E-85. I think I'm a convert.

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Originally Posted By: ueberooo
Originally Posted By: Jocephus
My Escalade with 6.2L V8
On 100% gas I get 18.4 mpg
On 10% ethanol I get 15.7 mpg
On E85 I get 13.2 mpg

I only run 100% gas now after doing the test for a month...even wrote my congressman a letter with the full supportive documentation. Heard nothing back.


One highway, zero city. Just kidding. No, I totally agree with you and hope your congressman listens to the input. I think fuel should be anywhere from E0 to E10. We should only burn stale expiring grain stocks as auto fuel.

Except if it's GMO; then it's safer to burn it than have anyone or anything eat it.


So your against using corn for ethanol but then your also against using GMO? Theoretically you'd rather produce less corn which in return would feed less people, than produce as much as possible to satisfy world demand with GMO produced corn? Almost all the corn out there is GMO. There hasn't been a real convincing study proving GMOs can harm anyone or anything.
 
There is something I don't understand fully. I keep hearing in the news and on documentary programs that many parts of the U.S., especially the corn belt, is going through a major long-term drought. This is driving up food prices across the board. If this is the case why we would be pushing to use even more ethanol? Perhaps this is a way to subsidize crops without really "subsidizing" them.
 
Originally Posted By: DBMaster
There is something I don't understand fully. I keep hearing in the news and on documentary programs that many parts of the U.S., especially the corn belt, is going through a major long-term drought. This is driving up food prices across the board. If this is the case why we would be pushing to use even more ethanol? Perhaps this is a way to subsidize crops without really "subsidizing" them.
+1
 
Originally Posted By: hatt
Originally Posted By: 95busa
Would you rather pay a farmer or a haji? Easy question for this guy.
Most of the money made by ethanol isn't paid to the farmer. He barely gets what it takes to grow the crop. The huge corps are making the money supplying proprietary seed, fertilizer, pesticides, herbicides, equipment, fuel, financing, etc. And of course the farmers get none of value added profit once the corn leaves the farm. And where do you think the farmer gets all the diesel to run those huge machines. You argument is flawed.
I'd rather pay a Canadian or Texas oil man.
 
Originally Posted By: 95busa
Would you rather pay a farmer or a haji? Easy question for this guy.
I'd rather pay a Canadian or Texas oil man to drill HERE. ANd pipeline guys to build pipelines that AGRABUSINESS OPPOSES.
 
Originally Posted By: HerrStig
Originally Posted By: hatt
Originally Posted By: 95busa
Would you rather pay a farmer or a haji? Easy question for this guy.
Most of the money made by ethanol isn't paid to the farmer. He barely gets what it takes to grow the crop. The huge corps are making the money supplying proprietary seed, fertilizer, pesticides, herbicides, equipment, fuel, financing, etc. And of course the farmers get none of value added profit once the corn leaves the farm. And where do you think the farmer gets all the diesel to run those huge machines. You argument is flawed.
I'd rather pay a Canadian or Texas oil man.

Then you shouldn't be eating the food on your plate on or wear the clothes on your back. A farmer somewhere in the US was mostly involved with everything you use everyday.
 
Originally Posted By: 95busa
Would you rather pay a farmer or a haji? Easy question for this guy.


My personal preference for my dollar, in this order:

An organic farmer or an amish farmer.

canadian oil man (there's a place for tarsands)

bakken oil man (too much flaring to rank them high)

hajis (they have a family to feed and need money too)

a farmer using any monsanto products



I have some pretty good guesses as to why the US has some of the highest disease rates among developed countries and why it has been skyrocketing over past 10- 15 years. Cure for breast cancer? How about if people ate quality food over junk instead? The US makes some really top technical and niche products, but when it comes to agriculture, it seems to be the race towards cheaply made and rock bottom quality. Even produce is designed to look spectacular, yet you bite into that perfect red tomato and it's anything but. When the focus becomes quality over quantity again I'll change my mind.

