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Ethanol
Have any of our friends changed their vehicle from petrol to ethanol/mix? We are of the opinion that we'll stay on unleaded then when we get a new vehicle we'll make sure it's one that is made for this, but it would be good to hear from others about their experiences. An ethanol manufacturer went into receivership this week. I wonder if it is because of lack of support from the people for ethanol, or were govenment subsidies withdrawn? Linda
Onya Nev!
Quite right, Nev ... I have never been one to suffer fools gladly and I have a real problem with peoiple who make decisions without doing their homework ... I wish we had some people in Canberra who thought as logically and with the same reason as you do ... why aren't you a member for somewhere?
Cheers,
JC
Ho ho. No way Jose. Politics
Ho ho. No way Jose. Politics is a dirty business. I only dabbled a bit in student politics as a graduate. I can understand young people getting carried away with the fad of the day. In my day it was anti Vietnam. Vietnam turned out to be a costly lie by the older generation. Now it is CO2 warming. I suspect it is a lie too, but we will have to wait for the young people to grow up and see the lie for themselves.
Metaphor
Nev, I was speaking metaphorically. During my tenure as a writer for several newspapers, I was offered three safe seats and one maybe. Two by Labour, one by Nats and (all of which were pretty much sure things), and one by the Democrats, in which it would have been a bloody miracle.
To be a politician is to be a comsummate, and above all creative liar. Sadly I'm too bloody honest ... besides that, when I began reporting on political affairs, I made a promise to myself to treat all sides of politics the same ... that is: If they do something right, acknowledge the fact. If they don't ... come down like a ton of bricks! I have made a lot of friends inthe political field ( and a few enemies), including some of today's headline makers (Tony Abbott for one). As a bloke who you'd have a beer with after work, and a great conversation on almost any subject, Tony is as good as it gets ... but as a prime minister; I'll reserve judgement.
Cheers,
JC
Global Warming?
Nev - that was so logical and so succinct, even I could follow that with interest. Thank you.
ambiogenic oil
Been reading an interesting article about oil. The writer suggests that there is more oil to yet be had than can be imagined. We use the term 'fossil fuel' badly. It is true that peat can be burnt and peat can compress into vast coal beds and seams. But oil, he thinks, may be a different kettle of fish.
Oil is made from hydrocarbons. These are simple chains of carbon. They are found in vast quantities in space...making up whole nebula clouds just as some nebulae are composed of oxygen or nitrogen or carbon alone or hydrogen plus all the elements we know of that come from super novas...exploding stars.
These hydrocarbons would have made up a large part of the earth's composition including the mantle. But, to create oil from hydrocarbons requires big pressure (about 40 x atmospheres) and temperature (about 350'C). That can only be found about 100 km below the earth's surface. The writer suggests that oil is 'created' there but can't get to near the surface.
However, when a giant impact is made by an asteroid the mantle cracks and oil is then able to creep upwards. What oil has been produced so far is only the very top of deeper reserves that wait to be tapped into. The amount could be enough to last all mankind's need for 1000 years or more. Remember, in 1888 there were warnings then that oil would be soon in short supply even before the car was invented!
Neville, We're going to censor your reading matter, you know.
For a start, this book you have, is goin' in the bin.
From Highschool physics, 40 Atmospheres pressure is equivalent to 1200 FEET of water, or 400 FEET of rock. 350 Degrees C will take another couple of thousand feet down. and yes that is where get oil from, not from a hundred Kilometres down, But it's hydrocarbons from plants, from a few million years ago, not from a few million Light years away.
Nebulae of Hydrogen and carbon are just that ... far distant, not under-foot.
and as for being part ofthe mantle of this rock, just because there is carbon and hydrogen a hundred light years away...
Buy Books Without Speech Bubbles in them, please
Yes, you were right. I
Yes, you were right. I checked and the pressure should have been 600psi or 4Mp. This is found about 100 km down into the mantle.
The premise of the theory (and it only a way out one at that) is keeping in mind the the law of entropy. That is, something more complex can't result from something less complex. Or, put it the other way, simple things can't, of themselves, become more complex. Certainly life, animals, humans, human creations, etc, are examples of the latter. But energy is used at each step even if we (or whatever) is unaware of the more complex step.
For example, all the elements heavier than iron are believed to have come from the enormous pressure and heat of exploding stars. (Although a recent science article suggests there is more gold in the solar system than is accountable even from novas.)
Oil is not a simple structure. Sure, most people think of oil like liquid coal...just made from old fossil animals and plants. (I read once where someone said they saw a oil soaked palm tree come out of a gusher!) But oil is a far more complex hydrocarbon. The pressures I mentioned combined with temperatures of about 350'C and with catalysts present such as sulphur and vanadium can convert plain methane into oil.
The oil is trapped at huge depths until cracks in the mantle make ways for it to escape. The inference is that vast quantities of oil could be lying at great depths to be used. Drilling in deep sea fields to the depths at present was once considered too difficult. If this crazy theory proves right then all the doom about running out of oil will be over. But the global warming people would do their best to stop any such steps.
Just another interesting fact
Just another interesting fact that has only been confirmed by physicists and astronomers. i.e. all the water on earth including the oceans definitely originated from comet impacts. Comets are now known to have precisely the same composition of water. All 'water is not water' like 'all oils ain't oils'. There is Deuterium which is heavier than normal water.
Deuterium and all that ...
Yeah Nev. I once spent a short time working in the PR department at the old Atomic Energy Commission, at their office headquarters in Coogee in Sydney (as opposed to the RE=Research Establishment), at Lucas Heights on the southern outskirts of Sydney. This was at a time when the big boss was Sir Philip Baxter.
