It’s likely that we could do with fewer different
formulas. Here’s your basics – we need different mixes based on
temperature – I don’t think what works in Minnesota in the winter
would suit Miami at the same time of year. The second reason we need different
formulas is to manage different problems. For example, places like Denver, Las
Vegas, and Los Angeles tend to have problems with carbon monoxide. Other
places, such as Atlanta, tend to have problems with ozone, which is formed from
nitrous oxides, hydrocarbons (which can be present from evergreen trees –
that’s what led to Reagan’s absurd comment that pine trees
pollute), and sunlight.
The rub is that CO tends to get created when vehicles are
running rich, which is why some of these places have a bigger problem in the
winter – if it’s cold, and the car isn’t running rich, it won’t
run. NOx tends to get created when vehicles run lean. A modern car will cycle
between a little rich and a little lean to make the catalytic converter work
best in removing both CO, HC, and NOx. So if you have two different cities and
one with a NOx problem, and the other with a CO problem, the best fuel for one
would likely make the other worse.
A second problem is what you use to achieve each result. A common
oxygenator for a while was MBTE (IIRC) – at any rate, they started
finding problems with it, especially if there was a fuel leak from underground
tanks. I don’t think they can use that one in CA any longer.
Funny story – a mechanic friend of mine was once doing a
smog check on a car in LA, and when he zeroed out the machine based on the
ambient air, the car was emitting negative emissions. He checked it with his
calibration gas, and it turned out the emissions from the car were cleaner than
the air. The vehicle was actually cleaning the air as it ran. Pretty nasty
comment on what people were breathing.
What we’d end up with if we did go to fewer formulations
is that people in areas that don’t especially need something to suppress
CO emissions would end up with it, likely at extra expense, but it might even
out if they didn’t have to clean up the refineries all the time.
The up side to all this is that competing technologies are going
to really get an opportunity – the supply infrastructure for gasoline is
so entrenched that other fuels really need to be a lot cheaper to make up for
the difference. Plus, as prices go up, that house over an hour away is going to
start looking more expensive than living in town, and maybe we’ll start
taking a more serious look at rail. Very few people will do things just because
it’s the right thing, so we have to get it to where it’s in their
economic advantage to do the right thing. If we’d have kept up the
pressure on driving up mileage standards, we wouldn’t use so much oil,
demand would be less, and prices would go down. But like I said, few people,
especially the administration, will do the right thing just because it’s
right.
From: ridecamp-owner@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:ridecamp-owner@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Hoovinit@xxxxxxx Sent: Sunday, May 06, 2007 9:23 AM To: tprevatt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx Cc: ridecamp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: Re: [RC] [RC] The Price of Gas
It
would be great to agree on one formulation of gas, but I don't think that's
possible. Supposedly the variations in the gas formulations is because of the
smog we get in the hot desert areas during the times of year we have wild
temperature changes, like during the the winter. Cold nights with warm days
traps the pollution in. The changes in gas formulations is supposed to somehow
help prevent that from happening as much, though I'm not sure it makes much
difference. We just have too many people and cars is the main problem.
Nobody seems to be trying to drive less. People are buying houses
in subdivisions way outside the city because they're cheaper, then they drive
an hour or hour and a half each way to work! If more people would live closer
to work, that would help the problem. Just my humble opinion based on
observation.
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