Confirmed suspicion

[altivo]

You may remember that after a trip to Michigan last year (April it was I think) I discovered that my aging Jeep had achieved absurdly unbelievable fuel economy of 38 mpg running on Michigan gasoline. This last weekend I made the same trip in the Ford Escape that replaced the Jeep last fall. The Escape has a smaller fuel tank and is more fuel efficient to begin with, so I didn't really empty the tank or have to refill it all the way with Michigan fuel. That makes comparisons tricky. The only gasoline I purchased on the trip was just over half a tankfull, and that was on the way home, but it was still in Michigan. Calculations show that I had reached 31.2 mpg on the drive there and partly back. Today I topped up the tank again just to see what the figures look like.

Running on a tank that was roughly 60% Michigan and 40% Illinois fuel, the Escape reached close to 35 mpg (34.8 to be precise) in highway driving (plus the trip to work this morning.) I maintain that it would improve by at least 2/5 of the difference in economy if it were running on all Michigan formulated fuel under the same conditions, which again yields about 37 mpg. Now that's not quite as impressive for a year-old Escape as it was for a nine year-old Cherokee, but it sure beats the EPA estimates by a significant amount.

Once again I suspect that ethanol is being pushed on us only to help control wealth redistribution in ways favored by the oil companies and politicians, rather than as a real boon to air purity, farm economies, or consumers. BTW, I was told that farmers in Michigan have not succumbed to "ethanol madness" and have continued to plant their normal crop rotations rather than plowing up everything, including winter wheat that was within a month or two of harvest, in order to plant corn.

I found my desk buried this morning, of course. I could really use a two or three week vacation. I have the time coming to me, but it's just impossible to schedule.

Oh, and if anyone was wondering about the outcome of last week's "interview" for the local library board openings, I was NOT invited to take a seat on the board. The interview was in fact rather perfunctory. There were apparently four candidates for two openings. I expected to be asked questions either about my experience or how I would propose to handle specific issues or problems. Instead, I was apparently expected to "campaign" for the position. One would normally mount such a campaign by pointing out failings of the sitting board and offering alternatives to improve the library's situation, services, or performance. Obviously such an approach is unlikely to succeed when the audience is in fact the sitting board members, so I declined to jump for that bait. I was asked why I hadn't run in the election, and gave the obvious answer: I had no idea that there were fewer candidates than there were openings. I didn't mention the fact that spending a lot of money to run a campaign for office when the office doesn't even offer any stipend is rather self-defeating. I believe the candidates that were selected probably were known to board members prior to the interview. I was not, and did feel that the whole proceedlings largely consisted of a "Who are you and why are you poking your nose into our affairs?" attitude. Ah well.

P.S... Happy birthday, lobowolf! Don't forget we all want to see photos of this year's surprise. XD

Comments

[lobowolf.livejournal.com]

Thanks ^_^

I'll have to get damnbear to post the pictures :0)

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Yes. Hope you had fun.

[cabcat.livejournal.com]

Whee on 98 Octane advanced timing and my heavy paw.
I managed 35.64mpg :D

Who thinks I should do another economy run?

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Mine was all on 87 octane. ;p

[cabcat.livejournal.com]

Yes but the US Octane rating is a an average of MON and RON, so translated you're actual "octane" ratings are higher when converted to our pump ratings :) Its probably equivalent of 91 Octane on our pumps.

[shadow-stallion.livejournal.com]

You're doing a lot better than me when it comes to mileage. The last tank of gas that I logged on the Firebird netted me 18.8 MPG. I was a bit disappointed with that until I saw that 19 MPG city was the rating for my car. Not wonderful mileage by any means but a heck of a lot better than the 10-14 that the Ram gets. :P

[cabcat.livejournal.com]

I'm betting those are both have more than twice the displacement and the amount of cylinders kind of guaranteeing a pretty low mileage rate :P

Run em on LPG and you'll find them cheaper ;) of course power is going to be down a bit.

[shadow-stallion.livejournal.com]

*chuckles* You're right of course. The Firebird is a 4.3L V-6 w/200 HP and the Ram is a 5.7L V-8 Hemi w/340 HP. Not exactly the most fuel efficient engines.

[cabcat.livejournal.com]

All I need is an industrial grinder a welder and I can double your fuel economy :D ....you might feel a bit of a loss in power though.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

As the saying goes, "You pays your money and you gets your choice," or something like that. We use low energy lightbulbs and appliances too. But we do tend to leave computers running continuously, which is bad according to the needling of the local utility folks.

