Posts Tagged ‘emissions’

OIL DEPENDENCY

Wednesday, November 19th, 2008

 

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I don’t know about you but $2.03 at the pump still does not impress me much! 99 cents, that might impress me a little bit. You know we’ll never see that again. I’d like to see America tell OPEC we don’t need your oil anymore. But how are we going to do that?

CONSUMPTION: We have to learn to use less and the place to start is with transportation. We have more cars per persons than any place on earth. Heck, I have 2 cars and a motorcycle and my Son, who doesn’t even have his license yet, has a car and a motorccle. Even my 7 year old has a motorcycle! OK, all these cars are not zipping up and down the road but I can use myself to make my point. We have too many cars.

What I have learned to do; and it took quite a bit of discipline, is to stop driving unless I have to. Sure I have to take the kids to school every morning so I try and run my errands then while I’m out. Then I come home and work. I’ve also trimmed back a lot on eating out although I support the local econonomy as much as I can afford.

One thing I am considering is converting my Suburban to run on various fuels. I think my plan now is to first upgrade the fuel system to use E-85 which is a blend of 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline. We make ethanol domestically which will immediately reduce my foreign oil consumption by 85%. This is a relatively simple upgrade although not cheap until you look at the savings and reduced carbon footprint. Then, it is a no-brainer. I think I can do this phase of my conversion for around $400. Not too bad when you consider E-85 also costs about 40 cents less per gallon that gasoline. In the Suburban, that payback is over about 3 tanks!

Phase 2 of my plan is to go dual-fuel. This will be a big step as I will add the capability to use Compressed Natural Gas or CNG. There are currently 3 CNG filling stations around me. Asheville, Fletcher, and Hickory. At less that a dollar per GGE (gas gallons equivalent) CNG is very economical. Recovery of the investment will take longer though as it will run me about $3000 for this system.

I would encourage you to consider at the least converting to E-85. Here is a google search for the conversions for various cars. http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=e-85+conversion&aq=f&oq=

E-85 is plentiful in South Carolina (cudos to Stewart Spinx) and is now making its way to local stations here in Asheville. I am seeing the SHELL stations adding E-85 lately so hopefully it won’t be long until it is a common item. The nice thing about the E-85 conversions is you can switch from E-85 to gasoline if you can’t find E-85 and need fuel.

VEHICLE TIPS

Motor fuels is our biggest consumption of foreign oil. Here are a few basic tips to help you reduce wasteful consumption;

  1. REDUCE WEIGHT: Clean out your car. Removing excess weight from your vehicle will give you more miles per gallon. I took all the “stuff” out of my cargo area that I didn’t need and gained 2 MPG! 
  2. TIRE PRESSURE: underinflated tires cause undue friction and cause your car to use more fuel. I inflated my tires properly and gained 4 MPG in my Suburban. How about that? 5 minutes work and I gained 160 miles of range from a tank of gas!
  3.  AIR FILTER: One of the most neglected things on a car is the air filter. When your air filter is dirty, your engine gulps for air and burns more fuel than needed.
  4. TUNE-UPS: Make sure your car is tuned properly and your injectors are cleaned. Periodically I will clean my throttle body and fuel injectors with over the counter cleaners. If you have never tried SEA FOAM, you will be amazed at what it will do for your intake system. Every 10,000 miles or so I will do a SEA FOAM treatment on my intake system. It is real easy. Your power brake system is powered by intake vacuum. With your car running, disconnect the hose at your power brake booster. It will suck like crazy! Slowly, pour in SEA FOAM and let it suck into your engine’s intake manifold. About 1/3 to 1/2 of a can will do the trick. Your car will smoke like it’s on fire as all the carbon deposits are cleaned away but it is completely safe and will renew the pep your engine has lost over time. Once the SEA FOAM is sucked in, shut down your engine, reconnect your power brake hose and let sit for 15 minutes. Then crank it up and give it a drive down the highway to burn off the remaining carbon. Smoking will stop and your car will run like new again. You will learn to LOVE sea foam. Pour the remaining sea foam into your gas tank and crank case and it will clean your fuel and lubrication systems.
  5. USE BIODIESEL: If you are driving a diesel vehicle, there is no reason to be sucking up all that OPEC oil. Our friends at Blue Ridge Biofuels manufacture biodiesel from sustainable local resources. You can cut your foreigh oil dependence by 100% in the summer and by 50% in the winter. Be sure and check them out as well as find local biodiesel pumps at www.blueridegebiofuels.com

YES, it will smoke (lots is steam) a lot for a couple of minutes but your car will have MUCH cleaner exhaust and better fuel economy after this treatment. Environmentally, it is a big plus.

