Alcohol Mixed Gasolone... WHY?!?!

[Bill Putney]

Steffen Kluge wrote:

No we won't be. Intrinsically safe nuclear power plants with
fuel reprocessing is the only thing that will work medium-term.

Solar power is fine, but if you run the numbers, you'll see that
we will have to pave over the state of Arizona to collect enough
power to make a sizable dent in our consumption.

But that would suit the environmentalists just fine because then they'd
have a new cause to try to bankrupt everyone over. Remember what I said
about their job security by solving one problem and creating ten new
ones with their "solution".

"All the solar panels are changing the emissivity of the earth to such
an extent that it's going to cause global warming (or a new ice age
depending on the day of the week). And just LOOK at what all these
panels are doing to the environment!!".

Bill Putney
(to reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my
address with "x")

 

[WRXtreme]

I assume you've never experienced wind chill factors that are about negative
100 F. EVERYTHING freezes during these times. Well, almost
everything...people will still attempt to drive to work during blizzards and
extreme cold. Gotta love the North Dakota work ethic.

 

[WRXtreme]

Bill, I have just earned the HUGEST amount of respect for you. Excellent
post my friend.

CAS

 

[Mark Jones]

Look - it's real simple. After loosing 3000+ people to terrorists (and
that's only in the last three years), we declared war on terrorists -
and thank God someone had the guts to do it in spite of "world
opinion". Sadam Hussein offered and in fact paid money ($25k is the
figure I've head and read) as a reward to families of Islamists who
intentionally murdered innocent people. We made it known that our war
on terrorism included those who harbored or supported it. When laws
(i.e., the U.N.) are worthless, then it's time to do what has to be done
to protect one's self and family precisely as if there were no police
force in a local situation. If a person in my community vowed to kill
my family and the local police refused to do anything about it, what do
you think I'd do if he approached my house? Let him kill my kid because
it would be illegal to harm him? Again I say B*** S***!

Very well put. The only problem that I have is the fact that
we wasted 8 years under Clinton while diplomacy was the
primary tactic used against people who were just buying
the time needed to get their plans in order.

It is good that we now have an administration that has
finally decided that it is time to quit letting other countries
make our decisions for us.

 

[Mark Jones]

Those same people will tell you an electric car is a "zero
emissions vehicle" because it doesn't have a tailpipe.

You do not understand the basic reason for a low or
no emission vehicle. They are called this because of
the level of emissions where they are being used.

The power plant used to power these vehicles can
be located in an area more suited to power generation
and you have better control over maintenance of
the pollution control devices on a power plant than
you do when you have a large number of vehicles
scattered all over the place.

 

[Bill Putney]

Thanks!

Come to think of it, what hoops did Clinton go thru with the U.N. to
make the regime change in Kosovo? None that I remember.

Bill Putney
(to reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my
address with "x")

 

[John Varela]

I assume you've never experienced wind chill factors that are about negative
100 F. EVERYTHING freezes during these times.

Wind chill has nothing to do with whether or not something will freeze, only
with how fast it will come down to the ambient temperature. If the ambient is
above 32F then the wind can blow 100 knots and water still won't freeze.

 

[david baldwin]

Your evaluation was the same as mine. The claim of 10% reduction in
some pollutions is more than covered by loss in MPG. It appears that
the Democrats want to help the farmers get rid of their surplus corn,
now sitting in silos instead of feeding the starving people both here
and abroad. Although the Republicans don't give a shit about the
farmers except in so much as many of them are now corporations instead
of farmers, they are more than willing to trade legislation requiring
use of ethanol, thereby enhancing their own "environmental"
credentials, for any number of other things that might be stalled by
the Democrats. The result is that both parties win and once again,
the American people lose.
Every year I can tell, down to the week, when we change to the winter
gas by my mileage declining by 10 per cent or so. I only remember
maybe one car out of my last 6 that didn't seem to react to the
change.

 

[WRXtreme]

Explain then, why when the air temp is -30 with no wind you can walk around
outside for several minutes w/o getting frost bite on your face/hands, but
when the wind kicks up to even 10mph that time drops in half approximately.
I agree that unless the air temp is below 32 F water won't freeze (at sea
level), and I know my wording was a bit misleading because the coldest the
gas inside the tank will only be as cold as the air temperature outside
since it is not affected at all by the wind. What I was getting at was in
order for wind chill to drop to neg 100 F, the outside temp is probably
going to be -40 to -70 F, therefore freezing everything around it. Bad
wording on my part I agree.

 

[WRXtreme]

I'm guessing it helps prevent pollution somehow, but isn't this effect
negated by the fact it ruins mileage? Less mileage = MORE FUEL. MORE
FUEL = More drilling for oil = More destruction of environment = More
Pollution.

