Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Coconut oil jet fuel matches kerosene's efficiency in engine tests

studyfinds.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 250 posts

Re: Coconut oil jet fuel matches kerosene's efficiency in engine tests

#71

Post by ghostly_s »

brainwad wrote: post #12
mdp2021 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They already grow, they are already harvested, and this process uses discarded parts of the harvest. It is putting in use what we already had but had no use for. Edit: the article speaks about possibilities that open. It also clearly notices that the a number of problems are unsolved. The infographic is direct: https://studyfinds.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/Coconut-Bi... Note that if some product available in limi…

I presume that the market for coconut oil is far smaller than for jet fuel, so this solution can't scale without wreaking havoc on the environment. These sort of clever uses for exisiting byproducts only work when the market for the main product is much bigger than for the byproduct (e.g. down is a byproduct of duck/goose meat, leather is a byproduct of beef).

The existing solution is actively wreaking havoc on the environment. I don't know the specifics of this crop but generally agricultural products absorb a substantial amount of carbon when growing, so releasing some of that carbon by later burning has the potential to be close to carbon-neutral. Whilst petroleum fuels are 100% carbon negative.

Re: Coconut oil jet fuel matches kerosene's efficiency in engine tests

#72

Post by stevenwoo »

b112 wrote: post #64
europoorean wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a wealth transfer to support poor rural American communities My immediate reaction to this is: it's probably a wewlth transfer to the few landlords owning the land and probably charging higher rent, not to the communities. Of course I haven't analysed the data. If I am wrong, hopefully someone will feel compelled to correct me.

My understanding is that it caused the price of corn to go way up, meaning the poor in Mexico found food far more expensive. International markets and all that...

NAFTA and successive treaties forced Mexico to allow much cheaper corn from the USA to displace many smaller corn farms in Mexico, only larger farms could survive that and farming of corn is declining in Mexico. Also inexpensive processed food displaced traditional diet goods at the same time for the same reasons, probably contributing to obesity epidemic that only started in Mexico after those treaties.

Re: Coconut oil jet fuel matches kerosene's efficiency in engine tests

#73

Post by fc417fc802 »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #39
mdp2021 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> should not exist outside of Externalities can be made to bear a cost.

Currently, there is no effective way to put carbon back in the ground, and therefore no way to make the externality bear the cost. This is an excuse to justify high emission, low efficiency use cases. It’s capitalism cope meets buying a Catholic indulgence. “I am wealthy and deserve this and so I will pay a token amount that is meaningless to continue to justify this excessive, unnecessary consumption.” If the use ca…

Just because there are currently (economically motivated) shams doesn't mean the concept is impossible or the tech not understood. As I see it the primary issue is cost. There's the price tag put forward by the PR shams and then there's the real price tag which at present remains entirely unpalatable.

There's nothing except the political preventing the governments of the world imposing the unpalatable price on the market and policing the capture operations for net effectiveness.

Re: Coconut oil jet fuel matches kerosene's efficiency in engine tests

#74

Post by runako »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #51
runako wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Electrified high speed rail solves this Curious -- what speed are you assuming for such a high speed rail?

The last high speed rail I was on was Fuxing Hao series in China, ~200mph. If we can go faster, go faster. Shanghai Maglev can do ~260mph. Japan’s Shinkansen tops out at ~199mph, a bit higher than the TGV in France (~186mph during commercial operations, but has achieved speed records as high as ~360mph). Within the scope of land travel, it’s clear it can be built. If it isn’t built, of course, that’s a choice. But it…

Obviously a choice, but also at 200mph it's obviously a vastly slower experience in a lot of way for many of the most-trafficked US domestic routes.

Even at 300mph, which IIRC is much faster than normal operations on existing system, transcontinental travel becomes "too slow." The opposition would be insurmountable to making it take 12+ hours to travel from NYC to LA, for example.

Effectively would split the continent in a way that it hasn't been for generations. Rountes like NYCChicago would get annoyingly slower, but long routes like DCSeattle would become an "almost never" trip by train @ 200mph (even assuming direct, as-the-crow-flies). Practically, you're talking "east coast to Asia" durations to cross the continent. Non-starter.

Disclaimer: I love trains. I want high speed trains deployed widely in the US.

