| Author | Message | ||
     Gregtonn |
I'll make the question simple. Given the drought in the midwest, does the law that requires grain (ethanol) alcohol to be added to gasoline in the US make sense? G | ||
| Two_seasons |
Yeah, it makes sense! But only to your state capital's treasury and the fed treasury. Every gallon of ethanol enhanced gasoline yields less mpg = more times per year to the pump = more "revenue" to those that waste it!!!!! | ||
| Dfishman |
Drink corn.............burn gasoline | ||
| Sifo |
It doesn't make sense during normal conditions. | ||
| Hughlysses |
+1 Sifo. It's very hard to find unbiased info on the subject, but here's my understanding: It takes more fuel (petroleum) to raise the corn and make the ethanol than the amount of ethanol produced. Ethanol in gasoline was supposed to reduce air pollution; apparently this MAY be true for carbureted vehicles but it's definitely NOT true for fuel injected ones. Ethanol production plants are significant source of pollutants. | ||
| Pkforbes87 |
Here in Missouri, it is illegal to sell any fuel under 91 octane without at least 10% ethanol. I generally go out of my way to fill up with ethanol-free premium and even at about $0.25/gal more expensive, it usually pays for itself through increased economy alone. | ||
| Iamike |
Before you make wild claims it is a good idea to do a little research. http://www.businessweek.com/stories/2006-05-18/eth anol-myths-and-realities When the plant that is near us is running you can hardly tell unless the vapor is showing. My son used to work there (so no bias inteneded) and he said that they were very careful about ANY pollution. Farmers actually like the bi-product, DDG, because it has much of the benefits of corn for their livestock but is cheaper. I still haven't seen an exact comparison on energy used to make ethanol but I understand that it is quite comparable to oil extraction, delivery and refinement. I use it in my vehicles that require higher octane but found that my VFR runs better on hot days with regular fuel. It also gets better mileage to make up for the higher cost (Iowa gives ethanol a taxt break that makes it $.05-.10/gal cheaper). Any time a vehcile is going to sit for more than a month I always fill up with regualr also since the ethanol isn't as stable. I have been using it since it wsa introduced and have never had a fuel problem. | ||
| 99savage |
Is this true?? "The Environmental Protection Agency is going to require all consumers to buy at least four gallons of gasoline from certain gas pumps after the new E15 ethanol-gasoline blend is introduced into the market. The new regulation was revealed in an Aug. 1 letter to the American Motorcyclist Association, which expressed concern that the vast majority of motorcycles and ATVs in use today aren’t designed to operate on E15 fuel and residual fuel from a pump that serves multiple blends might harm these tanks." Could only find it here http://capwiz.com/amacycle/issues/alert/?alertid=6 1632086 and here http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2012/08/09/next-from-the -epa-four-gallon-minimum-gas-purchases/ Don't trust the AMA statement because of a stoichiometry error (alcohol has LESS heat per unit volume) If true it really, really rots - Would have to run the Ulysses absolutely dry before gasing up | ||
| Iamike |
Nothing this current administration does would surprise me when it comes to promoting green energy. The only thing that may stop them is that one of the bigger ethanol promoters in Iowa is a staunch conservative. He probably wouldn't be giving the 'O' man any kickbacks. | ||
| Court |
The Omnivore's Dilemma | ||
| Ulyranger |
Big ethanol promoter = staunch conservative??? Hmmm There are plenty of other, better alternatives in the development stage, when available i'll support them. This food-based fuel, with extremely poor performance characteristics forced down America's throat needs to go away. The rather large "carbon footprint" of ethanol production is not disputable..... Nothing is being "saved" here, neither our environment, nor our economy....... | ||
| Iamike |
Not an expert but if alcohol has "extremely poor performance characteristics" then why do drag racers use it? I don't have a problem with developing alternative fuels because yes, someday we may run out of oil. But when it just doesn't make economic sense or is promoted by political kickbacks, then I have a problem. I think in the future other energy sources than corn will make ethanol a viable fuel. | ||
| Cowboy |
We will not see a shortage of fossil fuel for at least next 100 yrs. ----we mus remove politics from it. | ||
| Bob_thompson |
"Not an expert but if alcohol has "extremely poor performance characteristics" then why do drag racers use it" Iamike, Both they and Indy cars use ethanol type fuels because they are much easier on engines then nitro and do produce great H.P. but remember they have to use a considerable more amount of fuel to get it and keep the A/F ratio correct. It is NOT as efficient as gasoline but also adds some cooling effect and remember ethanol is highly corrosive. It just does not seem worth the loss of corn to our food supply for the small amount of clean burning it gives us when other sources are available such as other additives. What we gain in fuel benefits we loose in food prices. Maybe we should be focusing on "all the above" for our fuel needs for the foreseeable future. I agree with Cowboy too so lets stop buying from other countries and being slaves to foreign supplies for our fuel needs. We need American fuel for our American bikes! | ||
| Hootowl |
From the article: "It's becoming an increasingly important part of the fuel supply, and has the potential to become still more crucial." This is ONLY because it is illegal not to put it in gasoline. If refiners were not required to use it, it wouldn't be an important part of the fuel supply. It wouldn't even exist as an industry. It was created by politicians, and subsidized with my tax dollars. The cost of food in the poorer countries is now more than 50% of their income. The advocates of ethanol know this. And yet they don't care that their ethanol pipe dream is starving half the world. I guess the "there are too many people" crowd are going to get their wish. Interestingly enough, I think they're the same group of people. | ||
| Redbuelljunkie |
