Australian Fuel News - Senators Turn Blind Eye To FuelWatch

[nota]

Didn't GMI poster Dr Terry record about 9 L/100 km when running on LPG during a touring holiday (four-up & with luggage) in a Holden VE Omega V6 equipped with optional dual-fuel?

At the currently typical fuel prices as illustrated above, this translates into a fantastic cost-equivalent of under 4 L/100 km (delivered in real-life conditions AND from a large & reasonably powerful 6cyl automatic sedan!) or over 70 I-mpg in the old money

Which AFAIK is cheaper in actual fuel-cost-per-distance than might be comparably achievable by any petrol or diesel passenger vehicle sold in Australia today - including micro cars with micro room & micro performance

As an aside it always strikes me as odd that virtually every media judgement of LPG centres purely around the initial 'payback period' .. yet typically avoids any mention of future & ongoing fuel savings or economy

[isszy]

My wife drives her VY Berlina on lpg from the outer suburbs into the city each day. Her last fill of around 75 litres cost $40 and she got 400km. That translates to city driving costs equivalent of a car that gets real world economy of less than 7l/100km. These are typically the base model versions of cars like the Hyundai Getz. Which would you prefer to be driving ?

[RedVee8]

The LPG Commodore is starting to grow on me, and I'm one that has had reservations along the line of not wanting to sit on the BBQ when it goes up.

LPG does seem to have alot going for it. A family 6 with real economy of a tiddler.... hmmm.

On a side note, why isn't LPG also available on the V8?

Flexfuel e85 v6 or (I hope) v8 with dual fuel LPG would be a winner in my books. Have to available on the whole range, not just sedans though.
Another question, is there a danger in leaving e85 unused in your tank for long periods? does the "mix" separate?

[nota]

Interested in an alternative automotive fuel that ...

Australia has huge reserves of?
currently retails for 53 cents per litre?
has the potential for even cheaper home-refuelling?
delivers an 80% reduction in greenhouse gasses over petrol?
could slash our imported fuel dependency (and current account deficit) by $$ Billions

6 minute ABC video (recent 'Stateline' program)

http://www.abc.net.au/news/video/2008/06/09/2269048.htm

[Dr Terry]

Originally Posted by RedVee8

The LPG Commodore is starting to grow on me, and I'm one that has had reservations along the line of not wanting to sit on the BBQ when it goes up.

LPG does seem to have alot going for it. A family 6 with real economy of a tiddler.... hmmm.

On a side note, why isn't LPG also available on the V8?

Flexfuel e85 v6 or (I hope) v8 with dual fuel LPG would be a winner in my books. Have to available on the whole range, not just sedans though.
Another question, is there a danger in leaving e85 unused in your tank for long periods? does the "mix" separate?

IMHO a standard petrol tank full of vapour is more dangerous (explosive) than a solid steel LPG tank, especially with all the extra safety features they have. Also, the LPG has to be within a specific air/fuel ratio to ignite. Too rich or too lean & it will not ignite.

I'm with you on the E85 thing though. Not necessarily the mix separating, but the fuel itself evaporating away. Its evaporation rate must be very high - one of the problems with using E10 in old carby cars.

Dr Terry.

[Dr Terry]

Originally Posted by nota

Interested in an alternative automotive fuel that ...

Australia has huge reserves of?
currently retails for 53 cents per litre?
has the potential for even cheaper home-refuelling?
delivers an 80% reduction in greenhouse gasses over petrol?
could slash our imported fuel dependency (and current account deficit) by $$ Billions

6 minute ABC video (recent 'Stateline' program)

http://www.abc.net.au/news/video/2008/06/09/2269048.htm

CNG has a lot going for it. But LPG is currently more user friendly in day-to-day use.

As I understand it, because it's not stored in liquid form, the compressing & refilling routine is a much slower affair. I don't know about other areas, but in Sydney, there are next to zero outlets.

Having said that, the idea of re-fueling at home, overnight whilst the car in in the garage, at cents per litre is very appealing.

Dr Terry

[Stormin]

Originally Posted by Dr Terry

CNG has a lot going for it. But LPG is currently more user friendly in day-to-day use.

As I understand it, because it's not stored in liquid form, the compressing & refilling routine is a much slower affair. I don't know about other areas, but in Sydney, there are next to zero outlets.

Having said that, the idea of re-fueling at home, overnight whilst the car in in the garage, at cents per litre is very appealing.

Dr Terry

Other downsides are bigger/heavier storage cylinders required and because CNG is a gas, as the cylinder empties, the pressure drops (hence performance). There are probably engineering solutions, but at a cost.

[JoeT]

Liquid Gas Injection Breakthrough

John Mellor
24 June 2008
www.goauto.com.au

LPG Liquid Injection tech to rival petrol engine consumption in Oz within a month.

The Australian car industry and Kevin Rudd’s struggling ‘working families’ could soon benefit from a completely new form of LPG technology that improves the fuel economy of LPG cars and significantly improves emissions.

Known as LPG Liquid Injection, the technology is said to produce fuel economy for LPG cars that is close to the petrol equivalent for the same car.

The exhaust emissions are also said to be significantly better than petrol or diesel vehicles because using liquid injection creates a much more complete fuel burn than using LPG vapour.

The imported liquid injection system, called JTG (Just Think Green), is expected to go on sale at LPG conversion workshops in late July.

Conversions will cost about $300 to $400 more than current conversions. The early focus will be in Falcons and Commodores before being rolled out to other makes and models.

