Why you should change your vehicle to flex fuel

[........]

Dear Everyone, as you know the price of the Oil is more and more increasing, while the oil supply is decreasing. Moreover Oil is causing wars, terror, oil spills and a lot of greenhouse gases. By upgrading your car to flex fuel, you will continue to be able to use oil. However you will also have the opportunity to use E85, that means more freedom of choice. The conversion cost is about 200-250 USD. By choosing ethanol, you choose local fuel production, which means labour for farmers, labour for enginneers and workers in the ethanol plant, labour for transportation. Moreover you also help for indirect labour. Since the money stays in your country, this money will turn and produce indirect labour. Since the farmer will gain your additional fuel money, he will buy other things (labour is again needed for their production), which in case of oil the oil-Sheikhs or their people would do. That ethanol production increases the food prices is also not totally right, first there is a by-product called "distillers dried grains with solubles", which is used as feed for livestock, that is also nothing else than food. Moreover, by using ethanol, you put pressure on oil prices, which has also an important effect on food prices. You also give your money for more research (again labour), which will yield in higher efficiency of production and alternative production methods like cellulosic ethanol, which will change the whole equation. Again in case of oil this money would be spent for oil rigs, oil- infrastructure, but also for weapons to defend the oil. By using ethanol, you produce less CO2, since it is produced by corn, which actually consumed the CO2 in the air for its growing. The more people use ethanol, the higher the efficiencies will come for production (similar to solar cells). The prices will go further down, and much less CO2 will be produced during production in the plant. Do you know that the production efficiencies already improved 30% ?* Another reason for using ethanol is that oil prices will come up again, when the barrel price of 150 USD is back you will be very happy to have your vehicle converted. The conversion also increases the value of your vehicle.

Yours sincerely.

Sources:

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[Roy]

=3D=3D Yah, sure...no problem except that in Alberta we can't even get E5 let alone E85. We're supposed to have E5 by Dec. 13/2010 but I would bet on it. =3D=3D

[gfretwell]

Consider yourself lucky. There are a lot more problems caused by E fuels that get fixed by them. It is basically a farm subsidy anyway. We are burning food in our cars.

[clare]

Thank your lucky stars. Ethanol (from corn) as a motor fuel never did, and never will, make sense - particularly in Oilberta. Ethanol from saw-grass would be a totally different situation.

[Ala]

as they figure out ways to liquefy natural gas for carrying and travel that'll probably take over a lot of things

Natural Gas wants to help navigate fuel to its destinations (homes and businesses) on the US West Coast. It is developing liquefied natural gas (LNG) receiving terminals which will re-gasify the fuel from suppliers for consumers using existing pipelines. By cooling and converting it to a liquid form, natural gas can be transported more easily and cheaply across long distances. Its portfolio includes one terminal project with a capacity of 1.3 billion cu. ft. per day (Bradwood Landing, in Oregon) and one offshore terminal in California. Industry veteran executives William Garrett and Paul Soanes have teamed up with investment firm MatlinPatterson Global Advisors to fund the company's development.

[Percival P. Cassidy]

50 or so years ago in UK "Cleveland Distol" (5% alcohol) was advertised widely, and I sometimes used it in my motorcycle. I don't recall anybody ever complaining. 85% alcohol is something else, of course.

Perce

[gfretwell]

Go to any of the boating groups and you will see lots of people complaining about E10 and E15 is right around the corner.

[Don Klipstein]

Liquified natural gas has a bit of a problem in car fuel tanks - on such smaller fuel tanks even with a lot of thermal insulation, rate of heat inflow from outside into such cold fuel raises its vapor pressure to great levels. At many times, the temperature will exceed the "critical tempwerature" - above which liquid of most of LNG's chemical constituency cannot exist no matter how high the pressure is. How much fuel can one store in what practical fuel tank if it is gaseous rather than liquid? Will the fuel pumps at the refueling stations pump the fuel into such higher pressures at a cost that the market will support? Will these fuel dispensers be operable by Joe Sixpack, or require a trained technician to operate?

What is the octane rating of "natural gas" anyway?

I have heard of trucks and seen forklifts running on propane - but that is easily liquified at ordinary temperatures at fairly reasonable pressures.

