Corn Cobs: Fuel of Nightmares • Hacker News Board

Re: Corn Cobs: Fuel of Nightmares

#141

Post by lazide » Thu, Jul 14, 2022, 8:54 PM UTC

a_c wrote: post #102

colechristensen wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They just needed one farm kid who became an engineer. They talked about taking seven weeks to figure out a conveyor, put me in the middle of Kansas and I could have told you how to solve that problem in seven minutes, give me a truck she a credit card and i can buy you the parts in an hour. Bay Area engineering tends to be very sheltered, large groups of people with zero experience invading a domain. Sometimes it cre…

On self driving car, I think we are solving all the problems caused by cars like air pollution and congestion with "better" car. First we have electric car, then we (will) have electric self driving car. Public transport seems boring enough that no one talks about. Is there anything foundamentally wrong with buses and trains (and bike too) compared with cars? While we moved pass the faster horse era, we are now searc…

Once public transit is at the frequency of Tokyo trains and familiarity of the back of your hand, it’s often a no brainer.

The problem is, until it hits that point it involves a LOT of planning and conforming to other peoples schedules.

Which for many people (parents, folks going to and from a lot of different places) can dramatically decrease their ability to actually exist or do what they normally do.

If it’s in an environment where cars suck to drive/park/etc. (dense urban environments), then it quickly goes to public transit.

But especially in the US, density is low, cars are easier than the alternative unless someone spends several trillions at least on some giant initiative (which they won’t). So for most of the (physical) US, public transit makes no sense.

There are areas on the border (SF Bay Area, a lot of outlying Seattle Metro, etc), and in those cases both options suck.

Re: Corn Cobs: Fuel of Nightmares

#142

Post by lazide » Thu, Jul 14, 2022, 8:57 PM UTC

dublinben wrote: post #130

a_c wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On self driving car, I think we are solving all the problems caused by cars like air pollution and congestion with "better" car. First we have electric car, then we (will) have electric self driving car. Public transport seems boring enough that no one talks about. Is there anything foundamentally wrong with buses and trains (and bike too) compared with cars? While we moved pass the faster horse era, we are now searc…

The real EV transportation revolution isn't electrifying cars, but micromobility like electric bikes, scooters, skateboards, etc. The fundamental inefficiency of trying to move a single person using two tons of machinery can never beat human scale transportation. This doesn't even get into the enormous throughput efficiency that proper transit can deliver over longer distances.

Which works fine when you’re not trying to get through 6 inches of slush, 100+ F temps, or dealing with daily monsoon rains.

Which almost every part of the county except SF (pretty much) has to deal with some combination of regularly.

In a dense urban environment? Sure maybe, as long as the sidewalks and streets aren’t packed.

Re: Corn Cobs: Fuel of Nightmares

#143

Post by lazide » Thu, Jul 14, 2022, 9:04 PM UTC

jonstewart wrote: post #101

pkrein wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Leaving the biomass on the field results in the CO₂ going back into the atmosphere (~80% within 2 years): https://cdnsciencepub.com/doi/10.4141/cjss2010-055#T0002 By contrast, our process retains the nutrients, improves the soil health relative to the baseline of just leaving it, and you get permanent carbon removal. Yes, we're hiring for great mechanical engineers with experience in these areas ;) Lots to do!

How does removing the biomass improve soil health?

Biochar helps avoid soil compaction and dramatically improves productivity of the soil.

Re: Corn Cobs: Fuel of Nightmares

#144

Post by carbadtraingood » Thu, Jul 14, 2022, 9:07 PM UTC

goda90 wrote: post #89

carbadtraingood wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Decomposing biomass releases almost all its mass back as CO2 into the atmosphere, very little is sequestered. This approach removes carbon from the atmosphere permanently. It's also (probably) a net energy producer and it doesn't require creating massive piles of decomposing plant matter everywhere.

This depends on the conditions the biomass is decomposing in. A lot of carbon can be captured in the soil if handled well. No till, no spray, cover crops, and managed grazing of the cover crops can create an environment where the soil is a carbon sink and a better base for future crops.

Yes. And also no. Practices like that are good, but the majority of your carbon sequestration will come in the form of the roots of plants. (This is part of why no till is good.)

Getting surface vegetation to deposit carbon in the soil long term is trickier. You aren't wrong, but it's also not as simple as some folks believe. Just cutting the corn stalks and cobs and leaving them on a field won't put much carbon back in the soil.

Re: Corn Cobs: Fuel of Nightmares

#145

Post by carbadtraingood » Thu, Jul 14, 2022, 9:10 PM UTC

bob29 wrote: post #91

carbadtraingood wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pyrolysis is an energy positive reaction. It requires an initial heat input, but after getting started it produces more heat than it needs. That heat can be used to generate electricity or warm water.

Pyrolysis is entirely endothermic - it requires applying heat to biomass. Pyrolysis yields a vapor that will combust in the presence of oxygen and release energy. The energy released in the combustion of pyrolysis products can be used to drive further pyrolysis. A "Top Lit Updraft Gasifier" is a simple apparatus to achieve this. Capturing the heat from pyrolysis in this way does however convert the pyrolysis vapor fr…

Totally. I am currently experimenting with TLUDs for waste products from some forest land I own. I didn't realize they were also attempting to capture the gases from pyrolization rather than using them to continue the pyrolysis.

