Amateurs study aircraft design. Professionals study oil production.

[gjs238]

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.

 

[wiking85]

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.

There is no honor among thieves and Stalin wanted to ensure Hitler remained as far West as possible.

 

[Shortround6]

And if Estonia (with a border only about 100 miles from Leningrad) had signed some sort of mutual defense pact/ military alliance or even favorable trade agreement with Germany in 1938/39?????

It was about 210-235 miles from the northern area/s of Prussia (let alone Germany proper) to the Estonian southern border in 1939.

Geography is not in Germany's favor in this scenario.

http://www.distance.to/Silute/Moisakula

 

[gjs238]

And how do these metrics play into current Russian perceptions/concerns?

 

[davebender]

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.

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.

 

[Shortround6]

Well, Sevastopol is the main Russian warm water port.

St. Petersburg (Leningrad) can be frozen in a number of months of the year. And it is about 54-55 miles by Ferry from Helsinki to Tallinn, let alone the Denmark/Sweden choke point.

Murmansk/Arkhangelsk is also constrained by weather.

Vladivostok is ice free but with a 9,289 km (5,772 mi) trip from Vladivostok to Moscow by train it is NOT the preferred trade route despite the amount of lend-lease traffic in WW II.

In part the Crimean war of 1854 was about Russian access to a warm water Port let alone going back even further.

 

[Shortround6]

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.

Once again you fail to see the value of a "fleet in being".

Fleet in being - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Many Allied convoys were accompanied by at least one battleship (or one or more battleships were at sea in the area) in case one or more Germans heavy units broke out. This went on for years and cost the allies tens of thousands of tons of fuel oil. It tied up thousands of crewmen, (more the the Germans were using to crew their "pier decorations".) And ships that are spending a fair amount of time at sea need refit and repair sucking up even more resources/dockyard time. With building times of 3-5 years for a Battleship the lack of a German program would have been reflected by changes in British and French ship construction and Russian ship construction. See; Sovetsky Soyuz-class battleship - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

two laid down in 1938, one in 1939 and one in 1940. None were completed but:

Sovetsky Soyuz; When the war began she was estimated to be 21.19% complete with 15,818 metric tons (15,568 long tons) of steel assembled on the slip.
Sovetskaya Ukraina; When the war began she was 17.98% complete with 13,001 metric tons (12,796 long tons) assembled on the slipway
Sovetskaya Rossiya; After the end of the war she was only 0.97% complete with 2,125 metric tons (2,091 long tons) of steel assembled.
Sovetskaya Belorussiya: tonnage of steel used is unknown but laid down 21 December 1939, construction was suspended in mid-1940 when it was discovered that 70,000 rivets used in her hull plating were of inferior quality.

Enough steel to build another 1000 T-34 tanks???

Let alone money (Prop shafts ordered from Germany and Holland), labor and effort.

The tonnages given above do NOT reflect long lead time items like machinery and large caliber guns/turrets which have to ordered and worked on well before their installation into the ships. It was common practice for instance in many countries to build not just the main guns but the turrets/mounts at the armament factory/s and completely assemble the mount/turret and check rotation/elevation and some hoist workings before dis-assembling the mounts/turrets/supports and sending the pieces to the ship yard. Quite a bit of work could already be done on the main armament long before the hull was ready to receive the gun mounts.

You want the benefit of not building the big ships but you don't want to pay the cost. And one of the costs could have been the British defeating the Germans in Norway and severely limiting the Swedish iron ore traffic. Another would be a easier time for the Murmansk convoys.

 

[Koopernic]

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

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.
4 There was some experimental use of Uranium Catalysts for higher grade gasoline synthesis. This may have been the reason the Germans were shipping Uranium to Japan.

I'm not sure the fischer-tropsch produced much if any gasoline at all, it was a source of lubricants, chemical feed stocks and high cetane number diesel which was used to blend up lower grade diesel from the hydrogenation plants. After the war Messrs Fischer and Tropsch consulted extensively with SASOL in Sth Africa and the synthesis of gasoline via the Fischer Tropsch route became relatively effective in South Africa.

