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st.cronin
01-13-2006, 12:54 PM
Anybody knowledgable about biofuels?

There's a couple of stations here that sell biofuels. Some days the price is cheaper, some days it's pricier. I have been using biofuels if the price is lower, otherwise just regular unleaded for my Sebring.

I have a couple of questions - should I expect my mileage to be better, the same, or worse? And are the claims that it will increase the lifespan of my engine true?

Just poking around the web it seems like there's a lot of skepticism about the usefulness of biofuels, and the accuracy of their claims.

Cringer
01-13-2006, 12:57 PM
They have them in NM eh? That's interesting. Only place I ever knew for sure where they were is Iowa and Minnesota. They sell bio-diesel there.

st.cronin
01-13-2006, 12:59 PM
I'm pretty sure I remember seeing them in Wisconsin as well.

Cringer
01-13-2006, 01:01 PM
Probably. I just know Iowa and Minnesota because they are talked about a lot there, since they are the ones who make a lot of it. (Corn based I think)

rkmsuf
01-13-2006, 01:02 PM
Create your own biofuels after a hearty taco bell session.

Raiders Army
01-13-2006, 01:13 PM
Create your own biofuels after a hearty taco bell session.
Exactly what I was thinking.

miked
01-13-2006, 01:15 PM
Or you can get one of those things that Dr. Brown had in Back to the Future 2 or whatever. You can just pour some trash in the thingy and get some fuel like that. I think I saw some dude selling them down the street here.

Mustang
01-13-2006, 01:15 PM
Create your own biofuels after a hearty taco bell session.

Taco Bell is starting to become like Chuck Norris around here...

PilotMan
01-13-2006, 02:56 PM
I think that it would be easier to retrofit all cars so that they could run on corn alcohol or gasoline. It would be something that we could produce in abundance and it is a technology that we already have access to.

Desnudo
01-13-2006, 03:10 PM
Anybody knowledgable about biofuels?

There's a couple of stations here that sell biofuels. Some days the price is cheaper, some days it's pricier. I have been using biofuels if the price is lower, otherwise just regular unleaded for my Sebring.

I have a couple of questions - should I expect my mileage to be better, the same, or worse? And are the claims that it will increase the lifespan of my engine true?

Just poking around the web it seems like there's a lot of skepticism about the usefulness of biofuels, and the accuracy of their claims.

A commonly seen biofuel is biodiesel which can be made from oil produced from crops like soy beans or rape seed. The main benefit is that it runs clean versus regular diesel. Properly produced biodiesel is of high quality and is different than pouring a gallon of french fry oil into the tank. Obviously you need a diesel engine to run it.

It's become pretty popular in the Northwest. VW is selling a ton of diesels in the Seattle area.

Coder
01-13-2006, 03:49 PM
My new Volvo S40 runs on Etanol (E85) or regular unleaded gasoline.. using Etanol, it actually consumes more fuel per mile than regular gasoline, but since the gas is heavily taxed here in Sweden, I still come out ahead.. Consumption is about 30% higher with E85 than with regular gasoline.

Another popular biofuel here is "gas".. hmm.. don't know what the translation is but these cars require two tanks, one for the gas and one for the gasoline (you can run both), while my car can mix any mix of E85 and regular gasoline.

Not sure if that's what you mean by biofuels but anyway.

3ric
01-14-2006, 03:17 AM
Another popular biofuel here is "gas".. hmm.. don't know what the translation is but these cars require two tanks, one for the gas and one for the gasoline (you can run both), while my car can mix any mix of E85 and regular gasoline.
Could be that is what's called "wood gas" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biofuel

sterlingice
01-14-2006, 03:29 PM
A couple of years ago when my wife was in journalism school at Mizzou, one of their projects was putting together an ad campaign for BioDiesel. I seem to remember her being pretty impressed with the stats on it.

SI