Should we be scandalized about ETHANOL in our tank

[rshunter]

Originally Posted By: EagleFTE
Originally Posted By: rshunter
If energy independence had anything to do with the use of ethanol, we'd be using sugar cane for its production. The production of ethanol via sugar cane is approximately 2.5 times more efficient. Using corn, as we do in the US, generates roughly 321 gallons of ethanol per acre, versus sugar cane's output of about 802 gallons.
Slight problem with using sugar cane though. We don't have millions upon millions of acres of sugar cane fields in the continetal US. The midwest started making and using ethonal in the late 70s / early 80s to reduce the dependancy on foreign oil by 10% following the gas crisis during the Carter administration. It was never about better or cheaper gas. It was about using what you had plenty of to reduce dependancy by 10%. Or it could just be some kind of consiracy.

You don't need millions of acres, of anything, to start a process. All you need is to start...

As for energy independence, see my post above.

 

[LS2JSTS]

Originally Posted By: rshunter
Originally Posted By: doitmyself
Face it, sooner or later, we will no longer enjoy the very cheap food AND fuel we have had for the past many decades in North America. Recent reports of new movie opening revenues leaves little room for us to complain about food and fuel prices.

IMO, ethanol is just one of the stop-gap measures we will develop and use for the next 50 to 100 years until we come up with a truly sustainable fuel system, which involves a LOT more than just the production of fuel.

Like all things, us men are going to botch up a lot of things during this change, on all fronts: politics, health, environment, yada, yada, yada.

Brazil has "almost" perfected it's production and use of ethanol and I suggest reading the sugar coated (pun intended) wikipedia story to discover the corny faults of our efforts:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol_fuel_in_Brazil

Sweden and other countries are having some success with development of cellulosic, non food ethanol (not without problems).

No way around it. It's going to "hurt" to become energy self sufficient and it is going to take a few generations to get away from our redneck mentality about it.



Energy independence isn't that difficult, just switch to natural gas. There are already vehicles commercially available that use CNG. Adapting other models to utilize CNG would hardly be a major difficulty and can be built using the current production processes. It wouldn't require overcoming any major obstacles, as the implementation of battery-centric vehicles would.


Too simple, that wouldn't create enough jobs building batteries and subsequent dependent voters. Our politicos would never go for something that made that much sense. Would they....he said thick with sarcasm.

 

[eljefino]

It's a rip. Depending on whom you ask it takes 80% to over 100% energy content from a gallon of oil based fuel to get a gallon of ETOH out.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol_fuel_energy_balance

It's already bad enough oil's ratio is 1:5 sometimes.

They say "oh well we'll have the infrastructure in place" but how is a pipeline to Indiana going to help when they start growing algae in the Everglades?

Don't forget that ethanol dilutes gas's effectiveness, so one pays more road tax than they would on pure gas.

 

[rshunter]

Originally Posted By: LS2JSTS
Originally Posted By: rshunter
Energy independence isn't that difficult, just switch to natural gas. There are already vehicles commercially available that use CNG. Adapting other models to utilize CNG would hardly be a major difficulty and can be built using the current production processes. It wouldn't require overcoming any major obstacles, as the implementation of battery-centric vehicles would.

Too simple, that wouldn't create enough jobs building batteries and subsequent dependent voters. Our politicos would never go for something that made that much sense. Would they....he said thick with sarcasm.

Exactly!

Make me leader of the world and I'll have this sorted out in no time at all...


ROFL!

 

[AuthorEditor]

I'll say only one good thing about ethanol in our gas--I no longer have to add dry gas in the winter, because the ethanol does the trick.

 

[benjamming]

It cleans well.

 

[rshunter]

Originally Posted By: AuthorEditor
I'll say only one good thing about ethanol in our gas--I no longer have to add dry gas in the winter, because the ethanol does the trick.

Funny that they're still selling the Dry-Gas stuff, innit? Talk about throwing money down a hole...

 

[SteveSRT8]

Crazy political [censored] is what ethanol is.

Does anyone know what new pollutants are formed when you burn it? Hint: they're not nice ones.

