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Politically this generates enormous difficulties for the Germans. In the lead up to WWII, Germany and the USSR held secret talks, that ultimately led to the non-aggression pactand trade agreement, both vital to German expansion and conquests, and critical to the German economy. Part of that discussion was of course the dismemberment of Poland, but there were also understandings reached concerning the Baltic states. Lithuania was thought by the Germans to be in their sphere, but the Russians were handed control of Estonia and and Latvia. The Russians were already in occupation of Estonia by the time of the Winter War, using many of the airfields and ports for airstrikes and to refuel submarines and light naval forces. Its difficult to see the Soviet German pact being agreed upon by Stalin without Estonias being given to them
One of the reasons the germans turned on the Sovets was that the Russians failed to honour the agreements concerning the Baltic states. In 1940, stalin moved to militarily occupy all three, which infuriated Hilter. The Russians also brought great pressure on Rumania, occupying Bessarabia, which for obvious reasons was very sensitive to the Germans. Germany wanted the Russians to expand south at the expense of Turkey and from there, bring pressure to bear on the Allies. Stalin never had any intention of taking his eyes off eastern Europe.
Germany changed the deal on the Baltics to give Lithuania to Stalin in exchange for Poland beyond the Vistula, but Stalin took a strip that had been left to Germany; Stalin also angered Hitler by taking more of Bukowina from Romania than agreed on:
Germanâ€"Soviet Border and Commercial Agreement - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Sphere of influence didn't so much mean "handed over" to Hitler. It meant more along the lines of buffer state with military allegiances and trade agreements that favoured the Soviets rather than the Germans. Estonias independence was specifically in the pact. That's why Stalins actions in Finland, the Baltic (which irritated and threatened Hitler) and his games down near Hungary and Romania (Soviet occupation of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina ie much of Romania) cracked the relationship, he went way too far and was now threatening Germanys supplier of oil. Hitler had previously offered Poland a joint Polish-German non aggression pact against the USSR but Chamberlains misinterpreted 'guarantee' cracked that up.
For someone who was always portraying himself/his country as victimized by the Germans, Uncle Joe sure liked to push Hitler's/Germany's buttons.
1935 Soviets were building three modern medium tank factories and one modern heavy tank factory. Vehicles produced by those plants weren't intended to serve as pier decorations.
I used to be an organic chemist. I'm pretty sure that the process as used by the Germans in the 1930s/40s used essentially a Cobalt catalyst. Chromium seems unlikely for reasons too boring and complicated to go into here.
You shouldn't use an abbreviation like 'syn gas' without first using the non abbreviated term 'Synthesis gas'. Not all readers will be chemists. This synthesis gas is the product of the first stages of the process when starting with solid sources of carbon, coal in the case of the German plants.
Trust me, it's not a simple series of processes. For many organic reactions there are several 'versions' of the starting compound (like butanol) and even more 'versions' of the synthesis' products, some of which you won't want. It can be difficult to isolate the compound you want and at every step of every synthesis the yield is less than 100%.
Cheers
Steve
For someone who was always portraying himself/his country as victimized by the Germans, Uncle Joe sure liked to push Hitler's/Germany's buttons.
For someone who was always portraying himself/his country as victimized by the Germans, Uncle Joe sure liked to push Hitler's/Germany's buttons.
For someone who was always portraying himself/his country as victimized by the Germans, Uncle Joe sure liked to push Hitler's/Germany's buttons.
I had also been suggesting that 'earlier aggression' could include foregoing the Battle of Britain in favor of consolidating/building forces and resources and focusing on plans for Eastern expansion.1935 Soviets were building three modern medium tank factories and one modern heavy tank factory. Vehicles produced by those plants weren't intended to serve as pier decorations. So antagonizing Soviets isn't an issue.
Or, if they considered that at all (or aspirations of invading/occupying/annexing Russia), it was compromised by focus on Britain's Commonwealth instead.Only thing to be determined was whether 1930s leaders of Germany, Baltic states, Poland, Romania and Hungary had enough sense to form a common defense against Soviet invasion which was inevitable. Sadly they did not which forced USA to shoulder most of Cold War defense burden for 45 years.
Not to mention those large plants were much more strategically vulnerable than small, dispersed plants. (at least to precision bombing ... against area bombing, the difference wouldn't be as dramatic)For instance the big complex hydrogenation plants, which were thermodynamically efficient but extremely capital intensive to build were the ones needed to make aviation gasoline but as time went on improvements to catalysts suggested that the smaller easier to build Fischer Trospch plants could make gasoline directly.
Depending on the blend of butanol isomers, the boiling point and vapor pressures might be such that it'd be more difficult to use in cold conditions than gasoline, so blending with other alcohols and/or hydrocarbons might still be necessary.Of course the methanol or pure methanol from a more selective catalyst could have been run in an engine directly. Butanol itself behaves almost exactly as petrol and can virtually run unchanged in an engine with only mino0r adjustments. the carburator.
Pure methanol (or even ethanol) would be pretty poor for aircraft due to energy per volume and to lesser extent, energy per weight.A Methanol based fighter, perhaps with a little hydrocarbon added to make a visible flame might have worked. Energetically methanol is less dense in terms of energy per unit mass but as it specific gravity is higher it partially compensates. It also has a high octane number which would help keep an engine small and efficient.
