Stretching German Gasoline Supply.

[parsifal]

If the next post isn't On Topic and devoid of political schmutz, this thread will be closed.

I agree, this thread needs to get back on topic. Ive attempted to do that at post 118 with the following:

I think we should try and relate this material back to the the topic. I will try and kick it off

The obvious link is whether germany made adequate provisions for fuel self sufficiency. Well, Germany opted for the large scale hydogenation plants, but from mere prejudice I think, Hitler banned use of organic material, like potatoes, to distill alchohol which could have been used as a fuel additive. I dont know if that ban extended for the whole war, but in 1936 it certainly did. Hitler was apparently concerned that such diversion of food producing potential could have other more serious effects on food supply.

If you are going to shut the thread down, because of what you refer to as "Political Schmutz", can you explain to me how relating the findings of a military tribunal, and providing an admittedly overlong bibliographical list of references is in any way "political"? Off topic, I will concede, and you are more than in your rights to shut this down for that alone, but to call the findings of the Nurnberg trials "political Schmutz" is more than a little disresepectful to the millions who died for it. Do what you have to do as a mod, I am not getting in the way of that, but dont disrespect the people who died making those tribunals necessary and exist, by calling them a political excercise.

I make that point with the greatest respect Chris.....l

 

[Matt308]

Then move along and get back on topic of German fuel supply. Last warning folks.

 

[Siegfried]

The Versailles Treaty may have left Germany with a couple (a lot?) of justifiable grievences but the way the NSDAP governement has acted upon cleary disqualifies any complaint.
I myself find this discussion most interesting.. but not for this thread or this site

Previous democratically elected German regimes were treated with total dismisall and contempt by the allies particularly the French. They were given no concessions and often left with personal insults.

Franz von Papen himself warned the allies that "If German democrats were not granted a single diplomatic success he would be thje last democratic chancellor in Germany." He received no concessions.

Hitler was the only effective politician. His methods were effective and he had justice on his side. In my opinion after he had succesfully freed the Suddenland Germans from Czechoslovakia and further seperated Czecho-Slovakia by guaranteeing the Slovakian borders against possible Hungarian and Polish attacks (thus freeing them to declare independance) he might have left the Czech state independant indefinetly however the Brinkmanship and instrangience they had played was unforgiven. The other disgrace was the invasion of Holland as the Dutch had done nothing against Germany, clearly this was a panicked measure to try and defeat France and Britain and secure against a possible British invasion via Holland. The Norweigen cabinet had secretly decided to not resist an openly discussed British invasion (German intelligence found out) and therefore violated their on neurtrality. Denmark and Belgium had both taken portions of German territory and populations after WW1.

The Historian Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddin argued that the treaty of Brest-Litovsk merely freed the mall nations of the Russian empire (Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithunia, Poland, Ukrain, Belarus from the giant tsarist prison allowing their peoples to gro free.

Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

He also suggested that Thus he concludes that sound Catholicism, or sound Protestantism, or even—probably—sound popular Sovereignty (i. e. German-Austrian unification in 1919) all three would have prevented National Socialism, although Kuehnelt-Leddihn rather dislikes the latter two.

 

[Siegfried]

I can only repeat what ive already posted. The obvious link is whether germany made adequate provisions for fuel self sufficiency. Well, Germany opted for the large scale hydogenation plants, but from mere prejudice I think, Hitler banned use of organic material, like potatoes, to distill alchohol which could have been used as a fuel additive. I dont know if that ban extended for the whole war, but in 1936 it certainly did. Hitler was apparently concerned that such diversion of food producing potential could have other more serious effects on food supply.

Sorry, didn't see moderators last warning.

The "Nazi" regime is often criticised harshly for dedicating the use of potatoes for the production of ethyl alcahol in order to fuel the V2 rocket. Personally I think the V2 was going to become a very cost effective weapon but the production of alcahole as a piston engine motor fuel is pointless due to the energy it would require (eg tractor fuel, fertiliser production) and of course the famine and crop failures were another reason. The V2 required alcahole as a fuel due to its carbonisation free and soot free burning and reduced oxidiser requirements.

