Posted on 09/15/2011 11:23:28 PM PDT by neverdem
Nothing like requiring vehicles to run on your favorite energy product.
Jeeeezz.
Let the market work, Neocons!
Simple, you buy oil you pay for it and you take delivery, before you resell it. And you have no insurable interest until you take physical control. Price will drop to $2.00 a gal or lower in hours.
Why not shoot for $1.77, the price when O took office?
2$ gas...Not while obama is president!
“The United States has only 4 billion tons of oil reserves, but we have 270 billion tons of coal, vast amounts of natural gas, and an enormous capacity to produce biomass.”
Faulty analogy. The question is: how many gallons of fuel are created per ton of raw material? What is the energy density of said fuel? What is the extraction and refinement cost of said fuel?
(1 gallon of ethanol <> 1 gallon of gas in terms of energy density.)
On the scale that racing uses it, the risk is minimal... But letting the vehicle populace use it is another story. See the MTBE saga and how that crap started showing up in the water supplies everywhere it was used as a fuel additive.
It has a 3 year warranty. Under the terms of the warranty it states:
"Do not use gasoline that contains more than 10 per cent ethanol or gasoline that contains more that 5 percent methanol."
The warranty further states:
"The use of gasoline that contains ANY alcohol MAY void this warranty."
These terms are not hidden away in fine print, it is in bold print.
So if unburned gasoline gets into the water supply, it’s not a problem? What is your point?
Unburned gasoline does not kill off the optic nerve and cause blindness. Methanol does.
Where did you get that information? I’d like to see it for myself. Mind you, I have no doubt that methanol is unsafe to drink, but so is gasoline. I’d like to see an objective source of information that shows methanol to be more dangerous than gasoline.
Call your local poison center. Ask them about lethal dosages.
Average lethal dosage, ingestion or absorption, for your average 70kg adult:
Gasoline: 115-470mL
Methanol: 60-240mL
See the difference?
Another problem is that methanol fires are literally invisible. You cannot see them. Gasoline fires are blatantly obvious. For this reason, IndyCars switched to ethanol from methanol.
Also, here’s the source re: methanol poisoning: http://www.medicinejournal.co.uk/article/S1357-3039%2807%2900324-6/abstract
It’s also nasty because it’s even more readily absorbed into the skin than gasoline. You will need to wear protective gear to refuel a methanol car.
I don’t see any comparison with gasoline in that source. Did I miss it? Again, I don’t doubt that methanol is dangerous, but so is gasoline.
Yeah, you did.
Just call 1-800-222-1222 (National Poison Center) and ask them about the toxicity and effects of the two substances. They’re open 24/7.
Gasoline isn’t ‘safe’ but it doesn’t cause irreversible blindness with small doses like methanol does.
Hey, I’m not here to argue with you. I checked Wikipedia, and methanol does appear to be very toxic. However, take note of this:
Methanol is readily biodegradable in both aerobic (oxygen present) and anaerobic (oxygen absent) environments. Methanol will not persist in the environment. The half-life for methanol in groundwater is just one to seven days, while many common gasoline components have half-lives in the hundreds of days (such as benzene at 10–730 days). Since methanol is miscible with water and biodegradable, it is unlikely to accumulate in groundwater, surface water, air or soil.[20]
Not so fast, more like 5-10 years under some conditions: http://info.ngwa.org/gwol/pdf/022676595.PDF
Here’s more from the Wikipedia page on methanol economy:
# The medical treatment for methanol ingestion is ethanol ingestion. Therefore, methanol fuel could be made safer by blending with ethanol.
# Methanol is a liquid: this creates a greater fire risk compared to hydrogen in open spaces. Methanol leaks do not dissipate. A methanol-based fire burns invisibly unlike gasoline. Compared to gasoline, however, methanol is much safer. It is more difficult to ignite and releases less heat when it burns. Methanol fires can be extinguished with plain water, whereas gasoline floats on water and continues to burn. The EPA has estimated that switching fuels from gasoline to methanol would reduce the incidence of fuel related fires by 90%.
I do research that involves 10-20 gallons of methanol at a time. It doesn’t irritate much and acts on the body over a longer period of time, so it doesn’t SEEM as toxic as it is.
It is, however, short-lived in the environment and doesn’t really contaminate for any length of time.
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