Does it surprise you why Monsanto's engineers and scientists demanded no Monsanto foods in their own cafeterias? Or that they coincidentally picked 3 months as their timescale for their "long term" animal study?

2010:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/12/monsantos-gmo-corn-linked_n_420365.html

2012:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/articl...-modified-foods

http://laist.com/2012/09/19/french_study_finds_massive_tumors_i.php
 
I thank you for burning ethanol and increasing my risks for lung diseases. You are so thoughtful.
 
I burn E85 in my not-factory-"flex" vehicle whenever possible. Have done so with every vehicle I've owned since E85 became available; modifying as needed to provide adequate fuel flow.

Have fun hatin', haters. B)
 
Originally Posted By: shovel
I burn E85 in my not-factory-"flex" vehicle whenever possible. Have done so with every vehicle I've owned since E85 became available; modifying as needed to provide adequate fuel flow.

Have fun hatin', haters. B)


I agree. Human health is overrated.
 
Originally Posted By: badtlc

I agree. Human health is overrated.


Right, because one study from Stanford indicates that one aspect of ethanol combustion (CO2 emissions) is less favorable than gasoline, completely ignoring every other aspect of production and combustion.

Another source of CO2 emissions is breathing, so considering I happen to prefer a vegetable/fruit diet (not promoting farmed animals exhaling CO2) and don't have children (not promoting additional humans breathing or necessitating travel/consumption) and live close enough to work that I bike all winter long (for fitness) and don't have one of those ridiculous remote starters on my car (idle for half an hour every day? brilliant!) ... your atmosphere is safe with me. I do eat a lot of bean tacos though, so methane emissions could negate all the harm reduction I do...
 
I am always amazed at the myths that continue to get thrown around. Especially the taking food away for making as fuel. That is the biggest line of garbage that has been foisted on the public.

There is no food loss by using corn to produce ethanol! NONE. The only thing that is used from the corn is the starches to produce the sugars which is fermented to alcohol. What is left is very high quality, in demand, distillers grain. It is dried and fed to livestock primarily. It is a high lysine product that also helps prevent intestinal colitis in feed animals. The starches that are used to produce the ethanol would just vacate thru the average cow and end up mostly as stuff you step in when you walk thru a feed lot. I haul several loads of this stuff a month to feed operations. I am pulling one of those loads right now. It is in a more refined state what I have. It is called Biolys, and in 50 lb bags for adding to feed mixtures done at feed mills.

Add to this, that over 80%, well over 80% of the corn grown in this country goes for livestock (cattle, hogs, turkeys, chickens) feed in some form or another. And the Dried Distiller's Grain mentioned above? Well, the Vietnamese, for one, have been negotiating pretty good deals to buy up a lot of it to be shipped to Vietnam for their livestock production. Wow. If we had done this earlier, I would not have had to stump around in the mud over there and have folks take pot shots at me! We could have sold them the DDG!

As for whether ethanol is worse or better after burning, as it affects the atmosphere, I am not up on that one. But the food to fuel thing is just a load of the same stuff that comes out of the south end of a north bound steer.

As a side note on the fuel mileage, true, with the present engine builds we have, you will take approximately a 20-25% hit on fuel mileage with E85. But, if the engines were designed to run on E85 alone, this would not be the case. As multifuel engines, they have to keep things tolerable for regular gasoline. With using only an E85 product, they could bump the compression ratios up considerably and make some other modifications, and the engines would give exceptional performance and get considerably better mpg with E85 than they presently do. So, before one attacks E85 as the being a rotten fuel for mpg, factor in the engine design also. Using primarily ethanol, we could bump compression ratios to levels only experienced in diesel engines now. You do that with a multifuel engine, and you will not like the results. But on a diet of ethanol, it would be a real pleasure to drive. I am presently looking into how a Chevy small block could be reworked to be an E85 only engine and make this all work. I have a flex fuel 5.3L now, but would love to see how this same engine, rebuilt to higher standards for ethanol, would perform.
 
