P38A E85 (85% bioethanol)

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Nodge68 said:
Yes. The whole manufacturing process is included in the 200 kW of energy per 100 Watts of panel, from raw materials to final shipping to the destination. ;)
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It is now being claimed that solar panels on a large scale are contributing to global warming by reflecting heat back into the atmosphere that would have been absorbed by the soil.:rolleyes: There is owt for nowt in this life.
 
Grrrrrr said:
Wind was always considered net carbon neutral, even considering the (non-green) steel and concrete used in the turbine construction but With solar it used to be estimated that the total carbon equivalent footprint of the solar panels made in China was bigger than the amount of electricity they were expected to produce over their lifetime. Is that still the case?
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Turbine blades are made of synthetic materials, in the USA, life expired blades are being dumped in the desert because they cannot be recycled.
 
Nodge68 said:
Leaf is well known about, but it's a 12 year old design, which used bad battery management, and no form of environmental control for the battery, so they degraded. However a 12 year old leaf will still have 50 - 70% of it's original capacity, even at 200k miles, which shows the battery can be horrendously mistreated, and it still works.

Tesla batteries do fail, but again they are massively mistreated by the owners, who use the acceleration the vehicle is capable of giving, dispite Tesla telling owners that using excessive acceleration will shorten the battery and power units life.
Super charging is another battery killer, as it heats the pack up, causing cell degradation.

It's standard practice to maximise battery life by limiting maximum charge to 80%, and maximum discharge to 20%, or 10% at a pinch.
Most newer EVs have this already calculated into the battery, so you buy a vehicle with a usable capacity of say 70 kWhr, but the battery is in reality closer to 80 kWhr in total capacity.
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With all that software control, it should not be possible to miss treat the battery by driving. Also, if emissions are such a threat to the planet, why are cars with 0 to 60 times of sub 3 seconds being allowed? The average driver is not capable of handling that kind of performance. I find it quite interesting that all these "connected" BEV's can be remotely disabled.
 
Datatek said:
Just France, to protect local (fecking expensive) manufacturers:(
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Didn't know anything about that. Seems a bit counter productive.
Surely the French export something to China that evens out the balance of payments. Such as wine.
I thought that was the idea of trade, that countries produced things they were suited to producing, and sold them to each other.
 
Turboman said:
Didn't know anything about that. Seems a bit counter productive.
Surely the French export something to China that evens out the balance of payments. Such as wine.
I thought that was the idea of trade, that countries produced things they were suited to producing, and sold them to each other.
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The French are very good at looking after themselves, there is probably no country that is more protectionist of local industry:rolleyes:
 
nigelbb said:
I hadn't visited the forum for a while but see that there are a couple of French residents posting so thought it might be interesting to discuss E85 (85% bioethanol) which is widely available in France & currently costs about 90c/L versus almost €2/L for E10. There are boxes available for €200-€800 that you can fit to your car to enable you to use E85 but I have been running my unmodified 2001 Vogue on 100% E85 for several months now after I saw some guys posting on one of the French language Range Rover forums that both Thor & GEMS are perfectly happy on 100% E85. I did start off with 25% then 50% then 75% before I was confident enough to run on 100% E85.
Performance is unaffected the one slight issue is that you need to crank the motor for longer when starting from cold. This is a known issue for all cars using E85 & is only noticeable because normally the P38 starts with only a slight touch from the starter motor. I replaced the fiver year old Halfords battery with a Hankook MF31-1000 about a month ago so doubt that starting is ever going to be a problem.
The other issue is that bioethanol like LPG is less energy dense than regular petrol so fuel consumption is increased. I see around 14-15mpg versus 16-17mpg but given the massive price difference it's the cost equivalent of getting 31mpg out of E10.
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When we got burgled the last time, in our place in France, the insurance company sent a guy to guard the place till I got there. He had one of those things on his car and gave me a little bit of explanation of it. (He had to stay one more night until he was officially relieved.)
The wife and I debated whether to get one of those boxes for her Citroen Pluriel. He said the box was to tell the engine (?) ECU(?) when it is running on petrol and when it is running on E85.
At the time we decided against as the car spends half its life in the UK where E85 is, or was at the time, unavailable. So the cost of the box seemed unlikely to be amortised in the car's lifetime, especially as she does littl more than 1500 miles a year. But at that price we might reconsider.
 
nigelbb said:
E85 is available in about 1 in 4 service stations. Intermarche seem to have it at a lot of their superstores & Total on the main roads.
https://www.reuters.com/business/en...-make-french-drivers-rush-ethanol-2021-10-21/
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This also came into our discussion. We found a place, Auchan in Castres, where we go for a monthly "big shop" so we could use it. Not too far away from us, at 15 mins beyond out normal nearest town. But yes, it ain't in all outlets by any means.
 
