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Pastimes : The New Qualcomm - write what you like thread. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: pheilman_ who wrote (5608)	1/3/2003 11:16:36 PM
From: Maurice Winn	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 12231

<I had heard the energy density of MTBE and ethanol is lower than petrol.> Same for methanol. Refuelling used to be a real pain and I would carry 3x20L in the boot on long trips. Hazardous, but that's life in the experimental lane. Few refuelling points meant extra fuel was needed anyway. Producing MTBE from methanol is another processing stage which consumes more energy rather than using methanol directly. But MTBE blends well with petrol and gives an octane kick, so the economics were okay. Methanol blends can be done, but there are problems - such as phase separation and material incompatibility. As you say, the oxygenates produce less CO during warmup. Catalytic converters convert CO to CO2 when hot. I'm out of date now, but I wouldn't be surprised if modern engines are so clean that catalytic converters could be dispensed with. Lean burn engines and good quality fuel might be good enough to keep cities clean. Diesel engines seem to be the problem these days. Tyre wear produces a lot of muck too. There are nasty oils used in tyre production and these are released during the wear process. Smooth roads would be good - we have nasty, nasty chip seal [small stones glued into place with bitumen]. It wears tyres, increases drag, fuel consumption, engine wear per kilometre, oil consumption [more engine work per kilometre], causes noise, gets in brake shoes, breaks windscreens, gets bitumen on carpets, gets stones all over the place, causes bicycling misery, injures people who fall over on it by abrasion, pollutes stormwater runoff [from tyre wear] and causes AIDS. Wacky Wireless could fix it! Ethanol, methanol and MTBE are expensive. If they were taxed the same as other petrol components, they wouldn't be used. Ethanol is only used because of subsidies for farmers. Actually, methanol might be used in fuel cells. Methanol used to be converted to synthetic petrol in NZ, but the cost was crazy - they sensibly stopped doing it when it wasn't politically expedient to continue to waste a LOT of money. Mqurice