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Thread ID: 62462	2005-10-08 08:44:00	Did Shell change its petrol?	Nomad (952)	PC World Chat

Post ID	Timestamp	Content	User
394562	2005-10-11 05:28:00	Do you remember getting the occasional American food parcel Cic? A tin or two of Spam, milk powder, peanut butter, dried egg powder yummy, sometimes a tin of whale meat, and other goodies. Those were the days Terry. I didn't get where I am today eating vindaloo,in fact the end of the word says it all. ;) I think we would all agree vindaloo looks like spew.	Cicero (40)
394563	2005-10-11 06:11:00	Mmmm....Rubbish meat in a can,flavoured with 19 teaspoons of salt. Looksray, lad, jus looksray. I tell you this, the Desert Rats didn't give oold Rommel a bloody nose on a diet of Chicken Vindaloo ......	Biggles (121)
394564	2005-10-11 15:31:00	The proposal in NZ is to use ethanol, not methanol for blending with petrol . Back in the 80s, extensive work was carried out at DSIR, Industrial Processing Division into alternative fuels, including running a small fleet of cars on pure methanol . In Metrology we carried out lots of measurements into engine wear etc . Ethanol however would be produced from milk 'wastes' such as whey, as well as from possibly corn crops . It may well make more sense to grow 'biomass' for our own ethanol production rather than growing and exporting low grade Radiata pine timber for chipping and pulping elsewhere for minimal returns . Brazil produces enough ethanol to power 9 million vehicles according to this: . wikipedia . org/wiki/Alcohol_fuel" target="_blank">en . wikipedia . org No problem there . . . . they are both used interchangably here in the US as a gasoline "additive" and "extender" . The physics is basically the same . . . from manufacturing the stuff to using it to suppliment the fuel supply . . . is a total waste of activity and energy . BTU's being the central theme, there are the other by-degradations such as forming acids in the presence of algae or other life forms in the fuel, that then attack the less nobel metals in the fuel system not to mention the rubber and plastic compounds there too . If my very basic organic chemistry classes are any value, I think the acids have names like: phosphoric, acidic, hydrochloric and/or oxolic acids . I believe it also depends on the type of contaminents in the fuel as to what acids are generated . Slurry from the galvanized tank walls sloughs off from the acids formed and causes all sorts of havoc with the pumps, filters, injectors and the catalytic convertors and oxygen sensors . Tanks that are plastic and designed as impervious to these attacks just ease the mind of some owners because their vehicles are superior for using non-acid attackable liners or production parts . This does not mitigate the loss of heat generation and loss of power, performance and fuel-used-per-mile physics . Granted, the use of "bio-mass" is indeed of great interest even here in the US, but it is not a monetarily feasable option until the prices of fuel probably exceed $7 . 00US per gallon . The downside . . . <aren't there always downsides?> run a long gauntlet, but I personally don't like to buy a fuel, either doctored by or totally of alcohol(s) no matter what their base . Carrying fuels such as these are dangerous in ways that go 'way off the books . Alcohol fires in accidents will be horrendous . . . alcohol burns with hardly any concernable flame . . . especially in daylight and will be nasty to fight, not to mention the incidental burns and deaths because no-one SAW the flames . I woked as Fire/Safety Crew at Ontario Motor Speedway for the years it existed, and we drilled and drilled and drilled on handling the fires that you cannot see . The only obvious signs of an alcohol fire were the heat waves rising from whatever was burning or the driver screaming as he cooked in his car . Another concern is the consumption of what produces less mileage and therefor will require larger fuel tanks to equal the range of a gasoline-fueled vehicle . Some passenger trucks here carry multiple tanks now to get across the state without having to fuel up every 200 miles on the diluted fuels we are now getting here . Some pickup trucks carry over 90 or 100 gallons just for that purpose . Imagine 100 gallons of alcohol invisably burning . On the 23rd of this month, I am driving a family to Utah to a new home, renting a 20 foot gasoline-powered bobtail truck . The fuel mileage before diluted fuel on this particular vehicle was 17 miles per gallon . The rental company advises that it now achieves about 6 to 6 . 5 miles per gallon . Is that economy of energy? :lol: If you want to talk lubricity degradation and inherent cylinder wear from alcohol-based fuels, flame-quench and stoichemetric values and the changes thereof, I save that for another posting .	SurferJoe46 (51)
394565	2005-10-11 16:08:00	So what is put into petrol and diesel to lubricate the valve sleeves etc? We used to have lead but that is long gone . Actually diesel fuel ITSELF is a great lubricant . . when it's not laced with alcohol and other mitigants . Cylinder wear to a diesel engine is usually nill from the processes of normal combustion . The real danger to the rings/cylinder walls are from externally induced dirt from the air induction . Dirty air filters that by-pass microscopic particles of dirt abrade the walls like a handful of sand would to any reciprocating/rubbing mechanical part . As far as tetra-ethyl lead goes (or went), it was there basically as a flamefront retardant to raise the octane levels and allow greater heat and pressure values in the engine before damaging knock and/or "pinking/pinging"; also working to the advantage of the valve seats in gasoline engines . To my knowledge, lead was never put into diesel fuel . . intentionally, anyway! Since the late 60's or very early 70's, the use of better alloys in the exhaust valves and seats has reduced the need for lead to lubricate them . Actually, that is a wives'-tale . Lubrication of a valve seat was not the whole story . If one were to look at the "perfect" seat and valve face of a brand new engine, one would see microscopic imperfections on the surfaces . These imperfections cause the two surface (seat and valve face) to not truly achieve a pure positive contact with each other . This lack of total contact has one large detrimental effect, and a few other smaller problems . Not getting a full-faced contact keeps the heat transfer from the valve to the seat to the head casting to the cooling system . This causes localized hot spots that warp and degrade the valve/seat combination by making them operate in a less than friendly atmosphere . Warpage and distortion of the contact points made the sealing surfaces less and less effective over a very short time . . . resulting in burnt valves and expensive repairs . The lead additives helped fill in those microscopic irregularities, allowing a much longer dynamic lifespan . With the total removal of lead from the fuel supply, the engineers got out their pencils and produced better alloys for the valves (stainless steel, moly and vanadium-based alloys) . One of the greatest ideas that really worked well was engineering valve rotators . These allow the valve to incrimentally rotate every time it was operated to find a new point of contact and thereby lessen the "hot-spot" generation from allowing the valve to stay in one fixed position . Wear was then spread out over the whole face of the contact points of the seat and valve face, greatly extending the life and integrity of it's seal . As an aside here: During WWII, the Phillipeans had NO access to gasoline, and used a boiler and retort to distill . . ON THE RUN fuel to power their busses and jitneys . They had a still running in the back of the bus, fueled by sugarcane waste, extracting fuel from coconut juice and sugar residue to make an elementary alcohol-fueled vehicle . It ran . . . but barely! At hills, they switched to the small tank of gasoline they carried to give them enough power to crest the mound, switching back to "Coconut-ahol" for the rest of the (slow) journey . Need being the mother of invention, it truly was a "mother" to not be copied in modern times . This doesn't look like the way of the future .	SurferJoe46 (51)
394566	2005-10-11 16:15:00	Hey, I have fond memories of Spam . We used to take tins of it way with us on our family boat when i was a kid . It was a good incentive to actually catch fish . If you loved WWII, you'll love SPAM! The Meat that won the war! Scientifically Produced Almost-Meat	SurferJoe46 (51)
394567	2005-10-11 16:23:00	I am stepping off my soapbox for the nonce...muahahahah (a Metla there!)	SurferJoe46 (51)
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