Fucking Boycott Gas!!! We Have To Make A Stand Now!

Poaned.

 

africa? c'mon james, sometimes i believe you wish most of your fantasy's were true. the "plan" is to ship it to Yucca Mountain, oh wait they've been doing that for year's.

 

well guess what cadcruzer, there's more than one plan! i'm not bullshitting, africa's been a dumping ground for nuclear waste for a long time. see, for example:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4312553.stm
i'm not entirely against nuclear energy, i just wish they'd come up with a decent plan to deal with the waste. it's costing the brits something like $100b to manage their waste, and as the ppl who run it say: the security and safety concerns only multiply in time. see also
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/3877343.stm
so who'll pay to keep such expensive measures going for 10,000 years or more to ensure it doesn't pose a hazard to future generations? will there always be the expertise and personnel around to supervise it in the years to come? questions, questions... and btw, i fervently wish most of what i do understand about this modern ole world were a fantasy but i just pinched myself and no, i'm not dreaming.

 

this link describes the dumping of nuclear waste in benin, an african country, that's been going on since the 80s...
http://www.american.edu/projects/mandala/TED/benin.htm

 

Why don't those conservative motherfuckers running the Motor Companies get the guys who are making great innovations and renovations to gas mileage, to put their inventions in their cars? Wasn't there a story about somebody who got their car to run 250 miles/gallon? Why don't they get that guy or that group to put their revolutionary process into their cars?

I'll tell ya why... MONEY!!!!!!! They all want their oil money. If people are getting 250 miles/gallon, the oil industry will go KErPluNk!!!!!!!!!!!! We gotta stand up and protest against these money grubbing pieces of shizit.

 

Recently I've found a source for the 'guy who invented the carborator that doubled gas mileage which was bought by the big oil companies and destroyed.'
The idea there was a vaporization of the gas and some tweaking of the fuel injection system, which in theory seems to work. Do a google for "Vapor Carb" and see the debate going on over this. Here's a bit lifted from one of the first hits on that search.
"Detroit carbs put gas in the engine by spraying it in; much of the gas goes into the cylinder still in droplets and burns incompletely. High-mileage "vapor" carburetors pre-warm the gas using exhaust heat pumped through an in-line chamber. This enables the gas to evaporate quickly but thoroughly. More gas is burned and less goes out the tailpipe as pollution. Detroit seems to avoid these designs because they cost more. (Remember saving five cents per Pinto?) But better carbs are out there for the tinkering." Does it work? A community member here tried it, and spent a bit of money faricating the stainless steel vaporizing chamber. He says he actually got worse gas mileage, but said that to have done it correctly he should have tinkered with the cars fuel injection computer to fool it somewhat.
Another debate you'll see going on over alternative energy is the development of hydrogen technology. The idea that it will ever be accomplished in a form that doesnt require a massive (and dangerous) fuel tank or dangerous compression, or uses more energy than it produces is an idea that many of us are quite skeptical of. It seems like it might be a smokescreen. Certainly how we produce our energy is the issue here, and the waste created, not just by the dumping of the by-products, but the energy and materials going into it's creation and how that can be reduced should be a major factor when we figure out which sources we need to be turning to right now.
I am focusing a lot on biodiesel and straight vegetable oil use right now. A lot of the biodiesel debate right now is not whether it is a feasible technology, because those of us who have put thousands of road miles into testing it knows it is the best method of fueling a car that exists right. The debate as we see it now is how much of a role can it play in our future energy paradigm? Certainly it cannot replace petroleum completely. No one source of energy can. The amount of fossil fuel we burn not just driving our cars but producing and shipping our goods, heating our buildings, running our machinery, technology, etc, is astronomical almost. We burn over 2 billion gallons of oil a day. That's around how much waste oil (animal fat included) that we produce every year (the number is a bit higher, as it reflects the amount rendering companies collect, but only a small fraction of it actually goes to landfill). So that's why biodiesel has never been about waste oil. Big funders of commercial biodiesel are Monsanto and other agri-goliaths. Soy is big money in this world, not nearly as big as petrol, but a major player nonetheless. Already 85% of the grain used in this country goes into cattle feed. And we know what a waste of energy the beef industry is, thats a whole other thread. Its not a stretch that this companies will want to use more cropland to grow the fuel soy, at the expense of food crops. Right now we do produce a lot more food that the world needs to avoid hunger. Corrupt distribution and not production is the issue here. But production will soon be an issue, when foosil fuel runs low and huge agri-businesses are seen for the energy drains they are. Production will have to drop.
The cutting edge in alternative fuel right now is algae production.
Certain species of algae can yeild up to 50% oil by weight.
The cost of production is high now, but projected up to a national level, is an inexpensive and low waste way to produce fuel. It grows on waste water. It CONSUMES more waste than it produces.
An area 15% of the size of the Sonoran desert can produce enough oil to replace all petrol, and can be produced anywhere a shallow pond filled with sewer water can be built. A good place for this is open pit mines, already a wasteland in most places. No new arable soil need to be turned to grow fuel, and we can save the good soil and water for much needed food.
Right now I have a car that I converted very simply to run on waste cooking oil that I get free out of the back of restaurants. All I have to do is filter it. It cost me $600 for the parts, and after 200 miles it paid for itself in fuel savings. (I drove it that much the first day the system was working, so it paid of very quickly.)
It's a sustainable technology as long as I am using a waste product to fuel it, as soon as I put commerical biodiesel into it, I am using a product that utilized a massive amount of petrol spewing technology top create and is therfore not sustainable.