Even without the advancements for octane/gasoline production with the Fischer Trospch process, wouldn't using butanol directly (as much as practical) be more efficient than continuing processing all the way down to octane or similar hydrocarbons? (not so relevant for the hydrogenation plants, but very significant for a scenario where hydrogenation was marginalized or largely foregone)1 Cobalt to make Kerosene and Diesel.
2 Iron for other processes, it generated a bit of 45 octane gasoline.
3 Chromium for alcohols such as butanol (the first step in iso-octane synthesis). Later, after the Hydrogenation plants were up and running, they used butane isomers obtained as a by-product from their hydrogenation plants rather than the path of synthesis gas.
This is 20% in regards to the final iso-octane product, correct? I wonder what the efficiency values would be for the precursor products. (particularly butanol -though methanol is clearly the easiest liquid fuel to produce from syn gas)The process for production of iso-octane from syngas is interesting in that if it could have been reduced in size it might have produced easily dispersed mini plants. My estimate is the process must have been just over 20% thermodynamically efficient which is about 1/3rd of what the hydrogenation plants were producing 87 octane. Apparently the opportunity cost of producing C3 fuel was 30%. IE for the same effort in supply coal and building plant you got only 70% as much B4 (87 octane fuel) as opposed to C3 (about 96/125). This was improving as new processes were coming in such as alkylation.
Butanol has nearly the same energy density to gasoline (110,000 btu), though I'm not sure of its behavior with tetra-ethyl lead. The latter would be a big issue. You'd need to rely on lead-free blends for that to make sense, which would complicate logistics in any scenario where leaded fuel was also present. (non-lead boosting agents should still be usable)Getting the mixture correct for an alcohol based fuel can be critical as while methanol can have an PN number of 114 when running rich it can also have a PN of 75 ( octane rating 90/91) when running lean and lead actually degrades alcohol's PN numbers. Alcohol is great for peak performance but really crappy for cruising. Methanol has 57,000Btus per gallon and straight run gasoline has 115,000Btus per gallon and Methanol already weighs 10% more per gallon.
In any case, yes, the situation with using such for ground vehicles (particularly anything as extreme as using pure methanol) would make more sense. And again, conversion to methanol seems more practical than some of the wood/coal gas fueled truck conversions that took place. (even if mostly limited to civilian vehicles that would be useless otherwise)Using an alcohol blend in ground vehicles is a whole lot easier as the weight isn't so critical and range/endurance isn't so critical either. Running out of fuel in a truck by the side of the road is a pain the butt but hardly leads to crashes/lost vehicles.
I had also been suggesting that 'earlier aggression' could include foregoing the Battle of Britain in favor of consolidating/building forces and resources and focusing on plans for Eastern expansion.
Depending on the blend of butanol isomers, the boiling point and vapor pressures might be such that it'd be more difficult to use in cold conditions than gasoline, so blending with other alcohols and/or hydrocarbons might still be necessary.
Maybe more useful to consider for ground vehicles, but I think it'd be most suitable as an additive. (then again, given the extreme measures taken at some points during the war -like conversion of some civilian trucks to use gassifiers for wood or coal, using methanol fuel seems more attractive)In any case, yes, the situation with using such for ground vehicles (particularly anything as extreme as using pure methanol) would make more sense. And again, conversion to methanol seems more practical than some of the wood/coal gas fueled truck conversions that took place. (even if mostly limited to civilian vehicles that would be useless otherwise).
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apparently there are 4 different Butanol molecules and they behave differently.
Indeed, which is why blends of different fuels would need to be formulated for different needs, though this is already the case for hydrocarbon based fuels. (the gelling issue can arise with diesel and jet fuels if not properly formulated for low temperatures)" The octane rating of n-butanol is similar to that of gasoline but lower than that of ethanol and methanol. n-Butanol has a RON (Research Octane number) of 96 and a MON (Motor octane number) of 78 (with a resulting "(R+M)/2 pump octane number" of 87, as used in North America) while t-butanol has octane ratings of 105 RON and 89 MON.[32] t-Butanol is used as an additive in gasoline but cannot be used as a fuel in its pure form because its relatively high melting point of 25.5 °C causes it to gel and solidify near room temperature."
This last could be a real bummer for aircraft operating at altitude.
There is a lot more to aviation fuel than just octane (PN) and Btu's per gallon. Viscosity and changes in viscosity with temperature are important as is vapor pressure ( low vapor pressure can lead to vapor lock.)
N-butanol is likely the lowest octane performing of the butanol isomers. The more branched a hydrocarbon or alcohol is, the higher its resistance to compression ignition usually is (the longer the chain the worse -so branched and shot chain molecules tend to perform best; this is aside from more complex variables like double bonds and ring structures -benzene and toluene perform well).For Butanol it appears that the version that gives the best performance (closest match to gasoline for performance) is also the most viscous and hardest to get through a fuel system in anything but summer conditions.
Ignoring the Balkins would be a problem, yes ... that entire situation would certainly complicates the 'minimal antagonism towards the UK' situation. Perhaps I should have said 'direct antagonism' in as far as German (or Axis ally) strikes on British territories ... or American territories. Regardless, foregoing the Battle of Britain in favor of consolidating forces in the East (for both the Balkins and Russian front) would be significant.To the point of allowing Mussolini to fall on his face?