Gas prices today.

[DankNuggets]

you can't convert your car to run on ethanol because it's too corrosive to engines. Not to mention that it's more expensive, and it takes away from food supplies.

An alternative to the grain made ethanols is to make it from algae, which i remember seeing somewhere. The guy said he could potentially make as much ethanol in 2 days as corn would make in a growing season since the algae grow so fast.

but it doesn't help the fact that alcohol and metal don't mix well

[Displaced]

you cant? stop talking out of your ass.

Ethanol is already a "viable" fuelsource in sweden (and IIRC it is widely used in Brasil.) Compaines like BSR offer ecu retuning programs to make pretty much any car (gasoline or diesel) run on E85 ethanol.
http://en.bsr.se/e85/

Not to mention the koenigsegg, which you can spec to run on E85 from the factory straight.

As for it being "expensive", its like 0.60€ a litre compared to 1.70€a litre for gasoline.

[Cops]

i just don't understand why we don't create pipe lines to ship it through Canada to Europe.

[DankNuggets]

you cant? stop talking out of your ass.

Ethanol is already a "viable" fuelsource in sweden (and IIRC it is widely used in Brasil.) Compaines like BSR offer ecu retuning programs to make pretty much any car (gasoline or diesel) run on E85 ethanol.
http://en.bsr.se/e85/

Not to mention the koenigsegg, which you can spec to run on E85 from the factory straight.

As for it being "expensive", its like 0.60€ a litre compared to 1.70€a litre for gasoline.

E85 isn't ethanol it's 85% ethanol, by definition, 15% gasoline.

As far as re-tuning? i saw sources that said "modern" engines could be retuned for less than 100 dollars. wait did i say sources? it was completely unsourced.. I don't see how it could cost less than 100 dollars when absolutely nothing less than an oil change costs under 100 dollars.

Edit: I checked out that link, to a company trying to sell you their products, and found out that it would take more than just the kit, and it only applies to a dozen model cars all 2002 and later. You can't expect most of teh world to buy new cars to adapt to changing fuel standards.

Fuel system problems
Several of the outstanding ethanol fuel issues are linked specifically to fuel systems. Fuels with more than 10% ethanol are not compatible with non E85-ready fuel system components and may cause corrosion of ferrous components. Ethanol fuel can negatively affect electric fuel pumps by increasing internal wear, cause undesirable spark generation, and is not compatible with capacitance fuel level gauging indicators and may cause erroneous fuel quantity indications in vehicles that employ that system. It is also not always compatible with marine craft, especially those that use fiberglass fuel tanks.

Using 100% ethanol fuel decreases fuel-economy by 15-30% over using 100% gasoline; this can be avoided using certain modifications that would, however, render the engine inoperable on regular petrol without the addition of an adjustable ECU. Tough materials are needed to accommodate a higher compression ratio to make an ethanol engine as efficient as it would be on petrol; these would be similar to those used in diesel engines which typically run at a CR of 20:1, versus about 8-12:1 for petrol engines.

In April 2008 the German environmental minister cancelled a proposed 10% ethanol fuel scheme citing technical problems: too many older cars in Germany are unequipped to handle this fuel. Ethanol levels in fuel will remain at 5%.

so if you don't have an e85 car (and 80% of cars even in sweden don't from what i read) then you can't use ethanol over 10-20% in your car. not to mention problems outside of cars in pumping pure ethanol. growing it also ruins the land.

Filling up one large vehicle fuel tank one time with 100% ethanol uses enough corn to feed one person for a year.

There are about 3,000,000 cars in the world that run on 100% (96%) ethanol. The engines are different, and if they used gasoline, would break, just like if a gasoline engine runs 100% ethanol breaks.

Prices on e85 are less, but it's less efficient - you get less mpg, so you fill up more and the costs offset.

Overall, the technology that's being toted as the "end of fossil fuels" is even close to being 1/100th of what it claims. There may not be any better alternatives as of now, but that doesn't mean that this is the only way to end our dependence on gasoline.

[Displaced]

More out of ass talking? Ive never stated that using 100% Ethanol would be viable.

As for retuning an engine to run on ethanol, for my car, from BSR it'd cost roughly 1000€ (they dont have a "ready" made kit, but changing injectors and retuning an engine isnt something that is inherently difficult).

With a bit of know how you could retune it yourself, but the vast majority of people dont have a clue.

Where did I mention that all of sweden uses ethanol? nowhere, but it is increasing in popularity, as it really is a viable "low cost" fuel.

