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If it’s like how analog photography shops were going, no not really. Perhaps you will get specialized shops for fuel and biofuels?
by prox 4y ago
If it’s like how analog photography shops were going, no not really. Perhaps you will get specialized shops for fuel and biofuels?
- Tade0 4y agoOr we'll just go full circle and gasoline will be available at pharmacies: https://radair.com/blog/2011/11/10/automotive-history-benz/ https://radair.com/blog/2011/11/10/automotive-history-benz/
- prox 4y agoWondering… Is it possible to make tiny refineries for say a town or area? So locally produced or is that a environmental nightmare?
- Tade0 4y agoThere's a refinery next to one of the highways exiting Vienna, Austria: https://www.google.com/maps/@48.147145,16.5005479,3a,75y,168.57h,95.66t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1shsa0Otpyptoy36k2dWlkuA!2e0!7i16384!8i8192 https://www.google.com/maps/@48.147145,16.5005479,3a,75y,168... People live on the other side of that highway, so I guess it's possible, but I used to drive through that area on a regular basis and the smell hard to forget. Apart from that such facilities need to be large to be cost-effective.
- actionfromafar 4y agoMany engines can be converted to run on ethanol.
- sidewndr46 4y agoThis gets thrown out quite a bit but I don't really buy it. If it is not designed for alcohol, it probably isn't going to work. Alcohol has too many weird interactions with stuff like aluminum.
- pjc50 4y agoMany countries are running on part-ethanol already; the UK is on "E10" (up to 10%)
- sidewndr46 4y agopartial ethanol and full alcohol are not even close.
- bluGill 4y agoClose enough. E10 is enough to see most of the issues you will see with pure Ethanol. Most engines just need to run is different fuel maps. ideally you would make other changes (increase the compression ratio), but they are expensive.
- actionfromafar 4y agoSome engines (SAAB, I'm looking at you) will detect knocks and adapt the map on the fly. Then, there's the more insane stuff: https://www.motorauthority.com/news/1024086_ethanol-powered-saab-diesel-on-display-in-sweden https://www.motorauthority.com/news/1024086_ethanol-powered-...
- johncalvinyoung 4y agomost gasoline available in the eastern USA is E10. I go out of my way to get E0 for a vintage high-performance vehicle I drive on occasion, it's noticeably happier without the ethanol, even if it can drive on E10 without damage.
- actionfromafar 4y agoWhich was why I didn't say "all" or anything like that. But basically a lot of engines from Ford and Volvo can run on ethanol. Any old iron block can if you replace pipes and hoses. And so on.
- 4y ago
- pjc50 4y agoIt's not economic and it's both an environmental and safety nightmare. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buncefield_fire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buncefield_fire "largest peacetime explosion in Europe" I live in Edinburgh, and there's regular complaints about flaring from the Mossmorran refinery, which lights up the night sky, produces smoke, and is incredibly loud.
- prox 4y agoWow, that’s a gigantic fire right there. So it seems local refineries are not very interesting.
- Workaccount2 4y agoIt makes orders of magnitude more sense to have one centralized large refinery and then many dispersed holding tanks to distribute fuel. This model may sound familiar.
- coderenegade 4y agoIt's like people have forgotten that ICEVs started without any of that infrastructure in place. Even if we can't buy petrol from pharmacies, methanol and ethanol engines are a mature technology and the fuel is both cheap and easy to get. The practical reality is that lack of fuel stations is a pain in the ass, but the strength of ICEs is that they can be modified to run on different fuels. And fueling them is easy.