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Hybrid Vehicles Ethanol - E85 FlexFuel The Inconvenient Truth About Ethanol
921 messages, Last post on Oct 07, 2009 at 10:53 AM
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Replying to: texases (Jun 14, 2009 8:48 am)  The point is that we have other sources from which to obtain propane, and can cut over equipment that uses propane to using natural gas in the interim, until we no longer need very much propane if any. That just leaves oil heat. And you just mentioned another way of getting diesel fuel, which is just another way of describing heating oil (seriously, they're both referred to technically as "heavy fuel oil" and are pretty much interchangeable). So that's a way to get much of our heating systems (if not all) off of imported petroleum, yes?
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| I don't think running out of oil and natural gas will happen for decades (if not centuries). By then we (or most of world) will probably use a combination of solar (more efficient by then) and nuclear (safer and more economical by then) power to generate electricity for transportation. It is likely that battery energy to weight ratios will radically improve so that most vehicles will be electric. If not, solar and nuclear power could be converted to liquid fuel (hydrogen storage may not ever be practical). At some point, our descendants will wonder how we put up with noisy, smelly, explosive fossil fuels, like we wonder how our ancestors put up with all that horse manure and wild horse nonsense. | |
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Am I the only one out there testing gas for the ethanol %? You can buy ethanol testers in Briggs & Stratton packages (maybe called gasohol tester) or aviation sales (ethanol in fuel is not allowed in any plane - for all the obvious reasons) . They are basically calibrated test tubes in which you put exact volumes of water and gas and then read the new meniscus formed by the ethanol & water mixture against a scale. I've been checking different stations and at least I haven't found any gas over 10% ethanol. And the lowest I've found is one station at 6-7% ethanol. Anybody else do this? Care to compare/share results? Anybody find pure gas at a marina (I have yet to test)?
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Replying to: morin2 (Jun 15, 2009 6:18 pm)
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Replying to: gagrice (Jun 15, 2009 7:11 pm) I have only tested regular 87 octane gas so far. The best has been a BP at Edgewater MD at 6-7%. There is a rumor among boaters that BP 93 has no ethanol - and I want to test it; unfortunately, the results won't help me if its ethanol-free, as my boat motor specifically advises against 93 octane.
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Replying to: morin2 (Jun 15, 2009 7:42 pm) I've noticed my gas mileage decrease has recently varied between 3-10% rather than the usual constant 10%. Any ideas why they might be mixing in less ethanol? my boat motor specifically advises against 93 octane Any idea why?
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Replying to: pafromfl (Jun 15, 2009 9:28 pm) Any idea why? Apparently it doesn't detonate at same compression as the 87 octane the motor was tuned for. I learned this the hard way in actual practice. I replaced a 2-stroke 130 hp Yamaha - in which I'd always used 93 octane, with a new 4-stroke 115 Yamaha. Without thinking, I used the same fuel. When I took it in for service, it had low compression due to carbon build-up & had to be de-carboned. I was advised to use only 87 octane and to run at high rpms for a few minutes at the end of the day. |
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Replying to: bpizzuti (Jun 14, 2009 3:47 pm) Well, diesel's a lighter cut than the heavy fuel oil, you can't put fuel oil in your car/truck, but this would increase supplies, certainly. And sorry for getting technical on propane, just wanted to make sure folks understand how that works. That brings up another news item - seems that some domestic natural gas producers are worried about being swamped with LNG imports. Qatar may be able to bring in lots of their LNG on tankers, extract the propane, etc, and make money even if they sell the natural gas for a loss. |
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30 years ago, 25 % of World's Electricity came from Oil, in 2006, it was just around 6%. Many of them were moved to Coal, Gas, Nuclear, Wind etc. Similarly many homes using Oil fired heaters were moved to other sources. Its not a big deal. A geothermal system can cut down oil consumption for heat by atleast 30 %. Also when we go to bed, we can reduce the thermostat in living room to 60 degrees and have portable heater for just the bedroom. This will cut down the consumption by another 20 - 30 % Where natgas is available, we can use that for heating, otherwise propane or biodiesel or wood or electricity can be used to replace fuel oil. With nearly 10 million vehicles hitting the world's roads every year, its high time that Oil is replaced wherever possible. BTW, US has become independent in natgas with the discovery of Shale-gas. We dont need Qatar gas, it can be shipped to Japan & Korea where there are too many Oil-fired power plants.
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