Bob:
The way I read the story, the unocal process was cost-effective, and
they had enough patents "surrounding" their process that any other way
was not cost effective. I guess nobody wanted to pay unocal anything,
so they preferred to lower the octane rating.
At the same time, CEC (california energy commission) did a study to see
if manufacturers would be interested in lowering their premium octane
rating by one point (the story got a bit murky here as to WHY CEC wanted
to do this in the first place). Of course the manufacturers (also faced
with paying royalties to uoncal for their process) said "yes".
All older cars without sophisticated engine management (computer)
systems are at risk with this (Alpines have a 9.5:1 c.r. and most of the
people I know that have Alpines are running premium) lowering of octane
ratings--hmmm, since us old car owners are a vocal bunch that object
loudly to removing smog exemptions that allow our older cars to avoid
smog requirements that are increasingly difficult for us to meet: could
this be a sneaky way of getting the older cars off the road? Just keep
lowering the octane rating. Oh, no--it's the black helicopters!
They're coming to get me! AAAARGH! :-)
Regards
David Sosna
Bob Palmer wrote:
>
> Listers,
>
> I read the new today, Oh Boy!
>
> Here is the story behind the drop in premium gas octane from 92 to 91. It
> has to do with some Union 76 patents, the first being the '393 patent (U.S.
> 5,288,393) and four subsequent ones granted Unocal that essentially block
> other refiners from making octane above 91 on a cost effective basis without
> infringing. As a consequence, as a group, the other oil companies have
> decided to dodge the bullet by lowering their octane to 91 using the
> non-patented method. Isn't it wonderful how our patent system stimulates
> technology?? You might think that at least at the Union 76 station you could
> get 92 octane, right? Wrong! Since they all have to pump their gas through
> the same pipe, they are all forced to sell 91 octane gas.
>
> When I first heard from Steve Sage about his pinging problem, I was
> skeptical that a change of 1 octane point could be so significant. Lately,
> though this problem has hit the press and a lot of people with older, high
> compression engines are noticing pinging problems. From what I read, the
> problem will get even worse when they phase out the MTBE in a couple of
> years and start using ethanol instead. Then, we'll be lucky if we still can
> get 91 octane.
>
> I think this story is going to get even more interesting as the impact of
> what has been happening becomes more widely known.
>
> TTFN,
>
> Bob
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