On an orientation visit to the RE where I was shown around, given so literature so that when I had to write some material for publication, it would appear that I knew what I was talking about. I was sitting in a staff room speaking to a couple of research scientists, when I asked where I could get a glass of water. One of my companions asked a stewardess for a glass of water ... what I didn't see was the wink that went with the request.
When I took a sip of the 'water' just about the whole contents of the glass disappeared down my throat, to the accompaniment of much merriment by my companions and the stewardess. It was, of course deuterium and not regular H2O. I must say, that it was the strangest sensation, since from memory this isotope of Hydrogen is written as D and as an oxide as D2O (with and inferior 2), and has a common name of 'heavy water.' It is used as a moderator in a nuclear reaction ... I don't know about heavy, but it's a little like drinking sour milk ... with the thickness but without the lousy taste.
I still have a three inch long piece of balsa wood, that is a pale red ... you would be hard pressed to cut it with a hacksaw. It had been irradiated.
Producing deuterium is quite an expensive process. I forget the ratio of deuterium to ordinary water, but it is very low. If anyone has seen the movie "The Heros of Telemark", that's what it was all about.
Cheers, JC
Alternatives
Having rabbited on about alternative fuels on these pages for some time, I have made reference to an as yet untapped source of energy called "Zero Point Energy" which was discovered by quantum mechanics some years ago, and is said to be all-pervading, throughout the universe.
Well, I was apparently wrong. There are several web sites which claim to have tapped in, using magnets and such, and indeed have free plans available on the web ... and yes 'FREE', makes me ultra-suspicious. Now it seems there is a clever gentleman who lives in Cairns who has built a device which he claims can power the average home, with which he has applied for patents throughout the world and will he says, cost about $5,000, when it goes on the market.
This all came about through quantum physics, a discipline which prompted Albert Einstein who heartely disliked it, to remark that; "God does not play dice with the universe." Quantum physics also says that some particles can be in two places at once and Quantum's own offshoot, Noetic Science, postulates that everything in creation is interconnected. Most of today's electronics would not be possible without Quantum Physics, and the fact that I have written this on a keyboard/TV screen in my office and you are all reading it (I hope), is all based on a quantum effect.
Zero Point Energy (ZPE), is therefore not a far fetched concept at all ... Steven Speilberg was probably on the right track with his 'Force'. So the mad ginger from the south's tax scheme may well be moot, with both internal and external combustion soon to be a thing of the past ... mind you, they'll soon find something else to tax us on ... probably put an oxygen metre on everyone to measure and tax each breath.
For those who are into very complex mathematics, there are hundreds of excellent books about (get into it Kilroy ... no speech bubbles here!), but for those like me who stuggles to count my change at Woollies, just read 'em and take the maths as read, and correct.
For those who like a good read, without the complication try "The Hunt for Zero Point" by Nick Cook or if you want to know more about Noetic Science, author Lynne McTaggart (mentioned in Dan Brown's latest), has some excellent titles.
How's that grab you Kilroy? As GOT's very own censor, you would have a ball with the maths.
Cheers,
JC
Service Stations
There is a servo back home that sells two types of Diesel, one is for trucks. What is the difference???
OME
Trucks and Cars and Diesel
Just as part of the service, I have found the answer to your vexing question, OME.
It's all in the different fuel tanks and their size, so I am told. Don't even try to put a dedicated truck filler in your car ... for one thing it won't fit, it's too big, and for another, so they say, it would be very messy (and dangerous), should you persevere. Trucks, particularly the big interstate or inter-city rigs have very large fuel tanks, and to fill them with a normal nozzle would take for hours ... so, some service stations are equipped to cater for them, by having large, higher pressure fillers.
It makes perfect sense when you think about it. One of the trucks that I drove (though I didn't do any interstate), yars and yarrs ago, sported a converted 44 gallon drum as a tank, that's as near as dammit is to swearing, as 200 litres. I don't recall the capacity of the old Commer's engine, but it was large ... and a two-stroke and thirsty. I could click on the auto filler on the bowser, go into the servo and have a milkshake and a sandwich, walk back to the truck and it still wasn't full.
I have no idea of the size of current truck motors, though a 120 hp marine diesel that will use about seven to 10 litres an hour at cruise, can have a capacity of 12 litres, and many of today's B-doubles are four and five times that, so you can imagine having to fill them with the same fuel-pump as your common or garden variety family chariot.
Hope this helps ... Cheers,
JC
Dunno!
Don't really know mate, it may have something to do with the viscosity (runniness). Truck motors usually run more slowly than car engines, and have a larger piston area, and much greater torque. Or it could be that one has more anti-microbial treatment added ... I'm assuming that you knew that diesel left unused in a fuel tank for some time attracts microbial and fungal infestation. There are additives you can buy, to ward them off.
It has been quite a while since I last purchased any diesel (the last lot was when I had a diesel-powered boat, and there was only one diesel pump at my boatshed), truck fuel purchased was a good 15 years ago. My ex-son-in-law has a VW Golf diesel and I've driven that ... he's a H&WS man for a supermarket chain which includes service stations, so I'll ask him at the weekend.
But mate, when it all comes down to it, it probably has something to do with those damnable computers!
Cheers,
JC
2 Types of Diesel
G'day JC,
The nozzle sizes I'm awear of, but why is the truck diesel a couple of cents cheaper; are they just looking after the truckies or what?
Cheers OME
Ethenol
Sorry Linda, Ethenol is a complete waste of time, they take up good productive farm land growing the stuff & your car will go further on standard unleaded, or better still on the high octane unleaded! AMEN.
