

But to further your question, yes the material is "consumed" the fact that heat is being made says there's a chemical reaction, I'm guessing more energy favorable for the oxygen to be with the aluminum, the powdered "nano" form gives a crap ton more surface area for the reaction to occur, and it strips the O from the H2, so the aluminum is now back in it's aluminum-oxide state, which would then take that crap ton of energy to "remake". Of course if this isn't pure aluminum, and aluminum is simply one part of the nano-material then it might be energy favorable...

 

[Snowdog]

Ok morning math time kiddos (i.e. excuse math mistakes)
Of course if this isn't pure aluminum, and aluminum is simply one part of the nano-material then it might be energy favorable...

Or it might be worse, depending on other constituents and the work that goes into production.

I'd like to see how it compares to Aluminum Air batteries that consume aluminum plates to produce electricity.

 

[N4CR]

How much energy to make the powder? Means nothing if it's many fold its output. Also assuming the material is consumed in the process? Or is it recoverable? If so how much and what is needed to reclaim? Is the 220KW the total the 1kg can make, or just what it can make in 3mins? Lacking so much important detail.

Aluminium powder is a by-product of many manufacturing processes and grinding it isn't very energy intensive. Far more than what you get out if those numbers are correct. So if you look at it that way, as a waste product, this is very efficient. Sure, from start to finish, alu isn't so efficient if purely made for this process.
(I hate aluminium shards... CNC machines can be nasty sometimes).

This reminds me a little of coaxial anode water injector/plasma boosted plugs in automotive engines, seen it replicated a few times but it's kept rather quiet for obvious reasons. Hydrogen and Oxygen is hard to separate at room temperature, but in cylinder pressure, whole different ballgame when you throw electron cascade in the mix..

 

[Iratus]

The energy intensity of aluminium production only matters in so far as the cost and cleanliness of the energy processing it. There's a reason Iceland is such a big processor.

This isn't going to solve the worlds problems but it could have a few novel applications.

I suppose $600 billion a year has to get you some useful research.

 

[sfsuphysics]

Aluminium powder is a by-product of many manufacturing processes and grinding it isn't very energy intensive. Far more than what you get out if those numbers are correct. So if you look at it that way, as a waste product, this is very efficient. Sure, from start to finish, alu isn't so efficient if purely made for this process.
(I hate aluminium shards... CNC machines can be nasty sometimes).

True, as a "waste product" it could very well be useful but a few problems with that, 1) how much waste is made vs energy needed? Something tells me there isn't THAT much waste product, and 2) How much waste is actually wasted versus recycled? Recycling aluminum is about 10x more energy efficient than processing the ore to get it, if you remove that "waste" recycle you're effectively making it so more ore needs to be processed so indirectly you are still at a net energy loss.

 

[N4CR]

True, as a "waste product" it could very well be useful but a few problems with that, 1) how much waste is made vs energy needed? Something tells me there isn't THAT much waste product, and 2) How much waste is actually wasted versus recycled? Recycling aluminum is about 10x more energy efficient than processing the ore to get it, if you remove that "waste" recycle you're effectively making it so more ore needs to be processed so indirectly you are still at a net energy loss.

1) The water/alu process seems pretty energy dense but this is the next thing to look in to... does it become like petrol vs electric, where if you want range and power density, chemical is the way... this could replace such usages with a higher cost overall.
2) Every Iphone housing since 5? or so is milled out of solid aluminium. That's a lot of waste form that alone.. even Vega has CNC alu shrouds, you can find it in small amounts in many moderate priced or smaller production volume products. Any heat sink or aluminium product cut with a simple saw (heatsinks, extrusions for building facades, framing, ladders, etc etc), so there is literally tonnes of it made every day in some factories. We have a 1000L bin and it's emptied every month or two, that's only 3x cnc machines, not 24/7 and often smaller work pieces.
Point is we have more waste aluminium than we can use and it is very low cost so not in high demand. It literally is melted down and recycled in large volumes. Which brings your second point in consideration - a great point too, I'd say compared to actual alu scrap recycling volumes it probably isn't much. I sometimes buy some of the as new offcuts or unused scrap aluminium parts, to re-purpose for heatsinks as it's like 15 bucks for more heatsinks I can use in my life.. and this is just a tiny, tiny fraction of tonnes of aluminium at an average sized recycler. Think cans consumed and all sorts of aluminium products E.g. alu engine blocks and stuff like that, are going to be much more mass than shavings from CNC machines. That said it's a worthy consideration and I love your thorough approach.
Also remember, the goal with CNC is to take as little material as possible out really, this decreases work piece time and wasted material costs. Makes me wonder if apple has their own extrusion/rolling/production system to reduce this. At their volumes it could make sense.

 

[sfsuphysics]

Some stuff right above this post so no reason to actually quote it

To give some size of scale, 39MJ per kg of aluminum, that's the energy, the US in any given year uses about 100 trillion MJ of energy, so that's about 2.5 trillion kilograms of scrap aluminum? That's a crap ton of iPhone cases!

Worldwide aluminum production last year was about 58 million kg, so assuming all of that gets turned into energy we're at about 4 minutes of power on the year ... for just the US.

But the idea of petrol v. electric is an amusing direction to look at too, just running some quick numbers seems that about 5kilo of aluminum with water is equal to the Tesla Model 3 standard battery (220 mile range), now assuming you could capture and use the energy from this reaction (that's a big assumption since it's basically all heat) it could be a viable means of "electric" cars and range problems. But again, it's all about scale... how many cars are there?

 

[lcpiper]

You are quite correct that Edgewood was the primary storage place. The problem was Aberdeen was 10 miles to NE. NE is the most common wind direction. And Aberdeen is the home of ordinance testing. The whole general area is pretty bad shape.

Well, I must admit, I have never been there and seen it first hand. Then again, I'm living in a desert and I do remember when I first got here, I thought to myself "If you want to get away from it all, this is the place cause there's nothing here". I've been living here since '93. Sometimes people miss things at first glance. One man's desolation is another man's paradise ?

And, I also remember what Fort Hood Texas was like the first gulf war. Talk about a ghost town, homes going for $35K and no one buying, businesses closing left and right. Wives taking the kids and running back home to Mom and Dad until their husbands get home, many very scared that those men weren't coming home at all, others acting like the men were dead already. There was a good 3 month lead up to the real fight so it put some stress on people.