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Is E85 Dead Now?
twdorris writes "With a stoichiometric ratio far lower than that of gasoline (much lower than the price difference), buying the E85 ethanol fuel blend instead of gasoline was already hard to justify. Unless you raced your car on a track where E85 provided a great alternative to race fuel, it really didn't make financial sense. And there are other reasons not to buy E85, too. Like the impact corn-based ethanol is having on food prices or the questionable emissions results (PDF). So, now that the ethanol subsidies provided by the U.S. federal government are scheduled to end this summer, it's going to be even harder to justify E85 (at least in the U.S.). This change will basically make a gallon of E85 cost the same or slightly more than gasoline. With so many things working against it, are the days numbered for readily available E85 at your local gas station? And should it have ever even been made available to begin with? How much did all that government-backed R&D and tax credits cost us for something that was pretty clearly questionable to begin with?"
Does that mean that we'll go back to having gasoline actually be real, 100% honest-to-God gasoline too?
I come from a family of farmers, some of which have taken advantage of the high price of corn. Well, around Christmas they were talking about two things. One is the serious disregard for pollution standards from most (they said more than just those caught and fined) ethanol refineries. And also the negative effect it has had on farmland in their area. The second was that many refineries were shutting down as these subsidies came to a close (my dad pointed out two abandoned as we drove along) and as a result some farmers had bought up land at high prices expecting the recent price of corn to continue. They had figured they would be getting $6 or $7 a bushel and there was a lot of talk that since the refineries were going down and production was already juiced that this was going to lead to a lot of farmers losing money in these purchases. From what I gathered from folks who have been doing this for many decades: this will be a very painful learning experience for everyone involved and this seems to be the sentiment whether the wind blows right or left.
My work here is dung.
A lot of the racers are putting turbos in their cars, running e85 and getting great horsepower AND gas mileage. It works great for them. However, most americans hate it because they get no increased hp in their car, and the price offset doesn't justify the worse gas mileage. Then theres the whole CORN IS FOOD. To which I say, there's enough corn in my food already
The E85 manufacturers and the agriculture companies that grow corn have a lot riding on this, and are quite good at influencing Congress. There's a very good chance that they will successfully lobby to extend this subsidy.
That's a shame, because the subsidy was originally intended to support this fuel alternative for a short time in order to give it a chance to become economically viable. Well, it's had that chance and the results have been a disaster.
It's no secret that Ethanol production is no greener than petroleum fuels. There are other corn based products that are propped up artificially as well.
Hard to figure why the government subsidizes it so much. I'm sure someone will say, is there a huge corn lobby? Who pays them?
Even though it cost less than standard gasoline, it came at a reduced gas milage. I did the math and at the cost in my area, it was more expensive per mile than regular. Maybe in other areas that was different, I dont know.
For engines that can handle it, E85 is a nice alternative to gasoline because it does give a tad more horsepower. However, even with the included subsidies, it was still not worth using because of the MPG difference compared to plain gasoline.
However, being forced to use gasoline with ethanol in it results in more energy lost in making of replacement engines and parts than it saves.
Ethanol is an enemy of small engines. It is hygroscopic, which means the engine has to deal with water sucked in, and gas + water makes a nasty acid (nicknamed "gacid" by mechanics) that destroys engines. Of course, this stuff is not covered by any warranty, so your new car that gets ethanol damage, the owner is stuck with the bill.
Of course, you can add Sta-Bil to the gas tank to help combat the ethanol's effects, but gas additives get expensive.
I just hope that ethanol goes away except for the occassional E85 pump, just for the sake of lawn mower, generator, motorcycle, and boat owners everywhere. The carbon savings from not having to keep purchasing new engines will more than make up for the difference in pollution.
... that E80 stuff.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Let's not forget that ethanol fuels destroy engines, lower gas mileage, and drive farmers into bankrupcy.
This was never something for the environment. It was always another subsidy for farmers and Big Oil.
Its not good race fuel either since they tend to screw around with the blend throughout the year. Many race vehicles are either have a carb or closed circuit fuel injection, neither of which compensate for the seasonal changes.
E85 will make perfect sense once petroleum is removed from the distilling process. Ethanol will be one of many methods to "store" solar energy. It's still going to continue to be important in the internal combustion field. Current marketplace E85 doesn't make much sense, but it is a stepping stone. It's not a dead end technology, it's just one that requires a good amount of energy to to expended on its manufacture. Eventually, the price of this energy will decrease.
Often in Error, Never in Doubt.
[q]How much did all that government-backed R&D and tax credits cost us for something that was pretty clearly questionable to begin with?[/q]
It can't be easy having 20/20 hindsight. I mean it's not like any project of this magnitude has proponents and opponents, with both parties eagerly just waiting to go "I told you so."
It was worth a shot. We could as well have ended up with someone discovering a super algae or yeast or whatever (I don't fucking know, something bioengineered) once we went down that road. This time we didn't, don't be a fuckbag about it. No one likes a fuckbag.
Cheers
... it drives up the price of high fructose corn syrup.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
lets switch to switchgrass please. You don't need to waste food or farmland for switchgrass, it grows in many difficult conditions and is cheaper to manage by far. It also has better energy energy content by far.
And they make up for that 3% by raising taxes to cover the subsidy. You lose whether you buy it or not.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
They alway tried to hide the amount of corn and the energy required to make ethanol. It never was a cost-effective solution.
even if there is no other reason to product E85, if it causes pause in oil-rich countries that hate us and our freedoms, but want to gobble down our money while it's still good, hell yes, go E85.
if the US would build the appropriate pipelines to use the ND/MT/WY oil from the Bakken and other formations, where we have three Saudi Arabias worth of oil availiable for the fracking where there are no earthquake zones, we wouldn't even need to think about E85 or other alternatives to oil for a good hundred years.
as it is, we need to use everything we have to get away from using... everything we have... and build an alternate energy system in this country.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
It was hyped as government mandates trumping market decisions for the purpose of appeasing special interests.
