why ethanol blended gas sucks

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I have been using E85 fuel (85% ethanol,15% unleaded) in my ranger for 63,000 trouble free miles. And as long as I can keep buying it for $1.00 or more less than regular unleaded I will continue to use it.It has saved me hundreds of dollars over the past years. Yes I get 4 mpg less but the cheaper price more than makes up for the mileage.
 
Are you speaking of adding acetone?
Ethanol and alcohol in the fuel tends to negate the positive effects of acetone.
So if that is what your speaking of the answer would be no.
Most people that see a increase in mileage is likely to be from the cleaning of the engine that the acetone accomplishes. With 85% ethanol my best guess is it accomplishes the same cleaning effects.
 
Yes it does. It is a 3.0 engine w/flex fuel system. This came standard from Ford. There current run of Taurus and Sport Trax and Explorer's w/4.0 engines also use the same system.
 
quote:

Originally posted by Gary Allan:

quote:

Crude oil is a renewable resource if you subscribe to the theory that it has inorganic, rather than organic, origins--and I do.

How bow the Reader's Digest® version of this theory that you subscribe to??
smile.gif


Here's a good intro to the theory that petroleum has mostly inorganic rather than organic origins. We've barely scratched the surface of oil reserves available.
 
Who cares if it's more expensive as long as it's available? Once the black gold stops flowing ..it's forever.

We've always subscribed to the cheapest method for doing everything for all kinds of outcomes/results whether or not it was "wise". For example, cubic inches is the cheapest way to hp. It resulted in never bothering to develop more efficient methods of hp production and cost big time in energy require per hp.


Welcome to the downside to a free market economy where consumption is rewarded and conservation is viewed as a defect since you're not extracting all that the market can bear.
 
If country A switches to biofuels, because it's renewable, and country C does not, and uses the money they save in the short term to buy up all the world's fossil fuel reserves, which country will be more competitive? Being Green only works if everyone is Green. Otherwise, competiton drives out the Green.
 
I would think that the term "last man standing" would apply here, oily. Think of what's going to happen to most of the developing world that abandoned their agrarian culture for an industrialized one ..simply because it was cheaper to import US grains and crops then produce it themselves. They're then totally foreign dependant for energy, trade, and food.

How would you like to be in their shoes when the tap runs dry and not only are they energy dependant ..they can no longer feed themselves?? (wink-wink -nudge-nudge-say no more
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Think for the future. Throwing a party for today and paying for it beyond your lifetime is rather short sighted.
 
Gary,
given that the industrialised agriculture consumes more energy that it provides as food, it's not a pretty sight.

(won't get into talk of subsidies...)

I get paid about 2.1BBL (oil equivalent) per day, about 15GJ.

Oil is cheap.
 
Some insight into Patzek's bias against ethanol can be found on his own website: http://petroleum.berkeley.edu/patzek/index.htm . Patzek spent nearly a decade working for Shell Oil Company as a researcher, consultant, and expert witness. He is the founder and current director of the UC Oil Consortium, an organization funded mainly by the oil industry to the tune of $60,000-120,000 per year, per company.

Scientific studies have overwhelmingly found ethanol's energy balance to be positive, many of which can be viewed online at www.ethanol.org/ethanolresearch.html . The U.S. Department of Agriculture's most recent numbers indicate that the corn-to-ethanol process provides a net energy gain of at least 67 percent.
 
quote:


Enviromentalists never give up, so ethanol has become the new mainstream oxygenate and it’s here to stay. California requires at least 5.8% ethanol in pump gas. Other states may differ but, generally, ethanol content varies from 6-to-8 percent and goes as high as 10%. While cars built in the last 5-7 years don’t require oxygenates to achieve low emissions, ignorance or disbelief of that by environmental activists along with resistance to ethanol’s elimination by its producers and that it’s the oxygenate-of-choice for RFG in areas where MTBE has been be banned make its presence in gasoline inevitible and permanent.

source:
Gasoline Digest, 2004
http://www.idavette.net/hib/fuel/
 
I would change to to say that cars built in the last 15 to 17 years (if not further back than that) don't require oxygenates to achieve low emissions because they have oxygen sensors.
 
Jay had a good link but nobody wants to hear it.
As far back as the 50's geologists have said dead dinosaur juices do not explan all the oil.(I have also read some of the west texas fields are refilling) from the bottom?
and a final P.S. dont forget all the tar sands in Alberta,expensive but more oil than in Saudi.
 
Money balance is what matters.

If you want to use solar energy to power cars, photovoltaics are more efficient than agricultural ethanol. You can set up the panels on land that's too hot or too rocky for agriculture, too, or on the tops of roofs in the city.
 
