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PaperProphet

01/08/07 10:20 AM

#17893 RE: Chains #17883

Absolutely it can change the reaction path, but the total energy will be the same. For instance, your body uses glucose in two distinct types of reactions to release energy. That glucose provides you with a certain amount of calories of energy. However, to measure the calories in glucose, a scientist doesn't have to try to measure how much energy is released in each process--the scientist simply has to put the food in a bomb calorimeter and measure the heat energy output when the glucose is burned directly in oxygen.

That's all I'm saying--there's a certain amount of energy available by burning fuel and that can't be increased unless energy is added from a different source. The company is probably exaggerating significantly at a minimum.

Since it's their own brand of "biofuel" and not biodiesel or ethanol, I don't know exactly what it is or how well it can serve the purpose of running an engine. If that fuel alone can run a gasoline or diesel engine directly, that obviously would give them a lot of help.

As is, though, their biofuel could be anything. If soybeans are simply pureed in a blender and the solids are centrifuged out, there would likely be some liquid with a BTU content of around the same 128,000 BTU/gallon and, being mostly hydrocarbons, the liquid could probably be mixed with diesel or gasoline and an engine could run with the mixture. I don't know what good that would do, though. Maybe they could do a test to see how much more energy their brand of 50/50 mixture can produce vs. gasoline or diesel mixed 50/50 with vegetable oil.