There is however a case for use for use of fermented alcahole fuels to
1 Make use of substandard crops
2 create a secondary market, agrarian socialism, to subsidise and help farmers so that they can over produce and find a market for their surplus crop; if there is too much for human consumption at least it can be made into fuel ensuring that there is continious over production to compensate for times of crop failure.

Europe faced a food shortage, one cause was the loss of superphosphate supplies from North Africa as the Italian Navy had trouble keeping shipping lanes open.

Unlike grains Potatoes do not required so much land and also have minimal phosphate requirements. However they were rather manpower intensive, which Germany and Europe lacked at this time and so this created its own problems.

Synthesis of liquid fuels would appear to be the only viable solution. Investing in more plant, more bomb resistant, more dispersed and better camaflauged would appear to be the only alternative.

At that time synthetic fuels must have been at least 5-10 times the price of oil. Its harder to mine, harder to transport, harder to prcess and much is lost in liquifaction.

Petrol in Saudi Arabia sells at about 15-20c Litre which gives you an idea of how cheap it is without all the taxes. One requirement for the export of the GM Holdern Statesman V8 to Saudi Arabia was that the engine can be left parked and idling to keep the airconditioning on all day so that the car is cool when folks finnish work.

It's likely that with another few years German chemists would have dveloped coal to liquids synthesis to a much higher level.

Fischer and Tropsch personally consulted with SASOL when Sth Africa developed succesfull synthetic fuel plants that produced motor fuel. Fischer-Tropsch synthesis actually is rather good at producing alcahol but poorer at gasoline so producing alcahol fueled engines in which the alcahol came from synthesis would have been quite efficient.

 

[parsifal]

Unlike grains Potatoes do not required so much land and also have minimal phosphate requirements. However they were rather manpower intensive, which Germany and Europe lacked at this time and so this created its own problems.

I am the son of a farmer. We grew both grains and potatoes. There was no difference in the phosphate requirements. In the context of the 1940s tech it would have been more labour intensive during the potato picking season. In the 60s automated harvesting machines were devised to overcome this.

In terms of manpower intensive and in the context of a Central European agricultural system, grain production would be more labour intensive than potato farming. harvesting was either by hand, or with small horse drawn or at best lightly motorized harvesters. There was no bulk handling, and threshing and milling was by hand, mostly. If a greater degree of motorization was in place, the manpower requirements might go down. but given that germany remains about 1/10 as efficient at grains production as Australia, even today, that appear unlikley in the context of WWII.

Moreover, ethanol production could have been organised from waste products of the primary product. Whilst not "free energy" if the system had been developed before the war, it could have been cost effective, and had no effect on food supply. If maize is the crop, the corn would still be harversted, but the corn storks could have been used for ethanol production. same applies to potatoes. people dont eat potato peels (usually). What was required was pre-skinning. Also collection of the excess plants for shipment to the ethanol plant.

Brazil has the most efficient ethanol industry today. They use sugar for the purpose. The US aklso has a sizable ethanol industry. Sweden during the war used potatoes and Corn for fuel supplies, with no effect on their available food supplies.

I dont think an agrarian based ethanol industry would have been any more labour intensive than the big hydogentation plant. these plants at the end of the war were employing nearly 700000 workers in the p-roduction and repair of these plants, to produce I think something like 7500000 tons of fuel annually (havent checked those figures. Austalian grain production employs less than 50000 workers, and produces 4-6 million tons of grain every year. Even allowing for European agricultural innefficiency it may well be the case that an ethanol based synthetic fuel industry was more cost effective than a coal based extraction process.

Synthesis of liquid fuels would appear to be the only viable solution. Investing in more plant, more bomb resistant, more dispersed and better camaflauged would appear to be the only alternative

.

