EVJ Price increase.

[s2]

Maybe they [Epiphone] are giving their little Chinese orphans a raise?!

[s2]

Here in the US we have plenty of room to grow lots of corn from which you can make vegetable oil that you can run your car on. Myth Busters did it with the nasty used fry vat stuff that they got for free from a fast food restaurant. I don't know if it would be cheaper than Petro but it is renewable and it works.

Ummm... Not quite. The Ethanol yield from corn is very low compared to other staples like sugar cane, which makes it a very inefficient fuel source. As such, it takes a vast amount of corn to have any impact on fuel supplies in the US. Both fuel and corn-based product prices are set to increase.

Unfortunately, the impact will be higher prices on everything from gasoline to shoe laces. The ethanol push has caused corn production to increase some 30% this year. But keep in mind they are not planting corn on new land--they are supplanting other crops like wheat in order to make more $$ from their acreage. Supply and demand dictates that $0.89 loaf of bread will cost over $1 next year. Apply that logic toa slew of other products, and the picture becomes clearer.

As a country, we are not economically ready for ethanol yet. It will take a decade or so to get there. We would do better to buy ethanol from countries capable of growing sugar cane.

[kyoungsteadt]

They didn't run the car on Ethanol, but actual vegetable oil. That can't be that tough to produce, but I am not a scientist. There seems to be some alternatives that never seem to see the light of day. Big business at its finest.

[Bluesmechanic]

Well, why would it? Its hardly global news. Much of it doesn't even make UK national news. Not necessarily drive-bys - doesn't seem to be the fashion here.

I understand. Sometimes I read things and my brain shorts out and goes off in a diferent direction. martinw, thanks for the link. I get it.

[s2]

They didn't run the car on Ethanol, but actual vegetable oil. That can't be that tough to produce, but I am not a scientist. There seems to be some alternatives that never seem to see the light of day. Big business at its finest.

The only "viable" alternative to big business is big government. Being that govt can't do anything revolutionary or efficiently, I'll take big business.

Argentina, Cuba, Venezuela, USSR, China, North Korea are all places I would NEVER want to live.

Give me big business or give me death!

[NitroWoman]

They didn't run the car on Ethanol, but actual vegetable oil. That can't be that tough to produce, but I am not a scientist.

Actually. they made BioDiesel from the used cooking oil. A normal gasoline engine won't run on it or vegetable oil. It will however run on ethanol with a few minor modifications. Also, as soon as it becomes the least bit popular to make Biodiesel, you won't be able to get the used oil for free anymore.

[kyoungsteadt]

true.

[zarfnober]

not only can you make ethanol with corn, you can make corn oil too. the neat thing about corn for ethanol is that almost all the by products are still usable for animal feed, etc. the problem with ethanol is that it takes about 3 1/2(I think) gallons of water to make one gallon of ethanol, that's not counting the water it takes to grow the corn. on top of that, it makes less horsepower per gallon than gas, but...... it is much higher octane, making it less prone to preignition and allows more timing advance so, mileage on an E85 car is very comparable to an all gas engine. straight ethanol, on the other hand, mileage will suffer but, it works great with a turbocharger

veggie oil or "bio diesel" burns cleaner than regular diesel, as far as soot goes but, has other pollutants that are higher than regular diesel. it makes more power too. if you took the worst, nastiest french fry grease and had to "refine" it in your garage, your cost would be about 50 cents a gallon. good clean oil is ready to go and can still be had free almost anywhere.

most good gas is 10% ethanol, E 85 is 85% ethanol. that is a pretty good start for stickin it to countries that are less than freindly.

there also hasn't been a refinery built in this country for a looooong time. just my 2 cents worth.

rocco

[floridajack]

not sure how this thread got here, but fyi, there are close to 40 biodiesel and road fuel specific ethanol plants being built at this moment in the us. i think there a couple of dozen plants going up in canada, too. i know bio fuels have issue, but every gallon of bio reduces our use of fossil fuels. i would rather pay a farmer in iowa $3.00 a gallon for e85 than some foreign government (at least part of) $3.00 a gallon.

fj

[s2]

Unfortunately there are drawbacks to most alternative fuels and energy sources. Several of the alternative fuels are so inefficient to produce that you end up using more natural gas than you yield in fuel (ethanol is one of these).

There is just no simple solution other than to build 100 nuke plants, invent a low cost, light weight ,high capacity battery, and plug your car into the wall. :twisted:

If this were easy by any stretch of the imagination (not to mention profitable), big business would be all over it.

[Alexo]

Fascinating how quickly a thread can digress! EVJ price increase - gas prices - comparison of violent crime in the UK vs. US - Libertarianism - emerging fuel technology.

My take on the whole thing is that you can't have your cake and eat it too, you want to live in a world where all goods are shipped thousands of miles between where labor is cheap to where retail is high and not have to deal with fuel costs? Not gonna happen.

In my ideal world, local production would reign. Things are pretty backwards now, I have a friend who lives in Florida and he can't get good produce, I live in one of the best places in the world for farming apples, but my grocery store gets its under-ripe, wax-polished apples from Washington state.

Local food is fresher and more nutritious without the need for preservatives and emulsifiers which ruin the taste and your health.

Wouldn't it be nice if each town had its own farms, carpenters, builders, brewers and amp-makers? We'd all have better quality of life, higher employment and better tasting beer.

[floridajack]

good point, s2.

but think of ethanol as a "storage battery" for natural gas. yes you have to burn 1.3 calories of ng to produce 1 calorie of ethanol, but alcohol is a relatively safe and transportable fuel - liquefied natural gas is nasty stuff - as bad as liquid hydrogen.

even the electric-battery car is not 1 to 1 on the conversion. it takes 1 calorie of powerplant energy to produce .6 calories of battery-stored enegy. even nuke plants are "inefficient" when it comes to producing power that ends up in a storage cell.

solar and photovoltaic suffer from a similar problems - looong payback times on the energy and carbon footprint required to get motive energy.

my solution (for the present) is to buy a used economy car and liveclose to work. may not be a long term solution (jobs change,) but every bit helps. my next vehicle will be (or will be converted to) an e85 burner.

fj

[bradleyt]

What's an EVJ???

Couldn't resist

[Finbar]

EVSpec - $150
EVStd - $200

Mus Fnd

[morcey2]

What's an EVJ???

Couldn't resist

Edward Van Jalapeno. He's a ground-breaking tex-mex guitarist.

[kyoungsteadt]

[s2]

What's an EVJ???

Couldn't resist :lol:

Edward Van Jailin'

I hear he's gonna share a cell with Paris.

[bradleyt]

[Edward Van Jalapeno. He's a ground-breaking tex-mex guitarist.

Si.

Edward Van Jailin'
I hear he's gonna share a cell with Paris.

'Doing time in Paris', sounds like a new FOX series. It could be a cross between Trading Spouses and Are you smarter than a fifth grader.

[Ronzo]

Sigh. Sometimes it seems like every man in the world but me has "done time in Paris."