hi ethanol gasoline, not low sulphur diesel. gasahol also seems to affect performance - i no longer have to have my fingers re-inserted after a particularly exhilarating bike trip.
actually, i saw a brochure at the middletown detroit diesel shop (had a valve adjust) that seemed to indicate better longevity of engine internals with low sulphur. maybe its just politics...
wmm
Last edited by bill&jody; 12-21-2006 at 12:46 PM.
Senior Member
Apples and oranges, grapes and bananas.
Low sulfur fuel has some effect because my mileage is down from one year prior to it by about 3/10 MPG. My number is based on annual fuel burn and miles so I am not using a single tankful to draw the conclusion.
Newer coaches with EGR have much worse MPG than what my non-EGR coach gets.
Does anybody know the BTU content of low sulfur VS the earlier diesel blends?
Senior Member
"In general, the processing required to reduce sulfur to 15 ppm also reduces the aromatics content and density of diesel fuel, resulting in a reduction in energy content (BTU/gal).
The expected reduction in energy content is on the order of 1% and may affect fuel mileage."
That is a quote from one of the diesel fuel producer's web site.
Apparently I am not dreaming that as the switch to low sulfur fuel takes place I am losing mileage.
Further, JPJ sent me a link on bio-diesel and biodiesel has a substantially lower BTU content (around 8%) with blends having somewhat less of a negative impact.
Maybe it is just me, but everytime the tree huggers and the government come up with solutions to problems it just strikes me that the solution is worse than the problem.
Methanol: In my Hot Rod days when we ran methanol in our race cars we had to increase the size of the jets in the carburators about double to get the added power. If they sell us metanol in the same volume as gasolene and it produces less power per gallon, where's the beef. The extra power came from adding Nitro to the methanol producing Nitro Methane.
Low Sulfer Diesel: When they remove the sulfer from the fuel to protect us do you want to know what happens to it. They make a product called Olean which has taken the place of the Phosphates that make up 90% of the weight of detergent laundry soap. If it harms you in the fuel, what's it doing in our washing machines? Yeah there taking care of us alright, their picking our pockets.
Last edited by win42; 12-21-2006 at 11:23 PM.
The intent of the original posting was simply to provide some information as to what the turbo-powered Air Force publicity department was churning out.
We looked into the bio-diesel deal about a year ago, blithely thinking it would be a cool benefit for POG members. The deeper you go into bio-diesel, the worse it gets.
First of all, straight bio-diesel is not an appropriate product for North America in that it gels very quickly at cooler temperatures. So you have to run an 80/20 blend of bio and straight diesel. And, in most cases, requires an expen$ive pre-heating system to prevent the gel occuring at lower ambient temperatures or higher altitudes. The large-scale production of bio-diesel requires the use of petroleum products as well. It doesn't just drip off corn plants as some would lead one to believe.
Secondly, the 'rack price' of bio-diesel is the same as straight diesel. We found that there is no shortage of diesel fuel on the market. It is simply a question of how much people are willing to pay for the fuel itself. Diesel used to be a by-product, as I understand it from JDUB, from gasoline production. Now it is produced directly from crude, hence the higher cost generally than gasoline. Distributors of diesel aren't particularly interested in selling bio-diesel, as it would require conversion of existing tanks and pumps on a dedicated basis to bio-diesel and the demand for the product just isn't there.
Some of the proponents of bio-diesel tout that the product is the la-la land answer to, 'ending our dependence on foreign oil.' Our investigation revealed that the supply of bio-diesel would be at least as fickle as diesel itself. There is a large 'corn mass' lobby which would love to get its hands on the diesel supply. If there were a bad year in the cornfields, straight diesel would look like a bargain compared to a corn-based bio product.
There are some questions about the lubricity of bio-diesel as well, compared to straight diesel.
Lastly, (whew) this is all politics. I suspect that the reason the B-52 was used because it has 8 engines. An unloaded B-52 has a huge thrust-to-gross-weight-carrying ratio. Note that this test was not performed on a single or double-engine fighter plane.
So, let's keep it in perspective and continue to follow the trajectory of interest in bio-diesel. If it comes down to JDUB and his guys and the corn people, I'd put my money on the Flame Snuffer. Happy Holidays!
Senior Member
As a postal worker I am sure you can opine with a straight face that if the government is messing with synthetic fuels it will not impact us.
But we who have all seen how the government works are very clear on where this is heading. In fact the dumber the idea, the quicker it will be shoved down our throats.
In the meantime I busy working to convert my bus to run on male bovine exhaust since I know there is an ample supply being created in Washington every year.
I hear ya Jon.
But look how well the Feds did in introducing the Metric System?
Have some faith!
Three biggest lies:
1. The check is in the mail.
2. Yes, I will still love you in the morning.
3. I'm from the Government and I'm here to help.
Happy Holidays!
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