The Importance of Recycling Used Motor Oil

The Importance of Recycling Used Motor Oil

By Lynne Mueller

 
According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), used engine/motor oil is any petroleum-based or synthetic oil that has been used for vehicle lubrication. During normal use, it becomes contaminated with impurities such as dirt, metal scrapings, water or chemicals and in time, will no longer performs well and will need to be replaced.

Truths about engine oil: it never wears out it just gets dirty; it can be recycled repeatedly which reduces our dependence on foreign subsidies; when it's poured onto the ground or into storm drains can contaminate and pollute the soil, groundwater, streams, and rivers. Recycling reduces this pollution threat.

There are numerous oil recycling locations located nationwide. According to the American Petroleum Institute (API), over 600 million gallons of this lubricant is purchased each year. Over half of this amount (345 million gallons) is purchased by those that perform their own auto maintenance. If you are one of these folks, put the used fluid in a clean container with a lid and transport it to the nearest recycling center. If all the oil from those that accomplish thier own maintenance was recycled, it would provide enough recycled material for more than 50 million cars a year. Imagine how much that would reduce our dependence on foreign subsidies. If you choose to perform your own maintenance on your vehicle, you can have a positive impact on the environment by recycling any fluids.

If you pour your used oil on the ground, into a storm drain you are improperly disposing of your used motor oil. This used motor oil can pollute lakes, streams and water ways, and can also pollute our drinking water supply. A single quart of motor oil can contaminate up to 2,000,000 gallons of fresh water if it is not disposed of properly. According to the EPA, over 40% of our nation's oil pollution comes from the improper disposal of used motor oil.

The next time that you change your own oil, remember, you can make a difference by recycling the oil from your car, truck, motorcycle, boat, recreational vehicle or lawnmower. By dropping off your used motor oil at a recycling center, you can help protect the environment. Recycling your used motor oil keeps it out of our rivers, lakes, streams and even the ground water. In many cases, that means keeping it out of our drinking water, off our beaches, and away from wildlife. Recycling used oil can help to protect one of our most precious natural resources, clean drinking water.

Author: Lynne Mueller

Our Green Life Biz - http://www.ourgreenlifebiz.com

Renewable Energy Explained - http://www.renewableenergyexplained.com

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Electric Vehicles

Electric Vehicles:  A Better Environmental Choice

EVs are 24% Efficient

According to Transport Watch, only about 30% of the energy generated by a power plant in fact reaches an Electric Vehicle (EV) because of losses in the transmission route.  Of the energy delivered to the vehicle, 20% is then lost to the batteries and electric motor. This means that most EVs are only about 24% efficient. So, if your electric vehicle is charged with electricity from a coal-fired power plant, then the CO2 emissions to fuel your EV are about double the amount emitted by a diesel engine, due to the inefficiencies in electrical power generation and transmission.

So they conclude that the notion that electric cars will reduce emissions is fiction unless we hypothecate that the UK electricity generating industry will be de-carbonised.

Power Generation and Transmission Are Important Factors

But if we want to consider this issue carefully, we will find that the electric vehicle is environmentally friendly and efficiencies in electrical power generation and transmission.  First, let us consider some definitions:

• Hybrid-electric vehicle (HEV): This uses an internal-combustion engine for most of its power, but also has an electric motor run from batteries recharged by the engine. Typically the engine shuts off whenthe car is stopped. HEVs include the Toyota Prius and the Honda Insight.
• Plug-in hybrid-electric vehicle (PHEV):  An HEV that can charge its batteries by plugging into a charger, permitting all-electric short trips. The forthcoming Chevrolet Volt is such a car.
• Battery-electric vehicle (BEV): an electric car powered only by batteries.
  

All three can charge their batteries using regenerative braking, which recaptures energy otherwise lost as heat when bringing the car to a stop. That’s a big benefit for electrics.

Power Transmission

How much energy is lost getting electricity from the power plant to your PHEV or BEV?   Plenty. In the U.S. right currently, about 70 percent of the energy used to make electricity - more than four million gigawatt-hours - comes from fossil fuels. About 70 percent of that amount is wasted generating the power and transmitting it to your door. Additional energy is lost when charging batteries and operation electric motors. Generally, electric cars use fossil fuel at 20 to 25 percent efficiency, but dismal as that sounds, it beats an internal-combustion car, which usually operates at about 15 percent efficiency.   An HEV uses around 0.48-0.74 kilowatt-hours per mile, while PHEVs in electric mode and BEVs use 0.18-0.46 kWh per mile.  By contrast, a conventional car getting 25 MPG uses 1.35 kWh/mile. To put the issue in more well-known terms, a PHEV or BEV offers fuel economy equivalent to as much as 188 miles per gallon.