[Steve B]

Well, yes, no, absolutely, maybe, and I don't know. In my state, Utah, guys were changing vehicles to LPG, and claiming all sorts of savings. Charging quite a bit for the conversion, too. Only problem was that doing it required approval in advance from the state, and they will only license vehicles that are LPG from the factory. So, all the owners who had them retrofitted were hosed, and some of the companies that did the conversions were in deep doo doo.

Just making a blanket solicitation is ludicrous of you. And a spamming troll besides.

Steve

[Steve B]

But now with the devaluation of the dollar due to massive printing, oil costs are going up, and will continue to rise until the US stops printing money.

Steve

[Kurt Ullman]

Some engines are made that run on 6 or 8 cylinders when needed, but generally chug along on 4 after getting up to speed. Is this mainly a computer thingy or do the engines have to engineered from scratch for this? If the first, are there kits available to make the conversion? This seems the more logical, easier, and probably cheaper approach if available.

[George]

Sure, but it is important to keep the SUVs operating. It just wouldn't make any sense to consider fuel efficiency when you need a fluffed up truck to haul yourself and a large beverage around...

[hallerb]

Cars run fine on CNG compressed natural gas. I have a friend who convereted both of his vehicles back in 72 just after the first oil crisis. Vehicles have a little less power but run fine, exhaust is super clean. and his vehicles are pre computer. They are actually dual fuel and run on gasoline too with the flick of one switch.

The trouble with oil, we as a nation are shipping our wea;th overseas to buy oil from people who hate us.

While we ship our jobs overseas to get them done cheap. Is it any wonder our economy is collapsing?

Look at health care being such a BIG part of our economy. Its percentage wouldnt be so large if we had more manufacturing.......

if you think our economy is bad now just wait till the terrorists strike again....

we will have a full blown depression........

[Percival P. Cassidy]

When I left Australia almost 25 years ago, many taxis and other fleet vehicles had been converted to run on LPG/CNG (with a cylinder in the trunk), but a large part of the savings was that LPG did not carry the taxes that gasoline did. I don't know whether it ever came to pass, but many people predicted that once LPG use became significant heavy taxes would be imposed on it to match those on gasoline: the roads have to be paid for somehow.

I have no idea about taxes on LPG in the USA.

Perce

[Cindy Hamilton]

What's a fluffed up truck? Does my 1998 Honda CRV qualify? I haul myself, but rarely a beverage, because when I'm driving, I'm driving, not drinking or talking on the phone, or checking my hair. (Quick check--yes, it's still there.)

Sure, I could get by most of the time with a smaller car, and did for quite some time, but when it snows I had the devil's own time getting out of my upward-sloping driveway, and used to get stuck at work because my employer is too cheap to have the parking lot plowed in a timely fashion. I'm getting too damned old to dig my car out.

Cindy Hamilton

[HeyBub]

We get most of our oil from Canada & Mexico; they don't hate us (well, maybe some in Mexico...).

There's the story of the fellow who invented a magic box that could "read" X-Rays. Hospitals would electronically transmit digitized X-Rays to him, his box would read the X-Ray and send a full report back to the originating hospital within two hours. For this service, he charged the hospital $40 instead of the $400 charged by a radiologist.

Skeptical, many hospitals had the same X-ray read by this entrepreneur's service and a staff radiologist. The differences in the two reports were inconsequential.

Many people benefited. The inventor, of course, but also the hospital and the patients.

But the radiologists were screwed. They complained.

The state medical board moved to charge the inventor with "Unlicensed practice of medicine" and felonious moperty. Investigations were held.

Come to find out, there was no "magic box." The businessman was simply forwarding the digitized X-ray to a radiologist in India who performed HIS magic and emailed back the result.

The above story is fiction, but it could happen. If it did, how does the "keep jobs in America" mantra hold up?

[George]

Fluffed up truck is a vehicle built on a truck platform and sold as a "car" such as the "yukon denali XLBG" or whatever. I think your vehicle could fit inside the typical fluffed up truck...

[salty]

The Honda CRV, Like the Toyota Rav4 are based on a car chassis and running gear. They are the modern equivalent of what used to be called a "station wagon"

[George]

LPG is an oil derivative so using in vehicles is just rearranging the furniture so to speak.

[Jim Yanik]

Smitty Two wrote in news:prestwhich- [e-mail]:

you have it backwards; the Democrats are the terrorists,the ones out to subvert the Constitution and turn the US to socialism/communism. They are the Party of Divisiveness and Fear.