Ethanol.

[Gary Allan]

Quote:
I don't recall people getting mad about it.


I was driving about 400 miles a day when gasohol came and went. It basically cleaned up your fuel system. I had to go through 3 fuel filters before not having to worry about it. The average consumer virtually never had to change one.

Gasohol=problems

 

[KrisZ]

Originally Posted By: crinkles
We've got some sugar cane here, and also wheat to make grain ethanol.

I personally like not giving saudi arabia that 7% fuel (adjusted for efficiency loss) and income, and support cane growers not 5 miles from me.

there is a sugar cane plant 10 miles from me. it makes the obvious sugar, and then generates power to power itself and a big part of the grid locally by using the waste biomass from sugar milling. it used to be that they'd burn the plant when harvesting to make processing and collection easier. now all that burned cane fields are turned into power instead.



This process actually makes sense, as you are using material that otherwise would be considered waste, to produce ethanol.

But when you have an entire corn industry lobbying for E25 and eventually for E85, you know it's not about environment and emissions, it's about money. We are wasting food and land that would be used to produce food to prop up our corn industry, also the only reason that fuel containing ethanol is cheaper in US and Canada is because it is heavily subsidized by our governments. Stop the subsidies and there will be no ethanol produced from corn and used as fuel, period.

 

[LTVibe]

The ethanol lobby does want to raise the blend limit above 10%, but they have stated that ethanol-free gas should be available to those who prefer it:

http://www.ethanol.org/magazine/index.php?id=115&parentid=110

Quote:
The American Coalition for Ethanol supports consumer choice, and the E15 waiver was presented to EPA in a way that allows the agency to ensure “ethanol-free” gasoline is available to consumers.

http://ethanol.typepad.com/my_weblog/200...mer-choice.html

Quote:
...ACE advocates for consumers to be able to use E10, E15, E20, E30, E85 or ‘ethanol-free’ gasoline, and we believe that when consumers are finally given these meaningful choices through blender pumps, they will select the fuel that works best in their vehicles.”

The 'blender pumps' mentioned above would look similar to this:

Now for an ironic bit of news; the U.S. is exporting ethanol to the Middle East...

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article...even-to-Mideast

 

[sbergman27]

Originally Posted By: Gary Allan
It basically cleaned up your fuel system. I had to go through 3 fuel filters before not having to worry about it.

What prompted you to change the filters? Did they actually become restrictive? At any rate, a car that regularly sees E10 would not have this problem and would simply have a cleaner fuel system, free of any standing water.

 

[mechtech2]

sbergman27 - Power is not improved with E10, it is reduced. By the same means that the fuel economy is reduced - less energy available.
Octane? Pure ethanol has high octane compared to pure gas, but who cares? The final mix is the final mix. 87=87, 89=89, and 92=92.
We lose evergy /gallon with E-anything.

 

[SteveSRT8]

IF your car is specifically tuned for it you can get a very small increase in power output. But many cars lack the ability to discriminate and thus are hit with a DOUBLE whammy of less mileage AND less power.

We purchase around 4-6 thousand dollars a month of fuel, all of it E10. Absolutely no ill effects of any kind ever noted here.

But we get a much more significant drop in fuel economy. I wish it was only 3 or 4 percent!

 

[NHHEMI]

Originally Posted By: Panzerman
I just wish we had a choice at the pump, in Florida, thanks to our Green governor and the "I wanna be like California" thinking, E10 is mandatory on all the pumps to much the dismay of boaters, in which two strokes hate ethanol and the fact that water is involved with a ethanol blend is asking for trouble. You can buy non-ethanol gas at limited places, but it is no-name garbage(has been the stuff, i bought and I would be better off with Shell,Sunoco or BP ethanol blend. What bothers me the most about it, is it has such a limited storage life and small engines, especially two strokes, hate it.


Same here. Absolutely NO choice. You can not get anything BUT E10 in this state( or the neighboring ones for that matter ). 24/7, 365, it is E10 here.

 

[sbergman27]

Originally Posted By: mechtech2
sbergman27 - Power is not improved with E10, it is reduced. By the same means that the fuel economy is reduced - less energy available.