Cheers OME
Ethanol
The entire point of the Ethanol Question is NOT whether it is good / bad / indifferent as to mileage, or engine condition.
The entire point of the Ethanol Quesiton IS .... Will it make your Mazda go when all the petrol is gone.
The addition of Ethanol to standard petrol is a stopgap measure. You Look, in ten years time, it'll be 50% Ethanol, in 30 years 100%.
We most likely will not be here then, but still, do it now . . . . buy your grandkids a cane farm.
Kilroy
E10,E85, Kilroy you're E100!
Kilroy old mate, you are 100 percent right! It's what I have been saying for the past 18 months in these posts. Well, maybe I've used a few more words ... but the message is basically the same. Maybe some bright spark will come up with an alternative ... who knows? But at the moment, ethanol is all we have, and like it or lump it, if you insist on a spark ignition engine, alcohol in one form or another, is going to be your fuel.
Me? My next car is going to be a diesel! Because they don't use electricity to move, and so it's just one less thing to go wrong and they will run on just about anything fluid that will burn.
I was talking to a friend yesterday and the subject of diesels came up ... I related the story of a farmer who during the war, everyone in the area knew when he had run out of his diesel allocation for his milking machine, they could smell it ... he'd shift to running on cream! My friend said that where he came from, on the south coast of NSW, a professional fisherman, faced with same quandry, when someone had reported a huge school of baitfish just off shore, managed to thin-down a load of old oil paint, and ran his diesel twin on that!
I might add, that unlike many GOT members, I plan to be still driving at well over the ton, so I'll still be around to see the benefit of my early decision ... so there!
Cheers,
JC
Measure by measure
If anyone is so terribly, terribly interested in how much ethanol goes into their petrol or how many BTUs are available in biodiesel, I suggest that you read the little ad that runs alongside all these posts ... judging by the telephone number, it's in beautiful downtown Bissie!
Cheers, JC
What a load of ...
OME, I'm surprised that you have fallen for this old piece of frog poo, perpetrated by the Yank media! I must have written the truth in these pages about five times over the course of a couple of years!
1. We in Australia do not have to use "valuable farm land," to produce feed stock for ethanol production! All we have to do, is to reopen the cane farms that our 'clever' government closed down a few years ago, and use them.
2. Of course your car will run better on unleaded! It was computer designed to. Trouble is, they ain't making any more petrol, unleaded or otherwise ... and it is certainly not going to get any cheaper ... I'm glad that some people don't have to worry about petrol or its price ... but I'll let you in on another secret; your happy little diesel will be running on biofuel a lot sooner than petrol engines will be forced to run on ethanol. Because of the proportion of diesel to petrol usage; trucks, trains, ships etc mineral diesel will run out a whole lot sooner.
3. Much as many greenies would like to see it ... people who own petrol-fueled cars are not going to junk them, just because the petrol supply has dried up or is costing $5 per litre. They will either buy a diesel (which can run just a happily on bio fuel), or they will switch to the only (in 2011), viable substitute, which is ethanol
4. It is also interesting to note, that Air New Zealand is experimenting with an ethanol-based fuel substitute for its aircraft. Jets usually run on a kerosene-based fuel so this wouldn't be such a stretch, though the biggest problem there and to a lesser extent motor vehicles, is ethanol's afinity to water ... but I guess where the need is, it will be overcome.
Cheers,
JC
Hang on, Sir Richard Charles
Hang on, Sir Richard Charles Nicholas Branson (full name) has already tried ethanol based fuel on his Atlantic jets. The experiment proved a failure both in terms of efficiency and economy. He is often hailed as a greenie. But his soon to be attempted rocket trips into space will 'pollute' the atmosphere with large amounts of pollution ~CO2 'cough, cough'.
Sir Cheap turns green?
Nev, Last time I looked, Sir Dick was not a scientist, or particularly green ... note the gas he runs his baloons on, and filthy dirty fuel he burns in his rocket ... and I'm not talking carbon (which I don't consider a pollutant anyway), I'm talking oxides of nitrogen and unburnt particulates that carry all kinds of nasties.
The people working on the fuel in NZ are their equavalent of the CSIRO, who presumably know what they are doing, unlike Sir Dick (who I admire immensely, for other reasons), who was really just after stealing a march on his competitors. I also doubt very much weather the civil aviation authorities in the UK would have allowed him to use an experimental fuel on any commercial aircraft, Atlantic or otherwise, without extensive testing, which would mean the involvement of companies with much deeper pockets than even Sir Dick.
Might I point out to your good self Nev and to Old Man Emu and any others who may be wondering about bio or alternative fuels ... you might not have noticed the small blue add by Shell just beneath the 'post' panel below, who are taking advantage of our little discussion, by advertising their own take on ethanol as an additive.
Cheers, JC
Peugeot 207 wagon
I own the Peugeot 207 6 speed manual 1.6L diesel wagon, a great little car. 1000Km to the tank full. I get 5 litres to 100klms. The only way to go when you live in the country. More powerful than the old 2 litre Suburu I used to own.
I'm just keeping my fingers crossed nothing goes wrong, I have heard they are expensive to get fixed, I think a hybrid would be more expensive though!
I am saving the Planet with the very low emmissions!!!
Cheers, OME
Peugeot, Edison, Old Man Emu and Nev
OME, I really love your choice of vehicle ... I owned a 203 for a short while and loved it for all its quirkyness. Things such as the strange pattern column gearshift, the cross pushrod to give a hemispherical combustion chamber ... buggar of a thing to put multiple carburettors on though ... because the manifold exited through the tappet cover. Incidentally, the cross-pushrod idea is nothing new, despite what Chrysler would have you believe with its much publicised "Hemi". Riley had 'em and used two camshafts as well, way before Chrysler adopted the idea.
