Comments by "ke6gwf - Ben Blackburn" (@ke6gwf) on "The Problem with Biofuels" video.
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The thing that everyone here is missing, is that 10 percent ethanol in gasoline isn't supposed to add ANY energy to it, it's to oxygenate the gasoline so it burns cleaner, thus directly reducing emissions, and working better with the catalytic converter.
They were originally using things like MTBE to do this, but then California discovered that it was getting into the water supplies and causing serious issues, so they banned it, and ethanol was found to be the next best thing.
It's not there to replace the gasoline, just to help it burn cleaner.
E85 is a different story, and I agree it's a bad idea, but this video is attacking E10 as if it's the same thing as E85.
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@jgr7487 the US is NOT an Imperial country, we forked from the Imperial System at the same time we left the British Imperial Empire.
We share a lot of units still, but we improved and tweaked what at the time was the most common units, and created new ones as industry needed them, and we created the US Customary System.
So while everyone "out there" keeps repeating that we use the Imperial system in the US, we don't, and that's why it's different from the UK.
For instance, until a few years ago, the UK Inch was a few thousandths different from the US inch, and finally they agreed to make them the same, and so each adjusted their inch slightly towards the middle.
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@neurofiedyamato8763 except it's not arbitrary exactly.
The Metre was defined back in the 1700s as 1 ten millionth of the distance from north pole to the Equator.
A metal bar was then made to represent this length, and it was the Standard of Length that was then used to measure the speed of light, so basically they found that light took a certain amount of time to travel from one end of the metal bar to the other.
Then when they found that the metal bar was constantly changing length, and the ability to measure the speed of light and define time became more and more accurate, they decided to use the last official comparison between the speed of light to that metal bar, and from now on, simply use the distance light travels in a certain time (based on tests with that metal bar) as the new Standard.
So it's not random or circular, you just have to remember that the speed of light is defined by the time it takes to travel the length of a particular piece of metal, and then they decided to reverse that and just use this derived time as the new standard, but it's still based on the measurements made with that metal bar.
On the other hand, I suppose it was random to make it 1 ten millionth of that particular distance lol
I wish that the meter was a little shorter, it would make it much more useful for things like carpentry.
That's the main reason I prefer USC to metric for carpentry, it's a lot easier working with inches and feet, because they fit the ranges I work with much better.
M is too long, and mm is too short and cm is so close to mm it's not that helpful.
If inches were 10 instead of 12 it would be perfect lol
But I often just use inches for normal lengths, and math works fine then.
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@m00str No, there is only one Inch out there.
What you don't seem to realize is that before this standardization nearly 100 years ago now, each country had their own length standard, basically a piece of metal in a lab to calibrate everything else off of, and they constantly change length.
So for really precision work, there was no constant standard anyway.
Now they use the speed of light to define length, so it doesn't change anymore, and everyone uses the same standard.
So if you had a precision device from back then, it would not be accurate today, even if it was metric, because the metric Prototype was constantly changing length as well! Lol
And by now, anything that needs that sort of precision has already been depricated or recalibrated.
If I am using a ruler, the difference between the old inches is going to be less than the width of the markings on the ruler.
And buying a brand new ruler from China is probably going to be even further off! Lol
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I am sad when channels like this make a very nice video, and leave out the key fact. At 10%, it's just an additive to help the gasoline burn cleaner by oxygenating it, but he makes it sound like it's supposed to be replacing the gasoline.
I would agree with the video if we are talking about E85 etc, about trying to replace gasoline with ethanol, but at 10 percent, the energy content as a fuel isn't important, because it is there to reduce emissions by getting the gasoline to burn cleaner.
Since it moves the energy inputs to power plants where emissions can be better controlled, and away from the cars filling our cities, it has a net positive effect on our health.
Tractor emissions is a concern too, but the new tractors are pretty much all low emission engines with DPF filters etc, and as solar/wind gets used more for the processing, it gets better.
Now, it's just a Bandaid®™, and we should keep pushing to get away from ICE cars, as well as coal and NG power plants, and then we can convert ethanol land back to growing GMO food soaked with chemicals!....
But as long as we have ICE engine cars, ethanol does serve a valid purpose to help them run cleaner, and I think there is a balance of benefits there.
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