There seems to be some confusion on this topic. So let's get down to the nitty gritty details. Which means that we must first consider how modern fuel injected cars operate. In the old days, we just had a carburetor, which metered the fuel at 14.7:1 air/fuel, or as close as it could manage. It didn't know or care about what the exhaust gasses contained. It was just a dumb carburetor. Modern fuel injection systems (and even the electronic feedback carb in my 1988 Chevy Sprint Metro) have an oxygen sensor in the exhaust which monitors the exhaust gasses. If it sees oxygen, it knows that the current mixture is too lean, and increases the fuel flow. If it doesn't see oxygen, it figures is might be too rich, and decreases it. It modulates the fuel to maintain the stoichiometric ratio for the fuel. Since this is a feedback system, it maintains the stoichiometric ratio not just for gasoline (which is 14.7:1), but for whatever fuel is being burned.

You are correct in pointing out that ethanol represents less energy per unit volume than gasoline. In fact, about 30% less energy per unit volume. Thus E10 represents about 3% less energy per unit volume. This would result in a leaner mixture, and likely about a 3% decrease in power in a car with a dumb carburetor mindlessly mixing air and fuel at a ratio of 14.7:1. However, a modern FI system will adjust the amount of fuel to stoichiometric. Ethanol requires less oxygen to burn completely. It's stoichiometric ratio is only 9:1. And E10's stoichiometric ratio is thus, 14.13:1. For a given amount of air, about 4% more fuel is injected to maintain the stoichiometric ratio. Since the engine's power is limited not by the amount of fuel that can be packed in, but by the amount of air that can be packed in, we have 4% more volume of a fuel which represents 3% less energy per unit volume going through the engine. This results in the 1% increase in power to which I referred.

It is, at first, counterintuitive, I admit. But that really is the way it works out.

-Steve

 

[sbergman27]

Originally Posted By: SteveSRT8
IF your car is specifically tuned for it you can get a very small increase in power output. But many cars lack the ability to discriminate and thus are hit with a DOUBLE whammy of less mileage AND less power.

No special tuning required, unless your car is more than about 25 years old. See my post, above .

Quote:
But we get a much more significant drop in fuel economy. I wish it was only 3 or 4 percent!

Can you publish your procedures and results here? The best information I have comes from here. It's not as large a study as I would like to see. But it is the most rigorous and well conducted study I have found.

-Steve

 

[sbergman27]

Originally Posted By: mechtech2
Octane? Pure ethanol has high octane compared to pure gas, but who cares? The final mix is the final mix. 87=87, 89=89, and 92=92.
We lose evergy /gallon with E-anything.

My second response to your same post, I know. But it occurs to me that this statement of yours deserves comment. E85 is 105 octane. Current "Flex Fuel" vehicles are ill-equipped to take advantage of the fact. They can advance the ignition timing to take some advantage of it. But the real thermal efficiency gains would come from the 13:1 or higher compression ratios that E85 would allow. But the fact that the same engines must still accomodate gasoline limits them in that respect. This is an example where this "gasoline world" is penalizing ethanol as a fuel.

I should say at this point that I am neither pro or anti on ethanol fuel. I do know that the way we are currently doing it is most likely the wrong way. But I do also see potential. So at this point I am simply "pro-truth" and "anti-hysteria" regarding ethanol. It's a complicated situation. And if we are ever to get it sorted out properly we're going to have to get all our facts in a row and apply proper, objective, critical thinking.

-Steve

 

[Kestas]

Originally Posted By: Virtuoso
Generally speaking, the 87 and 91/92 does not contain ethanol, however, the 89 octane is E10.

I find that hard to believe. A check on the following web site shows there aren't any stations that sell 100% gasoline in all of Nebraska.

http://www.buyrealgas.com/index.html

 

[badtlc]

Originally Posted By: sbergman27

My second response to your same post, I know. But it occurs to me that this statement of yours deserves comment. E85 is 105 octane. Current "Flex Fuel" vehicles are ill-equipped to take advantage of the fact. They can advance the ignition timing to take some advantage of it. But the real thermal efficiency gains would come from the 13:1 or higher compression ratios that E85 would allow. But the fact that the same engines must still accomodate gasoline limits them in that respect. This is an example where this "gasoline world" is penalizing ethanol as a fuel.