I don't think you will have any reliability problems with your Pug (incidently, it is correctly pronounced "Poo-joe" not "Per-joe" as some would have you believe ... ask a Frenchman), they were renowned for longevity in to old days. A friend of mine has a 1908 vis-a-vis Peugeot, which he rebuilt in 1961, he hasn't touched the engine since, and has put about 35,000 miles on it since restoration.
A history of Peugeot is a very good read. The father of one of my son's friends is pretty high up in the Peugeot Club, in Sydney. Just reading a book on Biofuels by Jon Starbuck and Gavin Harper and published in 2009 by McGraw Hill. So far very interesting. Good stuff on the web regarding Micronesian fishermen using filtered coconut oil as fuel.
Ah, Nev. Poor old Thomas Alva was not so much a genius, but like a lot of Yanks a very canny engineer and an even better self-promoter. He didn't solve the electric car problems and they have yet to be solved ... that's why we have hybrids now. Swan beat him to the first electric light bulb, but wasn't interested in commercialisation as in pure science, so was slack with patents and the like.
Edison developed a bad case of the tom-tits, when he was beaten in the several contests for lucrative contracts by Nicola Tesla, who he saw as a simple emigrant upstart. Tesla didn't think that bigger batteries were the answer to electric car range, so he buit a tower that could transmit power through the atmosphere. There are apparently quite a few of Teslas ideas and plans that are still kept in classified files by US government agencies, such was his real genius.
Cheers,
JC
Edison was probably more
Edison was probably more aware that electric cars would and did die out as petrol became available. It was cheaper and internal combustion engines could take a car long distances in a large country.
Edison was no slacker. He developed the Telegraph system into a form that was only recently abandoned. From that he developed the stock exchange ticker tape system. Yes, the light bulb was known about but the filaments only lasted for minutes or a couple of hours. Edison tried over 1 000 filaments even getting fibres from all continents on Earth. Eventually he developed a thin wire carbon coated filament and it shone for weeks.
Soon, he had a string of them at Menlo Park, NY, where people came to look in amazement at the lit up scene different to arc lights. While there, they often took rides on his electric railway which led to his tram system in NYC copied world wide. This led to the underground subway train system in NYC which he developed.
He developed the first reticulated electricity system for street lighting and inside buildings being very careful no lives would be endangered...fires had been a bane of gas lighting. The cables were underground and buildings metered. After that, 1 000 similar systems were built in the next year in USA alone.
Edison invented the movie camera and projector. It actually went at 30 frames per second but was dropped to less than 24 which gave early movies their jerkiness.
He invented the phonograph. People didn't believe it even when they heard their own voices replayed.
He improved the telephone which Bell had invented. The scratchy sound was improved to 'modern' standards by a simple carbon button in the speaker.
Few realise he improved cement making to what we call 'Portland Cement' using longer kilns and other combinations.
He almost lost all his fortune on creating a crushing factory to extract iron. When his huge crushers started a bigger find of pure grade iron was found nearby. But his crusher inventions are still copied to this day.
Edison would work 20 hours a day needing only 4 hours asleep. But he would sleep immediately and then jump up fresh as a daisy. He had thousands who worked for him...he would give instructions about an invention and they would try it out. So he was no slouch.
Seniors Car Pug 207
The Peugeot 207 is a really good Seniors Motor Car. You can set everthing to automatic, as I do; then you don't forget to turn on the lights when it gets dark. If it starts raining the wipers come on & if the rain gets heavy, they speed up; it's just Magic! I'm very pleased with it. The only catch is, this particular model is manual, the Europeans don't mind changing gears, I find it relieves the bordom.
Cheers, OME.
I think we need a new Topic Heading called MOTOR CARS!
Cars forum
So do I. See above. Cheers, JC
Electric ... nothing new. Here's new!
As I think I have alredy posted, I once owned (briefly), a 1908-9 Detroit Electric, which was in volume production in the years prior to the first world war, along with several other makers ... comic book readers will remember 'Grandma Duck's "old electric"', so this boast by GM is just so much hogwash and spin. And the whole alternative energy source argument may become moot.
We may just be in the beginning of the last of the internal combustion vehicles (of all kinds), with the news that several companies in the US and Europe (and you can bet your life the Japs are in there too), have working prototypes and pre-production units of Zero Point generators, about ready to go. If anyone would like to read the spiel from one manufacturer, albeit from 2004 try: http://www.pureenergysystems.com/news/2004/06/03/UltraConductorsMagneticPower/
There are many other articles regarding this power source, which has been discovered using quantum physics. Briefly, Zero Point energy is all-pervading and provides power in very small amounts, but such is its quantity, quality and inexhustable volume, that gathering enough to do useful work seems to be relatively easy and incredibly cheap ... Like, 1c per kilowatt!
The prediction is, that we may see smaller units made available (manufactured by using off-the-shelf hardware) in a couple of years, but such is the speed of expected development, that larger capacity units will probably be in the pipeline as I write this. There is even talk of a plug-in car ... not to draw power for the car; but a car that powers your house!
Will wonders never cease?
Cheers,
JC
Some 'Grandma Duck's' were
Some 'Grandma Duck's' were produced by Thomas Edison. All his customers were very satisfied. Only a few had to be recalled for repairs. But he stopped production and closed shop. He was not satisfied with the power to weight ratio, etc. He wanted to greatly improve the batteries but despite his genius, could not. Up to then he had displayed genius in every way but the leap to electric cars for practical use eluded him.