Re: Coconut oil jet fuel matches kerosene's efficiency in engine tests

#75

Post by namibj »

317070 wrote: post #27
clickety_clack wrote: post #6

Do coconuts grow particularly efficiently? Edit: The US created biofuel subsidies a few years ago and it’s led to poor use of land with questionable climate impact. It’s effectively become a wealth transfer to support poor rural American communities, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing but there’re probably more effective ways to do that intentionally.

> it’s led to poor use of land with questionable climate impact. In the short term, yes, because they were unnecessarily using carbon energy to grow the fuel. But if we want to de-fossilise society in the long run, we need solutions for flying and long distance travel. Electric flying seems infeasible at the moment, and people are looking for suitable bio-fuels to make flying carbon neutral. Afaik the maximum planes…

Just use any carbon monoxide source (e.g., pyrolysis of pretty much anything that'd release carbon dioxide when burned works, followed by some cleaning to get rid of some problematic catalyst poisons (notably sulfur compounds)), add hydrogen, and do Fischer-Tropsch. You get your high quality diesel fuel, often higher quality than what you can easily get from crude oil, btw.

If you don't have anything to pyrolyse, use a sodium or potassium hydroxide wet scrubber to extract it from ambient air and recover it from the solution with burnt lime; it preferentially bonds to the carbonate, becomes nearly insoluble; you take the lime stone powder, heat it with a high temperature blow dryer until the carbon dioxide cooks out (you can use pure carbon dioxide atmosphere for that! Just let out excess buildup of CO2 pressure to your output cooler/storage.), have regenerated the burnt lime, take the resulting CO2 and hydrogen to perform water gas shift to turn the mix into CO and H2O, condense out the H2O, then use the CO + H2 mix for your Fischer-Tropsch synthesis.

You can use incineration facilities to tap off concentrated CO2 and mine landfills until they are empty to keep the incinerators fed to get the CO2 possibly-cheaper than from the direct air capture units.

Start by using more solar cell glass laminate for exterior surfaces of new construction and as roofs over whatever parking lots you do want to keep around longer-term.

Synthetic non-fossil fuel is going to need plenty of electricity and probably much of that "just" to electrolyze water into hydrogen which is reasonable for seasonal energy "storage" (run them during the high-solar 25~50% of the year, use underground caverns (former natural gas wells) or liquify it to store for the winter, run the synthesis plant that consumes it year-round. Don't just burn the hydrogen in power plants, though you can keep existing fossil fuel plants around for a while to run them during the worst week or two of an average winter. But expect the power to be as expensive as each kWh you get today from a small gasoline generator fueled with fully-taxed highway gasoline...

Re: Coconut oil jet fuel matches kerosene's efficiency in engine tests

#76

Post by spaceywilly »

pfdietz wrote: post #52

You want a fuel that's chemically identical to current jet fuel, not one burdened with extra oxygen. Yes, this would require more energy, but it would be used more effectively in jets. A drop-in compatible jet fuel can be made by hydrodeoxygenation of biomass, using Virent's process. The waste cellulose in current US waste streams would be more than enough to displace all current US jet fuel consumption. An extra sou…

I agree, I wish more work was being done on building a hydrogen economy. Hydrogen can be generated sustainably, is a great way to store excess energy from renewable sources, can be transported, and as a bonus can be mixed with hydrocarbon fuels to be used directly as a heating source.

As an example, a house in NH can generate a lot of excess solar power in the summer months when it uses hardly any electricity. If all that energy could be stored as hydrogen, in the winter (when solar power is less due to the far northern latitude and snow covering the panels) it could draw down on the hydrogen to generate electricity and also use it for a backup heat fuel.

Re: Coconut oil jet fuel matches kerosene's efficiency in engine tests

#77

Post by toomuchtodo »

runako wrote: post #74
toomuchtodo wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The last high speed rail I was on was Fuxing Hao series in China, ~200mph. If we can go faster, go faster. Shanghai Maglev can do ~260mph. Japan’s Shinkansen tops out at ~199mph, a bit higher than the TGV in France (~186mph during commercial operations, but has achieved speed records as high as ~360mph). Within the scope of land travel, it’s clear it can be built. If it isn’t built, of course, that’s a choice. But it…

Obviously a choice, but also at 200mph it's obviously a vastly slower experience in a lot of way for many of the most-trafficked US domestic routes. Even at 300mph, which IIRC is much faster than normal operations on existing system, transcontinental travel becomes "too slow." The opposition would be insurmountable to making it take 12+ hours to travel from NYC to LA, for example. Effectively would split the continen…

Is ~400 million to ~4 billions excess deaths over the next ~50 years worth it? How many excess deaths is it worth? Everything is about trade offs. How much mortgaging of the future with are we comfortable with for today’s luxuries? Because this is a debt that will need to be paid back, potentially by someone not even yet born, through no fault of their own.