All the above info brought to you by the Farm Bureau of course.

They have no agenda, they're simply here to do what's right!

C'mon, man, not everyone drinks that corn liquor here...
 
If corn ethanol is so great why did so much money get spent on lobbying to get laws passed to REQUIRE it's use? Products that make sense stand on their own and don't need .gov holding guns to the consumers heads.
 
My "per mile" cost is roughly the same on E-85.

However, my F150 really performs better on E-85. Ford says it gains 20HP and 60lb/ft torque. I believe it. The low end torque is significantly better.

Smells like a alcohol stove, when first started.

I use it when I can, it's cheap HP in my case.
 
Originally Posted By: shovel
Originally Posted By: badtlc

I agree. Human health is overrated.


Right, because one study from Stanford indicates that one aspect of ethanol combustion (CO2 emissions) is less favorable than gasoline, completely ignoring every other aspect of production and combustion.

Another source of CO2 emissions is breathing, so considering I happen to prefer a vegetable/fruit diet (not promoting farmed animals exhaling CO2) and don't have children (not promoting additional humans breathing or necessitating travel/consumption) and live close enough to work that I bike all winter long (for fitness) and don't have one of those ridiculous remote starters on my car (idle for half an hour every day? brilliant!) ... your atmosphere is safe with me. I do eat a lot of bean tacos though, so methane emissions could negate all the harm reduction I do...


Monitoring of Brazil's air quality shows the same.
 
Originally Posted By: hatt
If corn ethanol is so great why did so much money get spent on lobbying to get laws passed to REQUIRE it's use? Products that make sense stand on their own and don't need .gov holding guns to the consumers heads.


Don't confuse lobbying for it's use as coming from the agriculture community with the agenda the greenies and EPA has going. You have to remember, that since the 70's there has been a push for this kind of stuff primarily because of smog issues in places like Southern Cal, the Colorado front range, and most major cities east of the Mississippi river. To try and conform to EPA guidelines, they mandated MTBE or some such thing as an oxygenate to gasoline. Once they found out that it was a ecological problem, then the move to ethanol being mandated across the nation came into play. All the major cities and heavy populated areas with higher pollution issues, to meet EPA guidelines, have mandated ethanol blends.

Your outrage is placed on the wrong folks. Sure, the ag community wanted some advantages to get things off the ground. And most of the help was in the form of tax credits more than direct subsidies. Tax credits are NOT money transfers. They are only credits for tax purposes. Just like individuals getting tax credits for dependents, mortgage interest, etc. Since the EPA has done all the moving forward on ethanol and biodiesel, there really is no need for any kind of ag subsidies (which have been eliminated for almost 2 years now) or preferential treatment in the tax code. Some tax credits remain, but they are along the line of regular business tax credits that the majority of business' take advantage of in the tax code.

Sometime it is wise to actually study the issue a little before slinging out comments based on false assumptions. I have watched all of this happen so it is a little easier for me to understand it. Those that are just coming to the party seem to have all the knee jerk reactions based on false assumptions.
 
Originally Posted By: 95busa
Would you rather pay a farmer or a haji? Easy question for this guy.


+ for me.
 
The thing with Gas or E85, is that are different fuels and to run best need different engine set ups.
If an engine runs a 9:1 compression ratio using straight gasoline, that same engine could probably go with 11:1 or even 12:1 on E85.
Higher compression makes for a more efficient engine until it starts to knock, and the E85 will handle much more compression.

Bump up the compression and the E85 will get much better mileage.
You just can't go back to Gasoline without either alcohol, or water injection as an antiknock.
 
Originally Posted By: SteveSRT8
All the above info brought to you by the Farm Bureau of course.

They have no agenda, they're simply here to do what's right!

C'mon, man, not everyone drinks that corn liquor here...


This is so true simply because the oil industry has our well being as it top priority.
 
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