Raining on the parade is my lot in life.
every opinion has its antithesis, and John, this is the one to yours.
I would like to believe in Electric Cars, really I would, and all electric transport will happen eventually, but on Two Wheels, not four.
Do all the tree hugging Prius owners realise their cars are Still powered by Hydrocarbons, powered completely by hydrocarbons, so every metre they travel, either battery or electric, puts CO2 into the air. Because the 'lectricity they charge up with at night is provided by the coal-fired power station over my back fence.
and 1c per KWH. " Tell 'em they're dreaming" at that price, it would be " too cheap to meter". Remember that saying too (google it, it's there) about nuclear energy.
And even if the RRP was 1c per KWH, don't think for one moment that the government won't slap a 19 c/KWH tax on it. making a total of 20c/ KWH, just about what we're paying now.
But where we SHOULD all be going is the TWO WHEEL route. the world's roads should only contain Bicycles, (foot or battery powered) motorcycles, and for goods/and crowds, buses/trucks. And that's all.
as has been mentioned, " we're not making Hydrocarbons any more"
Kilroy.
Tree Huggers
Oh Kilroy, why do you have to make derogatory sweeping general statements. My Aunt has a Prius and she aint no treehugger! And as for two wheels only, at 88 yo I would like to see her riding a bike or motorbike the 20km from her farm into town.
Brackenboy
The idea the world is
The idea the world is 'running out of hydrocarbons' is a furphy. As was reported, in 1923 experts warned oil would soon be depleted. But more was found in Texas. (BTW, only in USA do land owners have rights to minerals under their land...like Jed Clampett in "Beverly Hillbillies.")
Then more in the Gulf, California, Alaska and in the Arctic Ocean. The North Sea reserves are still going fine. Much is in the China Sea that may cause friction. LNG is in even greater supply that can be used for electricity or converted to petrol.
Coal is in huge quantities. Mining in QLD only takes 0.09% of land area despite the cropped media photos. Yes, 50-100 years from now there may be safer nuclear or fusion or better power supplies just as people in 1890 had no idea of what the 20th century would bring.
That's the spirit we should have. Not scaring kids to have nightmares about the world self destructing as in the opening of the Copenhagen Conference.
God! But I love fishing!
Speaking or raining on parades ... but (a. they are making hydrocarbons ... they are called vegetable matter, in their raw form. I like to fement, then distill them and when they have converted to alcohol, I burn them. Then they can be regrown; and (b. The quantum gear that I was refering to, was NOT hydrocarbon, it was zero point, which is PURE energy, and if you believe the quantum physicists, it is all-pervading ... everywhere! And you don't burn it, but like lightning and electricity ... you use it, and it's still there after use. That's why they call it an electrical 'circuit.'
And (c. if you read the article, you would have known I was not refering to a Government-owned device, but something you buy ... sure they will probably tax it, but they can only do it once ... over the counter.
Given that this so-called mob in Canberra would probably have meters on everyone's chest to tax our oxygen intake, what you're paying for at 1c-per kw, is the devise that collects the energy so that we can use it. This is a totally new discovery ... the boffins have known and theorised about it for some time, but now they have discovered a way to access it.
What I want to know, and as yet no one has given me a straight answer ... what do we do when we have ceased producing carbon and all the trees and grass and flowers are dead, for want of something to breathe ... and this collective vegetation can no longer supply oxygen for all Canberra's smarties to mouth off about the evil carbon?
As for bikes ... I had enough broken bones, skinned elbows and knees ... being drenched to the skin, lungs burning with effort ... I can still not believe I used to race the damnable things ... only to come out of school/work/entertainment to find that someone has helped themselves ... waiting in pouring rain/snow/sleet/baking sun for a bus/train that doesn't arrive, because the crew are broken down/on strike/changing a wheel ... no thanks mate. It's torture and I'd rather have a Prius with three wheels than rely on another bike ... at age 70, I probably need the exercise, but the price (before tax), is too high!
Cheers,
JC
When it's all said and done . . .
Ethanol (from sugar cane) needs land, water, sun, labour, machinery all to move you and your prius about You're still using hydrocarbons, remember.
Battery Cars plugged into the mains, still need the coal that won't be there for ever.
The future as i won't be here to see it, will be either bicycles human powered, or bicycles with a solar panel at home charging up a spare set of batteries, or maybe a solar panel that you park the bike underneath at work.
I owe this spark of inspiration to my son who rides daily his battery-powered bicycle and swears by it. The final configuration will quite possibly be Tri-cycle, much more user friendly and load-able with say up to 60 kg of groceries or stuff.
Life will also be at less than 100 km/h
Holden, Holden, Holden, Oi! Oi! Oi! Good on ya, GMH!
Have you all seen the latest TV commercial for Holden? Finally they 'fess up to the fact that they have had cars that will run on ethanol for some time. Now they are advertising the fact. Wonderful, GMH should be congratulated ... now all we need is for a government with a little spine to regulate for the introduction of ethanol pumps in service stations.
All of the other so-called alternatives are either far too expensive ... hybrids still use petrol and complicate by a computer-operated switching system to run the petrol engine when the batteries are running low, and in effect, you are buying two power systems and that is always going to be more pricey than one.
The plug-in electric is very good, if you're only going to operate it around town, but the amps that you transfer to your car have to be generated somewhere, and that's usually from a highly polluting source ... so you're really not saving anything, let alone the planet ... all you're doing is transferring it. Mind you, they are cheap to run. I'm personally more alarmed by the pollution created by the manufacture and eventual disposal of the hybrid and all-electric batteries, than the fuel used to keep them charged.