It doesn't make sense to me. Can anyone make sense of it?

Ok, here is my take on this. I keep hearing "it takes X amount of energy to
produce ethanol therefore it isn't really helping the environment", ok, that
may well be true, but it also takes Y amount of energy to produce gasoline
which doesn't help the environment either. I'm not a scientist, but I have
seen oil refineries and ethanol plants. It "appears" that the pollution
produced at oil refineries is greater than the pollution at ethanol plants.
And since it can be argued that ethanol burns "cleaner" it would appear that
ethanol is the overall cleaner product. I could be wrong, like I said this
is just a visual observation. Personally I always run ethanol, it's the
highest octane blend of gas that I can buy out of the pump around here (94
octane) and is often less expensive than 92 octane "super unleaded".

 

[John Varela]

Explain then, why when the air temp is -30 with no wind you can walk around
outside for several minutes w/o getting frost bite on your face/hands, but
when the wind kicks up to even 10mph that time drops in half approximately.

Heat transfer from your body parts is by two modes: radiation and conduction.
A third method, convection, is also cited but, strictly speaking, convection
is not a mode of heat transfer, it is a mass transfer that has the effect of
making heat transfer by radiation and condecution more efficient.

When the wind does not blow the heat transfer rates by radiation, conduction,
and convection are low. The reasons for this are that radiation, at small
temperature differences and from an inefficient radiator like your skin,
doesn't transfer much heat. There's little conduction because there is a
boundary layer of static air near your skin that insulates you. The heat that
does get transferred to the air warms that air, and the warm air stays near
the skin because, although warm air does rise, at these temperature
differences it rises only slowly. This movement of air is called "natural
convection".

When the wind blows, it (a) moves the warmed air away from your skin and (b)
breaks up that insulating boundary layer. It keeps cold air right up against
your skin at all times and so you lose heat much faster. This is called
"forced convection".

You'll note that there is a fan behind your car's radiator for the specific
purpose of creating forced convection.

 

[Bill Putney]

Explain then, why when the air temp is -30 with no wind you can walk around
outside for several minutes w/o getting frost bite on your face/hands, but
when the wind kicks up to even 10mph that time drops in half approximately...

John's explanation is correct, but I will say essentially the same thing
in different words - go with whichever explanation you can understand
(or maybe both will help): There is some temperature at some depth in
the skin at which frost bite (nerve damage, etc.) occurs. If your skin
is exposed to cold temperatures, the temperature in the exposed skin at
any given depth will be somewhere between the body's core temperature
(normally 98.6°F) and the outside ambient temperature.

There are two competing mechanisms at work that determine the
temperature at any given point of interest in the skin: (1) The
temperature of the surrounding tissue and nearby blood flow tending to
warm it up, and (2) The temperature of the skin's surface and the rate
of removal of heat by the surrounding air. If the air were totally
still, there would be a gradual change (decrease) in temperature going
from inside the skin to the surface and into the air away from the skin
(i.e., your skin would be warming up the air surrounding it, and the
exposure time to cause frost bite would be very long, depending on the
ambient temperature).

**BUT** if the air is moving, the air next to the skin surface will be
continually replenished with air that is at the ambient air temperature
(the air next to the skin will not heat up), so the heat will be sucked
out of the skin at a much faster rate - faster than the blood and
surrounding tissue can heat it up - skin temperature drops, and the
result is mcuh quicker frostbite

Bill Putney
(to reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my
address with "x")

 

[WRXtreme]

Good enough answer, makes sense. I learned something today. Thanks

 

[Dan Duncan]

You do not understand the basic reason for a low or
no emission vehicle. They are called this because of
the level of emissions where they are being used.
The power plant used to power these vehicles can
be located in an area more suited to power generation
and you have better control over maintenance of
the pollution control devices on a power plant than
you do when you have a large number of vehicles
scattered all over the place.

Show me one example of a self-powered zero emission vehicle.
(bicycles don't count)

-DanD

 

[Mark Jones]

Show me one example of a self-powered zero emission vehicle.
(bicycles don't count)

You are stumbling over what this means.

It simply means that if I am driving through downtown
Los Angeles, I am not adding to the pollution in LA.

You still have to generate electricity to charge the
batteries, but this is not done in downtown LA.

The idea is to provide a high degree of control over where
the pollution occurs so it can be more easily controlled.
You can more easily upgrade the scrubbers on a single
coal fired power plant than you can control the exhaust
emissions of a few million gasoline powered cars.

