Showing posts with label E10 fuel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label E10 fuel. Show all posts

Saturday, 11 September 2021

Has Porsche and Siemens synthetic Petrol just blown the electric battery vehicle myth out of the water ?

 

The work of Porsche and Siemens looked to have paid off -

 Is the writing now on the wall for the Electric vehicle?

Breaking news - Porsche and Siemens now have seemingly cracked the synthetic Petrol alternative and are about to set up a reining plant for their new synthetic fuels so is this development going to kill off the battery powered vehicle offerings?

Also, Pay Per Mile driving on Electric cars will come in and no one knows how much per mile will be taken from Drivers - as governments seek to recoup the 80% fuel duty money lost on Petrol and Diesel sales. Will the electric car drivers look so smug then? Driving could really cost them.

The recent introduction of the 'not very Green' E10 Ethanol blended Petrol is somewhat farcical - that is this fuel generates a carbon footprint, it needs more fuel to do the job of what it replaced, it damages some vehicle fuel systems and has a limited shelf life and will need disposal when it goes stale (which is quite quickly) a fact that has not been thought out - and that is just for starters.

The 'race to the bottom' of car makers to pander to the Eco warriors and their plan to rid us of internal combustion engines when they are at the most efficient they have ever been, is frankly crazy. Then to rape the planet of rare earth, finite materials to fulfil their warped battery car ideology? You couldn't make it up.

We are being asked to as an alternative to old Dinosaur derived fuels to rip up the Earth they care so much about to extract a finite palate of minerals to satisfy these smug individuals and their egos. F*ck the planet, in this case - so long as it puffs up the egos of the smug lefties. Oh and what about the child labour used to mine the Cobalt for electric car batteries?

Where is the extra electricity to come from to power these battery devices? Good question. The power we get at the end of power lines these days is noticeably down - domestic cooking shows that.

Fuel Stations run on low margins of profit from Petrol and Diesel sales - it is just that these stations sell a lot of fuel which keeps them in business. Have a car sitting on a charger for 2 hours and you could have sold a lot of liquid fuel in that time. Simple. As the Meerkat says. This means we could see many petrol stations close on profit grounds.

This new fuel

The Porsche Siemens fuel is derived from Methanol and if this can run satisfactorily in a Porsche then hopefully it will be safe in other cars including classic cars which are at risk from this awful E10 compound and shelf serving green lobby. The stupid argument about banning the sale of internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles is because they use fossil fuels. 

If you fuel these same vehicles with Porsche's fuel, it is still going to produce some CO2, but the difference is that the fuel isn't made from old Dinosaurs extracted from the ground - that seems to be the big bugbear for the Eco Warriors. 

These smug self-serving Eco Warriors have not yet realised that China now has control over the majority of the minerals on this planet needed to make the green revolution happen - which have to come out of the ground and it is free to charge what it likes when the stupid idiots have taken the viable alternative away -  that is stopped the production and sale of ICE cars. So why don't these green guardians not take their climate protests to China? That;s were the real problems are.

We have alternatives to help reduce emissions - firstly to commute less and work remotely more at home and other sites if that suits people, secondly to cull most luxury tourist aviation. We have had free energy available since 1954 but because we are an oil based world, it has been supressed.

An airline taking off and attaining altitude expels in that few minutes the same volume of CO2 that a family car does in 10 years of average mileage - around 70,000 miles of driving. Multiply the Heathrow daily output of aircraft movements by that metric and that is a lot of the world we could help to save by not flying most 'luxury' airline routes.

The bottom  line in reality is we have to reduce the world population because we are running out of world. Shortages projected in the 1980's to impact 'anytime now' are now starting to bite, as our population has doubled in size since 1965.

The electric vehicle scenario brings a ton of problems that could be avoided. People are jumping on this trendy bandwagon which is a race to the bottom and the wheel might well come off it. There are a lot of unknowns about the future of battery vehicles which are in their infancy and may not deliver what is expected, then what?

Synthetic fuels are the future and fuels like E10 are not. Electric is not the future either as 1 in 5 Californians are rejecting electric cars and going back to gasoline powered cars as the electric cars don't have the range and take too long to charge.