In that case, you are totally correct, they'll need an input heat source.

Re: Corn Cobs: Fuel of Nightmares

#146

Post by Fomite » Thu, Jul 14, 2022, 9:18 PM UTC

colechristensen wrote: post #88

pkrein wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The process separates the biomass carbon into bio-oil, and the NPK in the biomass separates into the biochar/ash (2% of the N, 70% of the P, >90% of the K). That biochar/ash goes back into the soil. So we recover most of the nutrients, plus you get biochar which improves soil carbon, water retention, microbial health, etc. https://charmindustrial.com/faq?question=how-do-you-sustaina...

Yes, but why is this better than leaving the biomass in the field and perhaps doing some soil building techniques? You also need to hire some farm kids or pay for some scholarships to get interns. Some of the problems you described solving over months would have been trivially solved by someone with farm experiences. You’d really benefit from going to farm auctions, finding one of these, taking it apart, and adapting…

Yeah, the West Coast Ag School professor in me in flinching at some of this.

Re: Corn Cobs: Fuel of Nightmares

#147

Post by nebula8804 » Thu, Jul 14, 2022, 9:20 PM UTC

hinkley wrote: post #137

nebula8804 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have literally described how Tesla(and the other Musk companies) have made both an excellent and terrible product at the same time. A big chunk of the Musk skeptic community consist of experienced professionals from all the industries that Elon is involved in. They are constantly bashing his companies for not paying attention to what has already been accomplished. Musk has had many failures due to ignoring the pr…

A similar story happened with digital cameras. A few of the film companies practically went out of business before the electronics got sorted out and what differentiated the good from the bad cameras circled back to the mechanical parts, which the incumbents had locked down ages ago. The pure digital play companies faded and some were acquired, and one day Nikon or Canon had the best DSLR system.

Thats unfortunate. What if there are certain aspects to existing cameras that are only there because a lesson was learned in the past but is no longer ideal in todays context. If there are no new comers that have the cash to burn to 're-evaluate' how everything is done today then we are missing out on potential innovations.

This process is like re-factoring old code but in real life.

Re: Corn Cobs: Fuel of Nightmares

#148

Post by corrral » Thu, Jul 14, 2022, 9:21 PM UTC

hinkley wrote: post #114

colechristensen wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They just needed one farm kid who became an engineer. They talked about taking seven weeks to figure out a conveyor, put me in the middle of Kansas and I could have told you how to solve that problem in seven minutes, give me a truck she a credit card and i can buy you the parts in an hour. Bay Area engineering tends to be very sheltered, large groups of people with zero experience invading a domain. Sometimes it cre…

Taken cynically, these full disclosure engineering stories are calculated to make the team seem human and trustworthy. How much do you want to bet that the real story is that one of them drove past a grain elevator and wondered if they make a portable version of that equipment, or one of the frustrated/amused locals didn’t suggest it. Either directly or subconsciously. One of my coworkers has spent most of the last y…

> One of my coworkers has spent most of the last year sharing observations and ideas with the team that are things I pointed out three years ago. I don’t know if he’s giving me an overly subtle nod or he just doesn’t know he’s doing it. Like people who accidentally write a story/song they heard once.

I once suggested a product name in a meeting and everyone was like "eh" and then about five minutes later someone else (no, not a manager) suggested the exact same name to instant acclaim, and it was adopted. I don't think she did it on purpose, so I wasn't and am not mad about it, but it was odd.

Re: Corn Cobs: Fuel of Nightmares

#149

Post by ryanmcbride » Thu, Jul 14, 2022, 9:24 PM UTC

mcronce wrote: post #38

ryanmcbride wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

probably mostly tastes like carbon but you might notice a smokey aftertaste

To be fair, the smokey flavor you get from barbeque is primarily carbon

Yup I just assume bitterness would be front and center

Re: Corn Cobs: Fuel of Nightmares

#150

Post by HeyLaughingBoy » Thu, Jul 14, 2022, 9:26 PM UTC

> solid material handling in general, is a perennial problem

Ugh! Yes. One one machine I worked on, this was one of our major issues. We had a subsystem whose job it was to get small plastic containers out of a bulk hopper, orient them correctly, and deposit them into a carriage all with a failure rate, IIRC, on the order of "no more than one unrecoverable jam every 10,000 units."

An "unrecoverable jam" was one that required human intervention to open the container and clear the jam by hand. Fun fact: tiny nonconductive plastic containers are very susceptible to static cling!

This was my introduction to bulk material handling (I was the dev writing the code) and its associated patent minefield. Just about every good idea the very experienced mechanical engineer could think of was already patented. In the end we got it to work and met the spec, but not without a lot of hard work.

At my previous job we had similar issues with paper. The company had an entire Paper Handling lab staffed with people constantly working on better ways of moving a sheet of paper from one place to another at speed. Paper might actually be worse because changing the humidity changes its properties quite a bit.