 

wow, that's the most rambling post ive written here for years. must be all this coffee.

 

oh and I didnt mention the fact that you can run your gasser on straight alocohol which you can make yourself out of waste starches in a moonshine still and its better for your car even...
here are links
http://www.windrift.us/dreamerbiofuels/gasoline.htm

 

these technologies are great because anyone can take what's already lying around and make it better, not relying on some corporation or government or academic to figure it out and implement it for us.

 

I just wanted to come in here and point out how utterly and incredibly stupid it is to blame gas prices on Bush. Bush sucks, yadda yadda, but he's got nothing to do with gas price. Blame it on the OPEC nations for putting the cost of a barrel of oil into the $60s.

Blame the already major lack of crude oil refineries in the United States compounded with something like 20% of capacity being shut down because of Hurricane Katrina. While you're at it, blame all the people that take a "not in my back yard" attitude to building more refineries.

Blame it on the state for the taxes that add almost a buck to the cost of your gas, but they can't even build a decent long-lasting road in a timely manor with your money.

Blame it on gas station owners gouging in order to take advantage of the mass hysteria.

But don't blatently label yourself as a reactionary moron by publically stating that it's the president's fault that you have to pay $3 for a gallon of gas. Think.

 

I wouldnt want to see a refinery in anyone's backyard. It's time to phase them out...

 

cooking oil through a diesel I've been looking into it for a while. It's made me regret buying a 1.8t Jetta instead of the TDI.

 

ok i thought. big oil must be extremely happy that oil is $3 a gallon. btw your complaints fall on unsympathetic ears, we pay nearly twice that amount for petrol down here and a month ago i was inundated with offers to get in early and buy oil stock: the prices will boom. and they have. i think oil will continue to rise because of one simple fact: it's finite. that's nobody's fault but it's certainly within the power of bush to deal with the crisis. whilever he's in the pockets of the oil companies he will never advocate developing alternatives or, quite simply, using less. a lot less. since the logic of capitalism is such that more profit is to be made out of the catastrophe of dwindling resources than there is in solving the crisis the onus then falls on us to consume less and seek alternatives if and when these become available. some bright ppl are already developing their own, such as the bloke who posted here earlier, raven, with his site 'dreamer propulsion' (for anyone interested in biofuel and alternatives i recommend it: http://www.windrift.us/dreamerbiofuels/) and i've noticed a lot more of these kind of sites are appearing.

so, yes, i agree with you that we must take action ourselves and stop blaming figurehead politicians and corporate mouthpieces for the predicamant we find ourselves in, but no, for all they do to ensure our continued oil dependency, bush and his oil cronies are entirely blameworthy.

