Sugar

[All Seeing Eye]

Sugar is an energy food and plays an important part in producing energy for the Human Body. Infact as far as I am aware sugar is THE most effective 'food' for giving you that extra boost of power.

Questions:

So does sugar burn without being 'turned' into Ethanol?

Would mixing sugar in with Petroleum create an effective fuel? because the Petroleum would create a flame hot enough to burn the sugar.

Is Ethanol cleaner than burning Petroleum?

What is more cost effective, growing sugar beet/cane and turning it into Ethanol or growing other crops to create Biodiesel? and what's the difference?

 

[Captain Intrepid]

Sugar doesn't burn so efficiently. You can see how much carbon is left over after you burn some? And I figure the most efficient food is human blood mixed with some bran or another source of fiber.

 

[Lindley]

And I figure the most efficient food is human blood mixed with some bran or another source of fiber.

Who knew vampires were just health freaks?

 

[Sean Aaron]

Sugar is an excellent post-punk band fronted by the inimitable Bob Mould.

 

[NCC1701]

Would mixing sugar in with Petroleum create an effective fuel? because the Petroleum would create a flame hot enough to burn the sugar.

Obviously, you've never heard of the expression 'pour sugar in their petrol tank', in other words, fuck their car up. But go ahead, try it in yours

 

[BCI]

Sugar is an energy food and plays an important part in producing energy for the Human Body. Infact as far as I am aware sugar is THE most effective 'food' for giving you that extra boost of power.

Sugar causes cancer, destroys bones and makes people hyperactive. There's nothing good about it.

 

[All Seeing Eye]

Sugar is an energy food and plays an important part in producing energy for the Human Body. Infact as far as I am aware sugar is THE most effective 'food' for giving you that extra boost of power.

Sugar causes cancer, destroys bones and makes people hyperactive. There's nothing good about it.

Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight

 

[cultcross]

Sugar is an energy food and plays an important part in producing energy for the Human Body. Infact as far as I am aware sugar is THE most effective 'food' for giving you that extra boost of power.

Sugar causes cancer, destroys bones and makes people hyperactive. There's nothing good about it.

And in other news, sugar is the fuel for basic respiration keeping your cells alive.

To answer the OP, sugar isn't an efficient burner at all through simple combustion. The respiratory cycle is quite a lot more complicated to achieve energy efficiency from it.

 

[BCI]

Not only right, but 100% so.

 

[Psion]

I think the word I'm looking for is ... 'bullocks'.

 

[Lindley]

Sure. Plus there's a chemical we take in every day which can be fatal in large quantities, called dihydrogen oxide.

 

[Psion]

Dihydrogen monoxide. But ... exactly.

Although I suppose if hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) doesn't get so syllabic, we could probably get away with hydrogen oxide.

 

[Jadzia]

So does sugar burn without being 'turned' into Ethanol?

In the body it isn't simple combustion. Temperatures don't get that high to directly oxidise sugars. It is 'burned' through a series of chemical redox reactions.

http://www.elmhurst.edu/~chm/vchembook/600glycolysis.html

Would mixing sugar in with Petroleum create an effective fuel? because the Petroleum would create a flame hot enough to burn the sugar.

In a conventional engine, the sugar would carbonise, sticking to the cylinders and clogging the valves, so no.

Also, petroleum has a higher energy output per gram than sugar actually (enthalpy of combustion of hydrocarbons is approximately 9kcals per gram, for sugars it's only 4kcals per gram), so your sugar doped petrol would produce less energy per unit gram.

Is Ethanol cleaner than burning Petroleum?

yes and no. Per gram of the fuel, ethanol combustion produces less CO2, but less energy too. It's a weaker fuel. Petroleum is an impure fuel because of sulphurous and nitrogenous compounds within it. These produce toxic gases when burned, largely why exhaust fumes are toxic, and why we have acid rain. I would say ethanol is a cleaner preferred fuel, even though it is a weaker fuel.

What is more cost effective, growing sugar beet/cane and turning it into Ethanol or growing other crops to create Biodiesel? and what's the difference?

That's very dependent on commodity prices, which would change as soon as you started this fuel enterprise large scale.

I imagine at the moment, biodiesel is cheaper. It is a simple oilseed crop that is harvested, and refined. It's not much different to sunflower oil. Some diesel engines will happily run on sunflower oil.

Sugar beet needs harvesting and fermenting and distilling before it is ethanol -- it's a lengthy procedure.

 

[BCI]

I think the word I'm looking for is ... 'bullocks'.

The word actually is "Google". I'm not posting any links, but it's really not that hard to find enough material to justify the conclusion I arrived at. The intake of white sugar since around 1900 is responsible for a host of health problems in western countries. What is especially easy to come by via Google is texts describing how lots of sugar in the bloodstream feeds cancer better than any other food, or how sugar in the blood prevents the immune system from attacking cancer.

 

[Psion]

You're wriggling, BCI. You said sugar causes cancer, not feeds it or weakens the immune system. Defend your position that sugar causes cancer or admit your first statement was bullocks.