Which part of that did it not achieve? Seriously, no one ever expected it to survive after the end of the subsidies (and taxes on petroleum based fuels). There was no secrecy. It was plainly presented as appeasement to the Corn Growers Association, paid for by all Americans who use fuel or eat food produced domestically (ie. everyone)
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Ummmm did the author of this do NO real homework...or do they just have a personal axe to grind against E85?
While the end of the subsidies may sound bad...the $0.45 per gallon US subsidy loss was also complimented by a dropping of the US import tariff of $0.54 per gallon.
http://www.energybulletin.net/stories/2012-01-09/end-us-ethanol-tariff
All this does is stop local protectionism and might actually result in a net DROP in e85 prices.
What about bio-butanol? Could you mix that with gasoline? It may smell, but it has a higher energy density than ethanol. Is it more economical?
I know diesel engines have a lousy reputation in North America, but I firmly believe hemp based bio-diesel is a FAR better alternative than E85. Most importantly, hemp seed based bio-diesel is a net-positive energy solution, requiring less fuel to farm the hemp and process it into bio-diesel than you end up producing (kind of a critical point for any product to succeed in the energy markets.)
Some go so far as to claim that hemp bio-diesel is carbon negative. I'm skeptical about that, but it would be interesting to test the theory.
Unlike ethanol corn, hemp produces a great deal of fiber suitable for textiles and paper as a side-product, even if the main purpose of the crop is bio-diesel. Levi's jeans used to be made exclusively from hemp-fiber denim, not cotton. I've read claims that hemp based paper out produces poplar tree paper production by a factor of nearly 4:1, though again, I've not seen a study to prove that claim.
Most important of all, hemp is literally a weed and will grow almost anywhere, allowing the use of low-grade farmland instead of taking away from food-crop acreage.
But it's nothing new. The pro-hemp community has been screaming this "nonsense" at the top of their lungs for decades while the cannabis drug war drowned out their good points about hemp farming.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
I was one of many to write papers on it and why it really didn't fix anything. It was never even a band-aid.
But the refineries were built anyway- solely because of government money. It absolutely never would have happened naturally if there wasn't government money to be made.
For a few of us who race or can brew our own ethanol (sans road tax), this stuff is still great.
Have gnu, will travel.
Without subsidies the law is still a problem... The law requires an amount of ethanol be blended into the nations fuel supply, but we're not using enough gas to safely reach those legal levels with E10 alone. E15 and E85 help meet the EISA law's requirements. Ethanol will not go away until EISA is fixed.
The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 ...
(EISA) (Pub. Law 110-40) requires the motor fuel supply to contain 36 billion gallons of ethanol and
advanced biofuels by 2022 (known as the renewable fuel standard (RFS)). For instance, this year
requires 11.5 billion gallons of renewable fuels to be used in our nation’s fuel supply.
Here is where the "blend wall" comes into play. The nation consumes approximately 145 billion gallons
of gasoline each year and approximately 120 billion gallons are subject to the RFS ethanol
blending formula. Even if every gallon of gasoline included in the RFS were blended with 10 percent
ethanol, refiners would hit the "blend wall" around 12 billion gallons. Refiners are expected to hit the
ethanol "blend wall" between 2011 – 2012 (at current ten percent ethanol blended consumption).
http://www.pmaa.org/userfiles/file/Legislative/2009/.../BLENDWALL.pdf
We've seen that getting ethanol from corn kernels is not a good way to go about storing solar energy.
We've yet to see whether cellulosic ethanol plants work out as hoped, or not. If CE plants are able to cost effectively generate ethanol from cellulose-rich plants (like switchgrass, industrial hemp, etc), then there might be a future for ethanol as a biofuel, but not corn ethanol.
As a plant, it just takes too much energy to grow the corn, transport it, and you get too little energy back.
Ethanol is very feasible, just not he way we make it in the states. Sugarcane produces far more ethanol per weight than corn does, and it does so with much less manufacturing. However, the USA has a massive pre-existing investment in corn. Thus the issue.
Since it never made sense, I always thought E85 might have been a political red herring, distracting laws and investments from real solutions, as the hydrogen cell was depicted in a documentary:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Killed_the_Electric_Car%3F#Hydrogen_fuel_cell
You received a 155 HP increase from just switching to E85? That is quite a feat.
E85 was a bad joke from the start. If you consider the amount of oil it takes to water the corn, fertilize the corn, then harvest the corn, then process it to get your ethanol, its a huge losing proposition from a purely environmental position. It also profoundly screws with the food markets, and puts the poor around the world on precarious footing towards starvation.
The people it benefits are the big moneied corporate agribusinesses. It makes grain less available, jacks up the price of corn commodities, and in short makes a bunch of greedy buggers even wealthier.
You want to use a sane fuel? Oil from Algae, is sane. Ethanol from bullgrass is sane. Ethanol and methanol from sewage and organic waste is sane. By all means, turn refuse and societies byproducts into fuel and fuel additives. Just get food out of the equation.
it may work in a race car but in normal every day cars it don't, example i will use "2011 Chevrolet Silverado C15 2WD 5.3 L, 8 cyl, Automatic 6-spd, Regular Gasoline or E85" it gets rated 21 MPG with gas, put e85 in it it only gets 16 MPG. that is 25% drop in mileage. Now look at how much E85 costs compared gas, on avg e85 is only 10% cheaper, some cases its up to 20%. so in end you are spending more to run E85. That is problem.
