Oil Independence Day 2006

Right... he is from the government and he is here to help us.

Jeff DeWitt

billy ray wrote:

Apparently the Wyoming/Montana/Utah oil shale folks are hoping for just another dollar or two per barrel as well. As is Conagra.

Jeff DeWitt proclaimed:

Does that mean the price of Orville Redenbacher Popcorn is going up?

Hee. Not sure what is gonna happen, as it seems one problem with the new mandatory ethanol inclusion is where are they gonna get all that ethanol. Rumors of emergency bailouts from the eastern Tennessee and western North Carolina private sources appear to be just rumors.

billy ray proclaimed:

The July issue of Car and Driver had a very interesting article on this whole ethanol /E85 thing. Most of the following has been lifted from their article.

Here are some of the big minuses. It has a lower BTU content, it would require more transportation capacity and larger tanks for the same energy as gas. It takes more than a gallon of gasoline to make a gallon of ethanol. There is a 25-30 percent decrease in mileage using E85. At the moment, corn is the easiest to convert to ethanol. That will drive up the price of corn, which will affect food prices. A Univ. of Calif. at Berkley study looked at several ethanol studies. They concluded that between 5-26 percent of the energy in corn-based ethanol was "new". The remaining being recycled-fossil fuel energy used to make the ethanol. In 2004 the U.S. consumed 100 "quads" (quadrillion BTU's of energy). 86 of those quads were from fossil fuel. Of the 86 quads, only 40 were from petroleum. About 18 of the 40 petroleum quads were refined into gasoline. Using the most favorable figure of 26 percent new energy, that represents only about 0.16 quads. Of the original 18 quads, ethanol would comprise less than 1 percent. Compared to the original 86 quads, ethanol would replace less than two-tenths of one percent. If the actual energy gain is on the low side, 5 percent, the gains would be divided by five.

Granted there have been some large breakthroughs lately, and more will surely follow as more money is poured into ethanol production. Processes that use waste rather than valuable corn will have to be developed to make this thing economical. Will it ever be enough to lessen our dependence on imports? Never. Not by itself and certainly not without some serious conservation efforts coupled with major investments in solar power, wind power, wave power, mass transportation and probably even nuclear power.

"Lon" wrote in message news:35qdnWNgVvow2ALZnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@comcast.com...

A 747 takes > 60,000 gallons to fly ~ 7500 miles.

Dave Milne, Scotland '91 Grand Wagoneer, '99 TJ

Hmm, That is about 50 passenger-miles/gallon. A lot better than my Jeep.

Earle

Hell, my Wagoneer will do 12 mpg with 5 people in it, so quite a bit better !

I suspect our politicians don't have 399 buddies along with them though.

Dave Milne, Scotland '91 Grand Wagoneer, '99 TJ

Dave... now don't exaggerate. A 747 only burns about 5 gallons per mile x

Not if you drove that 7500 miles in 12 hours.

Well, we are both right, sort of.

Boeing's website says

"A 747-400 that flies 3,500 statute miles (5,630 km) and carries 126,000 pounds (56,700 kg) of fuel will consume an average of five gallons (19 L) per mile". So, at 6.84 lb/gallon, that would be carrying 18,421 gallons.

However, the 747 ER page states that it has a range of 7,670 nautical miles and a fuel tank of 63,500 gallons. Extrapolating from that gives 8.2 gallons / nautical mile or 7.2 gallons / statute mile.

The difference is presumably the overhead of carrying the extra 45000 gallons / 138 tons of fuel about.

Dave Milne, Scotland '91 Grand Wagoneer, '99 TJ

Could be worse. The USAF aircraft that the Clinton cronies used for ferrying themselves (excluding Air Force 1) was $6000 per hour.

I use it in my 04 Sport trac and I do get less miles per gallon but I get more miles per dollar(range). It's costs me $67 to fill the tank with gas and if I'm luck get about 375-400 miles range.Now for $75 I can fill the tank and three five gallon cans which gets me 540-570 miles. For almost a dollar less I'll drive the extra 15 miles to get it. I also have been running a test with E-85 for a while now as I run it exclusively in my Sport trac. Here are some amazing results.

1. After 4,000 miles the oil comes out just as clean as when it went in. CAT oil anyalsys says no HC, no Carbon, no metal.
2. I have more HP. On gas the dyno power to the rear wheels was 192hp, on e-85 it was 201hp at the same rpm.

I just love this stuff and I love sticking it to all those mid east and oil companies bastards. Next up is my 93 Jeep which currently is running on 50% e-85/ 50%gas. The only noticible odities were a few plugs "bridge gapped" with chunks of carbon. I have seen no failed seals or fuel lines and it has been well over a year. I spent 14 years as a drivability tech and the only real things that looks funny on the scan data in a much wider pulse width and everyonce in a great while it sets an 02 out of range code and I got a max rich limit code once as well. it's usually due to mitigating circumstances like towing, excesive idiling ect. I have a feeling that this will be like the 134a freon conversion controversy. In the beginning the SAE guys said replace everything not they say just drain and refill. the only things I know that alcohol attacks is aluminum and that still takes a while to eat up. Brazil has used alcohol in their VW's for decades and the carbs look like a sandblaster got to the float bowls but other than that I guess it was a great success. Anyone else here doing what I am doing????