You have to ask yourself who is getting rich by al this stuff? They say follow the money and that's where you need to look to see where the vested interests reside. 


 

Wednesday, 1 September 2021

E10 Ethanol Petrol and Classic Cars and Lawnmowers

Ethanol E5 & E10 Petrol is NOT a 'Green' fuel solution -

Here is a guide to how you can safely use E10 in classic cars and lawnmowers

plus some additives and alternatives to this fuel that you can use.

Many 'fact's and statements have come out explaining this new fuel but there have been many contradictions in the published information and ambiguities between articles that are confusing people.

E10 has been touted as 'the equivalent of taking 350,000 vehicles per year off the roads' - however and interestingly in comparison, illegally introduced Wild Boar released through 're-wilding' actually generate the same CO2 released by 1 million cars as they root around in the ground, releasing trapped CO2.

An airline interestingly produces in the ten minutes from take off to altitude the same CO2 output as an average family car's 10 years motoring - equivalent to 75,000 miles approximately.

What are E5 & E10 Petrol fuels:

Ok, here is a brie overview:

E5 and E10 Petrol contains added Ethanol at 5 or 10% of the content. The Ethanol is mostly derived from Sugar Beet  which has been distilled to produce the alcohol (Ethanol). 

Wood can be used to extract Alcohol from but it is more costly to do so. Also, Beet may be grown in poorer countries where forest may be cleared, causing food poverty and environmental damage and a big transport footprint.

This Ethanol produces its own Carbon footprint and is not really 'Green' at all - the fuel is also less volatile meaning you need to burn more to get the same performance as unleaded fuel.

Also the E10 has a shelf life of around 30 days in some cases unless treated with an additive or metal fuel tank pellet to stop its volatility degrading.

Thus disposal of unviable E10 fuel will be very wasteful and a hazardous issue for the future and local authorities are not geared up for the volumes that will be generated. Do not dispose of it on bonfires! This is highly dangerous.

Where the damage occurs to your car or garden machinery:

In storage and in your metal fuel tank, water condensation forms which runs down into the Petrol. Normally in the old unleaded Petrol this only contributes to rusting the tank from the inside. 

Petrol is quite abrasive and once the interior finish coating of a fuel tank has been eroded by the fuel constantly washing over it, (steel fuel tanks have either a paint or a plated fuel tank coating) the water falls to the bottom of the tank as the fuel sits on top of it and the rusting starts when the metal is exposed with the motion of the fuel as the car is driven causing erosion of the metal too. 

Petrol also seeps and 'searches' into the crystalline structure of the bare steel which can cause danger when you have to repair a fuel tank, as the Petrol is contained inside the 'fibre' of the steel.

E10 can also damage and cause failure of some plastic and fibreglass fuel tanks.

With E5 and mainly E10, the condensation water occurring in the fuel tank in say a cold garage overnight mixes with the Ethanol alcohol in the Petrol blend.

This then starts a bacterial growth, causing a sludge to form which releases a corrosive acid into the Petrol. 

This acid then attacks the metal and plastic fuel system parts.The sludge also blocks fuel system parts eventually if not removed. You can stop this sludge forming with a few simple measures outlined below.

For classic vehicles the acid being present will cause some non-metal fuel lines to fail and will also do serious damage to fuel system parts leading to fires in some cases. Replace old plastic or rubber fuel lines with E10 proof lines.

If you have an older pre-2005 Petrol engined car that cannot use out of the pump E10 then use a fuel additive when you fill up that can neutralise the corrosive effects of the fuel.

If you do have to fill with E10, then add E5 Petrol at your earliest convenience and ensure that you use up the E10 in your tank within 2 weeks, for best fuel system protection. It is also advisable to use a fuel treatment additive. This often negates the Ethanol issues. Some metal alloy fuel pellets you can put into your tank also protect against the formation of the acid.

How do I get around these problems?

There are some easy steps - 

1. Use E5 Petrol where possible, with the addition of a fuel additive to neutralise the Ethanol content.

2. Remove the Ethanol yourself which is fairly easy to do and then add an Octane Booster additive to the remainder of the fuel.(see method below*)

3. Use a synthetic Petrol which does not contain Ethanol. These are limited on the market at present. One brand is Aspen Fuel. 

