The high proce of gasoline and the change that is upon us.

[fistfullabar]

1,491,300,000 is the amount sprits produced in this per year country not even factoring beer or wine! Since welfare's inception in the 30's the total amount of(well fare) is 9 trillion dollars that includes medicaid,food stamps, stundent lunch programs, scholarship aid to college students, etc. I got on foodstamps when my son was born because i was only making 350 a week they gave me 10 dollars a month for me and my family lets just say i was not on foodstamps for very long ut: The price of gas is relevant to what we will pay for it. Me i use a bicycle for to get around on and my mini for fun so the price of gas never matters to me but it does affect me do the energy monopoly. Tesla is rolling over in his grave. His vision was for wireless transmission of energy in each home!

 

[TANKSAREUS]

3.69 this morning in lower Alabama.
And the oil companies report record profits?????

Tom is that for a gallon?

 

[buckeye]

Oh yeah, it is for regular. High test is 3.89 a gallon.

 

[RobK]

:smile:The bottom line all comes down to cost. As much as we don't like it, fossil fuels are still the most cost effective alternative out there. I would love to have solar panels on my roof or a windmill in my back yard, but the return on investment just isn't there. It's getting closer every day, but we're not there yet. I looked on line, and a 5 gallon can of methanol fuel is around $40, or $8/gal. Let's assume you could cut the cost down to 1/3 of that with large scale production. That makes it $2.66. For the sake of argument, we'll round that down to $2.50. Considering methanol has only 1/2 the BTUs of gasoline, that would mean two gallons of methanol would be needed to equal one gallon of gasoline, so now your up to $5.00 for the equivalent of a gallon of gasoline. And that's not including any taxes (gasoline is loaded up with taxes). Gasoline wins hands down. Sure there are other advantages that can be designed into future cars, but there's a bizillion cars on the road that cannot reap those benefits.

The other issue was mentioned by Newoldstock. Methanol absorbs water. Gasolie conveniently floats on water, so the water is easy to drain out of tanks and pipes. All the infrastructure in this country is not made to handle methanol. Water would be a big problem. Is a switch to methanol possible? Sure, but it's not without it's challenges.:smile:

 

[buckeye]

Maybe our govt can give us a bit of a break on the tax isuue or quit taking payments, oops I mean donations, from big oil. It is just the rich keep getting richer while we take it in the you know where. I realize it costs a lot to produce gas. I realize the govt has to tax it for our infrastucture updates. But come on.
When my favorite oil company,BP, is able to withstand the hit they took due to the environmental disaster they or whoever, created , in the Gulf of Mexico, and come out less than 3 years later with a increase in profits of 38%, and record profit tha"s PROFITS after paying out billions to the Gulf staes, something is terribly wrong.
And that is just one company. I know they don't make all of their profit from gasoline, but really billions of dollars in PROFIT. If I could I'd say f em, but they know we can't and will gladly continue to pull our drawers down and take it like a, well you know!!!

 

[TomH]

Hydrogen is what I am looking at. Distilled from water, 0 pollutant. i happen to think that this technology is either being overlooked or squelched because there isn't any way to make big money by the big guys. You can distill it at home. Hard to store and the range between fill ups is shorter than the current fossil fuels.

 

[RobK]

Maybe our govt can give us a bit of a break on the tax isuue

Actually, part of the answer is to raise taxes on gasoline, and use the money to fix our disintegrating infrastructure, roads, bridges, etc. Raising the taxes pushes people to drive more responsibly and manufacturers to improve efficiency. It also makes alternative energy more competative. Oil companies don't want higher taxes for a reason.

 

[RobK]

Hydrogen is what I am looking at. Distilled from water, 0 pollutant. i happen to think that this technology is either being overlooked or squelched because there isn't any way to make big money by the big guys. You can distill it at home. Hard to store and the range between fill ups is shorter than the current fossil fuels.

Hydrogen would be great, but it takes quite a bit of energy to separate hydrogen an oxygen atoms in water. That energy has to come from somewhere, and right now it comes from fossil fuels. Until we have a more efficient way to produce hydrogen, or we have a very cheap source of electricity, i.e. wind or solar, hydrogen likely will not get us there.

 

[Newoldstock]

Actually, part of the answer is to raise taxes on gasoline, and use the money to fix our disintegrating infrastructure, roads, bridges, etc. Raising the taxes pushes people to drive more responsibly and manufacturers to improve efficiency. It also makes alternative energy more competative. Oil companies don't want higher taxes for a reason.

You get it!

Welfare for the oil companies on one side and taxes too low on the other.
This means the prices are distorted and people don't think.

What they should do is raise taxes on fuel but give you a rebate at the end of the year at first to ease people into the idea of burning less.
If done right it won't realy notice that much at all if your frugal.

The fellow with the SUV will feel it and maybe consider a cheaper car.

But all this talk about hydrogen has lead us no place.
Its expensive and can't realy be trasnported and stored.

I could build a methanol plant, its not that complicated ( just expensive ) and it offers all the advantages of Gasoline with the clean burning of hydrogen in a package that acts like gasoline.

Retrofitting cars to burn meth would not be that expensive.
High compression Methanol engines would burn it efficiently unlike the low compression flex fuel cars we have today.

Flex fuel....
Thats stupid actualy.
I have never even seen a station that sell E85, but we have the cars and trucks.

What we need is a plan, lomg term to move from oil to something we can manufacture and store.
I'm a full convert to the idea

 

[Newoldstock]

Here's a wiki article
Synthetic fuel - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Now these guys propose going all the way to synthetic oil.
I don't......

Just stop at the methanol process because its cheaper and simpler.

Another partial technical paper.
Notice the section that sugest the efficiency can be imporved by building the steam plant in a power station to recycle the heat ( that you normaly see wasted in a cooling towers )

http://web.anl.gov/PCS/acsfuel/preprint archive/Files/45_1_SAN FRANCISCO_03-00_0124.pdf

Ol compnaies are not generaly in the electricity buisness and I doubt they want to see utilituies making fuel. Eepecialy if they are publicly owned

 

[Oldsalt]

My son and I have long been involved with normally aspirated competition engines. We sometimes have the choice of using alcohol or gasoline. Carburation or injection. The reason that we have not yet messed with alcohol is that it is a constant mess to keep running because of its marked ability to absorb water from the air. [Also there are sanctioned fuels that are capable of being ran in engines up to 16 to 1 compression ratio at only 15 to 25 a gallon]. The learning curve on an alcohol motor is steep and all I hear is how much harder it is to run.

A alcohol car that was to be used everyday, not a competition machine that will receive constant attention, will be about as reliable as a rich, beautiful woman.

The reason that the junk yards are stacked high with what at first glance appear to be lawn mowers that look sorta new is that they get to sit all winter with the horrid 10% alcohol fuel in their carb float bowls. By spring time the gas/alcohol mix has evaporated and only the attracted water remains to ruin the carb. Think about what 100% [or even 25%!] will do.