There's been some talk over the past decade about cellulosic ethanol. I believe there's a couple demo plants being constructed a few places in the country. From my understanding, you could just as easily use cellulose from hemp as from switchgrass or trees.
So, you could take the seed and make bio-diesel (and, perhaps, lubricating oils - not sure if the hemp seed oil would be any good for lubrication or not?) for diesel engines, and cellulosic ethanol from the rest of the plant (which accounts for what, like 99% of the plant mass)?
Because of that last bit, I suspect you would get far, far more ethanol from the plant, per acre, than bio-diesel from the seeds?
In all these years of E85 hype, there's only been a handful of places I could actually get it. The only two within a 45 minute drive on the interstate are both on military bases which I'd need a military ID in order to get on base, much less purchase there. The others are so absurdly far that I'd have wasted more in gas getting there and back than I'd be saving.
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yes because the EGT was lowered quite a bit and was able to run 28PSI of boost as opposed to 21PSI on 93 Octane and 25PSI on 114 Octane race gas which is ridiculously expensive. It basically makes race gas obsolete in my book.
Even Scientists from Ag departments of California universities have known that looking to corn-based fuels is a bad idea. Look at this report from Professor Tadeusz Patzek, A Professor of Chemical Engineering at the University of California at Berkeley:
Excerpts:
Why Corn Ethanol is Unsustainable, Let Us Count the Ways:
4.
Approximately 99% of U.S. corn is fertilized, requiring more fertilizer than any other crop.
Nitrogen fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides are all made from fossil fuels, as is the diesel
fuel, gasoline, LPG, natural gas, electricity, transportation and irrigation used to grow and
transport the corn.
7.
Because ethanol is a toxic and hazardous substance, its use is regulated by OSHA, DOT,
NFPA and NIOSH. Ethanol must be handled with extreme caution because it can enter the
blood stream from breathing the fumes, or by penetration through the skin or mouth. Exposure
can irritate the eyes, nose, mouth, and throat. As such, protective clothing, including gloves
and splash-proof chemical goggles and face shields should be worn by anyone coming in
contact with ethanol.
8.
People are advised not to eat, smoke or drink where ethanol is handled, processed, or stored
since the chemical can easily be absorbed. Moderate exposure can cause headaches, eye
and skin irritation, nausea, and drowsiness, whereas higher levels of exposure (over 1000 parts
per million over an 8-hour period) can cause shortness of breath, genetic mutations, damage to
the liver and central nervous system and unconsciousness. Exposure to ethanol levels of over
3300 ppm can result in death.
9.
Ethanol land requirements: Approximately 50 gallons of ethanol are produced per acre of
corn. Thus 2.8 billion acres of land would be required to generate 140 billion gallons of fuel
used in the USA annually, which is more than 5 times all of the cropland that is actually and
potentially available for all crops in the USA.
10. ...8,360 gallons of water are needed per equivalent gallon of
Ethanol water requirements:
gasoline in the form of ethanol. 140 billion gallons of gasoline are consumed in the USA
annually, times 8,360 gallons of water = 1.17 trillion gallons of water needed to grow and
process enough ethanol for the U.S. economy.
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While we need to find alternatives to fossil fuels (I care not about our reason - pollution, economics, or national security - any one is good enough for me) we won't get at the right solution without good old garage projects in a DARPA-style grand challenge. Only after we've had several designs on several aspects will we be able to get an improvement. Just look at all the effort and ingenuity into Pumpkin Chunkin!
Currently closed-loop steam looks like it might get a resurgence due to fuel indepenence, lack of stoichiometry, simpler design.
We currently need contests in:
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This the same kind of crap as Medicare Part D, where the federal government is not allowed to negotiate bulk drug prices with the pharmaceutical manufacturers. The Veterans Administration gets bulk rates, and their costs are significantly lower.
Every big financial sector is in on this game. SOPA/PIPA anyone? The mortgage meltdown and the bank bailout. This is endemic corruption, where all the big players rewrite the rules so they automatically make a profit. Even Jamie Dimon, head of JPMorgan-Chase said he had a "right to make money". That's not capitalism. He has a right to engage in business, and make money if he is successful, and loose money if he doesn't. What we have now is a rigged game, and it not so slowly destroying the US economy.
Why is Snark Required?
Goodbye Dublin Dr. Pepper, hello sucrose-based not-outrageously-priced Dr. Pepper nationwide.
OK, maybe Dr. Pepper, Coke, and Pepsi won't want to damage their nostalgia market,* but at least Jones Soda and other sucrose-based sodas can be cost-effective with Coke/Pepsi/Dr. Pepper if the big boys are forced to pay more for the corn syrup.
*Coke distributes "Mexican Coke" in some markets at a high mark-up. Dr. Pepper distributes "10-2-4" Dr. Pepper in some markets in glass bottles at a high mark-up, with occasional "limited time only" sales in cans and large bottles at relatively small mark-ups. I haven't seen Pepsi do this but you can get "Mountain Dew Classic" at a non-outrageous markup.
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I have a propane powered car. In Ontario, I pay 64 cents per litre for a fillup, which would be $2.42 a gallon. Gasoline here is $1.20 a litre, or $4.54 a gallon. That makes running on propane a good deal. Taxes don't explain all of it, because the difference in taxes on auto propane vs. gasoline in Ontario is 10 cents a litre (propane sold for your BBQ/heating your house is even cheaper, as 5 cents a litre of taxes are removed).
