Thursday, September 30, 2021

A Conversation With A Tar Sands Petroleum Worker

From a comments section for an advertisement on Facebook for a 1970 GTO clone (converted Lemans) convertible

Douglas Andrew Willinger 

Ram Air IV 440 (400 block, 4" stroke) EFI E-70ish capable if only the renewable fuel standard had actually worked for "choice" ( blender pumps with 93 octane unleaded base gasoline) rather than a scheme to unload 69-83 octane tar sands junk diluted with a crap shoot amount of ethanol.

Darren Hoffman
Douglas Andrew Willinger tar sands junk? You’re an idiot. 
 
Douglas Andrew Willinger
Darren Hoffman explain how? Tar sands is ultra low octane, and word is that planned E-30 shall be a mère 92ish octane, as the petro interests plan on increasing lowing the base gasoline grade to further shortchange the motoring public. By any chance are you an API lobbyist?
 
Darren Hoffman
Douglas Andrew Willinger tar sands isn’t gas. It’s crude that can be refined into whatever you want it to be. You’re an idiot. 
 
Douglas Andrew Willinger
Darren Hoffman the quality of the crude affects the feasibility of its refinement. Tar sands crude is far more costly to refine , and its becoming further evident by your continuing use of nonsense to deflect from this ever expanding to pass off inferior base grade gasoline with higher amounts of ethanol to further defraud the public of much useful higher octane motor vehicle fuel. It would be nice to have 93+ octane motor vehicle fuel. Say 98, 101. and 1p5 octane blended fuels with a n honest retail labeling, as opposed to the regulatory mislabeling of E-50 to E-83 crap-shoot with God knows what octane base gasoline. Any automobile enthusiast would like that, but here you respond like an API disfo specialist who throws his own self description as somehow a counter argument.
 
Douglas Andrew Willinger
Darren Hoffman a useful response would be to just admit that tar sands best argument might be to keep it in North America (thus having the advantage of the waste of transoceanic shipping- best accompanied by a co2 tax on such shipping rather than scapegoating private automobile s) with an agreement for the US to limit its use to E-70 fuel (aka a 30% cap on tar sands petro gasoline content. Lets say a hard NO to using tar sands derived gasoline to make an inferior E-30 fuel with a mere 92ish octane fuel. Surely you would agree that muscle car enthusiasts got screwed by existing fuel policies, along with the environment by the subversion of a sound renewable fuels standard policy. Would it not be nice to have 614 heads with say 13 cr than 9cr with 7F6 heads (for a Pontiac V-8)?
 
Darren Hoffman
Oil sands derived gasoline can be any octane you wish. It’s all in the add ons. Same as any other crude oil. 
 
Darren Hoffman
Today, there are two primary sources of octane used in the U.S. gasoline supply, the BTEX complex (a petroleum refining product commonly referred to as gasoline aromatics), and ethanol.
The BTEX complex is a hydrocarbon mixture of benzene, toluene, xylene and ethyl-benzene. Commonly referred to as gasoline aromatics, these compounds are refined from low-octane petroleum products into a high-octane gasoline additive. While some volume of BTEX is native to gasoline, it is also added to finished gasoline to boost its octane rating. The total volume of BTEX (aromatics) in finished gasoline depends on the desired octane value and other desired fuel properties.
 
Darren Hoffman
Straight-run gasoline has an octane number of about 70. In other words, straight-run gasoline has the same knocking properties as a mixture of 70% isooctane and 30% heptane. Cracking, isomerization and other processes can be used to increase the octane rating of gasoline to about 90
 
Darren Hoffman
Douglas Andrew Willinger tar sands crude is upgraded prior to shipping or sent to a refinery with the processes in place to upgrade. If it was so costly to refine do you really think refineries would be buying 4 million barrels a day? As for ethanol use, thank the green energy fanatics. 
 
Douglas Andrew Willinger
Darren Hoffman thank you. And are you aware of the environmental difference between using these petro substances as benzene, toluene, xylene, versus Ethanol? Are you aware of a recent Yale University article by Timothy Wirth on the multitude of differences in toxicology as well as environmentally?
 
Darren Hoffman
Douglas Andrew Willinger yes. I work in the petrochemical industry and keep myself informed and educated. You?
 
Douglas Andrew Willinger
Darren Hoffman Correct. But compare the means of the various pezro chemicals versus that of Ethanol and of course tetra eythl lead?
 
Darren Hoffman
Ps. I run ethanol blended with a stabilizer added regularly. It’s all i can get. And it works great. 
 
Darren Hoffman
I remember the days of running leaded supreme in my muscle cars. They loved it!
 