Not really a big fan of ethanol but History channel did a show on the history of refined sugar. In it they also covered ethanol use in Brazil. Since the early 80s they have reduced their dependence on imported oil from 80% of all fuel used to 15% today. All gas stations carry 100% gasoline, diesel and 100% ethanol. Cars produced for the Brazilian market are "Flex fuel" meaning they can run on both gasoline or 100% ethanol. Ethanol costs less than half as much as gasoline at the pump. The cost of filling up has actually gone down in Brazil while gas prices have gone up in the rest of the world. Most "flex fuel" cars have a very small gas tank in the engine compartment (about 1/2 gallon) so the engine can be started on gasoline on cold mornings (In Brazil?) then automatically switch to ethanol in the main tank when the engine begins to warm up. Kind of like Greasel if anybody is familiar with that setup. Brasil pruduces its ethanol from sugar cane instead of corn. Also they have destroyed a lot of the Amazon in order to grow cane. They consider ethanol green house gas neutral since all that CO2 that comes from the tail pipe of the ethanol powered car was extracted from the atmosphere by the sugar cane in the fields. Sort of a closed loop process.
Anyway, not advocating more ethanol use in this country. Just thought its an interesting strategy that makes sense for Brazil. I know all about the problems Brazil had with ethanol in cars no equipped for the fuel in the early 80s.
The idea that I do want to get across is not necessarily ethanol. What works in one place does not necessarily translate everywhere. I think energy strategies should be build around the local resources in each individual region. Japan has chosen mass transit and micro cars. Europe has encouraged diesel development through taxation. Brasil has ethanol. Our strategy is to ship expensive ethanol from the midwest to California to be blended with gasoline for cars that don't even need it... and WAR. Instead of spending 100s of billions of dollars killing people in Iraq we could be spending that money on alternative energy research and development. We have the resources to subsidize renewable energy and it would still be cheaper than Iraq. Imagine the effect on the middle east if the world's biggest oil importer suddenly stopped buying 5 years after 9/11. Are we really proud of seing President of the United States of America holding hands with the dictator of Saudi Arabia on the evening news and the front page of every news paper in the world?
This is an article on the FLEX FUEL Chevrolet Corsa being imported to Thailand from Brazil.
http://www.gmthailand.com/site2005/htm/news_pressrelease2005-013E.php

[ September 16, 2005, 04:28 PM: Message edited by: jtantare ]
 
Corn oil replaced lard.

Corn sweeteners replaced cane sugar.

Corn ethanol replaces gasoline.


Geesh, I'm buying stock in Iowa real estate.....
 
I had posted in interesting articles a while back about that too. The oil is going to run out mentality has got to go. The fact that this [these] theories don't show up mainstream ought to tell you something. Control the oil, control the world.

quote:

The theory is simple: Crude oil forms as a natural inorganic process which occurs between the mantle and the crust, somewhere between 5 and 20 miles deep. The proposed mechanism is as follows:

* Methane (CH4) is a common molecule found in quantity throughout our solar system – huge concentrations exist at great depth in the Earth.

* At the mantle-crust interface, roughly 20,000 feet beneath the surface, rapidly rising streams of compressed methane-based gasses hit pockets of high temperature causing the condensation of heavier hydrocarbons. The product of this condensation is commonly known as crude oil.

* Some compressed methane-based gasses migrate into pockets and reservoirs we extract as "natural gas."

* In the geologically "cooler," more tectonically stable regions around the globe, the crude oil pools into reservoirs.

* In the "hotter," more volcanic and tectonically active areas, the oil and natural gas continue to condense and eventually to oxidize, producing carbon dioxide and steam, which exits from active volcanoes.

* Periodically, depending on variations of geology and Earth movement, oil seeps to the surface in quantity, creating the vast oil-sand deposits of Canada and Venezuela, or the continual seeps found beneath the Gulf of Mexico and Uzbekistan.

* Periodically, depending on variations of geology, the vast, deep pools of oil break free and replenish existing known reserves of oil.

There are a number of observations across the oil-producing regions of the globe that support this theory, and the list of proponents begins with Mendelev (who created the periodic table of elements) and includes Dr. Thomas Gold (founding director of Cornell University Center for Radiophysics and Space Research) and Dr. J.F. Kenney of Gas Resources Corporations, Houston, Texas.

http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=38645

http://www.nutech2000.com/webtext/forum/oilhoax.html

http://www.industrialheating.com/CD...res/BNP__Features__Item/0,2832,130880,00.html
 
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