I've checked propane prices in the US, and I see that it's around $3.30 a gallon. What gives? Gas taxes are far higher in Canada than they are in the US, so it can't be that. It can't be trucking distance, because cities bordering the US are only 70 cents a litre. I'm wondering, because I'll be running the car on gas while I'm in the US, since the propane is carbureted and the gas is fuel injected, plus gas gives you about 15% more energy per litre, so it would cost a lot more to run on propane there.
Is the US subsidizing gasoline or something?
(I've noticed that in the US a lot of people get Natural Gas [CNG] and Propane [LPG] confused, so I'm just noting here that no, you CANNOT run an LPG car on CNG. It's like putting diesel vs. gasoline).
You're also ignoring other changes you had to make in order to get that 155hp. It didn't come from just from your switch to ethanol, there simply isn't that much energy there.
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So no, no thanks, no ethanol in my gas if I can help it. Ethanol is corrosive to car's fuel systems. Most manufacturers told congress that many cars on the road today will start breaking down even with E15. The cars made for E85 will be ok.
I know this is conspiracy-theory territory, but I'm fairly convinced the car companies/oil companies created E85 and meant for it to fail miserably so that they could say "Hey look, we TRIED to make Alternative Energy cars but nobody wanted them!"
My "proof" of this is two-fold. First, there are hardly any... in fact I don't know that there was ONE 'regular' flex-fuel vehicle. I mean family sedan, compact, you know... CHEAP car for the Masses. The smallest cars I found were like Crown Victoria - BIG sedans that are usually made for fleets. I don't need or WANT a car that big. I eventually got a Honda Civic, I was looking for that form-factor car.
Second, and this is the big one. I was willing to consider SUVs so I looked around and there was a Jeep that was flex-fuel. I forget which one. But it was NOT their smallest SUV by far.
So I go to a Jeep dealer and am immediately attacked by a sales shark. I say "I'm interested in the Jeep Monstrosity" and he starts drooling because I just asked about a $40K car and says "Yeah, we have one right here." And then I go "I understand there's a flex-fuel option".
It is important to understand that the flex-fuel version of the Jeep Monstrosity costs a lot MORE than the non-flex-fuel. We're talking $47K instead of $40K.
This should make a sales-shark happy. VERY happy.
Instead, he ACTIVELY tries to talk me into the CHEAPER, non-flex-fuel model, by telling me all the things that are WRONG with E85. "Oh you know it costs more in the long run. It'll ruin the engine. E85 gets lower mileage. It's a lot more expensive."
Seriously. A cat sales-shark tried very hard to get me NOT TO BUY a MORE EXPENSIVE CAR because it could take E85. If that's not proof that SOMEthing is wrong, nothing is.
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is kinky.
Chuck Grassley is from Iowa. And is very powerful. As are Monsanto et al. There's the impetus of your E85 right there.
And that is when governments jump through all kinds of hoops to give a special interest group subsidies while trying to work within a 'market'.
Look, food is essential to life. If the governments want to provide some kind of subsidy to farmers, just be up front with it and do it. People somehow want the government to provide free education and free healthcare... a little bit to help out farmers doesn't seem out of whack to me.
It's better than artificially driving up the cost of food.
In Canada, it seems every few years the government actually pays farmers to cull their herds of pork. The meat can't be given to people believe it or not because that is considered a 'subsidy'.
Just let that sink in for a second.
If they're going to support farmers anyways, why not just admit you're subsidizing them, and then people can have cheaper food. Wouldn't that be more productive?
We can argue about the free market and other systems all we like, but at the end of the day we don't live in one. And it seems we jump through hoops to pretend some markets should operate completely within a market, while others linger with significant or even complete government protection.
>My car is relatively newer and I *hate* when gas stations are forced to use E10 (10% ethanol, ie. Winter fuel). My mpg drops by 10% - 15%.
That's bullshit. You're only adding 10% of a *FUEL*. If you added 10% water, and it still ran, you'd expect an approx. 10% loss in efficiency. You could mix in kitchen oil (which will burn) and if you could get it past the injectors, you wouldn't expect a loss anywhere near that.
Even if E-10 were 25% less efficient than gas (it's not), at 10% blended in you'd see an approximate 2.5% loss.
Damn, people are stooopid. It's math and science, people, not whatever prejudice you've majnaged to convince yourself of. Just measure the amount you drive and the gallons of fuel consumed, and divide-- and be suspicious of extraneous factors, such as warming up or using more gas due to bad weather in winter.. It's *so* simple.
It's just pinin' for the Fords...
/ sorry. I'll go stand in the corner now.
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I am able to produce 700+HP from a 1.1 litre engine as opposed to only 545HP with 93octane.
Holy RPM batman, with all the money you sunk into that 12A, you could have had a smoking 20B that wouldn't get too much more power, but would do so at half the RPM. Or do you never actually drive it on the street, so starting to make power at 6000+ RPM isn't an issue for you?
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Is there something wrong with you, or do you just like puff-puff-puffing away in your wheezy gutless petrol-engined vehicles?
Get a diesel.
Not ignoring changes that were made. That is the whole point of using ethanol or even higher octane gas with boosted engines in the first place to allow me to make changes that are not possible on pump gas unless you want to see your engine suffer a catastrophic meltdown. That is how with using E85 I am able to produce 700+HP
You're also ignoring other changes you had to make in order to get that 155hp. It didn't come from just from your switch to ethanol, there simply isn't that much energy there.
And without the ethanol, those changes are flat impossible. You simply can't run that much boost without the higher octane rating ethanol provides.
And it's possible to do that adjustment automatically. Saab does it with their biopower engines.