Currently Aspen synthetic fuel is intended for Garden Machinery and excise duty is possibly not applied for road use in motor vehicles so you could be fined for using it on the road -  

Aspen does cost more than E5 or E10 by about 4 times. If other synthetic fuels are produced for commercial sale for road use then they will likely include excise duty and be of a comparable price to E5 & E10. 

4. Put a special metal alloy fuel Pellet into the petrol tank which neutralises the effects of the Ethanol and ensures the fuel remains stable to use for years rather than 30 days of untreated fuels.

These measures of E5 and E10 Petrol damage apply to Garden Machinery and Lawnmowers too.

Aspen Petrol Fuels have a 5 year shelf life - you can leave it in your fuel tank 5 years and it will still function normally.

An additive called 'Fuel Fit' made for Briggs and Stratton also counteracts the Ethanol Petrol issues and keeps fuel in a tank or can usable for 3 years. This is designed for Petrol engined garden machinery products.

This additive should be permissible for use in motor vehicles (although other specific additives will do the same job) and is currently about 52 pence a shot. The bottle includes an internal dispenser chamber so you can measure out a shot per the dilution ratio of Petrol. The bottle contains about 5-10 shots worth and works with 4 stroke and pre-mixed 2 stroke fuels alike.

E10 Petrol fails by:

Damaging fuel system parts and can cause fuel line failure

Blocking the fuel system due to biological sludge creation from the water and Ethanol as the water combines with the bio components of the refined sugar Beet present in the Ethanol.

Needing more fuel to generate the same engine performance as enjoyed previously

E10 has as little as a 30 day shelf life meaning that at the end of a gardening season the UK will perhaps have to dispose of millions of litres of untreated, failed and unused E10 petrol that is no longer viable, in Council Refuse sites which are not geared up to handle this problem. A situation which could have been easily avoided by staying with E5 Petrol.

E10 mixing with water causes acids to form which harms and causes to fail fuel system parts metal, plastic and rubber. The acid corrode metal parts too.

*Removing the Ethanol yourself. - Do this at your own risk but it works.

Fill a proper fuel container with 'out of the pump' E10 Petrol at the garage. At home, transfer 10 litres of your E10 to a fuel proof large plastic container which has a tap.

Mix up 1 litre of water and add some blue food colouring. Mix thoroughly. Add this to your E10 Petrol in the plastic container and shake well to mix. 

Leave to stand and settle overnight.

The next morning you will see a blue water layer in your barrel - drain all of this off. This blue mixture now contains water and the Ethanol from your Petrol that the Ethanol has bonded to as the Ethanol is hygroscopic (the Ethanol combines with the water readily as happens with DOT hydraulic brake fluid).

Once you drained off the blue dyed water / Ethanol mix you can add the remainder of the E10 fuel now less Ethanol to your tank and then add some Octane Booster to restore the performance to help ensure the usable shelf life of the fuel is improved beyond the 30 days of untreated fuel.

The fuel should now be safe to use and last more than 30 days shelf life of untreated E10.

If you have a lead-alloy fuel pellet or tank unit with a lead-alloy set of fuel pellets then you should not need add a fuel octane booster, depending on the alloy composition type - see your maker's instructions for the unit. Some of these units can also counteract the E10 fuel issues of bacterial sludge and acid formation fro starting.

E5 we were told would remain on sale for the foreseeable future, one source stated it would be off the market after 5 years. E10 may be gone by 2050 if the government pursues its policy of removing fossil fuels from sale. It could allow synthetic fuel use. 

However, we use oil to make plastics and Fuels are a bi-product of the oil refinement process and will need to be used as the issues of storage are dangerous in large volumes.

The classic vehicle movement is worth £17 billion a year to the UK economy. It also provides a skills base that will be lost if the movement becomes a 'museum only' exhibit.

The real problem with 'climate change' is China and unless that nation modifies its reduction of CO2 output quicker, then we are frankly wasting our time as a less than 1% contributor.

As a result of the 'race to the bottom' in embracing electric cars before they are viable, we risk losing Fuelled vehicles which are becoming more efficient year on year and certainly are more cleaner at the exhaust than they were say 30 years ago.



