lolOriginally Posted by KC2UGV
lol
"A night sky full of cries. Hearts filled with lies. The contract: is it worth the price?"
The crux of the matter isn't how much carbon we are adding to the atmo in an individual transaction, it's how much we are un-sequestering.
Ethanol, un-sequesters carbon that was just sequestered a few months ago, and will be quickly re-sequestered.
Petrol, un-sequesters carbon that was previously not available to the system, and adds to the total carbon in the system.
Try running ethanol in a sport bike. I average 67 mpg with ethanol, closer to 80 without it.
So you finally get it and you say to yourself, "Oh shit! He was right!" But now if I wait, you put up some graphs from 2002.
I think the additives are different. They may add an additive to add odor for safety purposes.
In the EU they have less alcohol (5%) than we do (10%).
They have to use blending agents and the blending agents are corrosive. This adds to the problems with alcohol... which is hygroscopic, so left to sit in your gas tank it will draw water from the air.
Paul, he's saying that burning dino-fuel is releasing carbon that was sequestered long ago and would not be released today unless we burn it today. The CO2 from plant life is currently in a short cycle and would be released into the atmosphere the same whether we burn it now or not.
Therefore, it is carbon cycle neutral.
"Bacon, Beans and Limousines"
"Actually, it's a Democratic Republic; Democratic comes first".
Please don't confuse my personality with my attitude. My personality is obviously me, But my attitude depends largely upon you.
As for the carbon neutrality of corn ethanol, strictly speaking, yes it is.
However, this doesn't take into account diesel fuel used for mechanized agriculture or CO2 released to make nitrogen fertilizer.
Food crop corn likely needs less CO2 because it's planted in crop rotation, versus fuel corn which is grown year after year on the same land.
Also, ethanol needs to be produced at an ethanol plant which also requires energy to run. Some of them run on coal.
It still however results in a net greenhouse gas reduction, but I hate the idea of burning coal to produce ethanol and it is still a pretty shitty fuel for most gasoline engines.
Food for thought and fuel for the discussion. :)
Last edited by N2RJ; 06-02-2012 at 01:17 PM.
You are correct and I have dealt with this as it is the major reason carburetors foul up over the off season months unless the fuel is stabilized before being put away. Usually, Sta-Bil works pretty good but Sea Foam will also work OK. I didn't store the scooter this past year but I did the mower and I can say that the Sea Foam product worked in this capacity.
Late last Winter I was riding and stopped a gas station that was selling really good gas for a while. The scooter ran great on it. But this time, I got gas there and the scooter immediately started running poorly. What changed? The gas! I knew it was supposed to be up to E10 but this time it had to be more alcohol percentage wise. I found a seller that had 100% gas and the problem slowly cleared up. I broke down the carb and it looked like it hadn't been cleaned in a while even though it had less than 300 miles on it since the last cleaning. I clean it out and started reading about gas, ethanol and the problems associated with it. I read about a product called Star Tron and bought an 8oz bottle. That little bottle will treat 128 gallons of gas. Been running it ever since. I'm not sure what it does, exactly, but the problems I've had in the past are non existent now. After about 500 miles I broke the carb down again and it was as clean as ''clean room'' specs.
Even though I bought that ''bad'' gas at a name brand station, it is privately own so I suspect they got whatever commodity fuel was the cheapest. These days I only get name brands at dealers that are known for their reputation to carry the specific brand of gas their logo states they are. Of note, about 4 years ago, Citgo gas was pretty damn good. These days, they carry commodity crap. You might not notice in cars with larger fuel injected motors but the smaller the motor and especially if it is running a carb, you may start to notice a drop off in performance and acceleration. EFI can compensate for things thus this is why you may not notice much until it's time to go back to the gas pump.
There's no avoiding E10 here unless you buy Avgas which has lead in it. It's also $6.50 a gallon. Yikes.
I'll continue to use marine formula sta-bil which is excellent for keeping out moisture. Sea-foam as a gas stabilizer? Had no idea. I have used it to clean out engines but never as a fuel stabilizer. Interesting.
Haven't tried star tron but I heard it's an enzyme based product.
Last edited by N2RJ; 06-02-2012 at 01:50 PM.
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