Pollution

Now let’s talk pollution.  A huge advantage of PHEV and BEV cars is that their energy can come from renewable sources, such as hydroelectric, wind, or solar.  Even if the energy source is fossil fuel, installing state-of-the-art emission controls on a few big power plants is way easier than installing ’em on hundreds of millions of motor vehicles. What’s more, since many electric plants use natural gas, carbon dioxide emissions from power generation are a modest 1.27 pounds of CO2 per kWh - 1.9 pounds per productive kWh once we account for losses during battery charging and so on.   Compare that to gasoline, which produces the equivalent of 3.9 pounds of CO2 per productive kWh.

EV Batteries:  A More Environmentally Friendly Alternative

The electric car battery is far more environmentally friendly than conventional car batteries.  For example, Tesla's Electric Roadster Battery can maximize the amount of materials that can be reused, recycled, and minimize energy consumption utilized during the transportation and recycling process.  They can separate the elements and re-use what can be re-used (cobalt, aluminum, nickel, and copper, etc). So the battery pack saves thousands of gallons of gasoline/diesel over the life of the vehicle, it is less toxic than the lead-acid batteries that are in regular cars, and at the end of its life it is recycled.

Internal Combustion Engine

History

The term internal combustion engine (ICE) refers to an engine where expansion of gases, produced by the combustion, apply force to a movable component of the engine.  The combustion of fuel occurs in a chamber with an oxidiser, typically air.  An exothermic reaction occurs that produces a gas at high pressure and temperature. The increasing hot gases will immediately put pressure on solid engine parts causing them to move.  Pistons, rotors or the engine itself then begins moving, causing the entire automobile to be propelled.

The first internal combustion engine was designed by the Dutch scientist Christian Huygens in 1678;  it was to have been fueled with gunpowder, but it was never built.  About 1860 a French inventor, Etienne Lenoir (1822-1900), built the first practical internal combustion engine; it burned illuminating gas.  In 1866 two German engineers, Eugen Langen (1833-1895) and Nikolaus August Otto (1832-1891), developed a more efficient gas engine, and in 1876 Otto built a four cycle engine, a prototype of the so-called Otto-cycle engines used in most modern automobiles and airplanes.

Operation 

The typical internal combustion engine uses a four-stroke cycle or Otto cycle. The cycle involves four phases namely:  induction, compression, power and exhaust.  These phases combine to generate an exothermic chemical process causing vehicle propulsion. During induction, oxygen or other oxidizers are introduced into the cylinder to act with the fuel.  Compression occurs as the gases start a response that continuously increase temperature and pressure within the cylinder.

When enough pressure is applied on the corresponding engine parts, the engine begins to gain power through movement coming from direct force application. The aftermath of the entire compression process will lead to exhaustion of by products like carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide and nitrogen wastes. These gases are freely emitted into the atmosphere. The combustion process is started through engine ignition using the spark ignition method or the compression ignition system.

Gasoline

Electric/gasoline systems use a combination of lead-acid battery plus an induction coil to create a high-voltage electrical spark.  The spark ignites the mix of air and fuel within the cylinder.  Gasoline engines get an air and gasoline mixture to be compressed to less than 185 psi.   The spark plug ignites the mixture during compression within the cylinder.  The battery is recharged during operation through an alternator or generator driven by the engine itself.  

As for diesel engines, these require only heat and pressure produced by the engine during the compression process for ignition. Diesel compression is approximately three times higher compared to a gasoline engine. Diesel engines use air only. Some diesel fuel is sprayed into the cylinder with the use of a fuel injector just before peak compression to start ignition immediately.  Homogeneous charge compression ignition (HCCI) engines also require only heat and pressure but take in fuel as well as air.  The compression process for diesel and HCCI engines is less robust for cold starts.

The Polluting Effects

Combustion products or the hot gases ignited and burnt inside the engine will have higher amounts of energy compared to the compressed fuel and air mixture. After available energy are used up to drive the engine pistons, remaining combustion products will be vented or exhausted through a valve or the exhaust outlet to bring back the piston in its original state also called top dead center (TDC).  Any heat which is not used up will become a waste product due to be removed from the engine via a liquid or air cooling system.

Air pollution emissions then result from incomplete combustion of carbonaceous fuel.  Examples of engine by products are carbon monoxide, soot, nitrogen wastes, sulfur and uncombusted hydrocarbons. These also result if the products did not operate near the stoichiometric ratio required for effective combustion.  The fuel would not have burnt very well due to factors like cool cylinder walls or lack of air. 

Both gasoline and diesel engines emit harmful gases that can be dangerous to humans as well as the environment. The greenhouse gases are trapped within the atmosphere leading to global warming.