Anyone runing additives in their fuel?

[northernrighty]

Demand will never drop. Emerging major fuel consumers such as India and China will ensure that. Fuel is a global market, especially diesel fuel as it transports much better than gasoline. Talk to the Aussies, they have seen their prices go skyward over the last decade as they compete to buy fuel with those two major markets just off the coast of their wee island. Shipping is much more efficient at moving fuel than freight by commercial truck or train.

I realize it is a global market, however, how do you explain our "Low" fuel cost in NA. It is a bit rediculous to say demand wouldn't be lower if we drove more efficient vehicles. Would we all just drive around at night to make up for the fuel we aren't burning? The fact remains there is NO LOGICAL REASON to run petrol instead of diesel! The only reason we use it here is because that is what they sell us, that is what our governments allow us to buy (vehicles), and WE CAN AFFORD IT! there is just no argument againt that.

 

[canucksafari]

The difference in fuel costs between North America and the rest of the world and the gasoline versus diesel usage is largely tax related. In most of Europe, you pay your registration costs based on the engine size and of course you also want to have a very small efficient engine to get the most out of every tank with the prices they pay there.

Another factor is that in North America our refining infrastructure is designed to produce much more gasoline from the same barrel of crude than refineries elsewhere in the world. It is currently nearly maxed out while demand for diesel is increasing now in North America. Hence, prices on diesel are higher than they should be compared to gasoline. It's supply and demand. One refinery goes down in Western Canada and diesel prices across the country shoot up.

 

[kim]

My understanding is that refining crude oil breaks it down into it's respective parts, like gasoline, diesel, kerosene, etc. One cannot get more gasoline out of the same type of crude by desire.

Also, our NA market is framed around gasoline use and Europe is framed around diesel. I also believe it to be true that we ship a lot of diesel to Europe and Europe ships a lot of gasoline to NA.

 

[canucksafari]

Tried looking for the article where I read that the European refineries had a higher diesel output but I couldn't find it. All I could find is this description Crude Oil Refining . At the bottom it does show that the output of various product varies from region to region. Perhaps part of that is caused by product blending and producing more diesel versus home heating oil? It is true that our refineries, especially those in the east and the Gulf of Mexico ship large amounts of diesel to the European markets because they will pay more money - even when we have supposed shortages here. It all depends who is willing to pay the most.

 

[John Galt]

This site gives a clear explanation of the oil refining process.
Chevron in Canada - How Does an Oil Refinery Work?
Yes, N.American refineries are designed to produce more gasoline.
Light sweet crude oil also contains more gasoline than heavy oils.
Diesel fuel can be easily refined from light oil, heavy oil, or even coal,
Diesel fuel can be easily synthesized from natural gas.

Vegetable oil based fuels can't significantly replace diesel fuel/heating fuel without seriously compromising food production and water resources.
However, low percentages of vegetable oil based additives can make diesel fuel burn much cleaner.

The fuel mix I use gives my '89 13B-T an emissions profile as clean as a new gasoline automobile.
1% opacity, 10 ppm HC with biofuel additive.

 

[amaurer]

The fuel mix I use gives my '89 13B-T an emissions profile as clean as a new gasoline automobile.
1% opacity, 10 ppm HC with biofuel additive.

Sure, if you ignore NOx.

 

[John Galt]

Sure, if you ignore NOx.

Yes, where I live it's tree fertilizer, and not part of the emissions test.
I understand a CA perspective would be different.

In any case the bio-fuel additive reduces NOx as compared with straight petro-diesel.

 

[northernrighty]

We kind of got off topic on this one, but great discussion. I think we can all agree that diesel is a better choice, I personally just get sick of the government and big oil conspiring to force us to drive petrol vs deisel. There is just no logical or reasonalble explination as to why vehicles like my 80 are not available in NA with a deisel engine, other than back room kick backs or hand tieing by big oil/ Gov.

 

[John Galt]

There is just no logical or reasonalble explination as to why vehicles like my 80 are not available in NA

Basic supply and demand, no conspiracy required. Toyota knows fully well from their market research that there's not enough demand for diesel vehicles in N.America to make it profitable. They sell lots of diesels to the rest of the world, so why bother with N.A. when they're making a tidy profit on gasoline vehicles.