For that matter, sugar doesn't cause bone loss, either. Its use in foods and beverages that are associated with bone loss is a correlation, not a causation. Other materials, such as phosphorus in sodas, are the culprits, not sugar. More bullocks.

And as for sugar making people hyperactive ... well that's the only place where I'd be willing to shrug my shoulders and say "maybe". While normal amounts of sugar might trigger hyperactivity in some people, there are others who can consume more without any observable behavior differences. Sure, you can give anyone enough sugar to cause problems, but that's true of any substance in creation. Give them too much water and they'll suffer "water intoxication" and die. As Paracelsus said, "it's the dose that makes the poison", and that applies to anything.

And like so many things poisonous in excess, complete removal of sugar from a person's diet gives you a corpse. As cultcross pointed out, sugars are vital stores of energy liberated by cell chemistry to power life itself. You could no more live without sugar than you could without air.

 

[Rabittooth]

I think the word I'm looking for is ... 'bullocks'.

The word actually is "Google". I'm not posting any links, but it's really not that hard to find enough material to justify the conclusion I arrived at. The intake of white sugar since around 1900 is responsible for a host of health problems in western countries. What is especially easy to come by via Google is texts describing how lots of sugar in the bloodstream feeds cancer better than any other food, or how sugar in the blood prevents the immune system from attacking cancer.

Sugar is keeping you and everyone you know or have ever known alive.
You're talking about an excessive over consumption of sugar by modern humans and I do not believe that is the topic at hand.

-Rabittooth

 

[BCI]

You're wriggling, BCI. You said sugar causes cancer, not feeds it or weakens the immune system. Defend your position that sugar causes cancer or admit your first statement was bullocks.

Sugar causes cancer. This is my conclusion based on what I have read in books. I cited two examples that I see as supporting my conclusion.

Please refute these very severe examples, and I might change my conclusion.

(edit) Of course there are more scientific findings, other mechanisms, that also support my point of view. And I bet all those who called me wrong did not know even the two I gave.

 

[Daedalus12]

I think the word I'm looking for is ... 'bullocks'.

Double bullocks on that one.


If sugar causes cancer then we might as well stop living.

 

[farmkid]

You're wriggling, BCI. You said sugar causes cancer, not feeds it or weakens the immune system. Defend your position that sugar causes cancer or admit your first statement was bullocks.

Sugar causes cancer. This is my conclusion based on what I have read in books. I cited two examples that I see as supporting my conclusion.

Please refute these very severe examples, and I might change my conclusion.

(edit) Of course there are more scientific findings, other mechanisms, that also support my point of view. And I bet all those who called me wrong did not know even the two I gave.

Things that cause cancer do so by damaging DNA. That damage will sometimes not be repaired properly and result in mutations. When those mutations are in genes controlling cell growth, they might cause cancer. Sugar does not damage DNA, it merely provides energy for cellular functions, of which growth might be one. I just did a Pubmed search for cancer and sugar and all I came up with was a paper saying that sugar fuels cancer (fuel, not cause).

Whether you eat sugar or not, you will always have a relatively constant level of sugar in your blood (unless you're diabetic). If you didn't, you would die rather quickly since sugar is the only thing the brain can use for energy (it can't metabolize anything else). That's why diabetics will go into shock if they overdose on their insulin, or why people pass out if their blood sugar gets too low (think Paul Blart: Mall Cop).

Eating sugar won't cause cancer. Eating enormous amounts of sugar might raise your blood sugar enough to make the cancer a little worse if you already have it.

 

[Rabittooth]

You're wriggling, BCI. You said sugar causes cancer, not feeds it or weakens the immune system. Defend your position that sugar causes cancer or admit your first statement was bullocks.

Sugar causes cancer. This is my conclusion based on what I have read in books. I cited two examples that I see as supporting my conclusion.

Please refute these very severe examples, and I might change my conclusion.

(edit) Of course there are more scientific findings, other mechanisms, that also support my point of view. And I bet all those who called me wrong did not know even the two I gave.

Things that cause cancer do so by damaging DNA. That damage will sometimes not be repaired properly and result in mutations. When those mutations are in genes controlling cell growth, they might cause cancer. Sugar does not damage DNA, it merely provides energy for cellular functions, of which growth might be one. I just did a Pubmed search for cancer and sugar and all I came up with was a paper saying that sugar fuels cancer (fuel, not cause).

Whether you eat sugar or not, you will always have a relatively constant level of sugar in your blood (unless you're diabetic). If you didn't, you would die rather quickly since sugar is the only thing the brain can use for energy (it can't metabolize anything else). That's why diabetics will go into shock if they overdose on their insulin, or why people pass out if their blood sugar gets too low (think Paul Blart: Mall Cop).

Eating sugar won't cause cancer. Eating enormous amounts of sugar might raise your blood sugar enough to make the cancer a little worse if you already have it.

Good. Awesome. Thank you. You took the time to explain it. Let's hope it penetrates.

-Rabittooth