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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.
This was never something for the environment. It was always another subsidy for farmers and Big Oil.
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.
I've been wondering if Ford was already certain that the damage was too great to even risk with their vehicles. At the least, their standard non-hybrid or Alternative models all seem to be label explicitly NO-E85 or any alternative fuel other than gasoline/gasohol (10% ethanol). This is true on my 2011 Fiesta, where they state using E-85 can void the Powertrain warranty completely.
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
The information in that article skirts the border of misleading and bogus. Almost any modern (EFI) gasoline engine is capable of running an alcohol fuel with minimal modifications. Many engines, such as low displacement supercharged ones used in small cars, _will_ run more efficiently because of the higher octane rating. Ethanol is a very effective cleaning product. Many people seems to believe it can "gum" up engine parts while in reality it is simply stripping precipatates off the fueling system itself that may have built up over years of use.
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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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.
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.
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?
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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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.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Most estimates are 5x the Saudi reserves (1.5 trillion bbls vs 300 billion bbls).
The modern water injection (fracking) process has made the exploitation of shale oil/gas much more economical, more or less on a par with foreign oil, so production is ramping up.
I don't know about 100 years from now--who does?--but in about 10-15 years, the U.S. is expected to be an energy exporting giant. Already, this past year, the U.S. became a net exporter of "energy products".
The other major energy reserve in the U.S., coal, remains to be fully exploited. There are estimated to be centuries (plural) of energy in U.S. coal, at current use rates.
All this doesn't mean we should be burning this stuff. The U.S. still wastes massive amounts of energy. Just painting all the government office building rooftops white in California would have prevented the rolling blackouts a few summers ago. Then there's the 18 mpg vehicles most people drive, when we could be driving 40-50 mpg vehicles.
Ethanol is cheaper than gasoline in Brasil, which is the world's top producer. They use sugar cane rather than corn sugar, and sugar cane is a much cheaper and higher yield source of ethanol. Recent discoveries of alternative sources such as switch grass may save ethanol yet. Switch grass is almost maintenance free, doesn't distort food prices, and in a few years is expected to be competitive or cheaper than oil.
In my opinion, car makers should make their E85 vehicle gas tanks a couple of gallons larger, to make up for the less dense energy content of ethanol. Of course, I'd like a few more gallons anyway; why is my Corolla only 11 gallons to begin with?
Regarding the whole energy subsidy controversy, keep in mind that there is a hidden cost to oil--the trillions of dollars we have spent and continue to spend securing foreign oil supplies. There's also a few thousand lives of soldiers sacrificed. No way would we have gone into Iraq in '91 or again in 2003, if it were not a huge oil producer threatening other huge oil producers. Frankly, if we were an energy exporter, we should be delighted to see Iran and Iraq duking it out, or Iraq invading Saudi or Kuwait and jacking up the cost of petroleum. Instead, we have to worry about every little political change in the Persian Gulf as a potential catastrophe for our economy.
it's = "it is"; its = possessive. E.g., it's flapping its wings.
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.
This is the case for ANY motor not specifically designed to run on high-ethanol-content fuels. Ethanol is a strong solvent and strips oil films, breaks down hoses and seals, oxidizes ferrous metals, and generally tears apart gasoline motors. E85 "flex-fuel" motors are designed with ethanol's nastiness in mind, using different materials and lubricants, but even then, running E85 is harder on the engine and usually calls for more frequent service intervals.
Running E85 in ANY engine that does not explicitly state that it is designed to run on E85 will cause permanent and rapid damage. It'll probably completely destroy the engine before your next oil change.
Ethanol is complete crap as an engine fuel, with the lone exception being purpose built race engines that can utilize the higher detonation resistance for more horsepower per unit displacement. And those race motors tend to get rebuilt at least once a year, mitigating the wear factors.
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
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.
Not bashing the idea, but simply replacing fossil fuel is no solution. Sustainable transportation requires a sustainable infrastructure, and the estimates for the energy used for road infrastructure is somewhere around 4 times the energy used in fuel for the vehicles that travel along those roads.
That means the energy return on energy invested (EROI) has to be at least 5x if we are to continue to use automobiles for transportation. The EROI for oil wells within the United States dropped from >1000x for the first gushers to ~5x in 2007. Solar, wind, hydro have similar EROI limitations, so we will have to rethink the energy cost of transportation infrastructure if we want any energy left over to grow food or enhance our lives with cell phones.
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).
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).
ArcherDanielsMidland, and Senators from Kansas, Nebraska, Illinois, Dakotas and Minnesota
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. ;-)
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
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.