 

Sunday, 8 August 2021

Is COP26 a Cop out? - Why not do this meeting by Zoom conferencing? Here's how we can actually fix the Climate...

 

COP26 - Good Cop or Cop out?
We already have the tools to fix the problem...

The bottom line is that unless China actively takes measures to reduce emissions now then the COP26 is just going to be a talking shop and we might as well not bother.

Are we facing an artificially created 'Climate Crisis'? Can we fix it? Yes we can...

The solution is that humans abandon their individualistic, nationalistic policies and start to work together as a collective species, putting aside religious beliefs and politics and strive for a common good. That's the theory. It could be achievable if the will was there.

But, here's what needs fixing...

Weather has been able to be manipulated for decades by humans which is a fact. 'Cloud seeding' to create rain in Deserts is nothing new. 

Satellites can be used to start fires at ground level by use of lasers, as has happened in California - where fire investigations show houses burned but not the forest around in many cases. Satellites can possibly manipulate the weather too from above.

HAARP Weather control, in use for decades can also influence weather, so can keeping weather patterns localised and ramped up, to create localised hot, cold or wet conditions, thus 'creating' a climate problem. As in Greece recently.

The 'climate change solutions' on offer being promoted in the media to fix that but, someone is making a profit from that or have you not worked that out? Is it a simple case of 'create a problem, show you have a solution and divert attention from what is really going on behind the scenes'?

When the wind turbines don't work and its too dark or cloudy of Solar, Diesel generation is used to supply power as an adjunct to Nuclear. Did you know that?

The gulf stream affects weather - the holes in the earth plates allow heat from the earth's core to escape and heat the ocean able, causing bands of warmer water, this makes the weather change and move as the plates of the Earth close over and new places emerge allowing the warmth to escape. This is natural climate change.

The Earth is subject to the Sun. In AD0001, the Romans were able to grow grapes in Britain, it was warmer then than now and didn't have the fossil fuel burning we do with a 60+ million population. In the 1500's Grapes could be grown at Hampton Court Palace. It was again, warmer than now. The ice caps are artificial, as the fossil data will show you when the ground is uncovered. 

Boris Johnson, the great history buff allegedly likened climate change to the fall of the Roman Empire. The empire fell through internecine warfare and a collapse in society not because of a few degrees of warming. Quite the opposite, when the cold came to Britain, the Romans left.

Clean and free energy has been available to humans since 1954

Yes we have had access to this since 1954 ask Dr Stephen Greer. We are kept into being an oil based commercial economy and to give away 'free' energy means you can't tax it or make money selling it. 

But we would all benefit from this clean, free energy which exists and is being suppressed for the above reasons. Greed.

COVID19 and travel - the Zoom phenomenon

Covid19 has been a welcome game changer in some ways, we can now work from home in some cases blowing that myth out of the water that this was not possible (prior to Covid 19), which saves us travel costs, travel emissions, not having to associate with people we would rather not and being work better and more productively. We don't waste time travelling either. Or pollute.

So why not conduct COP26 by Zoom? 

A big question and I am not really buying 'the need for face to face contact' argument, surely one to one appointments can be sought delegate to delegate by Zoom? 

Or is that too simple? Lead by example, not dictate and do the opposite.

EV's - Battery Electric vehicles - are they a big swindle?

You might feel 'pious in your Prius' as you drive, but the real costs of Green motoring are literally costing the Earth's finite resources.

A Battery powered vehicle costs half as much again as a petrol or diesel vehicle to buy. With the right spares backup, the liquid fuelled vehicle could last 40 years. The battery one 7 years, before its battery needs replacing and the car is likely scrap as the battery cannot be replaced in the car without pulling the structure apart. So, you balance the damage done by making 6 battery cars to equal the life of 1 fuelled car. Do the math. 'Green' doesn't add up here.

But, the charging of the electric cars is the next issue, besides the lack of points that are available or work, is the cost of charging. Some tariffs can cost you the same to charge your battery giving you 200 miles of range if you are lucky, as a tank of petrol or diesel taking you 400 miles. 

