Wasn't E85 kind of a wash when considering the energy required to manufacture it?
Yes, however many of the cobyproducts are generated “for free” and said cobyproducts would still require manufacturer and energy to produce if we didn’t make ethanol.
Dry ice as an example has many uses but a few years back the ethanol industry was greatly impacted when people cut back on fizzy soda.
The leftovers from production are a high fat, protein and fiber mix with greatly enhanced vitamin and mineral content. The feed produced by ethanol plants is relied upon to balance out the diets of livestock, the raw corn on the other hand could fatten just before slaughter but fed over a long time kills the animal’s, so the brewers tailings are critical foodstuffs.
The “dirty” ethanol makers from the 90’s weren’t cost competitive and all went under.
Could you imagine the fuel consumption with a Ford 6.6 or 6.8L running 85% ethanol? It would probably get 8mpg, if that. That's the biggest consumer issue with running ethanol IMO. Poor fuel economy.
Not exactly, at worst your fuel economy exactly reflects the energy content of the fuel, however if we were to atkinize and design the engine with higher compression you would get better than expected fuel economy.
What’s unfortunate is that hydrous ethanol can be made with a fraction of the energy and cost, too bad we didn’t do the extra work to just standardize there. Worst case you emulsified the gas and hydrous and lived with a fuel that only survives a month and designed to handle the unmixed gasoline.
Also interesting is that somewhere between 20-40% ethanol you actually get much much better than expected fuel economy, instead of an arbitrary percentage that inflection point should be used to develop engines around to minimize fuel use and emissions.