Speaking of plug-ins ... I wonder how long it will be, before (A) pedestrians are knocked over when failing to hear the approach of electric vehicles? ... or (B) before accidents are caused by EV drivers, trying to get home at night with a low battery and run with lights out to save juice?
Of course the Federal Government will immediately place a new tax (an extension of excise, or a sur-charge over an above excise?), I wonder how long it will take the governments to restrict, or licence, or ban the use of back-yard stills? Actually, a really smart government would make it so cheap, as to make the home-production of ethanol hardly worth the effort ... transfer their money raising elsewhere.
One thing that I will be glad to see the back of, is this absolutely fake, manufactured, and gigantic scam known as the fuel pricing cycle. I cannot believe that people who are supposedly smart, such as 'engineers' and executives from such supposedly authoritative bodies such as the NRMA and RACQ etc constantly kow-tow and refer to it as if it is the natural order of things. For heaven's sake! It's the oil companies using the old 'two steps forward, one step back' trick to slowly raise their prices and to curtail any consumer backlash ... And one cannot help but presume that it must be with the general colusion of various governments (who always get their slice of the pie), since the whole thing began!
There! Another Collins rant about fuel. Well, which would you rather have? I'm presuming that most of GOT members have at least one car, and probably one that is less than five years old. Would you rather go the same way as leaded petrol went (thank you Mr Keating), and shell out for a new hybrid or electric as Mr Garratt and his well-heeled polie mates tell us that we must (and incidentally getting next to nothing as a trade-in, because no one wants petrol cars anymore). Or would you rather spend maybe $200 having your plastic fuel lines replaced with metal, and a small adjustment to your car's computer so that it will run on ethanol?
Cheers,
JC
Actually the debate whether
Actually the debate whether ethanol or petrol or electric or whatever combination is a moot point to me. Although I think ethanol uses too much agricultural land which should be used for food. Electric power for electric cars should come from coal power stations.
Man made global warming is a farce and a joke. Out of about 85 000 molecules of CO2 Man might add just 1 (one) a year. (7% of CO2 is created by nature every year whether Man was here or not.
I bet this is something that will not be reported in the media. That is, the BOM (Bureau of Meteorology) has just released an official report stating that this past autumn was the coldest since 1950 (61 years ago). There are also official reports stating that the sea level rises are DE-creasing.
The carbon stock exchange in Chicago has collapsed. In Europe the CO2 stocks per tonne have dropped to $16 and falling. Remember, it was Enron and Golden Sachs among others (e.g. Al Gore) who began the idea of ETS.
Even the 'scientists' plotted to create alarmist predictions for the media to run. This was revealed by the hacking of their emails to each other. It is no wonder that they refused to show their data to other scientists. No scientist should ever say, "My data is mine and no one else should have it!" Sitting around and coming to a consensus is not science. Einstein, Newton et al would have been appalled.
We are just mushrooms being kept in the dark being fed you know what in order for governments to tax us and TELL us what we should do or not do...e.g. use less power, less lights, less heating, less cooling, etc just like in Communist countries.
P.S. China announced today that in order to reduce its dependence on Australian iron ore which is far too high with extra taxes it will now look elsewhere for the mineral...mostly Africa where it owns mines. With that cash cow going as well as the Green view we should close coal mines we will not have much income for our country. Our grandchildren will most likely say, "Why the hell did you fall for global warming and leave us penniless?!"
No petrol Nev
Neville, as far as I'm concerned you are probably quite right about all of the above, and particularly our grandchildren, but unless you plan on switching your personal transportation to a billy cart in the near future, or you have a backyard oil well, or you are independently wealthy, we are in fact running out of petroleum. And this, mate was the point of my post. The Goldman Sachs, Al Gore hoo ha is, was and always will be a very large and easilly verifiable con.
The fact is that we are going to have to switch to a new transportable fuel of some kind very soon ... hopefully without having to junk every car that can't find a place in a museum ... I'm quite happy with my Toyota, and plan to keep it a while, but not if I have to use a horse to pull the bloody thing.
Our country has huge reserves of oil shale, from which we could refine enough petrol to keep us going for some time, but it would probably cost around $5 a litre. You mention ethanol production using up agricultural land. That, Nev is all well and good, but what use is it if you have no means to transport all that produce to market?
Our wonderful far seeing government saw fit a couple of years ago, to use our money to compensate a whole raft of NQ cane farmers to stop doing what they do best and stop growing cane! Sugar cane is the best known feed stock for ethanol ... that story about depriving the third world of grain, was a story published by some air-heads who sadly still populate some of our news media and gained a lot of mileage from some other nincompoops, who didn't bother to do their own home work. The food thing applied only to the US; where they use corn to obtain the sugar necessary for the production of ethanol. The US lacking the climate to produce cane.
I recall having said it on these pages many times ... Brazil has done it and still earns about the same from sugar exports ... if Brazil can have 90 per cent independence of oil imports, why can't we?
I'm afraid I must echo Alan Jones's comments as passed on by Steve Price on chanel 10, on the '7 PM Project' last (Tuesday 26) night ... "Julia Gillard, Peter Garratt ... go away, we don't like you; we don't want you! Just go away!"
This country desperately needs some people in power, in Canberra, who can think a little past the last time they blew their nose!
Cheers,
JC
John, I agree there is a lot
John, I agree there is a lot of shale which could be converted to petrol as it is in N. America. If we can overcome conservationist objections then I am all for it. Petrol also can be made from coal as Germany did in WW2 and S. Africa for quite some time.