The real cost of charging, once there is a sizeable volume of electric road vehicles will hit hard because there is nothing stopping the battery chargers being changed to charge your wallet more to charge your battery. You will not be in control of the charging prices for what electricity you receive. Vehicle excise duty lost to your 'Green' car will be recouped by road pricing and through the charger. You will likely not have any option than to pay up or peter out.

China now holds control over much of the manufacturing and mineral resources concerned with motor vehicle battery production. What is to stop them raising the price a they see fit to whatever level they choose once the fossil fuelled cars are not on sale? Bet they didn't think that one through.

We could switch to synthetic petrol and diesel fuels which ARE carbon neutral. The folly of going down the battery vehicle route will soon become apparent. It grabs headlines and in time hit you in your wallet like an electric version of Dick Turpin. Highway Robbery for the 22nd century.

We can make synthetic fuels from Algae, we cannot make new Cobalt, Lithium or other rare earth metals and elements used in electric car batteries. If we can't recycle these car batteries we will have created yet another fiasco like the Fridge Henge. Why cannot people see through these simple things?

Liquid fuelled motor vehicles using petrol or diesel are the cleanest they have ever been and will get cleaner almost producing no emissions. This is the future. Battery may work in cities, it is not the answer for our needs.

The UK issue of emissions

The UK produces less than 1% of global emissions, China 25%. The place to reduce emissions is obvious. Recently a coal mine project in Britain was halted, it was to produce Coke for Steel making - British steel used by Volkswagen for instance, due to its quality, is well regarded. The mine isn't going ahead I believe, thanks to 'Green' pressure here.

So that means the jobs and the production will go to China which opens 1 coal fired power station a week and uses Coal in their Steel production. An industry which overproduces and 'dumps' cheap steel on the market.

Our British furnace might have been partly powered by renewables or nuclear which would be less damaging to heat up. Go figure. The UK Coal use would be minimal compared to China.

The UK has reduced CO2 output by over 40% it is now time others did the same before the UK is forced down  by using hobbling measures whilst other major nations pollute and do little or nothing. The UK is just looking stupid by trying to set some mythical example it has no real hope of achieving because of costs for one reason.

Burning Wet wood is banned on domestic Wood burning stoves. Yet, a power station can burn wood chips which are wet and this is 'Green' despite as a result producing enormous amounts of CO2 - likely more than efficiently burnt coal would produce. 

Plus these wood chips are from American forests being felled to feed this situation. Add in the shipping from the USA and the Green dividend looks questionable. Who thought this was a great idea? Dunces cap awaits... You could not make this up.

British manufacturing 

Covid has ramped up transport costs especially from China and this means that Britain is now viable in some situations as a manufacturing base again. But we are hobbling ourselves by introducing stringent carbon neutral and net Zero carbon policies foisted on us by eco zealots whilst China still creates large global emissions unchecked. 

Promises from China of mending their ways need to be put in place now not some arbitrary future date.

We cannot have 'real carbon neutrality' - we all breathe out CO2 for a start. Go figure. 

We live in a commercial world, we consume, we have done since the time of the Atlanteans.

At the time of the Dinosaurs the climate was far warmer than today so that the large dinosaurs could exist and the proportion of CO2 the atmosphere contained was far greater than today - the fossil record of plants shows that too. 

In year zero a millennium ago Grapes were grown in Britain as they were in the 1500's - if it was that warm then, it was warmer than the '1.5 degrees catastrophe' that people say will cause problems. Its called science. The sun dictates how warm this planet is. 

Heathrow airport expansion

Do we need this? Of the Heathrow airport expansion - 'Good for business' Mrs May said - but not good for the environment. Covid has knocked a lot of air travel on the head. Most of it was a luxury and not necessary. Our environment has benefitted from less air travel. We can keep that dividend.

E10 Ethanol Petrol - Dump this 'not Green' fuel for Synthetic fuels - these are not the future.

A big con - E10 Petrol is not green at all. 

E10 is less volatile than the old unleaded petrol meaning you need to use more fuel to gain the same performance how can this be 'Green'? The Ethanol in E10 combines with water to damage fuel system parts in some engines. It is worse performing for your engine than E5 by a long while. we proved that in an old car from 1930.