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Not really. Nitromethane has poor energy content, but makes for 4000HP engines. The amount of air you can pump through an engine is fixed by the displacement and maximum RPM of the components, and the fuel is limited by the amount of air that that quantity of fuel properly mixes with. Gasoline works at about a 13:1 ratio with air, alcohol at 6:1 and nitromethane at 2:1. So, for one revolution of a one liter engine, you can put through 1 unit of gasoline, 2.5 units of alcohol, or 6.4 units of nitromethane (with a unit being the amount of gasoline that properly mixes with one liter of air). Factoring in energy content, that makes alcohol capable of 30% more power and nitromethane capable of 75% more power, with no other modifications than a change of fuel and mixture adjustment. Add the cooling benefit of more liquid fuel being vaporized and it gets even better. Nitromethane engines use so much fuel that it's possible to hydro-lock them (the entire combustion chamber fills with incompressible liquid fuel - and very bad things happen).
E85 always has limited distribution in the United States. See the follolwing map http://www.greentechmedia.com/images/wysiwyg/research-blogs/blend-wall-visual.jpg. Flex Fuel vehicles sales needed E85 pumps and E85 pumps needed flex fuel vehicles. Most of these pumps are in the rural US.
The US is currently close to the E10 blend wall (we have the capacity make all the ethanol to include in all our gasoline that is 10%) this limits the construction of new ethanol plants. It also limits the construction of new non-corn ethanol plants because the current plant as the existing plants control marginal capacity with existing established plants.
Additionally we are exporting ethanol to Brazil and importing ethanol from Brazil to meet advanced blender credits. http://cornandsoybeandigest.com/energy/us-importing-exporting-ethanol-and-brazil
This is all the result of short sighted incentives. The entire US ethanol market is a mess, however sugar cane shortages in Brazil will keep American corn farmers happy for at least a year. And ethanol plants are now planning to sell off the oil portion of the distillers grains in an attempt to put more to their bottom lines. http://sdcornblog.org/archives/tag/corn-oil
E85 was and still is a bad idea not because of the use of ethanol as a fuel but because the blend is not selectable at the pump. Ethanol is a great fuel but nothing but pure race engines are designed to use it to it's potential.
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Isn't this a moot point? The subsidy is going away, but NOT the requirement! The Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), part of the Energy Policy Act of 2005, specifies how many billions of gallons of "renewable" fuels have to be used in the US every year (as compared to petroleum-based products). This has the net effect of forcing us all to buy ethanol, regardless of its actual benefits/detriments, as the fuel manufacturer's are required to blend it in to meet federal requirements. Beginning this year i believe, the requirements stipulate more gallons of ethanol than is even produced per year, resulting in massive fines they will be paying, driving up the cost of our fuel even higher for no benefit (other than government spending). Score one for the bureaucrats.
Sheesh, I thought this was about ,a href="http://www.enlightenment.org/">Enlightment!
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
The first problem is you're using an american v8.
Ethanol production does not need to come from corn. For every one part of energy we put into it's production using corn we generally get less than two out according to National Geographic. Sometimes there is a net loss.
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2007/10/biofuels/biofuels-interactive
On the other hand, ethanol made from sugar cane yields roughly 8 parts energy for 1 part used. (8:1) Brazil is going crazy for ethanol and it is saving them lots of money while reducing dependence on fossil fuels. On the other hand, rain forests are being cleared to grow sugar cane.
Whew. Hopefully the cost of white lightning will come back to earth, and be more available across the street. Imagine all these morons burning good 'shine. ;-)
I don't think E85 was from oil companies, they could get methanol from gas overseas cheaper. Stick to Monsanto, Cargill, ADM, and BP (for the ingrained recklessness and criminality), you'll do fine.
This is a "new technology" that runs in existing infrastructure and consumers put in their existing vehicles with a lower price that the "old technology". I would say it is in no way relevant to how Americans adopt new technology. If it had an initial investment that produced a long term benefit then yes. Other areas like this are Hybrid cars. The only people who spend more to buy a hybrid cars are those that want to be seen driving them. The only people who buy hybrids for their fuel economy are taxi drivers and other companies where the purchasing decision incorporates ROI.
Weight or energy says it all. Propane is about 4.25 lbs/gallon and gasoline is about 6.1 lb/gallon. Propane is more hydrogen rich, so 5-10% more energy per lb. Propane in the US tends to be overpriced local monopolies. Fuels need to be priced by the lb, kg or GJ (gigajoule~MMBTU).
Anyone who uses the word "hemp" is instantly branded a hippy.
We can't know for SURE, but my 2000 model year, carbureted motorcycle starting having problems not long after E90 became mandatory in this area. And a year later, after spending LOTS of money, in three different shops, nobody could seem to fix it. My conclusion is the alcohol ruined the carburetor. A year later, I got rid of it.
So since it does little to nothing for the environment, costs as much or more, raises food prices, attracts water into gas, and sometimes RUINS older engines, can we finally get rid of it???
See Subject.
I am guessing that it was Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) that benefited from E85 most. They have some pretty beefy lobby power and the every day average joe certainly did not benefit from it. Not only is E85 not as efficient but it is rough on engines. Let the subsidies expire and pursue hydrogen as the alternative fuel.
n-octane has an octane rating of about -10. However, 2, 2, 4 - trimethyl pentane (an isomer of n-Octane, sometimes called isooctane) has an octane rating of 100. Generally, the more branches and methyl groups a molecule has, they higher the octane rating. Small molecules of fuel also tend ot have higher octane ratings. Molecules with alcohol groups on them don't usually have octane ratings much different from a similar non-alcohol bearing group, but they tend to be liquids are useful temperatures and pressures. Both Ethane and Ethanol has an octane rating of about 100 (depends on the method used to measure it).
None of this has anything to do with they amount of energy you get out of a gallon or a kilogram of such a fuel. Diesle fuel has a higher energy content that gasoline per gallon (and per kilogram) and has a much lower octane rating (15-25).