Instead the Germans had to rely on the Bergius Hydrogenation process in which hydrogen is used to pressurise a coal/toluene slurry to create synthetic oil at an incredible 700 atmospheres. The compressors and alloys able to withstand that without hydrogen embritlment were quite an achievement. These plants were by nature large and extremely capital intensive though the process was thermodynamically efficient. They used a massive amount of steel and were much more important in volume of production than the fischer-tropsch plants.

The Geilenberg plan, created after the successful allied bombing campaign, envisaged one of these hydrogenation plants built and operated underground while the smaller fischer tropsch plants would be dispersed and camouflaged.

Research was nevertheless at the point that production of high grade gasoline from fischer-tropsch synthesis was becoming viable. Had this occurred earlier the opportunities the Germans had for expanding and dispersion coal to liquids would have been far greater.

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.

I am only rehashing what I read on fischer-tropsch.org

All of these documents incidentally should have been destroyed, presumably to protect the oil industry, but somehow survived at Texas A&M university and we can now enjoy them.

Coal to Liquids became viable with oil at $50/barrel but the cost of building massive plant at huge capital expenditure, near a large enough coal mine with enough 'life' to amortise the plant was always a challenge while the oil cartels could always drop their price below $50/barrel to damage the investment.

Greenhouse gas concerns and the success of fracking mean that few such plants now exist. There is interest in converting butane, propane and methane from oil rigs to fischer-tropsch diesel and transferring it via the same pipeline or tanker to shore. A few plants in china.

There are organisations however in Britain, Germany and the USA using fischer-tropsch synthesis to create fuels from CO2 and Hydrogen.

The idea is to extract CO2 from the atmosphere and to split water for the hydrogen by electrolysis. CO2 extraction from the atmosphere is surprisingly efficient and the whole process likely to be 60% efficient, 40% is easily achieved.

The US Navy are looking at it for creation of jet fuel on their aircraft carriers. Given that US nuclear industry is now producing electricity at 1.8c Kw/Hr (inclusive of a 10% surcharge for waste disposal) I think this is where we may obtain future hydrocarbons for aviation.

 

[parsifal]

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.

Stalin knew that Germany needed him, moreso than the reverse. He miscalculated hitlers response . neither dictator could brook any opposition. but neither were either of them complete idiots, as is so often resorted to in contemporary histories. its easy to blame hitler or Stalin for systemic failures in their respective government systems and command structures....

Estonia was a non-negotiable issue for the Soviets in their secret discussions with the Germans. The germans knew that, but felt they had a deal with the Soviets over Lithuania. As WK 85 points out, Stalin didn't see it as a deal of any importance. Bad move really.

 

[nuuumannn]

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.

Aaah, some things never change. Switch 'Hitler' and 'Germany' with 'The West' and 'Uncle Joe' with 'Uncle Vlad' and voila!

 

[nuuumannn]

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.

Aaah, some things never change. Switch 'Hitler' and 'Germany' with 'The West' and 'Uncle Joe' with 'Uncle Vlad' and voila!

 

[kool kitty89]

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.

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.

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.

Or, if they considered that at all (or aspirations of invading/occupying/annexing Russia), it was compromised by focus on Britain's Commonwealth instead.

Failing to consider the sorts of alliances and exchange that might form between the US, UK, and USSR (... let alone the later lend-lease support Russia got from the US) seems to have been the overwhelming strategic issue. That alone would have been a huge incentive for trying to facilitate the UK to put pressure on the USSR in the Middle East rather than the other way around. (the Axis alliance with Japan certainly didn't help that situation either)

This is getting far off topic again, but just one more note on this alternate history angle: I usually tend to view the most likely 'success' of a WWII-like German imperial state (Nazi or otherwise) would have been contingent on confusing foreign powers as much as possible and in particular, delaying American involvement and renewed British conflict (following the occupation of France) as long as possible or indefinitely, including taking drastic measures with any alliance with Japan if Japanese-Commonwealth/American aggression couldn't be further delayed. (ie breaking the German-Japanese alliance or even declaring war on Japan following Pearl Harbor -more a move of political posturing given Germany's position, but that's the point -diplomatic confusion and misdirection) That along with contingency plans for defenses against strikes from British bases. (granted, lack of focus on defensive planning -or considerations for a cold-war type stalemate- were huge issues with Germany in general during the war)

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.