Datatek said:
Back in my misspent youth, Cleveland Discol contained Ethanol, 8% if I remember correctly, it was a better anti knock agent that Tetra Ethyl Lead. It caused no problem in our cars or motorbikes. We also used to run competition bikes on Methanol, it was a long time ago but I seem to remember that the ignition timing had to be changed.
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Yep, tuning a car by increasing its compression ratio could lead to the need for an alcohol type additive. I used to use a gallon of the ethanol stuff we used for copying machines in the old days. not the whole gallon, but as an additive.
Roneo type machines. All school kids of the time will recognise the smell of a copy done that way!!!
Being a teacher then I could half-inch a tin every now and then. Ethanol I think.
As an additive, it never did any harm, and so I think if you put a mix 50/50 of petrol E85 you'd be OK.
But it is worth checking which cars can run it. some older ones can run it pure.
 
Stanleysteamer said:
Yep, tuning a car by increasing its compression ratio could lead to the need for an alcohol type additive. I used to use a gallon of the ethanol stuff we used for copying machines in the old days. not the whole gallon, but as an additive.
Roneo type machines. All school kids of the time will recognise the smell of a copy done that way!!!
Being a teacher then I could half-inch a tin every now and then. Ethanol I think.
As an additive, it never did any harm, and so I think if you put a mix 50/50 of petrol E85 you'd be OK.
But it is worth checking which cars can run it. some older ones can run it pure.
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We played with a lot of performance enhancing chemicals in my youth, Methanol, Nitromethane, Amly nitrate, Nitrobenzene, Never had any corrosion problems, just the occasional blown engine. Used to buy in bulk from BDH in Poole.
 
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Datatek said:
We played with a lot of performance enhancing chemicals in my youth, Methanol, Nitromethane, Amy nitrate, Nitrobenzene, Never had any corrosion problems, just the occasional blown engine. Used to buy in bulk from BDH in Poole.
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My wife worked for BDH in Poole until they got taken over by Merck. Also another mate of mine. Remember the big fire there?
At least her Merck pension is quite good!
Amy Nitrate? Never met her! but I do remember peeps trying to sniff Amyl Nitrate, or "poppers" as it used to be called.
Never bothered myself!;);)
But yes "nitro" in one form or another was fun!
Reminds me of "top fuel" dragsters.
Largely a lost art now probs, except in a few places. nowhere near as mainstream as it used to be!!:(
 
Datatek said:
It is now being claimed that solar panels on a large scale are contributing to global warming by reflecting heat back into the atmosphere that would have been absorbed by the soil.:rolleyes: There is owt for nowt in this life.
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That's not even remotely accurate, the opposite is true in fact.
The North and South poles reflect huge amounts of solar energy back into space, which is one of the main reasons they're so bloody cold.
If the soil was to absorb loads of heat, that makes the local area hotter.
I'm sorry but that statement is completely round the wrong way. Someone didn't do simple high-school physics to come up with BS like that. :confused:
 
Datatek said:
Turbine blades are made of synthetic materials, in the USA, life expired blades are being dumped in the desert because they cannot be recycled.
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They're not going to do any harm in the desert. But just because they're being dumped in the desert, doesn't mean they can't be recycled, just they can't be bothered to recycle them.
The Americans have been dumping stuff in the deserts for decades, as the thousands of dead planes and cars show, and those can all be recycled but they chose not to bother. ;)
 
Grrrrrr said:
I thought the biggest lithium producer was in the Atacama desert?
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The Atacama desert is produces about ⅕th of Australian lithium production.
Unfortunately lithium extraction requires quite a lot of water, which is an issue in the Atacama desert, as it's about the driest place on earth. This lack of water will be the limiting factor for lithium production there.
Datatek said:
Just France, to protect local (fecking expensive) manufacturers:(
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So how does anyone buy any technology stuff in France, considering 70% of everything electronic is made in China?
 
Datatek said:
It is now being claimed that solar panels on a large scale are contributing to global warming by reflecting heat back into the atmosphere that would have been absorbed by the soil.:rolleyes: There is owt for nowt in this life.
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Bit of Yorkshire there Keith. Your roots are showing:):)
 
Turboman said:
Also, there is massive demand much closer to the North Sea, so the power will go there. It is like water in a pipe, if you turn on a tap close to where the supply is coming from, it will take the pressure.
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You have also got to remember there are losses in the diesel/petrol system, the diesel does not just appear in the petrol station, it has to be pumped processed then transported to the petrol station all these are a loss/use of energy, which I would think would be greater than the losses in the electrical system
 
Ian M in France said:
You have also got to remember there are losses in the diesel/petrol system, the diesel does not just appear in the petrol station, it has to be pumped processed then transported to the petrol station all these are a loss/use of energy, which I would think would be greater than the losses in the electrical system
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It takes the equivalent of burning 1.2L of petrol, to get 1L to a vehicle fuel tank, so it's an incredibly wasteful industry.
The move to electric vehicles will reduce the carbon footprint massively, dispite all the BS which says otherwise.
 
Sell your car then......
Until electric cars become more efficient and cheaper a lot of people can't get and won't go near them.
The masses that drive fuel vehicles don't yet have access to on street chargers and not everyone like some of us have driveways or quiet roads to park in where your not fighting to park in your own street.
If we don't drive cars, we still heat our homes with some fuel or another which is another form of pollution through production or end result.
Aeroplanes that below crap, tankers that burn waste oil..

Anyhow, for me I wouldn't use the ethanol in my V8 if I had one. I'd be too worried about dropping a liner.
 
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