And hats off to the PP who stated its an extra tax.

Cuts your mileage, doesn't SAVE anything!

 

[CivicFan]

Isn't ethanol a type of alcohol? Burning it should result in water and CO2.

 

[Kruse]

Originally Posted By: rshunter
Originally Posted By: jcwit
(quote)I live on a farm and while my main income is not from farming, the farmers have NOT seen the huge price increases that everybody here is talking about.(quote)

Try to tell that to the chicken growers here in No. Indiana. Sorry their price of feed has gone way up.

He meant they weren't on the receiving end.


Bingo.
I buy some feed myself. I actually have about 20 hobby chickens that my kids maintain and take to the county and state fair every year. (Hey, it beats them hanging out on the street corner or belonging to a ghetto gang) I have seen the tremendous feed price increases over the past couple of years. I also have a very small crop of grain that I harvest every year. In reality, I have not seen any rise in my income from that grain, and overall, profits are less. Monsanto, who sells the vast majority of planted seed (which I will have to buy) will probably double their selling price next spring. Fertilizer, because it is linked to the price of crude oil has come down, but last year was at record prices. Fuel has dropped some from the record highs of 15 months ago and that is really the only reason that some farmers made a profit this year. If fuel had remained high, there probably would have been record farm bankruptcies. Tractors, farm equipment and replacement parts are still rising.
Farmers do not set the prices and when they sell their grain, they sell it to a take-it-or-leave-it type of buyer. It's the middle men and the suppliers who make the money, folks. If a farmer plants more corn it's because there is a demand for it and he thinks he can make more money by doing it.
As proof, my mom, who lives in the same county as I do, sells eggs to a few of her neighbors and friends. These are completely organic eggs that have no steroids or antibiotics or any of the junk you hear about in the news. These eggs are also from uncaged birds that run in the open all day.
She sells a dozen eggs for currently $1 a dozen. If you could buy something like that in the city, what do they charge? Thanks to middle men, I know it's a lot more.

 

[CivicFan]

$5 a dozen - that's what we pay for eggs we get from a farm.

 

[crw]

The trouble with this and a boatload of other threads exactly like it is that the arguments get a little extreme. Lets start from some facts...

You could drive a properly equipped car on pure 100% ethanol. I know, because I have driven VW bugs in Brazil in the mid-80's. The fuel mileage is not as good as gasoline; it's about 70% to 80%. If your running 10% ethanol, your mileage should suffer by no more than 1 or 2%.

Remember, in winter it's not only winter gas that causes decreased mileage. Cold air has higher resistance. Cold engines take longer to warm up.

It's 100% true to anyone with even a thimble of common sense that ethanol in THIS country is simply a political exercise. If there were no subsidy, there would be no ethanol in our gas. My own opinion is that any time the government gets involved in something, inefficiencies result.

Ethanol from corn makes no economic sense. Ethanol from sugarcane or other crops might. Why don't we import it from Brazil at 59 cents a gallon? Politics. Don't give me the protectionist [censored].

Meanwhile, here in a lot of states in the middle of the country, we've been using ethanol in our gas for 25 years. There are no identifiable problems.

On the bright side, sooner or later the market tends to catch up and compensate for bone-head politicians.

If you get away from pure dislike for something new, realize that engines could be designed to take advantage of the higher octane that ethanol provides. You could, theoretically, use a greater percentage of energy to move you down the road and a smaller percentage of the energy to generate heat.

While I'm throwing out crazy statements... I have a friend in the industry who says that recent advancements in super-capacitors look very VERY interesting. Well, who knows, it was a Thanksgiving dinner discussion. He happens to be in the fuel-cell business.

 

[artificialist]

Originally Posted By: Whimsey
I seem to rememember reading that using oxygenated gas in the winter was to help cars with carburetors with their cold start pollution due to the choke enrichment. By the time it became law more and more cars began using some sort of computer controls on the fuel delivery systems, even ones with carburetors. Eventually FI and total computer control was the "norm". Cold starts are now controlled by advanced computers and EFI that carefully match the fuel needs to the engine environment to control pollution levels at all operating conditions.

