Someone's gotta say it: Nancy Pelosi needs to piss off.

[konechiwa 10+ year member]

A 2+ year boom that would collapse when the oil supplies dropped. Drilling in the US is not even close to a solution.
Besides, imagine the economic boom in the US when you hold all that oil until the US is one of the last suppliers on the planet.

You're thinking a bit too short-term, in my opinion. Also, you seem to like playing into the partisan bullshit that focuses on what party is doing what or what ideology thinks what, rather than what we as a people are doing to solve problems.

If Pelosi has to piss off, so do 90% of the officials in DC.

exactly.

What's the point of destroying one of the last places left that is truly not used by humans (the alaskan wilderness, trust me, having been on the fringes, it truly is a wild place), for a short term solution?

What happens after we destroy it and oil runs out?

I'd rather pay 4 dollars a gallon to conserve a great natural resource like that. I'm not saying we need to put animals over humans, but their is no point in spending money on something that in a while will be gone anyway soon....

 

[PV Audio 5,000+ posts]

methanol is harder to ignite than gasoline. So much so that the EPA estimates that fuel related automotive property damage would decrease as much as 90 percent

Methanol is harder to light because it has an extraordinarily high ignition temperature which is why it used to be the go-to race fuel for high temp/high compression engines. No engines aside from perhaps high-compression V8s would even be able to ignite it effectively to still have a full power stroke in the motor.

We definitely need to move toward this type of fuel though. It will be decades before we make any real progress if we have to totally revamp our fueling infrastructure.

I am 100% with you. We need to start now because by the time we do get serious oil production from this offshore nonsense, it'll be too little too late. The fact that there are SUV hybrids on the roads these days says a little about America needing something besides petroleum. I can envision by maybe 2050 to 2060, we'll see gasoline pumps as sort of the rogue diesel pump at gas stations now.

 

[PV Audio 5,000+ posts]

no one ever said drilling was a solution to gain total independence. just enough to balance out the market and lower our prices here in the US. at least thats what glenn beck said i believe.

The only reason prices will lower is because of speculators. It'll even out and people will see that the effect is minimal. Think about this, do you really think that Exxon will decide to charge less for "our" oil (which we don't technically own anyway)? They want to make a profit still.

 

[PV Audio 5,000+ posts]

exactly.
What's the point of destroying one of the last places left that is truly not used by humans (the alaskan wilderness, trust me, having been on the fringes, it truly is a wild place), for a short term solution?

What happens after we destroy it and oil runs out?

I'd rather pay 4 dollars a gallon to conserve a great natural resource like that. I'm not saying we need to put animals over humans, but their is no point in spending money on something that in a while will be gone anyway soon....

Spot on the ****ing head.

 

[Hintzyboy 5,000+ posts]

Methanol is harder to light because it has an extraordinarily high ignition temperature which is why it used to be the go-to race fuel for high temp/high compression engines. No engines aside from perhaps high-compression V8s would even be able to ignite it effectively to still have a full power stroke in the motor.
I am 100% with you. We need to start now because by the time we do get serious oil production from this offshore nonsense, it'll be too little too late. The fact that there are SUV hybrids on the roads these days says a little about America needing something besides petroleum. I can envision by maybe 2050 to 2060, we'll see gasoline pumps as sort of the rogue diesel pump at gas stations now.

Actually, VW has done some testing recently using methanol in their diesel engines (Swaping out the direct injection for standard injector/spark plug, as well as some other stuff). From what I read, the performance figures aren't far off.

 

[konechiwa 10+ year member]

Spot on the ****ing head.

what we really need to do is tell the oil companies to fukk off.

Our government doesn't realize they would eat out of our assholes because without us they wont make NEARLY as much money.

Who is gonna buy gas? Europe? Africa? Don't think so.

The reason why they make record profits is because they make record sales here.

Without those sales, they are toast.

 

[PV Audio 5,000+ posts]

Actually, VW has done some testing recently using methanol in their diesel engines (Swaping out the direct injection for standard injector/spark plug, as well as some other stuff). From what I read, the performance figures aren't far off.

Really? I'm a nerd so that'd probably be an interesting read. Got a link? //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/eek.gif.771b7a90cf45cabdc554ff1121c21c4a.gif
What I don't understand about methanol is that it is extraordinarily volatile, but yet it can be used as glow fuel engines which can run at temperatures in the low 100s (not well, but still possible).

 

[konechiwa 10+ year member]

i'm going to tell everyone again that electric cars are a short term solution....

 

[azimuth 5,000+ posts]

i'm going to tell everyone again that electric cars are a short term solution....

agreed. i'm fvking baffled about the geo metro getting 50+ miles per gallon...........20 years ago. 20 years later worth of technology gives us the prius. just as ugly as the metro, but gets 20 mpg less. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/crazy.gif.c13912c32de98515d3142759a824dae7.gif

 

[PV Audio 5,000+ posts]

agreed. i'm fvking baffled about the geo metro getting 50+ miles per gallon...........20 years ago. 20 years later worth of technology gives us the prius. just as ugly as the metro, but gets 20 mpg less. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/crazy.gif.c13912c32de98515d3142759a824dae7.gif

The prius is the ultimate farce. It's all in how you drive your car, not what it is.

 

[zack39648 10+ year member]

**** it i love paying more for gas than milk or beer !

 

[konechiwa 10+ year member]

The prius is the ultimate farce. It's all in how you drive your car, not what it is.

to some point. You can't tell me that if you drove a Hummer H1 the best you could it could beat a prius in MPG.

 

[Hintzyboy 5,000+ posts]

Really? I'm a nerd so that'd probably be an interesting read. Got a link? //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/eek.gif.771b7a90cf45cabdc554ff1121c21c4a.gif
What I don't understand about methanol is that it is extraordinarily volatile, but yet it can be used as glow fuel engines which can run at temperatures in the low 100s (not well, but still possible).

I don't have a link to the actual tests, but here is a small blurb about it from a Motor Trend article.

The EPA took a 1.9-liter VW diesel engine with 19.5:1 compression, swapped the direct injectors for spark plugs, fitted cheap port injectors, and ran it on methanol largely unthrottled but at the stoichiometric air-fuel ratio using exhaust-gas recirculation and turbo boost to regulate the mixture and load. The result: higher thermal efficiency than the original diesel over a broader spectrum (peaking at nearly 43 percent to diesel's 41) in a cheaper engine with cleaner emissions requiring no exotic aftertreatment. Thank methanol's high knock resistance, denser charge (as it evaporates, it cools the air more than gasoline can), faster flame front, and slower heat release (which lowers NOx).

Link to article: http://www.motortrend.com/features/editorial/112_0808_technologue/index.html

 

[Hintzyboy 5,000+ posts]

to some point. You can't tell me that if you drove a Hummer H1 the best you could it could beat a prius in MPG.

The prius is still a joke. Hell, Audi is currently producing a diesel version of the TT that tops out at 140mph+, sprints to 60 in about 7 seconds, and still manages to average about 50mpg.

And a hybrid barely touches 45mpg??? Pathetic.

 

[PV Audio 5,000+ posts]

to some point. You can't tell me that if you drove a Hummer H1 the best you could it could beat a prius in MPG.

Come on, do you think that's a fair comparison? //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/crap.gif.7f4dd41e3e9b23fbd170a1ee6f65cecc.gif
And the Germans aren't going hybrid, they're sticking to their diesels. They are making more powerful and cleaner diesels than ever that get gas mileage easily in the 30-50 range for their sports cars.