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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: 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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Replying to: yerth10 (Jun 18, 2009 5:07 pm) It would be nice for Hawaii to get some Qatar LNG, as they produce most of their electricity with diesel generators. Qatar is also on the leading edge of GTL (gas to liquids). The diesel produced from natural gas is super clean and NO sulfur. Great fuel for all the diesel cars that are being sold. |
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Replying to: yerth10 (Jun 18, 2009 5:07 pm) At the present time we are importing natural gas (Canada & Mexico), so we are really not independent nor will we be anytime soon. http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/natural_gas/data_publications/natural_gas_mon- - thly/current/pdf/figure_01.pdf Energy independence is a pipe dream. The only way the U.S. will be energy independent is if we cut our consumption by about 2/3. "With nearly 10 million vehicles hitting the world's roads every year, its high time that Oil is replaced wherever possible. " Actually I think the net increase in vehicles is higher than that. This site http://www.serendipity.li/fe/car_fact_sheet.htm suggests that the actual number is closer to 55 million new vehicles a year. And as to replacing oil wherever possible, every fuel has issues be it ethanol, natural gas, diesel, hydrogen or cooking grease. I do not see any one fuel taking over 99% of the market. We are likely to have a broad range of fuels available for decades to come.
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This website has got it wrong http://www.serendipity.li/fe/car_fact_sheet.htm 70 million vehicles were sold every year. They mentioned that 15 million old vehicles were scrapped. In USA alone 14 million old vehicles were scrapped, if you include Europe, Japan and rest of the world the figure should be somewhere between 50-55 million old vehicles beind scrapped. That means some 10-15 million new vehicles are sold. gagrice : Yes, Qatar-gas can certainly go to Hawaii. Meanwhile Hawaii has 62 MW of wind energy, it can easily be increased and combined with natgas to replace the Diesel fired power generation. Yes, no fuel will be able to take 99 % of the market. If Biofuels can capture 10 % with CNG another 10 %, atleast 20 % of the Oil consumption can be reduced.
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Replying to: avalon02wh (Jun 19, 2009 4:21 pm) Of course we will....to be honest, that's the natural order of things. The oil producers don't want that, of course, they want the current oil-universal-cureall status-quo that they helped manufacture instead, and it's gotten people used to the idea of one energy source having to make a big splash and replace oil in all ways. Hence all the hot air about ethanol as a new cure-all. Real life isn't going to work that way. We'll see a lot more like the following instead: Electric: Wind, Solar, Nuclear. Hydroelectric where water flow is available. Heat: Geothermal (heat pump), natural gas, possibly direct solar. Biodiesel for the oil fired heaters until they can switch over to something else. Transportation: Natural gas, biodiesel, possibly combined with some hybrid tech. Maybe some ethanol, but it's going to be regional because of the problems transporting E100. Oh, and by the way: At the present time we are importing natural gas (Canada & Mexico), so we are really not independent nor will we be anytime soon. I'll settle for getting us independent of the regimes that hate us first, like Venezuela, Saudi Arabia (well, maybe not hate us but they don't really like us either), etc. |
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Replying to: yerth10 (Jun 19, 2009 8:15 pm) "...motor vehicle ownership will increase from about 800 million vehicles today to more than 2 billion in 2030." http://www.hart-isee.com/index.php?page=world-transport-growth 2,000 million - 800 million = 1,200 million 1,200 million/20 years = 60 million/year new to the market vehicles The above is just an estimate. I do not think the world has the resources (ethanol,oil,steel,rare earth metals) to maintain more than 1.5 billion vehicles. Vehicles are lasting longer. (Tables 3.9 & 3.10) http://www-cta.ornl.gov/data/tedb27/Edition27_Full_Doc.pdf |
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(CNN) -- At least one person is dead after a cargo train derailment and fire in Rockford, Illinois on Friday, officials said. Winnebago County Coroner Sue Fiduccia said the fatality was a woman. The cause of death had not been determined, because Fiduccia had not been able to get close enough to examine the body. Fiduccia said she did not know whether there were other fatalities. Crews were still fighting the blaze early Saturday from the derailment of the 114-car Canadian National Railway train. Officers were called to the scene at around 8:30 p.m., a city police spokeswoman said. The derailment involved automobiles, but it was unclear whether they were on the tracks, the spokeswoman said. Three motorists who were stopped at a train crossing were burned, one severely, said Rockford Fire Chief Derek Bergsten. One victim who tried to run from the blaze suffered second-degree burns on his hand while trying to shield his neck from flames, Bergsten said. Seventy cars on the train were carrying ethanol, a colorless, highly flammable liquid, fire officials said. The derailment and subsequent fire forced the evacuation of about 600 nearby homes, authorities said. We don't want your ethanol on the West Coast. Keep it in the Midwest. We have enough fire problems without trainloads of ethanol burning down our towns. |
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