As for E85 consumption, it is less efficient on engines with carbs, fuel injected engines see about a 1-3% drop in fuel efficiency (which is jack shit) but also see a 10-15% increase in power, that to me seems like a good tradeoff.

As for it ruining the land and whatever, you can use pretty much any carbohydrate to create ethanol, you can also use natural gas or coal with a water catalyst to create ethanol from ethane.

As for it being the be all, end all solution, no it isnt, and im not claiming that it will be, it is however a lot more efficient to produce ethanol than it is to produce gasoline.
Neste Oil reports about a 12% net deficit in energy production when creating gasoline, whereas Agroethanol reports a 40% net excess in energy, i.e. energy isnt wasted when creating ethanol, infact the created excess can be used to power our cities.
In Brasil, that value is even higher, Petrobras reports 90% net excess, with over 100% excess being possible by using the fermentation biomass as a fuel, theoretically over 500% net excess is possible by reverting to only natural fuel sources in Ethanol production.

Also, ethanol burns cleaner than gasoline, and has a much higher compression tolerance than gasoline, so you dont need to add anti knocking additives like toluene to the mix.
Carbondioxide emissions would drop, as would NOX, which in turn would alleviate some of the stress on our atmosphere.

It's a win/win situation.

P.S. I work in the oil industry.

[DankNuggets]

hey man, i'm leaving the personal attacks out of this one, in an effort to add and learn from the discussion

More out of ass talking? Ive never stated that using 100% Ethanol would be viable.

no, you didn't, and I didn't say you did. I'm implying that it's still dependent on gasoline, that's all.

As for retuning an engine to run on ethanol, for my car, from BSR it'd cost roughly 1000€ (they dont have a "ready" made kit, but changing injectors and retuning an engine isnt something that is inherently difficult).

With a bit of know how you could retune it yourself, but the vast majority of people dont have a clue.

that' might work for you, but most people don't have cars that can be modified according to the link you showed. Also, that's no where near cheap, I could get a used car that works alright for that much.

Where did I mention that all of sweden uses ethanol? nowhere, but it is increasing in popularity, as it really is a viable "low cost" fuel.

once again, i didn't say you did. but you did say that it's a "viable" source of fuel. it might be, if they do indeed provide it at every gas station, but if only 20% of vehicles use it, it ain't that viable YET. once again, low cost is relative to the nation, as it's still cheaper here, but not nearly as much (say 80-90% of gas?)

As for E85 consumption, it is less efficient on engines with carbs, fuel injected engines see about a 1-3% drop in fuel efficiency (which is jack shit) but also see a 10-15% increase in power, that to me seems like a good tradeoff.

i won't argue too much on this, you may very well know it better. but i did see where it said very specifically 30% less efficient in a normal engine, and it had a source form toyota where one "fuel hybrid" car that uses E85 only got 13 mpg, where the gasoline version got 18 mpg. It also said that the increased power only comes from an engine with a higher compression ratio anyway.

As for it ruining the land and whatever, you can use pretty much any carbohydrate to create ethanol, you can also use natural gas or coal with a water catalyst to create ethanol from ethane.

Ok, you can make it many ways. But the US and other countries basically find one way and work with it untill a "better" one comes along. The current methods of obtaining ethanol in these countries ruins the land. But i'm guessing that drilling for oil doesn't do wonders soo...

As for it being the be all, end all solution, no it isnt, and im not claiming that it will be, it is however a lot more efficient to produce ethanol than it is to produce gasoline.

i'm not 100% positive, but doesn't a lot of the efficiency in gasoline refining have to do with the quality of the crude oil you get? not that i'm saying its better than ethanol, i don't really know enough about the mass scale production of it.

Also, ethanol burns cleaner than gasoline, and has a much higher compression tolerance than gasoline, so you dont need to add anti knocking additives like toluene to the mix.
Carbondioxide emissions would drop, as would NOX, which in turn would alleviate some of the stress on our atmosphere.

you're 99% correct on that front. It does produce more CO2, but supposedly that's offset by the CO2 intake of the plants creating the fuel. But yeah CO, and NOx levels would be near zero. There's some worry about the manufacturing process, but when you're making chemicals, you're bound to have a little nasty waste. And I'm sure that it's less than from oil refineries

[Displaced]

fair enough

Originally posted by DankNuggets
that' might work for you, but most people don't have cars that can be modified according to the link you showed. Also, that's no where near cheap, I could get a used car that works alright for that much.

As for the link I showed, those are the cars they currently have ready made kits for (i.e. off the shelf products) but when I contacted them earlier in the year they said they can do bespoke kits for almost any car with fuel injection for around 1000€.

