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Has the Ethanol Threat Manifested In the US?
Five years ago today, we mentioned here what was characterized as "The Great Ethanol Scam." According to the central story in that post, the ethanol in gasoline was (or would be) "destroying engines in large numbers," and the only real winners with a rise in the use of ethanol as a gasoline supplement would be auto mechanics. An increasing number of cars are officially cleared for use with E15 (15 percent ethanol), and a growing number of E85 vehicles are in the wild now, too, though apparently many of their owners don't realize that their cars can burn a mixture that's mostly ethanol. When I can, I fill my car with no-ethanol gas, but that's not very easy to find (farmer's co-ops are one handy source), so most of my driving over the past decade has been with E10 fuel. I seem to get better mileage with all-gas, but the circumstances haven't been controlled enough to make a good comparison. What has your experience been? Have you experienced ethanol-related car problems, or were the predictions overblown?
My God, someone's after the BOOZE?!
Well, scam or not, we can't have that sort of behaviour. It was bad enough when we ran out of vermouth, without this sort of nonsense....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
2012 honda insight runs the e10 fine but gets better mileage using 0% ethanol gas from the local marina, ive had to rebuild the fuel system on my 65 datsun van because of the ethanol eating the hoses.
Ethanol is a lose/lose/lose situation all the way around here in the US:
1: The corn used to make ethanol causes higher fuel prices, either directly or indirectly because feed for livestock is up in price, so ethanol takes food out of people's mouths.
2: E-15 voids car warranties, and ECMs can tell if E-15 is put in and throw a code that can't be cleared by a ScanGauge, but only by a dealer.
3: Gasoline has a very shitty shelf life. I used to be able to store gasoline for a lawn mower for 1-2 years. Now, even with fuel preservative, even six months may be pushing it, and can clog up the carb or cause a bad reaction.
4: As an RV-er, the #1 cause of generator malfunctions is bad gas. This was not an issue 1-2 decades ago, but when looking at a used motorhome, the first thing you have to do is rebuild/replace the carb unless the previous owner either ran the generator every so often, or fogged it, with OnaGard fogging spray.
Then there is the E85 scam. It has significantly less MPG than regular gas... but the cost difference makes it not worth getting. The only advantage it gives is that with a Flex-Fuel engine that can adjust fuel/air ratios, it burns hotter so you get 5-10 more horsepower.
If the US had plants like Brazil did that were by products of growing, I'd champion ethanol, but as it stands right now, people are starving due to E-10, so anyone who has a shred of ethics can't champion this.
Corn ethanol is an EROI disaster. This is big-agra, some of the same people that ram HFCS into everything and spam tons of research trying to exonerate added sugar as the culprit in the obesity epidemic. Subsidize corn. We love it.
"I seem to get better mileage with all-gas." You seem to have forgotten that the energy density of ethanol is lower to the point that aircraft will never under any circumstances use it. 42MJ/kg vs 30MJ/kg. Per liter it's even worse. You're not getting better gas mileage.
The thing is, ethanol has a lower energy density per litre (or gallon, if you are metrically challanged) than does gasoline, just as gasoline has a lower energy density than diesel fuel.
You get better mileage out of diesel than gasoline, and better mileage out of gasoline than ethanol, all things being equal. Laws of thermodynamics aren't to be bypassed. No amount of "clever" can change the basic fact that gasoline holds more energy than ethanol.
However, and this may count for something for you, as it does for me, ethanol releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere that was taken out of the atmosphere to grow the crop that led to the ethanol. There is no net increase of CO2, as there is with fossil fuels. Of course, a cynic might point out (and I might be one) that the carbon in the fossil fuel was also in the atmosphere at one time, to the tune of no less than 1500 ppm in the Carboniferous period.
Using ethanol isn't for getting better mileage, it's for reducing carbon footprint, the amount of carbon added to the atmosphere when you go down to the corner store to buy a six-pack of beer. The beer, btw, doesn't add carbon to the atmosphere, because like the ethanol that's in it, that carbon came -out- of the atmosphere when the crops to make it were grown.
Don't take life too seriously; it isn't permanent.
Brazil is considered one of the world leader in ethanol, the country with the most successful alternative fuel program, one of the cheaper (if not cheapest) ethanol technologies and, by using sugar cane, one of the most energy efficient. All cars here can easily handle up to E40, and most cars can handle any mix of gas and ethanol. Oh, and the flex fuel technology for any kind of mix? Mostly developed here also.
That all being said, I don't use pure ethanol. We are not able to find pure gas here, because of local laws (the government mandates the ethanol level), but I avoid it as much as I can. Even with everything we have in our favor here, it is still most expensive, and the overall car performance is not as good as with gas. For ethanol to be a cheaper option for the consumer, its price on the pump has to be no higher than 75% of gas.
There is, however, another side of the coin. Gas is a limited resource. We need to develop alternative fuel technologies, and right now ethanol is the best, if not only, viable option. The technology is getting cheaper everyday, and improving a lot. As someone who saw the so called birth of the car ethanol, in the 1980's, I can see how much that changed.
Last, but not least, gas with some ethanol in it does pollute less. I remember seeing some time ago some studies regarding E20(ish), and the number was impressive.
All told, it is an important technology, it is not a scam or a threat, but it is still improving. Luckly, we still have the luxury to choose, so we can say no. That won't last, tho.
morcego
I fill my car with no-ethanol gas, but that's not very easy to find (farmer's co-ops are one handy source) </quote>
Priceless.
I firmly believe that E10 is a total scam. Anecdotally, doing pure highway driving, I get 8-10% less fuel economy with E10 than E0 (pure gasoline), so what's the point?
Well, if you actually paid attention to the science, you'd realize that the point was to alter the tailpipe emissions from your engine, to the point where you driving your car, even if you use more gas in the end, will produce less pollution.
Seriously, you could look this up in the law they passed. The math is right there. So is the research. Believe it or not, they did look at alternatives. But ethanol worked out.
This has been consistently the case with the last 3 cars I've owned (V8 RWD, turbo I4 AWD, regular I4 FWD). Losing 10% fuel economy for the privilege (more accurately, the forced subsidy of corn growers in many states) of driving E10 makes no sense to me. Just water down my gasoline by 10%--same effect but water is cheaper than ethanol...
Water wouldn't have the same effects that ethanol does. In fact, it'd reduce your mpg even more than ethanol, without having the beneficial effects.
So no, no, thank you.