At least the future can default on sovereign debt, it cannot default on the energy and resources required to repair physical systems required for survival, that debt is the ultimate recourse debt. There is nowhere to run from it.

https://climatechangetracker.org/climate-change-progress/cur...

https://actuaries.org.uk/media/ni4erlna/planetary-solvency.p... (page 32 risk impact matrix)

(day job is risk assessment and management, and the lens through which I see and model this entire system)

Re: Coconut oil jet fuel matches kerosene's efficiency in engine tests

#78

Post by splittydev »

If it burns more fuel, how is it "about as efficient"? That doesn't seem to make much sense to me.

> New research found that aviation biofuel made from coconut oil can power a small jet engine about as efficiently as traditional jet fuel, with lower unburned hydrocarbon emissions, though the blends burn more fuel and emit slightly more carbon monoxide.

Re: Coconut oil jet fuel matches kerosene's efficiency in engine tests

#79

Post by triceratops »

runako wrote: post #74
toomuchtodo wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The last high speed rail I was on was Fuxing Hao series in China, ~200mph. If we can go faster, go faster. Shanghai Maglev can do ~260mph. Japan’s Shinkansen tops out at ~199mph, a bit higher than the TGV in France (~186mph during commercial operations, but has achieved speed records as high as ~360mph). Within the scope of land travel, it’s clear it can be built. If it isn’t built, of course, that’s a choice. But it…

Obviously a choice, but also at 200mph it's obviously a vastly slower experience in a lot of way for many of the most-trafficked US domestic routes. Even at 300mph, which IIRC is much faster than normal operations on existing system, transcontinental travel becomes "too slow." The opposition would be insurmountable to making it take 12+ hours to travel from NYC to LA, for example. Effectively would split the continen…

> The opposition would be insurmountable to making it take 12+ hours to travel from NYC to LA, for example.

It already takes 6 hours to fly. Add in security, checked bags, getting to and from the airport and it's close to 10 hours. Also you waste a day or ruin a night's sleep on the redeye.

Compared to that an overnight train with a bed sounds delightful. People could do almost-day-trips, coast-to-coast, with no ill effects. Leave LA tonight, shop/sightsee/eat all day in NYC, take in a show, hop on the late train back to LA the following day. This is pretty near impossible today unless you have a private jet.

Re: Coconut oil jet fuel matches kerosene's efficiency in engine tests

#80

Post by bluGill »

fc417fc802 wrote: post #59
dylan604 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To what scale though? Doubtful it's going to be enough for a replacement. Just as GP stated, the corn grown for ethanol is nothing more than an additive and it is quite easy to find fuel without it. It's a boondoggle and not any where close to being a fossil fuel replacement

Isn't that simply a matter of cost? It's pretty difficult to complete with pulling an energy dense material out of the ground. If we were to globally tax oil extraction proportional to the actual cost of equivalent carbon capture I imagine biofuels would begin to look quite reasonable. That said it seems to me that tying the energy and food supply together economically in such a direct manner is likely to have some d…

Oil has its own infrastructure. That infrastructure is producing things for airplanes almost as a byproduct. Both of the oil we pump from the ground goes to cars. If cars switch from using oil, that's going to raise the cost for everything else to get the oil they need because they have to pay for the full refinery output. Or in this case if airplanes quit using kerosene for jet fuel that is going to slightly raise the price of refined oil for everyone because the refineries don't have that one small extra part of their income sheet to help pay for the fixed cost of having a refinery. The whole system needs to work together, of course. If only airplanes get off, the difference is merely insignificant. However, if cars and airplanes both get off using oil, suddenly the other uses of oil become unfeasible.
Post reply on HN