I'm late to the thread, so this may seem scattershot --
Why? Divide and conquer? Pages of answers, none better than this:
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Grant-53
There is a good deal of debate because of the technical complexities, economics, and the tensions between the political ideologies of top-down versus bottom-up thinking. On the macro scale we can follow the money to see if a policy is justified. At the micro level the energy efficiency is key. The work of the agricultural economists and chemical engineers is to find the optimum allocation of resources.
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Isn't that the way it always is?
I learned how to test the alcohol content of gasoline in any container given an accurate means of titration.
I burn E0, not so much to protect the original 1971 components as to push my fuel costs (x miles) higher than my insurance costs (x time). Neat gasoline? Neat!
[copy]cRiPpLe_rOoStEr[paste] -- Your discussion of tuning for multi-fuels is interesting. What I tell teenagers operating gas pumps is that drag racers proved in the 1950s that pure alcohol is a great fuel, as is gasoline; but blending the two isn't efficient unless the carb jetting (shows my age) and compression ratio can vary on the fly. What do you think of
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marvel_Mystery_Oil? Generically it is a 'top-end oil'. Would that make the corn blend more palatable in a magnesium-cased flat four?
As to the general question raised: Petroleum is a renewable resource. The source is deep, hot and abiotic. It seeps upward 'geologically' slowly, but we can tap the upper pools much faster than they replenish. The age of relatively 'free' energy will continue, but we will need to pace ourselves. ...so fewer engines sitting idling at stop light while people wait to go to jobs they hate so they can have a big truck (snicker) to drive to the work they hate, in a nasty regressive spiral.
What to do?
Cool Planet's Carbon Negative Fuel Cycle (really a virtuous topsoil spiral, but whatevs)
Thermal Depolymerization
Plastic recycling - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
With that I'm going to point to Frank Lee's post at #48 with the one hand and at this with the other.