Ironically Ethanol increases the NOX levels over "pure gasoline". This has become a political boondagle that enriches some and penalizes the majority with higher costs to go the same miles with dubious benefits to the environment.

That's just my thoughts though

.

Whimsey

EFI cars still need enrichment to start when cold.

Anyway, Ethanol is junk. It is just another trick for politicians to repay corn farmers for bribery.

 

[Kestas]

Originally Posted By: crw
... realize that engines could be designed to take advantage of the higher octane that ethanol provides...

If ethanol raises octane, why are both 100% gasoline and E10 still 87 octane?

 

[Samilcar]

Originally Posted By: Kestas
Originally Posted By: crw
... realize that engines could be designed to take advantage of the higher octane that ethanol provides...

If ethanol raises octane, why are both 100% gasoline and E10 still 87 octane?


I've never seen E10 being sold with an octane of less than 89. The only way to get an 87 octane E10 blend is to blend ethanol with 85 octane straight gas.

 

[Kestas]

I have seen E10 sold as 87 octane. I believe it's more common than you realize. Otherwise, we wouldn't have the many threads on the E10 vs E0 debate, since most of the driving public runs on 87 octane.

But you made my point. With an ethanol blend, the refiners can start with cheaper 85 octane stock.

 

[eljefino]

Originally Posted By: Samilcar
Originally Posted By: Kestas
Originally Posted By: crw
... realize that engines could be designed to take advantage of the higher octane that ethanol provides...

If ethanol raises octane, why are both 100% gasoline and E10 still 87 octane?


I've never seen E10 being sold with an octane of less than 89. The only way to get an 87 octane E10 blend is to blend ethanol with 85 octane straight gas.


You're in Iowa where they love the stuff. IIRC your 89 is/was right about the price as pure gas 87. Do you still have pure 87? That would be interesting!

There are tons of threads where people say they lose 10-15% MPG and others say bull hockey: There are only 4% fewer BTUs. Could be the "octane sensitivity" goes up. link Sensitivity effects different motors differently..

 

[prax]

Originally Posted By: artificialist

EFI cars still need enrichment to start when cold.

Anyway, Ethanol is junk. It is just another trick for politicians to repay corn farmers for bribery.


100% agreed. If they didn't have so much influence, the rest of the nation wouldn't be paying for ethanol. I think it would be easy to solve this problem, but I'd be getting off-topic.

Ethanol is such a horrible fuel. The fact that we have to grow should be enough to tell you that it's not a good fuel. Plants are not good enough at converting sunlight to usable fuel.

 

[eljefino]

Originally Posted By: prax
Plants are not good enough at converting sunlight to usable fuel.


Well, it's possible algae or sugar cane might be. Would need some nonprofit (read: university) group to make it happen in this corn-centric environment.

Again I ponder my previous post: Why do we need all this "infrastructure" to move quantities of corn ethanol from the midwest when we have no idea where the next great ethanol score may come from? (Hint, probably somewhere tropical and sunny)

Or, we could distribute the manufacture to local gardeners with small stills...

Make up to 50 gallons a month without paying tax...

 

[gizzsdad]

Originally Posted By: eljefino
You're in Iowa where they love the stuff. IIRC your 89 is/was right about the price as pure gas 87. Do you still have pure 87? That would be interesting!


Yes, most stations still carry 87. It is usually about 10 cents per gallon more, due to the tax credit blenders are given for blending ethanol into the fuel.

The earlier comment about 25 years of history with NO problems is not completely true. I, and several friends, have had vehicles that had vapor lock problems at high temps/humidities that went away completely after changing to 87.

I agree with the earlier posters about trying to pin mileage drops on ethanol. The math/science tells us absolutely that the drop can be no more than 3%, which at 25 mpg would be .75 mpg. We all know there are MANY variables on each tank of gas, each of which could cause more variance than the ethanol.

BTW, I live three miles from a coal fired ethanol plant and am NOT a big fan of the stuff.