From: jgd@dixie.com (John De Armond)
Subject: Re: Oxygenated Gasoline and Low MPG (super unleaded?)
Date: Sat, 09 Jan 93 06:45:49 GMT
Organization: Dixie Communications Public Access.  The Mouth of the South.

bense@oasys.dt.navy.mil (Ron Bense) writes:

>Shipping, actually, and to be more specific, the guys that inspect those
>tankers that the oafs continue to ground. I imagine that their data
>is a little more accurate than yours.

Umm maybe so but I'll bet on my sources at API (American Petroleum Institute)
over day labor on a loading dock.

>>not being able to put out a fire, I've never heard such fairy tails.

>That was one of their concerns.

Not suprising. Hourly workers have all kinds of superstitions that 
can't be changed by any amount of fact.  When I used to work in a 
heavy equipment crew, I knew many iron workers who believed green
to be an unlucky color and would not work around a green crane.
Color was one of their concerns.  Do you assign any basis in fact to
that?

>>If you've ever extinguished an alcohol fire, you've extinguished a
>>burning oxygenate.  As to cancer, nothing is in the material
>>safety data sheets I have that were current about 6 months ago.

>Alcohol requires oxygen to burn. Something like Potassium Perchlorate
>decomposes and yields extra oxygen. That's what I would call an oxygenate,
>but no one has answered that yet, so I'll wait and see what occurs.

Doesn't matter what you'd call an oxygenate.  The term is used in
the context of hydrocarbon fuels to refer to any molecule containing
one or more oxygen atoms.  The alcohols, MTBE, ETBE, TAME and a other
ethers fit the category.  If you think that ANY of these fuels can
burn without oxygen and thus are hard to extinguish OR you believe
that potassium perchlorate or any other oxidizer is blended into
pump gas, then, well... I have some nice seafront property to sell...

>>The stuff is not aimed at your new, closed loop car.  It is aimed
>>at older cars, particularly those whose engines were tuned a bit
>>rich to work with AIR injection and one way catalysts.

>Then just increase emission standards, and make the minimum amount for
>spending in one year at least equal to the price of a catalytic converter.
>Another good one would be to ban the car off the road if it fails to
>meet emmissions 2 years in a row until it does meet them.

Comment a:  I don't set policy, I just report on it.

Comment b:  That will never happen because it would cost "poor people"
	money and would not be "progressive".  

>>Fuel economy has nothing to do with performance.  Naturally your mileage
>>would go down as your engine's ECU compensates for the leanness.  If you
>>ran pure methanol whose stochiometric ratio is 6:1, your mileage
>>would go through the floor.

>1.) Fuel economy and performance generally go hand in hand, an increase
>in one causes a decrease in the other. Both of mine decreased.

No they don't.  If you change fuels so the mixture is lean under most
conditions, you will make less power because of less than optimum 
power AND your economy will decrease because you open the throttle
more to compensate for the loss of power.  If you don't believe that,
look in any elementary engine text and observe a brake specific fuel
consumption vs mixture graph.

>2.) I believe the specific energy of methanol is lower than gasoline,
>requiring more to be burned for same horsepower, resulting in lower
>fuel economy. 

Specific energy is almost the same for alcohol and gasoline:

Gasoline	2.92
methanol	3.08
Ethanol		3.00

The issues are 

oxygen content:

Gasoline	0 		% by weight
Methanol	50.0
Ethanol		34.8

Heating value

Gasoline	42.7 MJ/kg
Methanol	19.9
Ethanol		26.8

Stoichiometric ratio (derived from oxygen content)

Gasoline	14.6:1
Methanol	6.45:1
Ethanol		9.0:1

Reference: "Automotive Fuels Handbook", Owens & Coley, Tbl 12.3, P267

>3.) I base the above on the fact that propane powered cars run about
>1.8:1 compared to gas in fuel economy, and the knowledge that power
>also drops in these vehicles. (Emissions were said to much better, though.
>Maybe all older cars should be forced to convert to either modern engine
>emissions or propane?)

The economy difference between propane and gasoline is due to the different
density and molecular weight of the fuels and thus the difference in
the number of fuel atoms per gallon of fuel.  Propane does NOT produce
less power than gasoline.  Propane's slight loss in volumetric efficiency
due to its being introduced as a gas instead of a liquid is more than
offset by its high octane.  When the engine is tuned for propane (NOT
duel fuel, add-on conversions), it makes as much power as a gas motor.
I've built propane-powered turbocharged 280Z engines that made quite enough
power, thank you.  (actually not, since there is no such thing as enough
power but enough to dust the porches and 'vettes.) 

John
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