Possibly, but your explanation is full of holes and doesnt explain the nitty gritty issues

 

[Shortround6]

When looking at alternative fuels it is a good idea to see what they can and cannot do. Alcohol has an octane rating of about 114. This is one reason it is so popular for auto racing. It has been used to "spike" regular gasoline to raise the octane rating but this comes at a cost. Alcohol has roughly 1/2 the BTUs per gallon as gasoline which means you need twice as much to get the same range. Fortunately for power production it needs roughly 1/2 the amount of air per gallon to burn so for the same quantity of air going into an engine you do get more power. It also burns a bit cooler than gasoline and it absorbs more heat as it vaporizes which also helps with engine cooling.
Problems come in with, not only the quantity needed, but with compatibility with seals and gaskets, vaporization pressure and temperatures and so on. Alcohol powered engines need help starting in cold weather, and cold is a relative term. In some areas of Brazil their alcohol powered cars have a small auxiliary tank of gasoline for starting.

 

[rank amateur]

Previous democratically elected German regimes were treated with total dismisall and contempt by the allies particularly the French. They were given no concessions and often left with personal insults.

Hitler was the only effective politician. His methods were effective and he had justice on his side.

Calling Hitler a politician to me is a bit like calling Al Capone an effective 'businessman'

 

[parsifal]

When looking at alternative fuels it is a good idea to see what they can and cannot do. Alcohol has an octane rating of about 114. This is one reason it is so popular for auto racing. It has been used to "spike" regular gasoline to raise the octane rating but this comes at a cost. Alcohol has roughly 1/2 the BTUs per gallon as gasoline which means you need twice as much to get the same range. Fortunately for power production it needs roughly 1/2 the amount of air per gallon to burn so for the same quantity of air going into an engine you do get more power. It also burns a bit cooler than gasoline and it absorbs more heat as it vaporizes which also helps with engine cooling.
Problems come in with, not only the quantity needed, but with compatibility with seals and gaskets, vaporization pressure and temperatures and so on. Alcohol powered engines need help starting in cold weather, and cold is a relative term. In some areas of Brazil their alcohol powered cars have a small auxiliary tank of gasoline for starting.

I know very little about the energy yields of ethanol as oppsed to coal derived petrol. However, I think it worth noting that after the war coal extracted fuels all but died out, primarily because of cost. its a labour intensive, capital intensive business. ive read somewhere that the cost per gallon of fuel for the germans was between 10 and 20 times that of the allies. Ethanol production, using waste bi-products from agriculture has proven at least close to the cost of real petrol. It seems the best alternative has been to use blended fuels, the mixing of gasoline with ethanol to string out the overall supply of fuel.

I accept that the energy returns of ethanol fuels is not as good as regular fuels. But for Germany that probably is less of a concern to getting any supply of fuel. Siegfried and others are saying more investment should have been made in the coal based extraction plants....build more and make more, protect them better, make them more bomb resistant. Thats a solution, but it comes at a cost. more workers, more money diverted....les production elsewhere...shortages in other areas. To my mind, Germany need more fuel, but her problem is that she has to get it at no additional cost. If fuel is derived from ethanol, which in turn is derived from agriculture, you have to achieve that with the same workforce, modest additional capital and no loss of food production. thats a tall ask

 

[Shortround6]

Two notes.

1. "energy yields of ethanol as opposed to coal derived petrol". Coal derived petrol HAS to have the same number of BTUs per gallon as oil derived petrol or else the fuels are NOT interchangeable in the same aircraft. Sure you can be off by a few percent but anything greater and not only the range suffers but the actual mixture ratios/controls for the carburetors/injectors will be thrown off. Modern cars with their computer controls may be able to adjust more readily than WW II engines. Trying to run an 1940-50 engine on alcohol without much bigger main and idle jets in the carb is an exercise in frustration and melted pistons. It may be the same with the coal derived petrol. It HAS to behave like oil based gasoline or else the planes using it have to be segregated and fuel separately from different supply sources.

2. " If fuel is derived from ethanol, which in turn is derived from agriculture, you have to achieve that with the same workforce, modest additional capital and no loss of food production. thats a tall ask" Quite right, a very tall task. The Germans made a mistake in WW I and mobilized too many of the farm horses which weakened the agriculture sector and contributed to Germany's food shortage in WW I. While the Germans left more horses on the Farms in WW II trying to divert too many of them to "fuel' Production is going to bring back the same problem. There are only so many resources to be had in the agriculture sector, manpower, animal power and motor power (trucks/tractors/ stationary engines. etc) and much of a shift in priorities will lead to shortfalls in the areas with the lower priorities.