True, you can get the old recipe, but unless it's in one of those time-limited promotions, you can only get it in certain size bottles and only at a hefty premium.
My hope is that if the wholesale price of sucrose and corn syrup are about equal, or better yet if sucrose has a price advantage, the big-name soft drink vendors will just go back to the old formulas and drop the "novelty premium" many currently charge.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
ArcherDanielsMidland, and Senators from Kansas, Nebraska, Illinois, Dakotas and Minnesota
Back oh so many years ago, it was a pretty broad group of special interests that pushed ethanol for mixing with fuels (either E85 or to meet oxygenation or octane ratings without MTBE). We even heard how "green" it was.
Now, you ask who supported it and you hear crickets chirping.
Magically no one ever supported it and everyone thought it was a terrible idea from the beginning. ;)
Oh, but it'll still be around. The blends are now mandated by law. E85 was a minor demand compared to the N% ethanol required in many of the environmentally mandated blends.
The real hoot is the requirement for cellulosic ethanol this year when there simply isn't enough of it to meet the requirements due to it not being so straightforward to scale up.
But, regardless that it doesn't exist, we're on track to start collecting fines for it not being in the blends.
You can't make this stuff up. No one would believe it in anything more serious than Catch 22.
I don't feel like I had a choice about E85 - all 3 pump grades (5 at some stations) were E85, all stations in my county were E85, if I wanted to get away from E85, I think I might have been able to pay $6/gallon for 100 octane Sunoco Race Fuel or possibly bootleg some Aviation gas, but otherwise, there was no choice involved.
Actually, you can't just run ethonol in a regular car engine, even with the correct fuel lines. The stoichiometric ratio of Ethanol is so wildly different than that of gasoline (9 vs 14 or so, IIRC,) that if you attempt to run it in an engine lacking the appropriate fuel maps, you are almost certainly going to end up with a dangerously lean condition. Extreme over-heating, detonation, and component failure are the likley result.
Flex Fuel vehciles must also have the appropriate sensors and fuel maps to handle ethonol.
Ethanol is just the latest in a long line of failed "policies".
In my lifetime, the US, the most powerful & advanced military in the world, has never won a war! Over 20 years I've watched the US government destroy the space program, destroy the housing market, and destroy the public education system. Even the most solar friendly administration in history managed to destroy the US solar market in less than three years. Simply amazing. Granted, European leaders are working just as hard to screw up everything they touch as well, lol.
The E85 manufacturers and the agriculture companies that grow corn have a lot riding on this, and are quite good at influencing Congress. There's a very good chance that they will successfully lobby to extend this subsidy.
The direct subsidy is ending, but the requirement for 10% ethanol in gasoline *is not*. So, they'll make slightly less direct money, but the market prices will just be driven up further on the corn and feedstocks, because of the market distortion by the fuel requirement.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
... You can more easily mod the stock FI mapping without having to replace with higher-flow injectors due to their already being enlarged to handle the less-energy-dense ethanol. So, if you have a flexfuel vehicle that you want to, say, drop forced compression into, you may not need to replace the stock injectors or fuel pumps to increase fuel delivery. I would think that flexfuel Corvettes would be an awfully good platform for such mods, with LS blocks that already have an ecosystem of mods.
Also, as ethanol is more corrosive to gaskets and lines than gasoline, those parts are more robust and longer-lasting than those in traditional fuel lines and couplings.
Additionally, there are ways of producing ethanol that don't involve burning food, and perhaps methanol would also be usable in such a vehicle. Methanol can be generated by atmospheric CO2, water, and a power/heat source such as solar or thorium LFTR. Me, I'd rather see a flexfuel SOFC or on-vehicle reformulator plus fuel cell that would enable the use of liquid hydrocarbons to be more efficiently converted into power to drive an electrified powertrain. HC fuels are very good at carrying lots of H2 at STP reasonably safely, there's an infrastructure already in place to support it, and if we can get tank-to-wheel efficiency to the ~50-60% range instead of ~20-30% (or lower) then it'd be a big win.
You *really* need to work on your launch :) (or get some better tires.. the two videos below were on BFG Drag T/A's since they wouldn't award points anymore for the 4-cylinder class if you ran slicks.. you needed DOT tires that could be used on the highway.. and you can hear them not wanting to grab from lack of water + burnout and track conditions)
Here's a few runs my brother did in the car we built:
11.6@131 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VoDYr65aGYw
11.01 @ 139 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXZ0pYuVffg
Done at Beaver Springs Dragway.. *HORRIBLE TRACK* (It doesn't have the slight down then up of most tracks, it's just UP from start to finish.. need to use the e-brake to keep from rolling off the line it's that bad). In both you can hear the spinning issue because of how they have the water boxes setup.. they're setup for RWD cars as you have to pull into the lane, then BACK into the box, unlike other tracks I've been to where you drive in and out of the box on the way to the lines. Although, I understand why they do it that way.. so the street racers who don't need/want the water box aren't forced to hit it, and it doesn't leave the water trails from their rear tires.
Anyhow, those runs were done full interior, A/C, all that *still intact*. No longer allowed to run until there's a cage in there, but my brother wanted one made to fit around the interior. In the end, he sold off of the 1600cc injectors he was running for 1000 (iirc) so he could dial it down some and get away with pump gas instead of 110 so he could drive it on the street again.
This is complete and utter bullshit and tells me that the "Professor" who wrote that study is an ignorant fool. Ethanol is NOT poisonous. METHANOL is poisonous. If the professor doesn't even know the difference between ethanol and methanol, it means thee are doubtless other massive faults in his report.
