Fordnatics List Archive

This read-only message was archived from a public mail list.
Mail From: (email redacted) (Robert King)

Well, it's happened here in good old Dallas. As of January, all gasoling
sold in the Dallas-Ft. Worth metroplex will be oxygenated. My question is,
what is oxygenated fuel, and how will it affect my GT? (I already know how
it will effect my wallet! >:-< )

- -- Robert King


+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Robert A. King | |
| Systems Software Engineer | |
| Kodak Health Imaging Systems | "I drank WHAT?!?" -- Socrates |
| | |
| (email redacted) | |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| The opinions expressed here ain't even mine, much less my employer's! |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+

This read-only message was archived from a public mail list.
Mail From: Bert Dickenson <(email redacted)>

Robert,

The additives (alcohol or MTBE) may loosen deposits in the tank and lines
so watch the filters for blockage. (consider replacing existing old ones)
I have heard stories of additives attacking components in older fuel lines
but two of my vehicles are old enough to vote and they have experienced
no problems on either additive.

I have a more general question. If the modern cars have O2 sensors and
we use oxygenated fuels to reduce emissions will the result be self-
defeating? Will the computer sense a lean mixture and compensate by
burning more fuel so that, overall, the amount of air born pollutants
is not decreased after all? This is just one of those questions that
keeps gnawing away at the back of my mind when I fill up.

Best regards,
Bert


- -- Begin original message --

> From: (email redacted) (Robert King)
> Date: Wed, 9 Nov 1994 10:50:29 -0600 (CST)
> Subject: Oxygenated fuel
> To: (email redacted) (Fordnatics)
>
> Well, it's happened here in good old Dallas. As of January, all gasoling
> sold in the Dallas-Ft. Worth metroplex will be oxygenated. My question is,
> what is oxygenated fuel, and how will it affect my GT? (I already know how
> it will effect my wallet! >:-< )
>
> -- Robert King
>
>
> +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
> | Robert A. King | |
> | Systems Software Engineer | |
> | Kodak Health Imaging Systems | "I drank WHAT?!?" -- Socrates |
> | | |
> | (email redacted) | |
> +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
> | The opinions expressed here ain't even mine, much less my employer's! |
> +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
>

- -- End original message --

This read-only message was archived from a public mail list.
Mail From: (email redacted) (Vic Cook)

> Well, it's happened here in good old Dallas. As of January, all gasoling
>sold in the Dallas-Ft. Worth metroplex will be oxygenated. My question is,
>what is oxygenated fuel, and how will it affect my GT? (I already know how
>it will effect my wallet! >:-< )
>
>-- Robert King

Here in Houston, oxygenated fuel usually means the addition of some
percentage (up to 10%) of ethanol. Along with a meager reduction in smog
comes reduced fuel economy due to the lower BTU content of ethanol and, in
many cases, hard starting and poor idle characteristics due to the affinity
for water that alcohols have.

Vic Cook

This read-only message was archived from a public mail list.
Mail From: (email redacted) (Robert King)

>
> >
> > Well, it's happened here in good old Dallas. As of January, all gasoling
> > sold in the Dallas-Ft. Worth metroplex will be oxygenated. My question is,
> > what is oxygenated fuel, and how will it affect my GT? (I already know how
> > it will effect my wallet! >:-< )
>
> You mean it will be _more_ expensive that it already is? That
> really sucks.

Yup! The local news radio station (KRLD) reported yesterday that prices
at the pump will rise 5 to 12 cents per gallon.

- -- Robert King

This read-only message was archived from a public mail list.
Mail From: Eugene Y C Chu <(email redacted)>

Bert Dickenson asked about oxygenated fuels:

>I have a more general question. If the modern cars have O2 sensors and
>we use oxygenated fuels to reduce emissions will the result be self-
>defeating? Will the computer sense a lean mixture and compensate by
>burning more fuel so that, overall, the amount of air born polutants
>is not decreased after all? This is just one of those questions that
>keeps gnawing away at the back of my mind when I fill up.

A lot of emission rules and regs were made to sound good superficially,
not really to make sense. One example is the California zero emissions
requirement; it requires that two percent of car sold here starting in
few years (forgot exactly when) to have NO emissions at all. This
implies without question electric vehicles. Now, knowing that electric
vehicles are about 50% as efficient as gas powered cars, this means each
vehicle will require twice as much energy to move around, which in turn
means twice as much energy will be required to be generated for them.
Now, if you use some fossile fuel to generate this energy, you might be
able to do so with less pollutants than a car generating the same amount
of energy. Obviously, if you can generate the electrical energy with
solar or hydo-electrics, the emissions would be less, but your energy
requirements is still double what you used to need. So is there a gain?
Not if you need to burn fosille fuels to generate the extra electric
power for the new EVs. On a more practical note, the new EVs will be
too costly for the average motorists to be able to afford, so they'll
most likely be purchased by more affluent motorists. If you looked
around here at all the cars on the roads, you'll find that the major
poluters are not the affluent automobiles, but the old, junkie cars
driven by people who can't afford to fix them or buy new cars. So this
EV mandate will probably not affect motor vehicle air pollution around
here, at least not for the first few years.