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)

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.

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.

Ethanol and methanol have some corrosion problems with some fuel systems and engines not intended for them. I'm not sure if Butanol has this problem. (the less polar, oilier, more hydrophobic nature of butanol point to it being much less problematic, though, and much less likely to lead to water-fuel emulsions when blended with hydrocarbons in high fractions -compared to ethyl or methyl alchol)

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.

Pure methanol (or even ethanol) would be pretty poor for aircraft due to energy per volume and to lesser extent, energy per weight.

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)


As another aside, though, I do wonder why Heinkel's early jet engine projects didn't seem to consider alcohol fuels, especially during the periods with problems of fuel injector clogging/fowling resulting to switching to hydrogen fuel for testing (and start-up on the Hes-3 -not sure if the HeS-8 ever solved the hydrogen start/warm up period). The vaporization and smokeless combustion of methanol seems like it would fit well there. (as an initial prototyping fuel and possible engine starting fuel) Methanol is also one of the easier fuels to get stable and more complete combustion with pulse jets and ram jets.

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.

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)

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.

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)

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.

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)

A more serious plan for adoption of synthetic fuels might have addressed logistics concerns though.

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.

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)

 

[stona]

That site took me back!

Whether they built special sites to produce the lighter alcohols with different catalysts I don't know. The Germans had plenty of Kieselguhr, used, amongst its many uses, as an inert medium in things like dynamite and catalysts.

Cheers

Steve

 

[gjs238]

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.

To the point of allowing Mussolini to fall on his face?

 

[Shortround6]

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.

Butanol fuel - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

apparently there are 4 different Butanol molecules and they behave differently.

" 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.)

Ground vehicles don't have to deal with wide variations in temperature and atmospheric pressure. At least not on the same day or within a few minutes. Climbing to 20,000ft can lower the the temperature by 70 degrees F. (38/39 Degrees C). Going higher makes it worse.

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).

Germans were test running tanks using the wood "gassifiers" and using vehicles powered by them for driver training near the end of the war so, yes, some sort of liquid fuel produced in quantity earlier in the war might have helped.

 

[stona]

]

apparently there are 4 different Butanol molecules and they behave differently.

These isomers (of which there are also different types) are the 'versions' I was referring to above. Without starting a chemistry lesson this means that molecules have the same number of atoms of the various elements (carbon, hydrogen and oxygen for an alcohol) but they or more usually groups (OH,CH3 for example) are arranged differently. This gives the various isomers different properties, though they can sometimes be difficult to separate.

Cheers

Steve

 

[Shortround6]

Thank you.

Getting a few specs off a page may sound like a certain fuel/chemical can substitute for another but real world considerations may mean that there are major problems.
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.

 

[Snautzer01]

some data for you (note Bergiusand Fischer Topsch type):

