OT: 1 gear no cluth electric car

[Bill Campbell]

On Wed, Sep 20, 2006, Lauren Kelly wrote:
>
>Bill Campbell wrote:
>...
>>
>>TANSTAFFL!
>>
>>Bill
>
>Yes, but if you brew your own biodeisel (or put in the right filter), 
>you can use up your leftovers from lunch. That's worth something, no?

That reminds me of the flick ``Kentucky Fried Movie'' in which they had a
skit collecting oil from fast food fries and teenagers faces.

There have been a fairly large number of articles here in the Seattle area
recently about biodiesel, several of which have said that the net energy
consumption making biodiesel is greater than the benefit derived today.

That isn't to say that biodiesel won't become economically viable as
petroleum supplies dwindle, but today it's not the magic bullet that some
would like you to believe.

In general, diesel engines are more efficient that standard gasoline
engines, but, like anything else, that comes at a cost.  The engines have
to be built to withstand the higher mechanical stresses in the diesel
engines.  G.M. found that out the hard way when they tried converting their
standard gas engines to diesel in the late '70s.  I had a friend who made a
pretty decent living converting diesel Oldsmobiles back to gas since their
engines failed even more frequently than the average G.M. junk.

You don't want to run out of fuel in a diesel either as it generally is
hard to start them with air in the fuel injection lines.

Another interesting thing about petroleum diesel fuel is that mold can grow
on or in it so long-term storage can present problems.  I suspect that this
might be a bigger problem with biodiesel.

Bill
--
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