Douglas Andrew Willinger
Darren Hoffman yes. And what is going on with the latest push for a new octane minimum of 95 octane. That is 95 RESEARCH rather than the aki number seem on pumps. Sounds great to here about a new "95" minimum octane. But as that is really 90 octane as posted at the pump, what is going on with the octsne of the gasoline component? Likewise with the introduction of E-10, or rather "*up to* 10 percent rather than actually 10 percent, why did not 87, 89 and 93 octane fuel become say 89ish, 91ish and 95ish? Why of course is that a decision was made to keep any added octane benefits for higher profits rather than higher octane. And of course the thing about the NON guaranteed levels of Ethanol really hinders its adaptation in carburetor autos by essentially limiting its use to newer EFI equipped cars.
 
Darren Hoffman
Douglas Andrew Willinger auto makers are actually seeking 100 octane as the standard. 
 
Douglas Andrew Willinger
Darren Hoffman automotive enthusiasts who reads and who questions policy. For instance why were. compression ratios lowered supposedly for environmental reasons never-mind mpg dropping from 14ish mpg to 9ish mpg? Especially when we already knew of the octane and oxygenation superiority of Ethanol over tetra ethyl lead?

Douglas Andrew Willinger
Darren Hoffman see my fb car related albums. I seek to build a 4" stroke (428 style) rather than 4.21' stroke (455) Pontiac 465 and would prefer higher compression. But alas policy somehow was steered wrongly.
 
Darren Hoffman
Douglas Andrew Willinger The first ethanol blended with gasoline for use as an octane booster occurred in the 1920s and 1930s. Pardon?
 
Darren Hoffman
Douglas Andrew Willinger my 540 runs fine at 10:1. Go big or go home.
 
Douglas Andrew Willinger
Darren Hoffman Pardon? What? The political favoring of tetra eythl lead over ethanol. A favoring of an infinitely mote toxic yet more profitable PATENT protect substance, over unpatentable and infinitely safer more environmentally friendly Ethanol. A classic parallel to the policy sociopaths that banned Coca leaf to enable the 20th century Tobacco cigarette epidemic. ( for more on that see my blog "Freedom of Medicine and Diet" at blogspot.com

Darren Hoffman
Now your just babbling
 
Douglas Andrew Willinger
Darren Hoffman you outed yourself as a shill for the octane rippoff of the API et al. I can assure you that your reletively inferior product shall be limited to a 30ish percent content cap on motor vehicle fuel. Tar sands product requires way too much processing for rising its octane without higher centrations of the so-called aromatics (see the Yale Timothy Wirth article) as toulence etc to render it environmentally acceptable. And your attitude and demeneour speaks volumes of.the petroluem industry. To wit: the attrociously envirnmentalky irresponsible Ametican Petroleum Institute (API), headquartered in the notiouriously poorly designed "3rd Street Tunnel Air Rights" building that violates highly safety regulations on shoulder widths, with support columns intruding upon the I-395/I-195/I-95 right of way in downtown Washington, D.C. - see my posts at my blog "A Trip Within the Beltway". 
 
The API headquarters' location speaks volumes about a petro lobby that makes political sacrifices of much needed urban freeways to engender a feel goodism that we are doing something to stop big oil.  Try reseraching the late 1960s-early 1970s DC freeway protest organization ECTC "Emergency Committee on the Transportation Crisis" and its circa 1973 spin off group the "National Committee on the Transportation Crisis", which purported to oppose big oil but which effectively disbanded by the mid 1970s "de-mapping" of D.C. I-95. 
 
Also see the initial opposition to the  N.Y.C. "Westway Highway Project" oficially first proposed circa 1974, with the "environmentalist" opposition to its proposed tunnel portion owing to the small pollution hotspots at the portals, which would have been a spendid demonstration of running 100% petro gasoline otherwise not detected by the masses as such is normally just dispersed- as the petro industry maxim as "the solution to pollution is dilution" with so- called "Greens" sadly being dupes.
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Sunday, January 17, 2021

Pushing BIG-Battery-Pack Automobiles, Stifling Ethanol Fuel & Cheap Domes on Mars?

During the VW diesel controversies there has been mention of the relative benefits of the different modes. Am not anti electric car. But the production of the battery packs do have a relatively high amount of Co2, plus demands for mined materials. Match that up with the idea that we must drastically push such battery pack electric cars beyond what is sustainable via a free market. I am ok with more charging stations especially solar power. But then match that up with the rubbish against Ethanol fuel by such academiacs as Tim Searchinger from Princeton- dead wrong on Ethanol. The anti ethanol fuel arguments are in my humble opinion such a load of utter bullshit that one just has to ponder the parallel push to place not thousands but millions and millions of people on Mars with inadequate consideration of radiation long term exposure. Is this some sort of gretaesque conspiracy to depopulate the earth, cause a methane jolt, and mutate humanity with inadequate radiation shielding.   Just wondering.