Granted its not "cheap", but i spend more than 1000€ a year on gasoline at the moment, it'd repay itself in about a year or a year and a half.

Originally posted by DankNuggets
once again, i didn't say you did. but you did say that it's a "viable" source of fuel. it might be, if they do indeed provide it at every gas station, but if only 20% of vehicles use it, it ain't that viable YET. once again, low cost is relative to the nation, as it's still cheaper here, but not nearly as much (say 80-90% of gas?)

Aye, I didnt mean that it is as common as diesel or petrol, but with the current rate of development and the infrastructure around it, it could very well become a "real" petrol substitute within the next 5 years.

I don't remember the specifics of E85's power increase across the board, but the "claimed" increase was 10-15% in fuel injected cars. (probably newer cars, which generally have a high compression ratio anyway)
An example is the koenigsegg CCXR which on 98oct petrol manages 806bhp, on E85 it makes 1018bhp, which is a 212bhp increase in power. (26.3%)

Originally posted by DankNuggets
i'm not 100% positive, but doesn't a lot of the efficiency in gasoline refining have to do with the quality of the crude oil you get? not that i'm saying its better than ethanol, i don't really know enough about the mass scale production of it.

Yes, but more than efficiency, the quality of crude oil affects the quantity of "wanted" product available. I.e. crude oil from the Mid East (which is considered to be of the highest quality) will yeild about 35% of light carbon fractions (probably the incorrect terminology, since i dont know the correct english term) and the remaining 65% is of a heavier fraction. (i.e. heavy burning oil, tar, bitumen, etc.)
This heavier fraction is basically shit, and unwanted, nowadays this is cracked again to form lighter fractions, so that lighter carbon fractions are gained, and less of the unwanted tar like substance is left.
Now compare that to Hugo Chavez' tar ("oil") where the yeild of light carbon fractions are around 15%, the rest is basically unwanted garbage.

Hence using the higher quality crude oil is more "cost effective", it isnt really any more energy efficient since cracking hydrocarbons isnt an efficient process.

[DankNuggets]

Yes, but more than efficiency, the quality of crude oil affects the quantity of "wanted" product available. I.e. crude oil from the Mid East (which is considered to be of the highest quality) will yeild about 35% of light carbon fractions (probably the incorrect terminology, since i dont know the correct english term) and the remaining 65% is of a heavier fraction. (i.e. heavy burning oil, tar, bitumen, etc.)
This heavier fraction is basically shit, and unwanted, nowadays this is cracked again to form lighter fractions, so that lighter carbon fractions are gained, and less of the unwanted tar like substance is left.
Now compare that to Hugo Chavez' tar ("oil") where the yeild of light carbon fractions are around 15%, the rest is basically unwanted garbage.

Hence using the higher quality crude oil is more "cost effective", it isnt really any more energy efficient since cracking hydrocarbons isnt an efficient process.

cool, that's kinda what i thought. I remember hearing about how Texas, Nigeria and the middle east had "better" crude oil. (though i'm guessing TX is running low)

I wonder if that "cost effectiveneness" is why it seems that atrocities going on in the name on oil in Nigeria aren't really mentioned. And why the Middle east seems so much richer than their south american counterparts. The foreigners are getting uber rich and the nigerians are getting even poorer, despite their superior natural resources. I haven't heard too much about it in a while, but I remember some magazine (Time?) putting out an article on it.



hmm superior natural resources looks a lot like super natural resources :fear:

[Cops]

fuck that shit, i'm not reading that argument.

[Emaho]

Fuck, just get a bike or a smaller car and stop the whining.

[Creature]

Where the fuck do all you Americans live?

I'm in the suburbs near Detroit and gas is a mindblowingly high $4.15 right now. It's been above $3 for like a year at least....

[Pandagirl!]

It's 3.83 in Ohio... hasn't hit $4 yet but it's come pretty close

[Vykromond]

The solution to high gas prices is obviously to give Iraq full statehood in the US and then steal all their oil

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/wo...ol-840512.html

[DankNuggets]

The solution to high gas prices is obviously to give Iraq full statehood in the US and then steal all their oil

Actually, I remember when this all started 6 yrs ago, Jon Stewart on the daily show had a skit where they projected America's imperialism. They had it set up like movies, with America II being Iraq, and America III : this time it's Korea. Got me thinking about Cuba too. Maybe it's a conspiracy coming from big cotton to get get a couple more stars on the flag, and make us all go update our patriotism.

[Da1andonly]

and gas is a mindblowingly high $4.15 right now. It's been above $3 for like a year at least....

oooooooo