FORUMula1.com - F1 Forum

[Irv the Swerve]

"The IRL will be the first major racing series to use ethanol, a renewable fuel derived from corn and other agricultural products, as its primary fuel. This could help the U.S. reduce its dependence on imported crude oil and petroleum products."

Could this make its way into F1 sooner than we think??

[R00DIT]

isn't ethanol highly dangerous?

[darwin dali]

Yeah, highly dangerous when ingested by you! LOL!

[darwin dali]

It's not more dangerous than gas (or petrol for you weird Brits;-)
Ethanol is widely used in the Midwest under the label E85, a mix of about 85% ethanol from corn (a main crop in the Midwest, hence the prevalence there) and gas. You need a flex-fuel engine - if you use your conventional combustion engine, you void your manufacturer warranty. The energy content of E85 is about 72% of gas, so you get less miles out of the same volume. Brazil just last year declared its independence from fossil fuel imports largely due to their extensive use of flex-fuel engines running on home-grown E85. Many of those engines/cars are produced by US manufacturers...

[Stephen]

Am I right in saying that flex-engined cars are the same as bio fuelled cars over here in the UK?

[darwin dali]

Not sure about that. We have diesel engines that people convert into so-called bio-diesel cars running on used vegetable oils from your neighborhood burger joint. Please explain what bio fuelled cars in the UK are...

[R00DIT]

in the uk petrol and bio-ethanol powered cars are referred to as bio fuelled.

[bud]

Well DD when one talks of gas they tend to be talking about a gas and not a liquidl

we have cars on 'gas' in Australia, but when you say on gas its LPG

[darwin dali]

Well, I grew up with the term 'benzin(e)'
- here in the States they call it gas, short for gasoline.
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasoline

[bud]

we get enough american culture on tv to know gas is short for gasoline

[darwin dali]

Wow, I'm surprised you labeled it 'culture' - I wouldn't. Did you know that Americans made it from barbarism to decadence w/o the detour through civilization?