 

[Dan Duncan]

Ok, here is my take on this. I keep hearing "it takes X amount of energy to
produce ethanol therefore it isn't really helping the environment", ok, that
may well be true, but it also takes Y amount of energy to produce gasoline
which doesn't help the environment either.

Keep in mind that the ethanol produces Z amount of energy, where X>Z
and gasoline produces W amount of energy where Y<W. You get more energy
out of gasoline than you put into producing, so it's a net gain. Ethanol
is a net loss.

I'm not a scientist, but I have
seen oil refineries and ethanol plants. It "appears" that the pollution
produced at oil refineries is greater than the pollution at ethanol plants.

There's a whole lot more pollution produced before the corn ever gets
there. Tractors, trucks, pumps... The math just doesn't work out.

And since it can be argued that ethanol burns "cleaner" it would appear that
ethanol is the overall cleaner product. I could be wrong, like I said this
is just a visual observation. Personally I always run ethanol, it's the
highest octane blend of gas that I can buy out of the pump around here (94
octane) and is often less expensive than 92 octane "super unleaded".

The final product burns more cleanly, but the process from end to
end does not.

As to the price, it's heavily subsidized by tax money. The rest of
us are chipping in a little on every tank.

-DanD

 

[Dan Duncan]

You are stumbling over what this means.

No, it's quite clear.

It simply means that if I am driving through downtown
Los Angeles, I am not adding to the pollution in LA.

How do you figure? The electricity used in LA isn't
generated all that far away, so the pollution still hits.

You still have to generate electricity to charge the
batteries, but this is not done in downtown LA.
The idea is to provide a high degree of control over where
the pollution occurs so it can be more easily controlled.
You can more easily upgrade the scrubbers on a single
coal fired power plant than you can control the exhaust
emissions of a few million gasoline powered cars.

Right, but there are still emissions. Speak of displaced
emissions or reduced emissions, but the term ZERO emissions
is a flagrant lie.

Also keep in mind that storage batteries are not very efficient.
They're somewhere around 50%. This is where fuel cells stand
to do the most good.

-DanD

 

[John Eyles]

BTW, did you hear about the French town making an honorary

citizen of a cop killer that they refuse to extradict back
to the U.S.? Sorry - I don't need their good will.

Oh well, because some French town did something fucked up (and
I'm sure there's more than this to the story), clearly this means
we should forget about trying to cooperate with other countries.

Terrorism is a global problem. It cannot be solved by kicking the
ass of some nation-state like Iraq. (Even though, guess what,
liberal that I am, I think Saddam is a real bad actor, and that
ultimately the Iraqis may be better off with him gone. I just
am not sure it's gonna help the war on terror that much.)

But I'm not saying we should have gotten an int'l consensus
as some feel good measure because I'm a liberal of the
do-gooding, hand-wringing, knee-jerk variety. I'm saying it
because the damage we've done to international relations is
going to hurt the war on terror - because it's such a global
problem, a lot of cooperation is required. With relations
between USA and Europe at an all-time low, I think prospects
for cooperation are seriosuly hurt.

Wesley Clark seems to understand this. Oh, but he's a liberal.
Clearly not a man willing to stand up to defend America - sheesh
(I'm being sarcastic). Go ahead and respond to this - I cannot
wait to get a preview of the character assassination neocon is
going to try against Clark.

And I'm tired of hearing "liberal" used as some kind of slur.
I'm proud to be a liberal. If it wasn't for liberals, slavery
and racial discrimination, shame of our nation, probably would
have lasted a lot longer. Among other things.

Only idiots would have expected a cakewalk.

You pegged it. Their names are are Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld.


I'm think I'm going to quit this discussion. I imagine everyone
else is getting tired of it, inclduing the participants.

John

 

[John Eyles]

You might want to brush up on your history. You only need to go
back half a century or so.

You've been breathing too many ethanol fumes already if you think we
would have EVER EVER EVER gotten support of the international community to
go to war.

You mean, like we did 12-13 years ago, against the very same country
(Iraq), with Bush's dad leading the way ?

The reconstruction job is probably the biggest task ever undertaken of
its kind in history ...

You mean, not counting the reconstruction of Germany and Japan after WWII ?

John

 

[John Eyles]

You do not understand the basic reason for a low or

no emission vehicle. They are called this because of
the level of emissions where they are being used.

The power plant used to power these vehicles can
be located in an area more suited to power generation
and you have better control over maintenance of
the pollution control devices on a power plant than
you do when you have a large number of vehicles
scattered all over the place.

Good point. But power plants are also a HELL of a lot
more efficient than internal combustion engines, for
obvious economic reasons.

So it doesn't just reduce the emissions at the place of
use (where the car is), but overall as well.

John