> Being that there is little or no oil in gasoline, it would dry out > rubber/plastic compounds; some aftermarket additives for cleaning up fuel > systems are quite oily, I've noticed, and I am sure they revitalize plastic > and rubber components in the fuel system as well as clean up the carbon > residue that seems to build up on the intake valve stems of later model > engines, and the tips of injectors.
Most "plasticizers" are not oily at all; most are highly volatile, and are what give rubbers and plastics that "new plastic/rubber smell". Gasoline carries chemicals that are similar in compound and result to these plasticizers, which are absorbed by the rubbers as they lose their "original stock" to the environment. Incidentally, this is also why you can run a car on a set of fuel hoses for 10+ years without issues, but if you let one sit for a couple years your fuel hoses will start to crack and leak. Stoich for ethanol is app. 9 pounds of air per pound of fuel. > If you are considering propane, why not make a fuel delivery system that > turns gasoline to a gaseous state and then burn it in the engine? It's more > feasible, as propane and lpg are more dangerous; and also, it takes more of > it. Vapor state gasoline is harder to reliably meter and produce, especially on an aircooled engine, than simple propane carburetion. Also, vaporised gasoline is /very/ dangerous. 125 octane propane can easily make up for the lower energy density through compression and timing. > But, let's get to the bottom line here: it takes more energy to distill > ethanol from corn, and more water is used in the process. Also, the net > result in energy after that spent in producing it is nil for corn, which has > been till just recently the major source of ethanol production. And the > purity is the decisive factor in the energy content. The more pure, the > more energy required to make it so. > Bottom line: the net balance is, it takes just as much energy to produce it > and use it as total energy consumed, and sometimes a negative net energy > balance. That means it takes up so much energy to make it that you couldn't > burn it in an engine and come out ahead in total consumption of energy. > That means you're losing money; hence, government subsidy. Again, look into how much water it takes to produce a gallon of gasoline. The volumes are highly comparable, with the added insult that gasoline has a net /negative/ energy balance of .8. You get 80% of the energy back out in the form of gasoline as it took to produce that gasoline; nuclear and natural gas and coal are "subsidizing" the energy needs of gasoline and diesel production. Look at the massive volume of water and natural gas being used to get the oil out of the Canadian Tar Sands; it's a mind-blowing, staggering amount, and it all /must be fresh water/. Hundreds of millions of gallons of fresh water being used to boil and steam oil out of sand, and all subsidized by the Canadian and American governments. The government is subsidizing gasoline; by your logic and arguments, you should be against buying gasoline. > Lets be real. Even with twice the ethanol coming from an acre of cane than > from an acre of corn, we are using too much water to produce it. One way or > another it's not good business. You want to use it, you grow the crops and > harvest them and make alcohol from then. I am sure your Nighthawk would > love to drink it once you alter it. You get /far more/ than a mere doubling of yield in an acre of cane versus an acre of corn. Corn /sucks/ as an ethanol feedstock. It is quite possibly second only to soybeans as the most sucktastic crop ever to be targeted as an alternative fuel source feed crop. Any of the tubers, beets, sugarcane, switchgrass (which is the grass you were alluding to earlier) are /far better/ sources for ethanol production; further studies and research into cellulosic ethanol production will open the doorway to using anything with cellulose to produce ethanol, like wood chips, grass clippings and yard wastes, crop trimmings, cobs/stalks/ejecta from food processing... again, there are also companies working on a way to turn waste food (something this country positively swims in) into ethanol, with the byproduct of a fertilising slurry that could be used far more effectively than filling a landfill. > My motorized bicycle gets around 175 miles to the gallon if I keep a WOT. > If I want to let it sip fuel, it would be getting around 220. > The only alternative fuel I feel is viable is hydrogen. That is, in an > internal combustion engine. BMW seems to feel the same about it, as they > have modified the valvetrains of their engines to run on pure hydrogen. > There are those who have made an apparatus that can separate water into > oxygen and hydrogen fast enough to burn in an I /C engine, but they are > silent, because they value their lives. One who did it and was public about > it was arrested and thrown in jail. That's the last that was heard from I'm not getting into hydrogen. Too many tin-foil hat types and conspiracy theorists; suffice to say I have never seen any magical hydrogen generator that could pass my own sniff test; there is invariably a hidden power source somewhere in the works. I wanted to be a believer, I was a believer for a while in high school and early college, but time after time I was burned and disappointed. You can perform electrolysis (splitting water via electricity) fast enough to feed an engine, but doing so takes /massive/ voltages and current; you aren't going to run it off the engine that's burning the hydrogen, the very concept violates numerous laws of thermodynamics and physics. BMW, GM and Honda have all devised hydrogen fueled vehicles. They devote very little money to the project, as most have seen that it's a dead end. Hydrogen's energy density is only attractive when it's liquified, and to accomplish that you must cryocool it, highly pressurize it, and keep it that way. Hydrogen vehicles on the road must periodically /vent some of their own fuel supply/ to keep the rest of it in a liquid state. Compressed hydrogen results in more of a bomb waiting to go off than CNG/LPG, and even lower range to empty to boot. Undoubtedly I will now be labeled someone who has been indoctrinated and creativity quashed because I don't believe in hydrogen generators... I get that a lot. -Kurt -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Nighthawk Motorcycle Lovers!" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/nighthawk_lovers?hl=en.