Now, back to the question at hand: does an oxygenated fuel really help
with the overall air pollution problem? As I see it, the only time it
could help is when the car is first started, when the engine is very
cold. It is supposed to make the combustion process more complete, so
the emissions of CO and unburned HCs are reduced. The CARB and SCAQMD
can work their statistics around to show that this has indeed happened
in the last couple of years. However, I think they're missing the fact
that the oxygenated fuels provide no real benefits once the car is
warmed up, where the engine is burning its fuel properly. However, now
that the fuel has about 5% less specific energy content, in general, we
will be burning about 5% more of it to get the same amount of work out
of it. If the amount of time that my engine spends in the "dirty" phase
is only 5% of my total driving time, do I really dump less polutants
overall by using this "cleaner" fuel, when I have to use more of it in
the same time? For really short trips, perhaps there is a small gain.
But then, the CARB and SCAQMD only measure conecntrations of polutants.
I'm not sure if they thought about overall emissions. In the mean time,
I'm paying more at the pump.

eyc

This read-only message was archived from a public mail list.
Mail From: (email redacted) (Benjamin Levy)

From: Bert Dickenson <(email redacted)>
To: (email redacted)
Cc: (email redacted)
Subject: Re: Oxygenated fuel

Robert,

The additives (alcohol or MTBE) may loosen deposits in the
tank and lines so watch the filters for blockage.

The additive for oxygenated fuel is methanol (ethanol? I can never
remember which is which). The corn growers managed to ram a law
through which requires the use of methanol which is made from corn.

(consider replacing existing old ones) I have heard stories of
additives attacking components in older fuel lines but two of my
vehicles are old enough to vote and they have experienced no problems
on either additive.

On my car, I think the methanol destroyed the 20 year-old foam in my
fuel cells. The car had been out of country for nearly 30 years. But
the foam didn't begin to degrade until after being in the US for a
couple of months.
---Ben Levy FTP Software Inc. (email redacted)
- -----------------------------------------------------------------------
Member of the International Ameoba Society:
"United We Stand, Divided We Multiply"

This read-only message was archived from a public mail list.
Mail From: chucko (Chuck Fry)

Date: Wed, 9 Nov 1994 18:57:44 -0500
From: (email redacted) (Benjamin Levy)

From: Bert Dickenson <(email redacted)>
Subject: Re: Oxygenated fuel

The additives (alcohol or MTBE) may loosen deposits in the
tank and lines so watch the filters for blockage.

The additive for oxygenated fuel is methanol (ethanol? I can never
remember which is which). The corn growers managed to ram a law
through which requires the use of methanol which is made from corn.

Either ethanol (which is made from corn), methanol (most often made from
natural gas) or MBTE (methyl butyl tertiary ether, probably derived from
petrochemicals) may be used for the oxygenate, depending on the brand.

Many Midwestern US gas stations have up to 10% ethanol in their premium
gas year-round as a matter of course. This is most common with the
cheap brands.

The alcohols tend to react badly with aluminum, and may cause
deterioration of plastics and rubber in the fuel system. This is
especially true of older cars.

It is true that Archer Daniels Midland, a major agricultural
corporation, lobbied hard for the use of ethanol despite its technical
shortcomings.

BTW, check out the article on reformulated gasoline in the current
(Dec?) issue of Car and Driver. Future pump "gasoline" will have
reduced Reid vapor pressure (reduces evaporative emissions, makes for
harder cold starts with carbs) and 2% or so oxygen content (reduces CO
and HC emissions), if the eco-Feds have their way.
-- Chuck

This read-only message was archived from a public mail list.
Mail From: Kelly Murray <(email redacted)>


I suppose we shouldn't debate electric-cars on fordnatics,
but let me point out one thing.
At least in Southern California where I used to live,
most cars get driven during rush-hour to/from work,
and end up spending a lot time under stop-n-go conditions
on the freeway, and I understand it's getting worse every year.
This is really bad for generating exhaust emmisions,
but is no problem at all for an electric car.
Also, you can spend a lot of time sitting at traffic lights
driving in a city, which is purely wasted energy/emissions
for a gas-powered car that is constantly running.

Just my $.02. A 3-cyl GEO Metro is probably just as effective
as an electric car in reducing emissions. But eventually,
we're going to run out of oil, and as an old chemistry prof said,
you can create a lot more useful things with oil besides
just burning it.

-Kelly Murray