The Ethanol in the E5 and E10 is derived from Sugar Beet cultivation, which makes its own CO2 problems and denying sugar  and food growing land to local populations, potentially creating local food poverty problems too. 

Factor in clearing CO2 absorbing trees for growing this Beet and it just looks like more lunacy on a plate. It will be like Palm Oil all over again, clearing fertile ground, often forested areas to make a product that is not needed.

Creating a big carbon footprint of making the Ethanol and delivering it too is lunacy.

Untreated (with enhancing additives) E10 fuel older than 30 days will need to be disposed of as its usable volatility diminishes, so do councils have the facilities at their waste management plants to collect and store this hazardous fuel in great quantities? Treated with additives, E10 fuel can last 3 years plus and remain usable.

Millions of litres of untreated fuel as a consequence, are likely to be ending up being wasted each year from surplus unused fuel purchased for use in garden machinery alone. A percentage of all the Fuel having to be delivered to petrol stations may have to as a consequence, be 'dumped'. This is hardly green. This is stupidity on a grand scale.

Wild Boar introduced illegally as 're-wilding' measures in the 1980s create the same amount of CO2 that 1 million cars do, as their foraging releases CO2 stored in the earth. 

Rather than the 350,000 cars worth of emissions reduction the RAC claims E10 fuel introduction will make (a figure which I am personally not buying), why not get rid of the Wild Boars, a much bigger problem? Do the math, 350,000 against 1,000,000. And the E10 fuel that will need disposal. 

We are no longer in the EU, let us dump E10 and go back to E5 a better fuel that causes less problems and is more Green and more efficient. A compromise but worth it. On this note, petrol and diesel engines burn more cleanly than ever. They can only improve but not by E10 and Adblue which drastically reduces Diesel vehicle economy.

China and production

China has become the big manufacturing base of the world, it has become a commercial consumer society itself and raised the standard of living of their citizens in recent decades. 

But it also makes a lot of crap we consume and don't need to consume, because our markets create artificial demand for this stuff as part of our 'consumer society'.

We can do without the single use plastic stuff produced for 'Secret Santa' and 'Halloween' events, which are just commercial opportunities. This is the stuff that gets sent to landfill sometimes unused. Why the hell are we doing this? 

Developing countries

Countries that are not currently at 'western' levels of development - should these be encouraged not to develop and given aid not to advance? Can the world's resources cater for their new needs and materials demands if they advance? Do they need to develop?

Since 1970 our world population has almost doubled. That's part of the problem.

As a planet run along commercial lines, unless we find ways of doing that in a better way, we will not make any progress towards the ideals that this sort of conference aims to employ.

We will also run out of resources. Like the elements needed for batteries, whilst Algae we can use to make synthetic fuels is infinite. Go figure.


Wednesday, 4 March 2020

E10 petrol is NOT Green..... It is destructive and less efficient, here's why..

Why we should stop E10 petrol before it gets started
E10 is a blend of 10% ethanol to 90% Petrol.

It sounds 'Green' but E10 fuel is far from it.... here are some good reasons to ditch it before it is foisted on us, even though we are no longer in the EU.

Let's dump E10 because....

1. It is less efficient than unblended 100% Petrol. You need to burn more E10 to get the same performance from 100% Petrol. Using more fuel and burning more CO2 to get the same performance? Not green.

2. Water condensation in fuel tanks combines with the Ethanol in E10 to make a corrosive to metal situation, helping to wreck car fuel systems. Ethanol also eats rubber fuel hoses and has caused vehicle fires. Costly.

3. Older cars may not be able to use E10 in their fuel systems. Many low mileage car users who are sometimes not well off will effectively be disenfranchised, and what for? No good reason.

4. CO2 will be burnt in sowing, harvesting, refining and delivering sugar crops from which the Ethanol is derived. This likely creates more CO2 than is likely to be saved. Green? no.

5. Sugar to be made into E10 fuel may be grown in developing countries, where rain forest might be felled to make way for the sugar crop. Green? Ridiculous.

So from this simple few points, you can see that E10 will probably cause many more environmental damage problems and CO2 emissions than it purports to solve. 

I reiterate, why are we entertaining this madness when we have left the EU and likely will walk away with a no deal situation that means we can do our own thing totally and not have to adhere to their rules?