 

[Siegfried]

Parsifal, the phosphate requirements of potato and wheat crops may be equal in terms of kilograms per hectare but as the potato produces 5-10 times the food calories per unit area the super-phosphate requirements are considerably less per mouth fed. I am not making this up, phosphate shortages due to interruption of supplies from Nth Africa were a big cause of European famine.

Incidentally, don't worry about peak oil, worry about peak phosphate. (Of course if you are a westerner one would be worried about immigration patterns if you are really worried about your children)

The idea that Central European Harvesting (which includes Grain) was based on hand harvesting or horse harvesting is greatly overstated.

Those that grew grain almost certainly had a tractor to pull harvesting machines. A large number of smaller family farms in marginal land eg the hilly very cold parts of Eastern Germany where the owners were Artisans/Trades people that worked at their trade in winter but the farm in summer may have relied on horses or even hitching up the cow. About 3 years ago I was at an agricultural fair at the German Czech border and saw a parade of vintage tractors from the era from both countries.

When the requisitioning of Horses for use by the German army was increased the shortfall in agricultural draft animals was made up by use of motorized tractors. The effect was an overall increase in fuel consumption as Albert Speer noted. There was certainly enough tractors around to have this effect.

The use of bio-fuels would completely unrealistic given food shortages and famines, fertilizer and energy shortages in WW2 Europe. In the present era for fermented Alcohol fuels we have Brazil with its sugar, the US with its maize, the Australians with their grains while for biodiesel's we have Europeans with their rape seed and the Malaysians with their palm kernels.

All are so dubious and marginal it took years of controversy and science to even work out if the energy inputs were less than the net energy produced. All require considerable government assistance, subsidies, tax relief and bounties. Most are a form of agrarian socialism that have the effect of raising crop prices though I have no issue with helping the farmers it does rather indicated the inefficiency of the process. Bio-fuels are by some considered a disaster as they raise food prices, damage 3rd world exports (which I care little about personally) and cause the loss of precious rainforest or wilderness.

I also can not see that the waste product would be so large that it would provide an aqueduct source of fermentable materials and in any case such things are perhaps best turned into animal fodder.

Nevertheless the Germans did have a considerable capacity to produce bio-ethanal, which they used to fuel the V2 missile. Perhaps they had prepared this industrial scale process in mind for use in combustion engines.

Shortround:

The German synthetic plants plants were able to produce significant quantities of methanol.

See links below.

"Dr. Butefisch referred to experiments which had been carried out using fuels containing methyl alcohol. He referred to the difficulty with water tolerance and to the fact that the total consumption of an engine using a fuel containing 15% of alcohol was no higher than with the petrol alone."

(presumably due to higher octane rating and efficiency of methanol (as well as its higher density)

The process of making iso-octane involved synthesizing iso-butanol. The output of the reactor was 55% methanol and only 15% iso-butanol. The methanol was simply distilled off and back fed into the reactor where it behave as syn gas but obviously it could have been used directly as a fuel.

iso-butanol in fact behaves almost exactly as high octane petrol and can directly be substituted with gasoline with no change to the engine. It does smell a little like vomit.

BIOS 1697 - Synthetic Oil Production in Germany Interrogation of Dr. Butefisch
I.G. Farbenindustrie - Methanol Higher Alcohol Synthesis

 

[wuzak]

I wonder if the Junkers steam turbine project was allowed to continue (from 1940) if it would have allowed multi-engined aircraft to use less vital fuels (like lower octane petrol, diesel) or even blends of crushed coal/petrol, freeing up the high octane fuels for more critical applications.

How well would a He 111 go with a pair of 3000hp steam turbine power plants?

 

[jim]

It is very interesting how Parsifal agrees with moderators about the thread returning on topic, immediately AFTER presentig ,in lengthy posts ,his opinions about anything irrelevant.