 

[northernrighty]

Basic supply and demand, no conspiracy required. Toyota knows fully well from their market research that there's not enough demand for diesel vehicles in N.America to make it profitable. They sell lots of diesels to the rest of the world, so why bother with N.A. when they're making a tidy profit on gasoline vehicles.

lol, If you buy that then there is no sense trying to make you see the light, just remember most people just take what they are given and deisel has intentionally be given a bad rap here TO SUPPORT THE PETROL "PUSH". Your "market research" consists of HUGE kick backs and back room deals. The deisel yota's would be just as popular as the cummins dodges, if they were allowed in!

 

[ChrisB]

It's really unfortunate that these sorts of things go on behind the curtain. There are so many really awesome yota's out there in aussi and E U. It really upsets me that the big 3 have so much political power over the world. I've noticed the same sort of bullying with vw and Audi. They have way more models available with diesels in other countries than they bring across to NA.

 

[northernrighty]

toyota, vw, audi, bmw, mazda, Mercedes, Hell even the big three make some cool deisel vehicles that they won't let us have!

 

[BC40]

We kind of got off topic on this one, but great discussion. ....

What was the orig topic again, oh yeah, running fuel additives.

It is good discussion though. A company tries to bring in an entry level priced mid sized diesel pickup (mahindra), and how does that work out for them? Protection of the domestic offerings squashed that idea.

To be on topic, I do occassionally run a mix with canola oil. I have tried diluted WMO/RUG (not an additive, just cheap alternate fuel) but it does noticeably increase the stink of the exhaust.

*EDIT* meant WMO not SVO, changed it

 

[canucksafari]

Martin, what's RUG stand for?

 

[amaurer]

Martin, what's RUG stand for?

Regular Unleaded Gasoline?

 

[Eric Winkworth]

Speaking about corporate protectionism, have you ever herd of the ZENN car? (Zero Emissions No Noise) An actual Canadian company that has made and manufactured fully electric cars over the last few years, of course with battery technologies being bought up by texaco and hidden from real world use, there would be a need for battery swapping stations for long drives (I guess gas station infrastructure would work well for this). Our government won't let these cars be sold in our market though... I guess it's hard to get road tax from a car you can plug in essentially anywhere, so why bother...

Truth be told burning fossil fuels at the rate we're going is like running towards a cliff while looking behind you... Were running a world off of a finite resource, a resource we have no way of knowing how much is really left... While supply continues to grow, production has leveled off and we're now destroying huge land bases to get the hard to refine dirty oil (Northern Alberta will be a desert someday)
All the while huge corporations hold the world back from developing new technologies things like the

Tesla's Electric Car
or more recently the EV's of early 2000 most of which were taken back by manufacturers after leases and crushed for scrap...

This has been going on for 100 years now... Diesels weren't even designed to run on petroleum fuel. Diesel fuel itself wasn't even invented until after Rudolph Diesel invented the diesel engine which ran on plant oils. Peanut, hemp, canola etc...

I realize we got off topic, but it really bothers me how very few people seem to question our governments actions... If people truly understood how corporations run our world with no regard for us or the plant would they even care?

 

[derelict]

I do. Stanadyne is hard to come by but Amsoil has an additive that I like. I have run half a bottle per tank for a few months now. I have been keeping track of the mileage and I see an increase whenever I run the additive and a drop when I dont.

 

[BC40]

Martin, what's RUG stand for?

Regular Unleaded Gasoline?

Yep. Just enough to thin the viscosity to approx diesel. Had a large backlog of used oil so did some filtering and ran it about 50:50 normal:black diesel. Only difference I noticed was the stink. Bunch of reading here if you are interested in it:
Bio-Diesel and Alternative Fuels - Page 2 - Diesel Forum - TheDieselStop.com


*Just noticed my mistake in that last post, I meant waste motor oil with gas not straight veg oil, oops.*

 

[northernrighty]

waist motor oil and gas WOW that sounds like it would SMOKE like crazy LOL, bet the tree huggers would love that!

 

[amaurer]

I'm always impressed with what doesn't smoke when you put it in a diesel. Seafoam, for example, will smoke out the whole neighborhood in a gasser but burns perfectly clean in a diesel.

I'm not sure waste motor oil would be that bad.