But I still would like to see farm land used for just that...farming food. Although, despite popular belief, the world population is not going to increase forever. Its growth rate has already slowed and by 1950 after reaching 9 billion it will rapidly fall. That is, if developing countries are allowed to develop so living standards rise resulting in less children as happened in Western countries. The problem of food distribution is, of course, not one of insufficient production but getting it to starving people through warlords and their mini armies.
I know I may be arguing for no need to grow sugar for ethanol but I can't see why electricity can not be used for transport. All railways could be electrified and be used to carry most of the containers between our cities, etc. Getting rid of trams in Brisbane 1969 was a disgrace...we had arguably the longest street rail system in the world which moved huge numbers of people quickly and efficiently. Now we have to reinvent the thing.
Electric cars are good in so far as what is needed for city dwellers. If they want to travel more then they can use electric trains or airplanes as most do now for going interstate. Thomas Edison was a pioneer for electric cars and was making good progress until petrol became so cheap.
The thing is, coal power is so cheap and should continue to be used as a source of electricity. I think I heard that electricity from coal costs about $74 a MegaWH to produce, $92 for gas, $1 400 for wind, $1 600 for solar !!! It continues to baffle me why we would want to make electricity so dear just to satisfy some vague baseless claims and to make rich people even more wealthy at our expense.
Convoy of no Confidence
http://justgroundsonline.com/forum/topics/convoy-of-no-confidence-in-the?xg_source=facebookshare
Spread the word if you believe in this. I just did
Convoy of no Confidence
Just checked this. Excellent Drive. Good to see people so motivated.
Great to see some big action.
Great to see some big action. It should make a few Greens turn green. They have had a dream run along with the independents. They must know their day is over and have pushed a bridge too far. I hope that 'Convoy' song from the 70s will be played to good effect.
Notice how Christine Milne on Q&A the other night said "There WILL be an inquiry into the media."? Not that 'there ought to be' or 'should be', etc, but 'WILL'. The Greens seem to decide the agenda and Julia follows. If the Greens say, "Jump!" Labor asks, "How high?"
electric cars
Came across another report commissioned by the UK parliament. The report came back with negative news. A mid-size car using petrol c.f. an electric mid-size car. The electric car would have to travel 125 000km before it would begin to create less CO2 emissions.
The reason being is you have to take into account the probable use of recharging from coal powered station, the use of energy in creating the engine using all sorts of materials and recycling. It is unlikely that electric cars would travel the distance as they would most likely be used for short, urban trips.
While I'm at it, the call for thousands and thousands of giant windmills would also require the use of great amounts of energy. That is, energy from coal. Steel is needed in great quantities and there is no way known to produce steel without burning coal.
But where will the steel be made...Australia or China? And another factoid; China already mines 5 times more coal than Australia. So even if the Greens ban all our coal mines China would not care less.
Right on, Nev!
Neville you got it exactly right. While ever electricity is generated from the burning of coal, we're going to have problems with electric vehicles ... notwithstanding the long recharge time ... even with li-ion batteries, a full recharge is going to take half an hour! Which, with present technology renders them highly impracticle as intercity transportation. I can travel from the Gold Coast to my home-town of Goulburn in around 10 hours and one refueling stop. In an electric car with best tech at the moment, you can add at least two and half hours, just for 'refueling' and because you'd have to stretch your distance between stops the get the best 'mileage' thereby averaging an even slower cruising speed, heaven knows how long it would take.
Apart from me not being able to reconcile the so-called experts shouting about the evils of carbon, the fact is, that it's the stuff that plants 'breathe', so if too much is so bad, why can't we plant more trees and green stuff? I am just about jack of all these self-proclaimed ratbag experts who keep telling us of the terrible things that ethanol will do to our engines ... IF ETHANOL IS SO BAD ... HOW COME A COUNTRY THE SIZE OF BRAZIL HAS BEEN RUNNING ITS VEHICLES ON PURE ETHANOL FOR YEARS? IF ETHANOL IS SO BAD, HOW COME BRAZIL ALSO RUNS CHEVROLETS BY THE THOUSANDS, SUPPLIED BY HOLDEN? IF ETHANOL IS SO BAD, HOW COME THE V8 SUPERCARS ARE RUN ON E85? THIS IS NOT A RUMOUR ... THIS IS FACT! ... WHAT IS FICTION (FROM THE US ... WHERE ELSE?) IS THAT IF WE PRODUCE ETHANOL FOR CARS WE WILL ROB ALL THE POOR COUNTRIES OF CORN!
Oh for heaven's sake! That applies only to the US! Australia produces very little corn and we certainly don't export it. The most efficient way of producing ethanol is from sugar cane ... produced by sugar-cane farm and sugar mills which the government, in a wonderful piece of foresight, has closed down many in North Queensland recently.
The reason that the car makers don't like ethanol is (A) because they don't have shares in ethanol producers, (B) because our modern cars' computers are not set up to run on the different burning qualities of ethanol, and (C)it's cheaper to fit plastic fuel lines than with more traditional metal.
If you have a 1970s vehicle (pre-computer), and with copper fuel lines, chances are that it will run quite happily on straight ethanol. I have a friend who owns a 403 Peugeot, lives not far from GOT's office, and has been running it on straight ethanol for about five years, ethanol that he makes himself, says that it returns about 35 MPG or if you need it, 9litres/100km. Last time we met, the car had around had about 150,000 miles on the clock ... about 100,000 of those on ethanol.