 

So Bush hasn't made a huge push for alternate fuel sources. Tell me who has. Did clinton? Would Al Gore? John Kerry? The people that control the oil and auto industries are not in the pocket of the president. Bush could make a grand statement advocating alternate energy source research and approve some funding, but it would hardly make a dent. The auto industry in America would continue to churn out large and inefficient vehicles to serve the masses. The oil industry would continue to fill their tanks.

For any difference to be made the people of America as a whole would have to reject inefficient vehicles and demand small vehicles. I don't think Bush has the kind of swaying power to convince a quarter of a billion people to give up their Expeditions and Camaros and trade down to a nice little Smart car or hybrid.

Capatalism at it's worst. If we'll buy it, they'll produce it, even if it'll be our downfall.

 

we're signing from the same hymn sheet bro'

 

Excellent work you did on converting your vehicles! Did you notice any improvement or decline in the vehicles performance, power, milage per gallon etc....

I am not so sure I have the technical skills to convert a car my self and even if I did I doubt that I could afford to buy a Mercedes.

Your post is just further proof that alternative energy sources are available now! We don’t need to develop alternative fuel sources because they already exist.

I recall reading somewhere that most cars today can run on up to 90% ethanol and that is without converting them.

As I am sitting here I just heard on the news that they want to change the school week from 5 days to 4 days to conserve gas.

Well, Clinton was able to keep gas prices down.

Refining capacity is not the problem! The big oil companies are making record profits in the billions of dollars. Exxon/Mobil made 800 billion in profits from last quarter alone! I continue my boycott of Exxon/Mobil and Hess gas. I buy only from Sunnoco, Gulf, and Texaco. It is the perfect way to boycott the oil industry because you can buy as much gas as you want! If you want to put even more pressure on the oil companies (in addition to the above) don’t buy any gas on the weekends!

We don’t need more refineries! We need more movement to alternative energy sources for our cars, homes etc..

I beleive you are the one who has to think.

 

i'm all for it too but for a sobering view on the benefits of alternative sources i suggest you read 'biodiesel is not the answer' in raven23's blog, esp the article by george monbiot that's quoted: http://kalanu.blogspot.com/

complicated, :H aint it?

 

I read somewhere that someone figured we ran at 2% lose of power on grease, but I don't feel the difference in the engine when I switch over, and I get the same mileage on vegetable oil that I do on dino-diesel.

As for technical skills, I had none before I started converting the car. There were no actual modifications to the engine. Just some rerouting of the fuel lines and coolant lines and wiring in a couple 12v components. Took less than a week once I had it all figured out. (That part took many months...)
And older Mercedes are the best value for the dollar out there. $2000-4000 for a car with 150,000-200,000 miles and they will last to 600,000 miles. I paid $800 for one of my mercedes and $1400 for the other. There are deals out there now and then. They are not really luxurious, I dont know where that ever came into play, but they are superior machines under the hood...

yes, check out that Mother Earth news link on how to make your own ethanol. There is a bit of tweeking you need to do before running pure ethanol, but no replacing of parts, just adjusting. Any gasoline car will run on ethanol, yes. I havent tried it or met anyone yet who has, but I have read about it...

 

You can't just run alcohol through a gas engine.

 

yeah you have to change the main jet's, spark plug's and readjust your timing and maybe a thermostat, other than that not much else. on newer car's with a pcm many aftermarket companys sell a chip that increases fuel injector pulse width an duration, which can be done in about half an hour. alot of gas stations around here"missouri" an iowa an nebraska already sell a corn-ohol which is 10-40% alcohol,,readily burned with no modification's...if your lucky enough to have a vehicle which burn's 100%alcohol expect atleast a 40 % increase in horsepower........