Here is a vide example on SEA FOAM;

 

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FIREWOOD TIPS

Tuesday, November 18th, 2008

When you choose to heat with wood, there are many things to consider and to know. This article deals with firewood.

Woodburning is a very environmentally friendly act. Did you know a tree decaying in the forest will give off more carbon that the same tree burned in your wood stove? People that say burning wood is irresponsible are simply uneducated on the facts.

Each and every year I hear the same questions from my new woodburning friends. “What kind of wood” is often asked. My answer may surprise you.

The species of wood, ironically is not as important as your stove or how long the wood has been split and stacked in the dry!

THE STOVE: You absolutely want to start with a modern stove; a stove that has been listed and tested to meet the strict EPA Phase II emissions limits. Older, uncertified stoves do not have any form of secondary combustion to reburn the emissions of the stove. What that means is there will be a lot more pollution from an older stove and those emissions are unburned fuel and lost heat. You will have to burn a lot more wood to get the same amount of heat you would from a certified stove.

THE FIREWOOD: As I stated a moment ago, the species of the wood is not as important as how long it has been split and stacked in the dry. Fresh split wood, even if it has been laying on the ground for years, is still wet. Only when wood is cut to length, split and stacked does is begin to lose its moisture. I can’t count how many people said the tree fell 2 years ago so it should be seasoned and ready to cut and split. Not the case.

For hardwoods, you typically want the wood to be stacked to air-dry for a minimum of 6 months before heating season. For medium to soft woods, a year or more is ideal. Even the best of wood will heat poorly when it is not properly seasoned. That is because so much of the energy from the fire is being used up by the firewood itself to dry up the moisture. Very little heat will be used to heat your home.

“But Jack, my Pappy told me never to burn pine in the stove because it will clog up the chimney”. If it is not dried properly, ANY wood will clog up the chimney. Other places in the US have nothing but evergreens and that is all they burn. Ever burned a bunch of old pine or a bundle of lumber scraps? That burned real nice and hot didn’t it? That is because it was dry.

Here’s a bit of knowledge that will set your mind at ease on firewood;

ALL WOOD, regardless of species, has the same amount of particulate matter. With the same moisture content, a pound of white pine will produce the same amount of emissions as a pound of red oak. Pine is less dense than oak therefore you may need more cubic feet of pine to make the same weight as oak but they will heat and pollute about the same. Since their emissions are the same, neither will gunk up the chimney more than the other.

“I can get pine for almost nothing! So, you’re saying I can just burn pine”? ABSOLUTELY! Like I said, there are places that have nothing else. In fact, you will love burning pine. It starts easy and heats great. The only, and I mean ONLY drawbacks are burntimes and seasoning time. Since BTU in wood is PER POUND, you just can’t get as much pine into your stove as you can hardwoods. The denser the wood, the more pounds per cubic foot of firewood, the more fuel you have in your stove, therefore the longer it will burn on a load. Personally I would like to have some of both so I could load up with hardwood at night and burn softwoods during the day when I am there to load the stove.

Have a friend in the tree cutting business? I bet you can get their softwood for next to nothing. They probably chip it up and make mulch out of it just to get rid of it. Call him up and get yourself free heat. Just stack it a year in advance or more and you will be happy as a tic on a dog.

REVIEW:

  1. A good stove is the place to start.
  2. Properly season your firewood.
  3. Burn any wood you want as long as it is dry.

 

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MODERN WOODBURNING

Saturday, October 4th, 2008

Used to be we could buy a brand new stove for $400! What happened? Well, Fred Flintstone used to drive an inexpensive car as well but he had calluses on his feet and hills were a real pain. Today’s wood stoves are complex machines and old stoves are pretty much barrels to burn wood in. They do the job, but not nearly as good as today’s wood stove. Have a look at the video below as it explains the differences.

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