My very conservative driving would undoubtedly net me an energy saving even with your fuel-hungry vehicles. My mate has a Focus with almost the same engine. It's a lighter car but has an automatic transmission. He's a heavy foot driver, so I get the better mileage.

[shadow-stallion.livejournal.com]

*shrugs* I'm not overly concerned about my vehicles being highly fuel efficient. I bought the truck to tow a boat and as a result you get something with a big engine and that is a gas guzzler. However, it does tend to stay parked these days in favor of the more fuel efficent Firebird. Now granted I am not a heavy-hoofed driver but I do tend to speed and that certainly impacts fuel mileage. *smirks* And a sensitive as the gas pedal is on the Ram I would bet anyone would have trouble getting much more than the 14 MPG or so that it is supposed to be getting.

I'm all in favor of energy saving appliances but I am not jumping on board with the low energy lightbulbs just yet. For one they are ugly and any light fixture that allows the bulb to be exposed or seen detracts from the aethetics of the interior design. Also, I have not heard wonderful things about the compact flourescents on the news. For some reason I remember a story about how they can potentially be harmful to your health but that may just be a bunch of hot air.

Light bulbs

[altivo.livejournal.com]

I have no complaints about the compact fluorescents at all. They make a major difference in electricity used, they are available in full spectrum versions that don't have the color shifting I used to associate with fluorescents, they produce less heat, and they last longer than conventional bulbs. If you don't like the look of the curly tube models, they now have them where the element is enclosed in a plastic globe so it looks like a regular bulb.

I don't think there is any potential harm to your health unless you go around smashing them and eating the fragments or something. I'd worry more about cell phones causing brain cancer than I would about light bulbs of any sort. (And I don't worry about cell phones either, though I rarely use one.)

[deffox]

You do know that Michigan uses Imperial Gallons, don't you? ;-)

I noted that driving a UHaul through a Chicago traffic jam with a car in tow netted me 8.34 mpg.

It was hard to calculate mileage later in the trip because I had to return the truck with 1/4 tank of fuel, and the guage had a tendency to jump.

Over here miles per litre is too low a number. And their litres per 100km is too much trouble. I'll just continue to convert litres to gallons when I'm curious of mileage.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Heh. Michigan uses the same gallon I do. The difference is that Illinois mandates 15% ethanol in all gasoline, while Michigan does not. There's also a price difference, due in part to taxes but mostly to reasons I can't fathom. Michigan and Indiana prices were almost 30 cents per gallon lower than what I pay here.

Chicago traffic is bad, I agree. Chicago drivers are worse. Fortunately I don't drive in Chicago or near it much at all. A trip like this one where I have to skirt the edges is bad enough.

[jmaynard.livejournal.com]

Amen to that. WHen I'm driving from Fairmont to Detroit, I usually take I-80 across Illinois; the detour from I-90 down I-35 and I-380 is justified by the lowered hassle factor.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

That's quite a detour. I generally take I-294 around the southwest suburbs until it rejoins I-94 near the Indiana line. There's a godawful amount of construction going on, though.

[dakhun.livejournal.com]

Yes, but like you said to me in a previous post, YMMV, and that explains everything. ;-)

Once again I suspect that ethanol is being pushed on us only to help control wealth redistribution in ways favored by the oil companies...

This should be more than just a suspicion. Oil executives have pretty much said as much. :-/

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/24/business/24refinery.html?ex=1183003200&en=f5f105f20c3a73bf&ei=5070
(the bugmenot.com password for this worked for me)

"Oil companies have scaled back plans to increase fuel production at existing refineries because of calls for greater use of ethanol."

"And some oil executives are now warning that the current shortages of fuel could become a long-term problem, leading to stubbornly higher prices at the pump.

They point to a surprising culprit: uncertainty created by the government’s push to increase the supply of biofuels like ethanol in coming years.

In his State of the Union address in January, President Bush called for a sharp increase in the use of biofuels, along with some improvement in automobile fuel efficiency to reduce America’s use of gasoline by 20 percent within 10 years. Congress is considering legislation calling for a nearly fivefold increase in the use of ethanol.

That has forced many oil companies to reconsider or scale back their plans for constructing new refinery capacity."

[altivo.livejournal.com]

I'm more inclined to believe that the oil companies are busy building ethanol plants to make sure they can control that market as well.