Off-topic chat thread

[JockoT]

Diesel is the same as heating oil. We used heating oil to run the boiler to heat a factory at which I was the maintenance engineer. One of my fitters ran his van on it for years.
If it is not used for road vehicles it won't be wasted.

[trollbait]

Originally Posted by SteveMak

According to the information I've seen, the truth in that statement is tiny. The changes the refinery can make in the proportions of the output products can be changed, but only by tiny amounts. Just like you can't make a silk purse from a sow's ear, you cannot magically convert the diesel component of crude oil into gasoline, or into a non-diesel product. It will be diesel, or very close to what diesel fuel is.

Refining is the process of breaking crude into its component parts and removing "impurities". It is not alchemy (AKA: turning lead into gold).

Petroleum is nothing more than chains of hydrogen and carbon in various lengths. We know how to break these chains up, and to reform the pieces back together to get the products we want. At best, the straight gasoline fraction is 20%, and it is only 40 to 60 octane. We are already breaking up a lot of the heavier fractions to meet the gasoline demand.

So it is possible to turn diesel into gasoline. It just takes energy. There is just more profit in shipping excess diesel here to Europe, and importing their extra gasoline.

Existing refineries might need to be modified if we needed them to make the diesel into something else.

Originally Posted by JockoT

Diesel is the same as heating oil. We used heating oil to run the boiler to heat a factory at which I was the maintenance engineer. One of my fitters ran his van on it for years.
If it is not used for road vehicles it won't be wasted.

Most likely it will go to trucks, trains, ships, and jets.

[SteveMak]

Originally Posted by trollbait

...At best, the straight gasoline fraction is 20%...

I don't know on what basis you form your opinions, but readily available information (like this link https://www.eia.gov/Energyexplained/...e=oil_refining) indicates that a 42 gallon drum of crude oil yields about 19 to 20 gallons of gasoline (petrol). This is about 45% of the crude oil's original volume, or more than double your stated figure. Readily available information contradicts your opinions.

[trollbait]

Originally Posted by SteveMak

I don't know on what basis you form your opinions, but readily available information (like this link https://www.eia.gov/Energyexplained/...e=oil_refining) indicates that a 42 gallon drum of crude oil yields about 19 to 20 gallons of gasoline (petrol). This is about 45% of the crude oil's original volume, or more than double your stated figure. Readily available information contradicts your opinions.

I said the straight gasoline fraction, by which I meant the portion of crude that is gasoline when it comes out of the ground, and can be recovered by simple distillation. It is known as straight run gasoline, and is mostly naphtha. The exact amount depends on the petroleum source; it can be as high as 40%, but can be under 20%. It hasn't been enough to meet demand since 1912. Over half of a barrel of crude becomes gasoline.

To get the gasoline needed for market, and to get it up to the proper octane, other fractions of the crude are cracked and reformed. This isn't alchemy, just chemistry, and is similar to the process in which we get hydrogen from natural gas.

https://www.afpm.org/the-refinery-process/
https://inside.mines.edu/~jjechura/R...&_Products.pdf page 11
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasoline

[Draigflag]

Had an opportunity to experiment the other day on some long flat stretches of road in England. Using cruise control, I set it at various speeds and switched the screen to the instantaneous MPG reading. At 50 MPH I get a constant 57 MPG, but if I increase my speed to 80 MPH, my MPG only drops to 47. It seems like a small penalty of 10 MPG for such a large increase in speed. Thoughts?

[JockoT]

It is a 17.5% drop in fuel efficiency. That's a huge drop.

[Draigflag]

When you put in percentage terms it sounds alot, but 10 MPG doesn't sound much. It might be 17.5% drop, but I've increased my speed by 60%. I rarely get a chance to use motorways so I'm uncertain what's considered normal and not.

[LDB]

At 50 you can enjoy the drive and scenery. At 80 you can enjoy driving but not the drive and scenery as you must totally focus on driving at that speed. I usually run 60-62 max no matter what the limit is so I can enjoy the drive.

Ten mpg may seem small in that context and perhaps it is. It's all context. Before I retired I removed the visor from my Kenworth. It went up from 8.2 to 8.5 mpg. Airtabs gained another .4 and different mudflaps another .25 mpg. It seems like nothing much but over 90k miles annually it's a lot.

[trollbait]

Originally Posted by Draigflag

When you put in percentage terms it sounds alot, but 10 MPG doesn't sound much. It might be 17.5% drop, but I've increased my speed by 60%. I rarely get a chance to use motorways so I'm uncertain what's considered normal and not.

Which is why MPG or km/L are poor units for fuel economy; they down play the efficiency increase or decrease to the viewer. They also require more math for calculating the average.

[JockoT]

17.5% of my petrol bill for last year is £150. That is a huge amount to an OAP, so I curb my right foot, much though I enjoy driving fast.