As far as carbon production is concerned, when you burn ethanol, all you're putting into the atmosphere, is some of the carbon that was in the sugar-cane in the first place, so that if you plant some more sugar-cane, you absorb it right back into the plant.
In the islands to the north, because diesel is so expensive (it's actually cheaper than in Australia, because their government doesn't tax it!), mostly because the people earn so little, they have taken to using straight coconut oil. This would have to be the greenest diesel on the planet and the sweetest smelling fuel ever.
Cheers,
JC
If Ethanol is so bad, then how come Brazil . . . .
Because Brazil has no exports to speak of, and Petrol iports were taking up half of its GDP. Ethanol (from cane) was Forced on the population by a strong-willed Despotic tyrannical tyrant. BUt he did save the country from becoming the 51st state of the usa, selling the land for petrol.
And the reason they do not have Hyundai cars is that they're too damned expensive.
Think of Brazil as a South American Bangladesh. and you'll get the picture, and only when youhave that idea firmly fixed, start comparing it with First world countries.
?
Kilroy, I wasn't talking about their standard of living, I was talking about their brains. And who want's a Hyundai when they can buy a Holden (nee Chevrolet)? Brazil will still be mobile when the petrol addicted countries will need a fat wallet or a 50cc scooter!
Cheers,
JC
What's required for Ethanol
Presuming that in the future, our transport will be powered by sugar cane :-
How to get THERE from HERE.
Have an economic necessity to change.
Have a Political Directive to change.
Brazil had Both, the outflow of cash to Petrol sellers, AND a strong Politician in power.
Australia has Neither. Basically power self-sufficient (coal, gas and a bit of bass strait oil) and let's face it , political lightweights ever since Menzies, and he might be alleged to be propped up by the " Empire ".
Requirements
Sadly mate you're right on most counts. Of course it helps that Brazil has more than 100 million people.
Certainly what we need is a strong government and an even stronger PM, one that can see into the future past his/her own future re-election or electoral status. I have been told by an Automotive Engineer, that all is required to run any current car on pure ethanol, is a small tweak to the computer.
Of course when I say 'pure' ethanol, it should be sold with a small amount of lubricating oil added, as petrol has some lube properties, where Alcohol doesn't. Like the two little boys outside a vintage car showroom ... one says to the other; "I like Bugattis, they use lots of castor oil."
Or, here's a thought ... what a promotion it would be, if Woolworths and Coles were to promote themselves as greener than green, and installed a special 'ethanol' pump at all their service stations. a sort of "blend it yourself" service. What a joy it would be to the overpriced vehicles fitted with a supercharger (kompressor) or a turbocharger! For extra power, just add alcohol!
Just another thought, we could all go back to power kerosene. Australia and Canada have nearly 50 per cent of the world's proven reserves of shale oil ... isn't it about time we began tapping it (again)?
As far as Menzies is concerned, I think anyone who alleges that he was propped up by the Empire, is alleging an awfully long bow. The moment WWII finished, so was the Empire and anything propped up by it. Menzies was a royalist it is true, but Churchill's early war recalcitrance, put paid to any propping up that would have been acceptable to Menzies.
The one thing that Menzies was, was a planner. Had he been involved in politics in the past 30 years, and if he had been told that petroleum production would be on a slipperyslide after having reached its peak around 2015, he would have been planning for the day when it became too expensive to waste away powering motor vehicles.
Cheers,
JC
Yes, as far as I know
Yes, as far as I know kerosene is a jet aircraft fuel. And it can be derived from shale oil. But the Greens stopped shale oil production in QLD years ago. They would, no doubt, stop it again. The government is flat out trying to build a LNG plant on Curtis Island at Gladstone against organised resistance. I believe the WA gov't is having similar problems.
I often wonder how Menzies would have reacted to the present day weakness of governments when a few rent a mob crowds turn up.
We had a protest in Brisbane yesterday over 3 fig trees to be chopped down. They are on private land and the owner wants to build a house. He has council and Mayoral approval but the busybodies were against the idea. Have they nothing better to do with their lives?
Trees created most of the damage in the Fig Tree Pocket storm 2 years ago. Vegetation VPOs should not allow for trees to become dangerous or stop a private person to build their house.
Put to rest
If I may just put to rest all the problems that a lot of (non technical), people are having with ethanol blended fuel ie E-10, that is available at the pump. E10 is eventually going to replace standard grade fuel. If you would like to know if the manufacturer of your car recommends the use of E10 I suggest that to go to:
www.onlinemechanical.net/ethanol-E10.html/
That should clear it up ... if you want to experiment with richer blends such as E85 and your car's fuel system is less than 40 years old, I would replace it with old fashioned copper fittings. Also replace any plastic fittings that are likely to come in contact with fuel. It's also not kind (I am told), in richer blends to anti-polution gear. Don't on any account use alcohol in any modern motor cycle. They have a large plastic content (particularly their fuel tanks), which alcohol tends to melt ... this includes fibreglass. I run an old Victa lawnmower, but all the fittings and even to fuel-tank is metal. I mix straight ethanol with 10 per cent castor oil (it's a 2-stroke), and it runs like a hairy goat ... incidentally, the motor was used at one time in a less than successful go-kart, so that the compression ratio is about 10:1.
Hope this helps,
JC
Ethanol
Mechanics say ethanol gums up the engine and causes some havoc with it's running. Until I know better I'll continue to use the dearer unleaded petrol without ethanol, although it's supposed to be able to use ethanol mix.
Ethanol
Agreed, John. And although 3c per litre cheaper you get 3% less mileage (or is that kilometreage) using ethanol according to the motoring writers.
Brackenboy