There is a post in 'da Nailhead about Ethanol in gas. I know that threads on Ethanol, oil, or spark plugs often get a lot of response, but sometimes member's views are interesting. I did a bit of research and found that the average number of BTUs of heat energy in a gallon of gasoline is 114,000. The number for ethanol is 76,100. If you mix gasoline and ethanol in a 90% - 10% ratio, you get a gallon of fuel with 110,210 BTUs. That's 96.67% of what a gallon of gasoline provides. As it takes a specific amount of horsepower to move a given vehicle at a specific speed, all other factors being equal the vehicle will get roughly 3% fewer mpg on a 90 : 10 mix of gasoline and ethanol; it's basic physics. As ethanol is "cleaner" then gasoline, it might be worth the tradeoff of mpg to cleanliness, but there is one other thing to consider: The turning of vegetation into alcohol uses energy; the transportation of fuel takes energy. Using the previously mentioned mix of gasoline and ethanol will require that a bit more then 3% additional fuel will be required to move vehicles the same number of miles. In the USA we use about nine million barrels of "gasoline" per day (42 gallons per barrel). That's 378 million(!) gallons per day. If we used straight gasoline there would be about 12 million fewer gallons of fuel per day that would have to be transported. Virtually all of that fuel arrives at the gas station by Diesel truck. My contention is that between the pollution and the fuel use for the unnecessary transportation of the extra fuel that we are using due to ethanol, we are actually wasting fuel and doing more harm to the atmosphere the we would if we just ran good ole gasoline. Is there a flaw in my logic?
Also consider the support it provides for corn prices and how it trickles down to the corn based foods we buy.
You hit it right on the money. The new cars adjust the air /fuel ratio to compensate for different percentages of alcohol, older cars don't. If you have a pre 1996, non obd 2 car, your car will run different with each tank of gas. Did you ever wonder why new cars usually don't get the advertised fuel economy? I'm sure that the use pure gasoline when testing.
The trickle down efect also includes the cost of milk, meat and the farmers getting paid to grow corn for ethanol ($$$) instead of meat, milk, and edible vegetables. That stuff is almost outa line pricewise, and a lot is shipped here from Mexico and South Ameria. Its turned the local Wisconsin economy on its ear. If I go to Fleet Farm (like Tractor Supply) and tell them I am from Two Rivers, a farm town, and tell them on certain items that its "for the farm", those items arent sales taxed. Paints, lubes, building stuff etc. That also qualified us for a ZERO dollar down home loan from the USDA since we live in a town thats less than 2000 people per square mile. Post retirement, I did some consulting work for an E refinery in Peoria, Il. I couldnt believe the trainloads of trucks that showed up around the clock in late August including the liquid tankers with already semi prepped "mash". Back in the generation business work derived from any given fuel was in BTU's, of course, and included in the final numbers crunch including water loss, or a steam leak internally in a boiler or eroded turbine blades etc. was all given as a "HEAT RATE" value. The heat rate n a 2200 psi coal fired 1000 Mgw station was better than 1000 Mgw's worth of diesel powered generators. We had two oil fired plants that ran on bunker D oil which carried a signifigantly higher heat rate in BTUs than #1 diesel, kero, or even home heating oil. Dont forget the heat rate of BTUs broken down calorically! Its all energy consumed, used, and lost out the stack. ws
My Tahoe is ‘FlexFuel’. GM admits that, on E85, mileage drops by some 30%. For E85 to make sense it needs to he more than 30% cheaper than E10, not to mention easier to find, thus I’ve never bought any. Patrick
You discovered the flawed logic that is driven by emotion to often produce a solution in search of a problem. But then, Uncle Sugar has some pretty goofy kids, due to inbreeding. I got to stay with him for quite a few years, in his Areo Club.
I used to do a 4 hr commute between cities every weekend for work(work during week 4 10's, come home for 3 day weekend) for about 3 1/2 yrs driving the same route and I found that going from e10 to pure gas, my mpg differences were closer to 10%. I was averaging 26-27 mpg with e10 and about 29-30 mpg with pure gas. Even though pure gas was more expensive than e10, I was using a little over 1 gal less per trip with pure gas than e10. Normally, price difference between the two fuels then was about $0.10/gal. Not much, but it adds up. Car seemed to run better, too, with the pure gas.
Nothing new here... up north here, we have had ethanol blended fuels for decades.. they called in "gasohol" in the late 70's .. so we did the math back then, and realized we were just robbing Peter to pay Paul. To this point, every type of alternative energy source is heavily subsidized by the government.. you think those wind farms that sprung up all over the Midwest actually make enough energy to pay for the cost of construction and infrastructure.. hardly. If we were working with strictly the math, and not the politics, then there would not be a windmill in sight, but we would have a few more conventional power plants online. I like to look at the upside... E-85 and E-98 are wonderful, low cost race fuels, for gearheads like us. More power, better consistency and a fraction of the cost of race gasoline. At least in this stupid expenditure of public funds, there is an upside for us car guys.. JW
Agreed we just have to make do with what we have. I can get E-85 here for way less than race gas costs and we can run 11:1-13:1 compression and boost instead of about 9:1-10:1 compression and boost with normal race fuel. Plus for boosted cars there is the added benefit of the way E-85 burns, far less need for inter cooling..
The corn lobby is a huge part of this. We grow *a lot* of corn in the USA. As a crop too, it's hugely wasteful. Lots of water, fertilizer, etc. Curiously, Jim, why is the E-85 & E-98 good for racing?
My wife runs E85 in her Dodge. Always cheaper enough than 87 octane to make the drop in mileage worth it. I am converting my '67 Skylark to E85 over the winter. We have torn down engines that ran on E85 and they are much 'cleaner' than those on gasoline. Engines run cooler and you are not paying the bucks for race gas. One of my part time jobs is for my friend, Eric, at Horsepower Innovations. There are a few on here that run his carbs.
Where E85 and E98 are available, it's a great alternative. We've got a 362 hp Hayabusa and a 327 hp GSX-R1000 (both turbo'd) running E98, and it's a pain because we have to drive to Spokane to get it, and it goes bad so quickly. And it smells TERRIBLE! Once it becomes readily available here in Montana, I'll convert and put the Mach 1 on it.
Sounds good, Jerry. I'm hoping it's soon. I'm driving around on 13.5:1 compression with iron heads on non-ethanol 91 and 100 LL mixed 50/50 right now, kind of a P.I.T.A. It'll run on pump, but I've got to turn the timing down to 26-28 total, and what fun is that? Hoping it happens before I buy new heads to lower the compression down to a more manageable level for the 91 octane swill.
So Jim, can we burn E 85 in our GS 400's and get a higher octane and run better? I have been filling up with premium E 10 thinking that would get me the best performance in these stock GS 400 engines. Thanks
The higher octane fuel only helps performance if you need a slower burning fuel due to higher compression and reduced timing to handle lower octane fuel. For boosted applications the E-85 is awesome as it burns cooler.
If you have an acre of land its not too hard to grow cat tails and distilery. Cat tails yeild a lot more than corn in alchole. Alcohol is the way of tbe future as the greenies want to get rid of gas.
