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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.
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.
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.
The problem is that e85 has less energy than standard gas does and typically you don't see a corresponding drop in price per gallon. Ethanol itself has less energy than gasoline does so you end up with less gas mileage than you would with regular gas. Claiming otherwise is just plain ignorant and requires one to ignore the laws of thermodynamics.
[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.
But it has a higher octane rating.
If you didn't have to have the "flex fuel" option then you could get better milage out of E85. Cars could run higher compression ratios and more spark advance. You could get very close or higher mileage out of E85 than Gasoline then... Oh and no breaking or bending of the laws of thermodynamics required. With the current compromise flex fuel set up you are correct.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
The answer to the last question is easy: You do, and I do, and we all do. That's the great thing about rent-seeking, it's self-sustaining. You use your rent to obtain more rent.
And yes, there is a huge corn-products lobby, headed by the Archer Daniels Midland company (motto: "We're not quite as evil as Monsanto.").
If you're going to switch over the whole system, and require new engines to get any benefit, you might as well just go straight to hydrogen and stop dicking around with this ethanol crap.
But since neither is going to happen any time soon, the point is moot.
People who say "sheeple" have about as much sophistication as an AOL user, and in fact are probably actually AOL users.
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.
Actually, the flex fuel setup is not a compromise in terms of timing and mixture...an E85 vehicle has a ratio sensor in the fuel line that tells the ECU how much ethanol there is in the fuel. The ECU in turn advances timing and leans mixture when practical.
The issue is that thermodynamics still win out. If a car isn't turbocharged or stupidly high compression, being able to advance timing and run leaner isn't much of an advantage at all.
Even in a turbocharged car, during cruise you can already lean and advance the engine like crazy with regular gasoline as there is very little load on it.
The ONLY advantage to E85 is at WOT in a turbocharged or high compression engine, and most people don't spend much time at WOT.
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.
It's not just about total energy, it's about useful energy extracted.
Turbos usually require higher octane so that there won't be premature ignition under the extra pressure. They also get more power/efficiency out of the same fuel as they are driven by reusing exhaust gases. So it's entirely possible that a lower-energy, higher octane fuel can get better mileage with an efficient turbocharged engine...
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.
Free unix account: freeshell.org
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?
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.
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.
Corn ethanol is an extremely inefficient way to "store" solar energy.
This whole boondoggle started because the U.S. always runs a corn surplus. The U.S. doesn't want a repeat of the 1930s, where crop failures led to hunger and near starvation, so the government deliberately subsidizes food production (mostly corn) to insure there's an oversupply. The question then becomes, what to do with all this extra corn? A lot of it is sent overseas as foreign aid. A bunch of it is converted to high fructose corn syrup, as a substitute for cane sugar. More still becomes grain feed for livestock, to satisfy our appetite for beef, milk, and cheese. And a few decades ago someone got the bright idea of converting it into ethanol to help ease the country's dependence on foreign oil.
That's the reason the country started making corn ethanol instead of using a more energy-efficient crop like sugar beets. Unfortunately, somewhere along the line, it took on a life of its own, and under the influence of heavy lobbying we started growing corn for the sake of converting it into ethanol, rather than converting only excess corn into ethanol.
Ethanol, provided you make it from a sugar-rich crop, is actually a pretty good way to gather and store solar energy for transportation applications. The alternative (PV solar to electricity to batteries to electric vehicle) is horribly expensive. Wholesale cost of PV solar electricity is about $0.20-$0.25 per kWh, vs. about $0.055 (wholesale) for coal. The Leaf is rated at 34 kWh per 100 miles, or $6.80-$8.50 per 100 miles at wholesale PV solar electricity prices. To travel 100 miles requires 411 kg of batteries (EPA rage of 73 miles on 300 kg).
Brazil estimates its sugar cane ethanol costs $0.83/gal to produce. If you figure a Leaf-like car would get 35 mpg, modify that for ethanol's 70% energy density vs. gasoline, that would mean 4.08 gal per 100 miles, or a cost of $3.36 per 100 miles at wholesale cane sugar ethanol prices. The 4.08 gallons needed to move the vehicle 100 miles would only weigh 12.1 kg. So sugar cane ethanol is 2x - 2.5x cheaper and 34x lighter than PV solar (this ignores the engine weight, but I'm just following the criteria of this argument - "storing" solar energy).
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
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