....


That still doesn't change the fact ethanol has lower energy content and cannot compete with gasoline in MPGs.

 

[sbergman27]

Originally Posted By: badtlc
That still doesn't change the fact ethanol has lower energy content and cannot compete with gasoline in MPGs.

It means that the difference in MPG between gasoline and E85 is something sigificantly less than the 25% that one would expect otherwise. But we should probably be less concerned with MPG than with miles per dollar, or miles per some unit of precious import, or... well... something more meaningful than miles per gallon of two completely different substances.

-Steve

 

[SteveSRT8]

Ethanol is a political football. Period.

Has anyone here read about the wonderful "zenes" you get when you burn alcohol? Some toxic by products.

And no, I will not publish my fuel logs, but I will post some of my purely anecdotal evidence.

2006 Chrysler 300C SRT8-6.1 liter-avg economy on gas-17.5, average economy on E10-15.

2005 Chevrolet Silverado-5.3 liter-avg economy on gas-18.5, average economy on E10-16.5

Note these are real computed values, no using the cars trip computer. We log every gallon purchased as it is the best indicator of when service is needed.

The Chrysler actually LIKES the stuff, as I can log the Knock Retard levels and there is a significant reduction in the PCM's perceptions of knock. The Silverados and Savanas we run don't seem to notice it at all.

Overall it's an ok fuel.

 

[Scott_Tucker]

A fuel injected vehicle ignores the oxygen sensor at wide open throttle so it relies on a fixed map so there is no compensation in the amount of fuel injected regardless of what fuel is being used. However, some computers will compensate at WOT based on readings it sees at part throttle and will shift the WOT map higher or lower. California's reasoning for using oxygenated fuels is to clean up the emissions of older cars specifically when they are warming up.

 

[sbergman27]

Originally Posted By: Scott_Tucker
A fuel injected vehicle ignores the oxygen sensor at wide open throttle so it relies on a fixed map so there is no compensation in the amount of fuel injected regardless of what fuel is being used.

That sounds very 20th century. However, the majority of fuel available today is E10. So one would expect that any current fixed fuel map would be for E10, or hedge mostly toward E10.

 

[sbergman27]

Originally Posted By: SteveSRT8
Ethanol is a political football. Period.

It's a rather smoky area, yes.

Quote:
Has anyone here read about the wonderful "zenes" you get when you burn alcohol? Some toxic by products.

Link? Comparisons to what you get whem you burn gasoline?

Quote:
And no, I will not publish my fuel logs, but I will post some of my purely anecdotal evidence.

Forgive me for reserving my credence for larger, more tightly controlled studies where the procedures and complete data sets are published. My own fuel logs are all over the board, even though my driving patterns are probably more uniform than most people's. Most of my driving being Interstate highway. You'd be amazed how much difference a slight wind, hardly noticeable when one gets out of the car, makes in the numbers.

Quote:
Overall it's an ok fuel.

It is an OK fuel. The question is whether our current strategy regarding ethanol fuel could be improved. And we can't expect to make the right decisions as long as folks are still going on their local channel 4 (channel 4 here in Oklahoma City is the worst I've seen) claiming that they used to get 29 mpg and now they get 21 mpg.

I get about 40. And even though I drive about 9000 miles per month, it is unclear to me what difference, if any, E10 makes compared to E0.

No one else seems to have any better data. So 3.88% would seem to be the most solid number available at this time.

 

[SZR48207]

Threads like this is why I love BITOG. Cram my brain full of information!

FWIW, I think Murphy USA (Wal Mart gas station) is in favor of NON-ethanol gas offerings.

 

[sbergman27]

Originally Posted By: Reddy45
FWIW, I think Murphy USA (Wal Mart gas station) is in favor of NON-ethanol gas offerings.

My impression (and I travel a lot in Oklahoma, Texas, Kansas, New Mexico, Colorado... and somewhat less in Wyoming, Montana, Utah, Idaho, and Arkansas) is that Murphy sells E10 wherever it is allowed. I'm not certain of that. It is simply my impression.

 

[shrooms]

So, what's the point of Ethanol if it reduces mileage? Isn't it all about getting MORE MPG on fuel?