I agree with most people here that creating E85 from e.g. corn or palm trees is nonsensial and is just a result of lobbying be certain people. However, another way to create E85 is by processing or recycling cooking fat and by processing biowaste. The technology is already there and that would make a lot more sense than corn fuel. "For some reason" this is still not done to a great extent. I know that at least here in Finland St1 (a local energy company) is pushing forward this technology of creating bioethanol. See http://www.st1.eu/index.php?id=2883 and no, I don't work there. ;-)
Making fuel out of food is always stupid. It didn't make any sense 20 years ago and it still doesn't today.
End the biofuel subsidies for everything except cellulosic ethanol. Maybe someday we can feed waste chips into a digester and get auto fuel out. But making fuel out of food is a sin.
--
BMO
Not to mention the moonshine and bourbon shortage this E85 fiasco will cause!
If we are going to be serious about ethanol fuels, we need to forget corn as the primary biomass source.
The biomass source, processing, and fuel delivery have to be cheaper than petroleum before it will be a realistic alternative.
Maybe offtopic, but I would rather see more focus on doing away with internal combustion for power.
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
the key component: water. IIRC, most US corn production is not dry land, but irregated, so add in the energy required to pump water we really can't afford (deeper and deeper wells, chasing rapidly dropping water tables).
interesting as many in the slashdot mark as "troll" any comments that they do not like....
Exactly. As many failed to notice, the main advantage of using ethanol is you can use the engine settings that are not possible using pure gasoline, making possible to use higher compression rates and thus increase the efficiency of the engine. The engine needs to be adapted to use ethanol, otherwise it would not be as efficient as using gasoline.
Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
Most farmers don't like ethanol subsidies. Ethanol subsidies drove up the price of corn, which in turn drove up the price of land to record highs per acre, which in turn drives up the cost to farmers growing anything except corn. And if all you can grow is corn, that really screws up your crop rotation, increasing every other cost.
If you're a farmer not growing corn, you hate ethanol subsidies. At least, that's what I've heard here in the midwest.
I8-D
I was born in Brazil and ethanol there from sugar cane was always 50% cheaper than the cheapest gasoline (you know that ethanol for cars exists there for tens of years right?). Now that almost all cars produced in Brazil can run on gasoline OR ethanol (just put whatever you want there), people started to use ethanol more and the ethanol price has risen up to the gasoline price. Therefore, it it is not related to production costs at all, it is only market demand that is controlling the price.
Actually the upgrade will be to a PPRE 4rotor once the funds are available. The current vehicle a 1st gen Rx-7. What I like about the 12A is the better reliability in our experience. And while a 13B will make more power its marginal. The extra power from a 13B is not worth the extra issues you get with apex seals. A 20B wasn't an option when the project was originally started a decade ago. It was way too expensive at the time. This 12A has simply a large street port and the housings are pinned. After market seals and thats about it. All of the rest of money goes into the turbo, induction/electronics and drivetrain and that will be expensive regardless of what engine is in it.
Technically it would depend on his current gas mileage with E10 and what he got with his normal fuel. If he got 10 mpg because he drives a big suburban and it dropped to 9 mpg isn't that a 10% decrease in gas mileage?
On the other hand you are right about the weather conditions and warm up times skewing the numbers a bit that most people don't even think about. Let alone just engaging your vehicle in 4x4 drops your gas mileage a few MPGs just being on in normal conditions.
I love those kinds of claims. I did the math and the actual number is in the 3-4% mpg loss range, and for some anecdotal evidence I even filled up my car with some non oxy fuel once and saw similar numbers. Ethanol has about 66% of the energy of gasoline by volume so by displacing 10% of the gasoline with ethanol you would expect to lose 3-4% (it won't be exact because of different burn characteristics) in mileage if your vehicle was running correctly to begin with. For a typical vehicle this is .5 to 1 mpg difference. At those levels you can have a greater impact by how you drive the vehicle or by what weight oil you are running.
Time to offend someone
So what's the issue? Everyone except the consumer wins. Farmers win (well large corporate farms), since you get less MPG you fill up more meaning more gas tax revenue for your state, less money going over seas (yet the oil Co's will still be making enough profits to another record setting year), etc!
Everyone but you (as in we the consumer) wins!
Cold air is denser, and causes the engine to run richer, i.e., inject more fuel into the engine. This gives you a bit more power, but at the expense of fuel efficiency.
This is complete bullshit written by someone who has no idea how engine fuel systems work. Any fuel-injected vehicle sold in the last 20+ years uses a mass airflow sensor which provides the correct amount of fuel, no matter the ambient temperature or pressure. There are various styles, but the most common is a hot-wire based sensor. Porsche and others used a vane/flap-based sensor in the 80s before switching to hot-wire sensors. Mechanical fuel injection systems used a sensor plate linked to a metering valve.
Further, EFI is closed-loop because of the O2 sensors - O2 sensors have been in cars since the 70's. In vehicles made since around the mid 90s there are two; one before the catalytic converter, and one after. The sensor detects the amount of unburned oxygen in the exhaust, and thus the fuel mixture ratio. The engine computer modifies the mixture based on the sensor's output; computers made starting the very early 90's kept track of those measurements to adapt to air leaks and whatnot over time.
Please help metamoderate.
New research suggests ethanol produces more energy than it takes to produce due to newer crop production methods and methods for converting corn into ethanol. See: http://deltafarmpress.com/university-study-shows-ethanol-fuel-efficient
I know the link is from a farm-based website but it was done by a researcher I trust.
Production of ethanol from other sources may be even more efficient.
That's bullshit. You're only adding 10% of a *FUEL*. If you added 10% water, and it still ran, you'd expect an approx. 10% loss in efficiency. You could mix in kitchen oil (which will burn) and if you could get it past the injectors, you wouldn't expect a loss anywhere near that.
