Morris Minor Owners Club

paulhumphries wrote: I'm not sure what the problems might be with some cars but do know when unleaded was introduced (I think in New Zealand) there was trouble with certain types of seals in fuel systems failing so wonder if that is a similar

Tell me about it Just caught the hose from the pump to the carby in time . Many cars went up in flames - they got the mix wrong!

I'm sure when I looked into this a while ago it turned out E85 was about 7% cheaper with a 15% drop in mpg! Or figures to that effect.

I like the idea of biofuels (if anyone looks at my old posts on the electric car debates on here they'll see my opinions about alternative power ;) ) but availability, price, and from an eco point of view actual production methods make me wary at present.

I've wondered for a long time why something isn't done with the vast amounts of waste humans create, glad to hear some scientists are actually trying to do something productive there!

As for whether E85 is any good or not - It might attack fuel lines and some fuel system metals, and it doesn't have great lubricating properties AFAIK. However, I can't see it being so bad that filling the tank will result in the float chamber dissolving whilst the valves all jam up! I'd certainly give it a go if I could get it locally.

But is it worth running stupid compression and advance to make the most use of it only to find you need to fill up on normal petrol in the middle of nowhere, and have a pinking pig of a piston melting engine till you can find another E85 pump somewhere?

Packedup wrote:I've wondered for a long time why something isn't done with the vast amounts of waste humans create

Slightly off topic I know but I remember about 8 years ago taking nearly 20 ton of custom made pipework to a landfill just outside Edinburgh. They were concrete capping a landfill and piping off the methane created to generate electricity. Now thats recycling!

Morrisons which has just opened in York sells Bioethanol E85

Really?

We can't even buy LPG down these parts!

Packedup wrote:
I've wondered for a long time why something isn't done with the vast amounts of waste humans create, glad to hear some scientists are actually trying to do something productive there!

Lafarge Cement (used to be Blue Circle Cement) is a local company to me.
I had an invite for a tour of the factory with the Retired Engineers Society (I was a civil servant but got invited to join due to freinds being members and my interest) unfortunatley there were too many steps to climb (duff leg syndrome !) so I had to decline.
I was told the process plant is interesting and after the base materials are mixed they are then heated in a rotary kiln. The kiln is powered by burning various items including old tyres and dried HUMAN SEWERAGE

Welung666 wrote:
Slightly off topic I know but I remember about 8 years ago taking nearly 20 ton of custom made pipework to a landfill just outside Edinburgh. They were concrete capping a landfill and piping off the methane created to generate electricity. Now thats recycling!

A mate is a lorry driver and took me to a landfill site near Crewe Ches.
There are pipes all over that are slowly covered with old house bricks encased in steel mesh.
On the way out my mate showed me what the pipes were for.
Seems they have two ex submarine diesel engines still linked to massive generators that are powered by the methane and electricity sent back to the grid.
The engines run on normal diesel to generate the ignition but are also fed on the methane which then raised the revs.
That is a good example but I can also quote a bad one
My council is Staffordshire Moorlands and their main tip / refuse disposal site is at Fowlchurch, Leek. This used to be a landfill but has been greened over to look like any other field with waste going into skips for transportation to recycling and incinerator.
The methane from the old landfill, however, is just burn off !
If you go at this time of year just before closing you can see the huge, almost invisible, flames almost like the old films of oil rigs.
What is discusting is the council built a new swimming baths a few hundred yards away and it was propesed that the methane be used towards the heating yet was deemed not viable !
In my opinion the methane is a resource and need recycling into power etc just the same as all other waste.
Even if they used it to power a small generator to provide lighting on the site I'd find that acceptable but just burning it is terrible.

Paul Humphries.

Long time ago I used to live near Mogden Sewerage works - at the time of building it was powered by using the methane generated in the plant...

Apparently this was changed in later times - maybe it couldn't meet the power requirements(?)

This seems to be a general problem with bio-products: the energy density (kJ/kg or kJ/litre) is lower than liquid hydrocarbons...

Colin