 

[KiwiBiggles]

I wonder if the Junkers steam turbine project was allowed to continue (from 1940) if it would have allowed multi-engined aircraft to use less vital fuels (like lower octane petrol, diesel) or even blends of crushed coal/petrol, freeing up the high octane fuels for more critical applications.

How well would a He 111 go with a pair of 3000hp steam turbine power plants?

I hadn't heard of that. Puts me in mind of the rather wonderful Bristol Tramp project, of the '20s, which had a fuselage-mounted boiler and steam turbine, driving wing-mounted propellers through drive shafts. Apparently the boiler/turbine/condenser were not really troublesome; only the drive-train to the propellers proved a real problem.

 

[Njaco]

It is very interesting how Parsifal agrees with moderators about the thread returning on topic, immediately AFTER presentig ,in lengthy posts ,his opinions about anything irrelevant.

Don't feed the fire. It was meant for all including Parsifal which, if I remember correctly DID NOT have the topic go into political territory at first.

 

[parsifal]

Parsifal, the phosphate requirements of potato and wheat crops may be equal in terms of kilograms per hectare but as the potato produces 5-10 times the food calories per unit area the super-phosphate requirements are considerably less per mouth fed.

In word, rubbish. The amount of phosphates needed to produce a calorie of Potyato starch is the same as the amount needed to produce a calorie of of wheat starch. Somewhere I have a study by the CSIRO that deals with this very subject.

Moreover the yields per ha are not that different, though I concede you get more volume per ha under potato cropping than you do with wheat. If you use a proper measure, the tonnages per HA there is virtually no difference. In 2010 Australia harvested 11.5 ha of wheat for a yield of 33 million tonnes. Thts about 3.3 tonnes per ha. Peak yields in the best growing areas are about 8-10 tonnes per ha. In WWII the average yiled per Ha was around 3 tonnes per ha.

By comparison in potatoes, yields have skyrocketed. in 1936 the average yield per ha was 7.6 tonnes per ha. today with a heavy relaince on genetic engineering, the yieds are 35.6 tonnes per ha.

European yields for both potatoes and wheat are similar, but tyhe numbers of people needed per ha are grossly more than in Australia. Germany is competitive in potato growing, they were, and are hopelssly innefficient in grains production.

I am not making this up, phosphate shortages due to interruption of supplies from Nth Africa were a big cause of European famine.

Unformtuantelym, and as usual, you are making it up, most of it. Typical method is to mix a little truth with a lot of lies to achieve a certain outcome. The famines in Europe had very little to do with the shortsages of phospahate. It had a lot to do with Nazi mismanagement of the european economies, and the breakdown in the transport system

The idea that Central European Harvesting (which includes Grain) was based on hand harvesting or horse harvesting is greatly overstated.

Euro[ean grain harvesting efficiency is still about a tenth as efficient as the great grain growing countries like Canada, the US and Australia. Maybe its not due to lack of modernization, but its still very innefficient

Those that grew grain almost certainly had a tractor to pull harvesting machines. A large number of smaller family farms in marginal land eg the hilly very cold parts of Eastern Germany where the owners were Artisans/Trades people that worked at their trade in winter but the farm in summer may have relied on horses or even hitching up the cow. About 3 years ago I was at an agricultural fair at the German Czech border and saw a parade of vintage tractors from the era from both countries.

All very intersting. I dont need to go to shows and museums to tell you the local history of motorizTION. mY grandfather setteled on 400 acres as a soldier settler after WWI. He harvrested with horse and scythe until 1926 when a co-op bopught a tractor. We bought the first tractor for the family in 1936. by wwii the family holding was just under 1000 acres of wheat growing land. We had 7 tractorsd by then. During the war, most of the male staff were drafted, but the womens land army filed their shoes pretty well, and production almost doubled again in that six years. Trust me, Europe is a fraction as efficient as Australia at growing grains.

When the requisitioning of Horses for use by the German army was increased the shortfall in agricultural draft animals was made up by use of motorized tractors. The effect was an overall increase in fuel consumption as Albert Speer noted. There was certainly enough tractors around to have this effect.