Target Complex Location Type Plant Note
Oil Ammoniawerke Merseburg Leuna Synthetic oil Oil Synthetic oil (Bergius) 600.000 tons capability. Also nitrogen and other chemicals
Oil S,D. Treibstobwerke Brüx Most Synthetic oil Oil Synthetic oil (Bergius) 750.000 tons capability
Oil Hydrierwerke Politz Synthetic oil Oil Synthetic oil (Bergius) 600.000 tons capability.
Oil Braunkohle Benzin Bohlen Synthetic oil Oil Synthetic oil (Bergius) 350.000 tons capability.
Oil Braunkohle Benzin Zeitz Synthetic oil Oil Synthetic oil (Bergius) 460.000 tons capability.
Oil Braunkohle Benzin Rothensee, Magdeburg Synthetic oil Oil Synthetic oil (Bergius) 250.000 tons capability.
Oil Gelsenkirchen Bergwerks Gelsenkirchen Nordstern, Synthetic oil Oil Synthetic oil (Bergius) 400.000 tons capability.
Oil Hydrier Werke Scholven Gelsenkirchen Buer, Synthetic oil Oil Synthetic oil (Bergius) 400.000 tons capability.
Oil I.G. Farben Sławięcice Synthetic oil Oil Synthetic oil (Bergius) 350.000 tons capability. Sub camp Auschwitz
Oil I.G. Farben Sławięcice Synthetic oil Oil Synthetic oil (Bergius) 125.000 tons capability. Sub camp Auschwitz
Oil I.G. Farben Oswiecim Synthetic oil Oil Synthetic oil (Bergius) 200.000 tons capability.
Oil Chemische Union Wesseling Synthetic oil Oil Synthetic oil (Bergius) 200.000 tons capability.
Oil Krupp Wanne eickel Synthetic oil Oil Synthetic oil (Bergius) 130.000 tons capability.
Oil Winterschall Wettin Synthetic oil Oil Synthetic oil (Bergius) 120.000 tons capability.
Oil Ruhrol Botrop, Welheim Synthetic oil Oil Synthetic oil (Bergius) 100.000 tons capability.
Oil I.G. Farben Ludwighafen Synthetic oil Oil Synthetic oil (Bergius) 90.000 tons capability.
Oil Braunkohle Benzin Ruhland, Schwartzheide Synthetic oil Oil Synthetic oil (Fischer Topsch) 350.000 tons capability
Oil Winterschall, Lützkendorf Wettin Synthetic oil Oil Synthetic oil (Fischer Topsch) 140.000 tons capability
Oil Hoesch Benzin Dortmund Synthetic oil Oil Synthetic oil (Fischer Topsch) 300.000 tons capability
Oil Gewerkschaft Rheinpreusen Meerbeck Homberg Synthetic oil Oil Synthetic oil (Fischer Topsch) 190.000 tons capability
Oil Ruhr Benzin Sterkrade Synthetic oil Oil Synthetic oil (Fischer Topsch) 125.000 tons capability
Oil Schaffgotsch Benzin Odertal Synthetic oil Oil Synthetic oil (Fischer Topsch) 110.000 tons capability
Oil Essener Steinkohle Kamen Synthetic oil Oil Synthetic oil (Fischer Topsch) 100.000 tons capability
Oil Klockner Winterschall Castrop Rauxel Synthetic oil Oil Synthetic oil (Fischer Topsch) 100.000 tons capability
Refineries Astra Romana Ploiești Oil Refinery Oil 1750000 ton per year
Refineries Steau Romana Campina Oil Refinery Oil 1500000 ton per year
Refineries Concordia Vega Ploiești Oil Refinery Oil 1450000 ton per year
Refineries Romano Americana Refinery Ploiești Oil Refinery Oil 170000 ton per year
Refineries Phoenix Orion Ploiești Oil Refinery Oil 730000 ton per year
Refineries Standard Ploiești Oil Refinery Oil 550000 ton per year
Refineries Creditul Minier Brazi Oil Refinery Oil 535000 ton per year
Refineries Colombia Aquila Ploiești Oil Refinery Oil 535000 ton per year
Refineries Phoenix Unirea Ploiești Oil Refinery Oil 440000 ton per year
Refineries Xenia Ploiești Oil Refinery Oil 290000 ton per year
Refineries Petrolmina (Lumina) Ploiești Oil Refinery Oil 150000 ton per year
Refineries Redeventa Ploiești Oil Refinery Oil 100000 ton per year
Refineries Prahove Bucharest Oil Refinery Oil 200000 ton per year
Refineries Vacuum (Phpotogen) Brasov Oil Refinery Oil 35000 ton per year
Refineries Shell Koolaz Budapest Czepel Oil Refinery Oil 175000 ton per year
Refineries Magyr Budapest Oil Refinery Oil 60000 ton per year
Refineries Fanto Budapest Oil Refinery Oil 60000 ton per year
Refineries Apollo Bratislava Oil Refinery Oil 150000 ton per year
Refineries Socony Vacuum Almasfuzito Oil Refinery Oil 125000 ton per year
