Triumphrat

indy288 · 05-11-2006

Indy cars are running a 10% blend in the race this year. Next year they are talking about 100%..

olen · 05-30-2006

They just opened Norway's first E85 pump on the gas station just up the road here.

If all that is needed is to re jet this would be very, very interesting. Of course, I couldn't go anywhere far currently, as I would have to get home for a every refill...
:razz:

ohiorider · 05-30-2006

Quote:

On 2006-05-11 03:59, Loxpump wrote:
Gas prices are higher than ever and we're still buying SUV's, trucks and hummers like they are going out of style. I guess gas can't be too high yet for people to change. Detroit isn't going to make a car that it can't sell. Japan forced Detroit to start making small cars in the 70's when the oil embargo stuff hit. And those were some fine pieces of machinery. The Vega, the Pinto.

It doesn't seem like price is forcing people to buy smaller cars, but gasoline availability would. Anyone recall the gas lines, and odd-day/even-day gas rationing after the first Arab Oil Embargo in the early 1970's? They were practically giving Olds 98s away. And that was the start of the Japanese Invasion.

As long as fuel is available when we pull up to the pump, we'll probably drive what we want. When it is necessary to stretch a tankful for several days or run out, that brings on the small cars.

And yes - Detroit wasn't even close to ready with their small cars in the 70s. I owned a Consumer Reports 'Car of the Year', a first year Vega. Whatta piece of trash! Engine blew at less than 40K miles.

GM wasn't doing anything for their customers at the time, so I ended up gutting the pressure system in the radiator cap (took pressure off cracked head which forced coolant into the cylinders), flushed it with nice cold water at a gas station a block from a VW dealer, and coasted the last half block into their lot. Traded said trash on a Super Beetle that ran for nearly 100,000 trouble free miles.

TrumpetPlayer · 05-30-2006

Put me down as another ethanol skeptic. While alcohol works OK as a fuel, producing it from corn requires about as much energy as can be extracted from it later. The most modern of distilling plants can do a bit better than that but not enough for ethanol to represent a glorious path to fossil fuel independance.

It's use in this country is mainly a sop to the farm lobby. And I'm not anti-farmer by any means. My parents grew up on farms, and I still have plenty of relatives in farm country. I'm just not crazy about the government touting something as a great boon to our country when it's really not.

Brazil uses a lot of ethanol, but they derive most of it from sugar cane, which has a higher energy content than corn. Their overall fuel requirements are a fraction of ours, too. I think ethanol, on the scale that we would need, will not be viable anytime soon, if ever. That won't stop the feds from pumping billions into it, however.

As far as how it works in a Bonnie? Not a problem at the 10% level that is most common in the U.S. I've run several hundred gallons of it through my '03 already. In the midwest corn states it's hard to get away from the stuff. Here in Minnesota, especially in the Twin Cities area, fuel that doesn't contain 10% corn squeezins in hard to find, and is dispensed from pumps that indicate that it's only for classic cars and motorcycles.

Diego · 05-30-2006

> OK, I hear that there may be a gasoline shortage and that the saving grace is ETHANOL.

Been living in one of those caves out at the edge of the river valley for a few years?

Somewhere around Number Five on the Big List O' Oil Company Excuses for the high prices this spring was... are you ready?... a shortage of ethanol as the industry began its conversion from MTBE to ethanol as an oxygenator.

As others have already noted, corn is an extremely inefficient source of fuel grade alcohol, yielding only about 20% more energy than is needed to produce it. Sugar cane delivers 8 times more energy than is required for the process. Way to go, Brazil.

CarlS · 05-30-2006

Redbird and Diego are right on target. Because of government mandates, we have an ethanol shortage driving up the price at the pump. Everytime government interferes in the freemarket, the consumers get screwed.

CAPTDON · 05-30-2006

Henry Ford was a genious (like Edison) If we had used his Ideas from the start we wouldnt be in this mess to begin with & think of the - global warming we wouldnt have as much of??

Brooksie · 05-30-2006

Any carbureted bike will suffer from rubber break down with anything more than 10%. In the 80's when ethanol came out, it completely screwed up carbs by rotting diaphrams. Unless bike manufacturers have gone with a higher grade rubber compund, we could face problems. I say put the ethanol in the big, fat gas guzzling SUV's and let me buy gas at 4 gallons a crack.