Exlain then why German primary production fell during the war, to about half what it was at the begining of the war. germany relied on feding itself by starving the rest of Europe.

In the present era for fermented Alcohol fuels we have Brazil with its sugar, the US with its maize, the Australians with their grains while for biodiesel's we have Europeans with their rape seed and the Malaysians with their palm kernels.

Food production could be unnaffected if only the waste bi-products were used, like potato plants rather than the potatoes.

I also can not see that the waste product would be so large that it would provide an aqueduct source of fermentable materials and in any case such things are perhaps best turned into animal fodder.

Using the husk material can still be used for animal foder once the ethanol has been extracted.

Nevertheless the Germans did have a considerable capacity to produce bio-ethanal, which they used to fuel the V2 missile. Perhaps they had prepared this industrial scale process in mind for use in combustion engines.

Not in 1936, if Hitlers memo was folowed. Perhaps it wasnt, but he seems to have forbade it in 1936.

Henry Ford and his Model T were initially designed and ran on ethanol 1915-26. Changed to gasoline mostly because of supply issues. Ethanol used in a pure form is not optimal, but ethanol as a fuel additive, which was known in 1940, might be a possibility. if Germany can expand her fuel stocks by 20% in 1940, with a fuel that costs only 80% that of regular German synthetic fuel, why wouldnt you introduce a program like that...Answer, Because the Nazis were not driven by rational behaviour.

 

[wuzak]

I hadn't heard of that. Puts me in mind of the rather wonderful Bristol Tramp project, of the '20s, which had a fuselage-mounted boiler and steam turbine, driving wing-mounted propellers through drive shafts. Apparently the boiler/turbine/condenser were not really troublesome; only the drive-train to the propellers proved a real problem.

Hadn't heard about that one. Any more details?

There were three war time German steam turbine projects, as far as I am aware. The Junkers one at 3000hp, another at 4000hp - the name of which I cannot recall, and a further 6000hp one proposed for use with the Me 264, which was to use a mix of 35% petrol and 65% pulverised coal. The first two were cancelled around 1940/41, IIRC, the last started about 1944 with a number of components having being manufactured by VE day but not a complete system.

Drawing of Junkers 3000hp steam turbine

from Dieter Herwig and Heinz Rode, Luftwaffe Secret Projects: Ground Attack Special Purpose Aircraft

Size comparison between a 4000hp steam turbine and a Junkers Jumo 213

from Dieter Herwig and Heinz Rode, Luftwaffe Secret Projects: Ground Attack Special Purpose Aircraft

Installation diagram of the Junkers Steam Turbine


from Dieter Herwig and Heinz Rode, Luftwaffe Secret Projects: Ground Attack Special Purpose Aircraft

 

[KiwiBiggles]

Bristol Tramp - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Tramp was basically a steam-powered version of Bristol's existing Braemar series. IIRC there was an earlier development in the series which had several Liberty engines (I've no idea why - who would go near one of those voluntarily?) all mounted in the fuselage, with drive trains to the tractor props. I don't think anything of them were successful. Barnes Bristol Aircraft Since 1910 is really the only reference I've ever seen to the Tramp.

The mention above of coal power is interesting. The Germans investigated in some depth the use of coal-powered jets. I think they used some kind of vibrating coal-dust dispenser in the flame cans

 

[parsifal]

It is very interesting how Parsifal agrees with moderators about the thread returning on topic, immediately AFTER presentig ,in lengthy posts ,his opinions about anything irrelevant.

Why not post something useful instead of attempting to control me or the mods. you wont succeed in either case.....

For the record, they are not my opinions, they are the findings of a military tribunal into who was responsible for what. there is some really useful reading there if you feel like broadening your horizons.

 

[cimmex]

Why not post something useful instead of attempting to control me or the mods. you wont succeed in either case.....

For the record, they are not my opinions, they are the findings of a military tribunal into who was responsible for what. there is some really useful reading there if you feel like broadening your horizons.

Sorry parcifal, when I'm looking for further political education I usually take a good related book, never trust posts in an internet forum where most information is a cut and paste from unknown sources.
Regards
Cimmex

 

[Njaco]

Lets move on..........