Refineries Hydrobenzen Petfurdo Oil Refinery Oil 100000 ton per year
Refineries Magyar Szony Oil Refinery Oil 100000 ton per year
Refineries Shell -Caprag Sisak Oil Refinery Oil 100000 ton per year
Refineries Stadard Vacuum Brod Oil Refinery Oil 100000 ton per year
Refineries Sumasisk Smederovo Oil Refinery Oil 40000 ton per year
Refineries Ip Oil Osijek Oil Refinery Oil 20000 ton per year
Refineries Lispe Budafapuszta Gas plant Gas
Refineries Winterschall Vienna Lobau Oil Refinery Oil 200000 ton per year
Refineries Shell Vienna Floridsdorf Oil Refinery Oil 100000 ton per year
Refineries Socony Vacuum Vienna Kagran Oil Refinery Oil 60000 ton per year
Refineries Nova Oel Vienna Schwechat Oil Refinery Oil 50000 ton per year
Refineries Fanto Vienna Vosendorf Oil Refinery Oil 40000 ton per year
Refineries Creditul Minier Vienna Korneuburg Oil Refinery Oil 50000 ton per year
Refineries Skoda Werke Wetzler Vienna Moesibierbaum Petro industry Oil
Refineries Refiney Drohobycz Drohobycz Oil Refinery Oil 190000 ton per year
Refineries Polski Trzebinia Oil Refinery Oil 300000 ton per year
Refineries Fanto Pardubice Oil Refinery Oil 200000 ton per year
Refineries Goverment Refinery Dubova Oil Refinery Oil 90000 ton per year
Refineries Vacuum Kolin Oil Refinery Oil 90000 ton per year
Refineries Vacuum Czechowice Oil Refinery Oil 75000 ton per year
Refineries Fanto Werk Bohumin Oil Refinery Oil 75000 ton per year
Refineries AGIP Fiumo Oil Refinery Oil 150 ton per year, Plant active not needed by Germany
Refineries Romsa Fiumo Oil Refinery Oil 130000 ton per year
Refineries SIAP Trieste Oil Refinery Oil 150000 ton per year
Refineries Aquila Trieste Oil Refinery Oil 350000 ton per year
Refineries AGIP Porto Marghera Oil Refinery Oil 450000 ton per year
Refineries Shell Spezia Oil Refinery Oil 450000 ton per year
Refineries Petrolifera Fornova di taro Oil Refinery Oil 50000 ton per year
Refineries SIAP Leghorn Oil Refinery Oil ?
Refineries Oil Refinery Berat Oil Refinery Oil 10000 ton per year
Refineries Pechelbronn Merkwiller Oil Refinery Oil 120000 ton per year
Refineries Compagnie Indust. Des Petroles Sete Frontignan Oil Refinery Oil 300000 ton per year
Refineries Etang de Thau Sete Étang de Thau, Sète Oil Refinery Oil Unknown, not in operation
Refineries Pechelbronn Donges Oil Refinery Oil 250000 ton per year
Refineries SGHP Douai Courchelettes Oil Refinery Oil 300000 ton per year
Refineries Texas Bec dÁmbes Oil Refinery Oil 350000 ton per year
Refineries Shell Pauillac Oil Refinery Oil 500000 ton per year
Refineries Rhenia Assag Harburg Oil Refinery Oil 550000 ton per year
Refineries Ebano Harburg Oil Refinery Oil 400000 ton per year
Refineries Europaische Tanklager Hamburg Oil Refinery Oil 400000 ton per year
Refineries Rhenania Ossag Hamburg Oil Refinery Oil 130000 ton per year
Refineries Julius Schindler Hamburg Oil Refinery Oil 40000 ton per year
Refineries Deutsche Vacuum Hamburg Schulau Oil Refinery Oil 18000 ton per year
Refineries Albrecht Slieman Hamburg Oil Refinery Storage Storage
Refineries Olex Deutsche Benzin Hamburg Oil Refinery Oil Unknown
Refineries Deutsche Erdol (Durag) Hanover Misburg Oil Refinery Oil 300000 ton per year
Refineries Hemmingstedt Hemmingstedt Oil Refinery Oil 190000 ton per year
Refineries Ma Wag Ostermoor Oil Refinery Oil 150000 ton per year
Refineries Deutsche Gazolin Emmerich Oil Refinery Oil 60000 ton per year
Refineries Deutsche Vacuum Bremen Oslebenhausen Oil Refinery Oil 80000 ton per year
Refineries Deutsche Gazolin Dollbergen Oil Refinery Oil 40000 ton per year
Refineries Erdol Salzbergen Oil Refinery Oil 30000 ton per year
Refineries Deutsche Oil Rositz Oil Refinery Oil 120000 ton per year
Refineries Westfallische Mineral Dortmund Oil Refinery Lubricating oil
Refineries Reinsch Milan Oil Refinery Lubricating oil
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[kool kitty89]