Click here to continue article

[mikmak]

That's awesome! I really hope all three (Holden, ford and Toyota) all get on board. We have very strong LPG supply and by all three major players taking part, this will stimulate fuel stations to get Gas pumps. A gas VE Sportwagon sounds pretty damn good to me.

[MonaroSS]

You know how on Tuesday nights, when you lay on your back on the bar, the bartender pours both Vodka and Schnapps into your mouth from two separate bottles at the same time...... or is that Tequila and Vermouth and the Vodka is Wednesday..umm…. now I know Thursday is Cum in a Hot Tub's followed by Alabama Slammer Chasers......but... oh well.

Anyway, we all have our own quirky unique nightly routines, but you know what I mean. You can mix two things from two sources just before they are consumed.

I'd like to see a Commodore duel fuel where it was E100 and CNG but they were both pumped into a digitally variable pre-mixer inside each DI injector so that they both were used at once in proportions best suited to the throttle and load conditions and how each fuel best performs under those varying conditions.

Then we Aussies would need nothing else. We have enough renewable sugar cane and plenty of natural gas (until we can grow methane producing algae in brine ponds to replace the CNG and be totally green) to be free from any outside supply of energy

It would only cost the government about $10 Billion over 7 years and we could convert virtually the entire Australian vehicle fleet. Hell, if it were $20 billion that would be cheap to achieve energy independence. Just think, no fuel fluctuations based on what idiots overseas do or don’t do.

Well worth it…….

[mikmak]

Vodka AND schnapps? That's crazy talk.

Thursday sounds like fun though. Where the hell are you?

Is E100 competitive in regard to its CO2 output vs. say diesel (on a l/km basis)?

[MonaroSS]

Originally Posted by mikmak

Vodka AND schnapps? That's crazy talk.

Thursday sounds like fun though. Where the hell are you?

Is E100 competitive in regard to its CO2 output vs. say diesel (on a l/km basis)?

Good question. Obviously diesel is a more energy dense fuel for a given litre and then ethanol also has the additional problem that it does not give up as much of it's energy at lower compression ratio's suitable for petrol.

But when you ask about CO2 output it depends upon whether you are asking relative to net additional CO2 added to the atmosphere. And that then begs the question of whether the diesel was derived from fossil fuel or a renewable source such as vegetable oil, aka bio-diesel.

Because fossil sourced fuels were for all intents and purposed 'sequestered' hydrocarbons relative to our immediate time period (they may have leaked to the surface on their own in a million years), then use of them adds net additional CO2 to our atmospheric environment. I say atmospheric environment as CO2 transits back and forth between the atmosphere and the ocean, ocean algae and other surface elements like plants etc.

Use of plant sourced ethanol and bio-diesel does not add net CO2 to the atmospheric environment so long as the plant source from which it was derived is continually regrown and harvested. This is because the regrowing of the exact amount of crop as was used to make the utilised plant sourced fuel draws the exact same quantity of CO2 from the atmosphere via photosynthesis as was added to the atmosphere by burning the aforesaid plant sourced fuel, aka the ethanol and/or bio-diesel.

Hope that hits the spot. If not try the Vodka and Schnaps (I shouldn't have added the extra 'p', the Germans don't like that), because it's like fighting WWII on the eastern front all over again....in your mouth.

[mikmak]

Originally Posted by MonaroSS

Use of plant sourced ethanol and bio-diesel does not add net CO2 to the atmospheric environment so long as the plant source from which it was derived is continually regrown and harvested. This is because the regrowing of the exact amount of crop as was used to make the utilised plant sourced fuel draws the exact same quantity of CO2 from the atmosphere via photosynthesis as was added to the atmosphere by burning the aforesaid plant sourced fuel, aka the ethanol and/or bio-diesel.

Good point. What say you on the "new"-ish Fischer-Tropsch Synthesis operations in QLD (that's the coal to diesel among other things, not the biomass version)? I bought up this process because it was mainly under consideration for generating diesel for farming machinery (though with the growing interest and demand for diesel passenger cars this is no longer really the case). Considering the likely use of these fuels (planting and harvesting crops) one can also credit further compensation, for the associated production industry, of the "critical" atmospheric CO2 imbalance. Lets not even start on the effect that biofuel and ethonol production have on harvestable land. ....I could go on all night but I'm afraid I'll get to the point

Oh and I'm a cheap drunk

[Monaro]

It's interesting that some people who have reservations about having an LPG tank in the back of their car, have no issue whatsoever with having a cigarette lighter sitting next to their old fella all day.

[nota]

Originally Posted by JoeT

Liquid Gas Injection Breakthrough


Click here to continue article

Here's something interesting for you Joe. I read on the Docklands liquid LPG site (the mob in the long-running Ford patents dispute) that they started off in Adelaide. That rang a bell with me, so I looked up an old magazine called High Tech Performance or something. It had articles about fitting ABS and some articles about fuel injection, and one about LPG injection

Sure enough, the LPG company was called Liquidphase, the name referred to on the Docklands site. They had a conversion for Falcons undergoing testing, and were aiming for production within 12 months at a cost of $2500. The magazine took the car for a drive, and reported that it had more power on LPG than on petrol, but it ran badly when you were switching fuels. The date on magazine? 1996! That's right, 12 years later and they're still not in production

By they way, they used the original petrol injectors, modified to take liquid gas as well (which they still do, according to info on the Docklands site) so I wonder if they've had any explode. They also used a Magna EFI fuel pump in an APA tank, which sounds like a low-tech backyard job. I've read that petrol injectors would thoeretically work in a liquid gas system, but petrol injectors can't handle more than 120psi, so would explode due to the higher pressures in a liquid gas system. Eg Siemens DEKA II LPG injectors can handle 400psi