NO, you're the one full of bullshit. You're operating on the incorrect assumption that the only (or worst) effect a contaminant will have is to not burn. Stoichiometric ratio changes, burn speed (flame front speed) changes, etc.
Ethanol has a completely different stochiometric ratio from gasoline; it's more like 9.7:1 for E85, versus 14:1 for gasoline. That 10% ethanol requires twice as much oxygen to burn than the gasoline it replaced.
Ignition timing is based off a lot of factors to provide ideal burn, because it's a BURN, not an explosion (that's called detonation, and it cracks/blows bits of your engine when it happens.) A flame front travels from the spark plug outwards in a designed way, and it takes time to do that - it's not an insignificant amount of time relative to motion of the engine, especially at higher RPMs. Depending on the mixture, temperature of the gas/fuel mix, engine speed, and more - the engine computer decides when to fire the spark so that the burn is appropriately timed. When the burn is timed can dramatically affect torque generated and the kinds of emissions produced, because the pressure in the combustion chamber is always changing. A fuel mixture burned at one pressure burns differently from another - different temperatures, and thus different kinds of emissions output.
There's more. Rich mixtures burn slower and cooler; lean mixtures burn faster and hotter. Slower burns are less efficient, faster burns moreso. However, lean mixtures tend to blow/melt things, so everyone tries to avoid lean running if at all possible. Flame front speed will be dramatically affected by contaminants and additives.
If you put 10% cooking oil in your car's tank and managed to get them into a homogenous mix, you'd be lucky if the car started at all. If it did, the fouling of the spark plugs, valves, and catalytic converter would take minutes, if that.
Water? Well, aside from the fact that water and gasoline literally don't mix: the water would cause almost instantaneous rusting of the fuel pump, fuel pressure regulator, and fuel injector pintles.
Please help metamoderate.
The entire idea behind Ethonol was obviously flawed from the get-go. So much so that I honestly believe someone should go to jail for this. How many millions of dollars were lost? How many extra people starved to death worldwide because of increasing food prices?
Uh, ok, now you're spewing very complex BS. I'll give a short response.
Of course cooking oil can burn in an engine, and does all the time. No one said anything about tank. Google it ;0
While stochiometric ratios etc DO matter, I don't think they matter in practice as much as you think. Replace "water" with "mixing filler with no fuel value" if you'd like, if that makes you happy. My point is to establish the theoretical MAXIMUM loss, while having already conceded that there may be some loss based on a variety of factors such as those you mention.
For the record, nitromethane can burn without added O2.
Monofuel reaction: 2 CH3NO2 2 CO + 2 H2O + H2 + N2
Oxygen reaction: 4CH3NO2 + 3O2 4CO2 + 6H2O + 2N2
Interestingly the non-O2 reaction produces flammable CO and H2 (which is seen burning at the exhaust pipes of top fuel dragsters). If you've never been to a real NHRA drag race, you owe it to yourself. Those thing are _loud_. You can feel your lungs vibrate. The nitro fumes bring tears to your eyes. Seeing a vehicle go from 0-300+ MPH in 4-ish seconds is amazing.
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
I don't get the point of your little lesson. I was assuming we all were aware of how modern engines dynamically adjusted the rate of fuel flow.
The sensor detects the amount of unburned oxygen in the exhaust, and thus the fuel mixture ratio. The engine computer modifies the mixture based on the sensor's output;
Exactly. This illustrates my point. Denser air has more oxygen, which causes the engine to inject more fuel into the mix.
Modern engines account for this and attempt to keep the intake air temperature within a certain range, but when the outside air temperature swings between temperatures of 100 degrees in the summer and 20 degrees in the winter, as it does here, the intake air temperature ends up varying wildly.
Between the summer and winter extremes, the intake air temperature (as reported by my cars computer) varies by at least 60 degrees (F).
I'm not sure how much of an effect this has on overall fuel economy, but it is a factor.
I don't always use unix-like operating systems; but when I do, I prefer FreeBSD.
Maybe it's just the area I live in (central Florida), but I've NEVER seen a gas station selling E85. Every gas station here sells the "up to 10% ethanol" stuff. Is it really so readily available elsewhere?
This boondoggle is entirely due to the powerful farm lobby and that mostly benefits large industrial farm companies. We need to end the Agricultural Department as Ron Paul suggests.Why should farming be any different than other industries know that all farmers have internet tech, futures trading, and other modern things?
Denser air has more oxygen, so less air is allowed into the cylinder.
My apologies if I was wrong on that point. I guess "rich" was the wrong term, as it implies that there is an imbalance in the fuel/air ratio. What I meant is that higher oxygen content in the air require more fuel to bring the FA ratio into spec.
I assumed that the volume of air taken into the engine remained constant, relative to the temperature, and that the engine adjusted the fuel rate to maintain the proper ratio, and reading up on MAS I see that wire based ones can detect air density differences.
Anyhow, the losses we all see in cold weather are probably more do to higher friction, rolling resistance and longer time to warm up.
Interesting discussion I found:
http://www.automotiveforums.com/t922693-do_cold_air_intakes_really_work_.html
I don't always use unix-like operating systems; but when I do, I prefer FreeBSD.
Ok, I see what you mean about hot wire based MAS. Even my old '94 Ranger has one. I remember it detonating at high load when it got dirty. Now after reading up on how the closed loop systems with hot wire based MAS work, I know exactly why it was detonating.
I was under the impression that the volume of air coming in remained constant.
You didn't have to be an asshole about it.
I don't always use unix-like operating systems; but when I do, I prefer FreeBSD.