" 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.)

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)

T-butanol is particularly strange since it has a high melting point and low boiling point (narrow range of liquid at standard pressure), but given those properties, should also not be difficult to separate though fractional distillation or even fractional freezing. (other butanol isomers have significantly higher boiling points) Though having it as a fractional portion of a fuel blend might be plenty attractive in any case.

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.

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).

Viscosity and vapor pressure would be bigger considerations, though vapor locking issues shouldn't be relevant for fuel injected engines (in the case of aircraft fuel) and gelling really shouldn't be a problem aside from fuel with high fractions of T-butanol (all other isomers have much lower melting points). For carbureted engines, and in this scenario of primarly synthetic alcohol based fuel (with simple primary products used as much as possible) adding fractions of methanol might be the simplest solution. (methanol has a high vapor pressure and low viscosity)

And that said, the viscosity of n-butanol itself should be in the range between kerosene and light diesel oil and significantly more fluid than ethylene glycol, for example. (and much more fluid than heavy diesel oil)

The low vapor pressure of butanol (t-butanol aside) would seem a positive characteristic for safety handling and fire danger in combat. (plus the water solubility broadens fire extinguishing procedure options compared to hydrocarbon fuel)


Propanol (both its isomers) should make an attractive fuel too, and a more attractive blending option than methanol or ethanol in terms of energy per volume or weight while more easily vaporized and lower viscosity than butanol. I'm not sure of the efficiency/ease of production of propanol in the context at hand, though. (plus there's a variety of ketones and ethers that might be attractive too, but again, I'm not sure which are the easiest to synthesize -I'd assume acetone would be among the simplest and most attractive there, but that's just an educated guess)


There's also the issue of engine and fuel system design in that plans to switch over to synthetic fuels with high fractions of various alcohols would imply the engine (and associated auto/aircraft/etc) industries would develop designs with this in mind.

Though, if such alcohols were the majority of fuels being produced, that would actually make diesel engines less appealing given they're all poor for compression ignition engines. (except you've also got liquid fuel and chemical feedstock coming directly from destructive distillation of coal -which would also include aromatic hydrocarbons, some of which fit very well into high octane fuels as well ... this depends on the types of coal being used; bituminous grades have lots of useful liquid and tar fractions in them, lower quality brown coal is another story -lots of volatile matter but a much higher fraction of those being gases; anthracite is closer to pure carbon and more useful as a substitute for coke)

To the point of allowing Mussolini to fall on his face?

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.

 

[blueskies]

Die Illusion der Wunderwaffen has a very interesting nugget of information;

In the eight year period from 32-40 there were just under 21,000 college graduates in Germany. Of those just 271 has degrees in fields related to aircraft, while fields related to beer brewing had nearly 900.