Politics and performance aside, if a vehicle is designed to run on ethanol-blended fuel there is not an issue. The issue here is what happens to vehicles that are not designed to run on ethanol-blended fuel. I own a motorcycle repair shop, and you'd be floored by the damage my mechanic shows me regularly which is caused by ethanol. The majority of bikes in our shop are older- about 75% of them are carbureted, and they bear the biggest brunt of ethanol-related fuel system issues. In fuel systems with exposure to the atmosphere the hygroscopic property of ethanol causes a myriad of problems. Aside from water in the fuel, it's phase separation that causes the most damage. Ethanol destroys rubber and plastic, removes protective coatings, causes etching, and leaves deposits. The deposits are caused by the burn retardants and evaporation control chemicals which are required for the ethanol, but do not burn themselves when phase separation occurs. This side effect requires another chemical additive to combat the deposits. It's a chemical cluster-fu@k. The real insanity comes from the EPA- the simple solution is to require gas retailers to provide a fuel for each application. For vehicles that can use ethanol blends have an E-10/E-15/E-85 pump, but also have a non-ethanol pump for vehicles that are not approved for ethanol. Crazy idea, huh? Provide the right fuel for the right application. Instead, we're being told to buy a minimum amount of fuel the EPA themselves have not approved for use in our vehicles. Typical gov't idiocy. | ||
| 99savage |
Alcohol used in racing because it has extremely good anti-knock characteristics & not as susceptible to pre-ignition. - Hence - Engines running on alcohol can run higher compression ratios. - Beyond that - GROW UP GUYS Iowa is an early primary state & nobody, I mean NOBODY is going to do squat to reduce it's use Still waiting for an answer Is this true?? "The Environmental Protection Agency is going to require all consumers to buy at least four gallons of gasoline from certain gas pumps after the new E15 ethanol-gasoline blend is introduced into the market. Now must go and buy a gallon, a gallon, of gas for the mower (Message edited by 99Savage on August 11, 2012) (Message edited by 99Savage on August 11, 2012) | ||
| Iamike |
I just went for a 75mi. bicycle ride, didn't need any alcohol (well at least until I got home). | ||
| Aesquire |
still haven't seen an exact comparison on energy used to make ethanol but I understand that it is quite comparable to oil extraction, delivery and refinement. last costing I saw was that it takes about 1 gallon of diesel to grow enough corn for one gallon of ethanol. The number is inside the error bars, and thus...no one knows if it's more, or less. Burning one gallon of fuel to make one gallon of fuel is insane. Making fuel out of food is pretty damn close to insane. It Can make sense if you have a vast surplus of food, and no one is starving. Since the US supplies food to the planet in unimaginable quantities, and we have had riots, revolutions, and mass murder over, in large part, food prices, Insane covers it. It is quite likely that the food riot induced revolution in Egypt, aided by IMHO bad foreign policy, will result in thousands and possibly millions of deaths. Because we burn food for fuel. ( the number of dead depends on the results of the war about to happen. Best case, just a few tens of thousands "purged" in ethnic cleansing ( genocide ) and a few thousand Troops and civilians if it is a limited thing, and stopped before it gets out of hand. Worst case is millions dead, and the end of Egypt as a nation for a generation. ( happy to go into detail on that nightmare, if you really want... best guess from wikipedia... 70+ million, dead. That does not count the dead on the coastlines of the Med. in Cyprus, Greece, Italy...etc. ) Because we burn food for fuel. Not an expert but if alcohol has "extremely poor performance characteristics" then why do drag racers use it? The charge cooling mentioned above, the knock resistance mentioned above... Simply, you can run much higher compression. That means more power, but to get it, you need to pour a LOT more booze into the engine. S&S makes carbs for gasoline, and alcohol. The difference is the booze carbs have much larger passages to put more fuel into the engine.... IF you have a variable compression engine, with a supercharger, or turbo, for example, or smart variable valve timing, you can run 85% alcohol with good results, as far as power goes. You will get less range. Some guys I used to fly with crossed the US in ultralights set up to run booze. ( for the first time, ever, back in the late 70's ) They got the fuel essentially for free, from the booze making sponsor, and had to chase the ultralights with a van loaded with fuel. He claimed about 2/3 the range he got on gasoline. Ruined a few carbs in the process. Full disclosure. I was FOR alcohol as a way to stretch the oil supply. It's an imperfect solution, but I thought it would buy us some breathing space until coal-to-gasoline ( that we paid for back during the Carter admin. ) could get online. Silly me I thought we would make it from organic garbage and crop waste. corn stalks, food processing plant remnants, etc. If I knew the cretins in Congress were going to make it out of FOOD...... I would have opposed it. | ||
| Sifo |
As for the refinery aspect, I was told a few years ago, by an engineer who worked at an ethanol plant, that there's a net loss in energy to deliver energy to your vehicle. He said it was very close to a break even, but tipped to the loss side. This guy was a pretty liberal environmentalist making a good living off of the ethanol business; I saw no reason to not take him at his word on this. There are other problems too. It can't be shipped in conventional pipes, so it must be shipped by train or truck. It also sucks water right from the air. Not exactly what you want your fuel to do. BTW, I think it takes around 5 gallons of ethanol to take a dragster a 1/4 mile. | ||
| Danger_dave |
>>The Omnivore's Dilemma<< A Corn Cantfield. | ||
| Doubled |
The real insanity comes from the EPA- the simple solution is to require gas retailers to provide a fuel for each application Sure! We can do that! As long as the gub'mint buys me more property and pays to install two more USTs, all the plumbing associated with them, the electronic tank level gauges, the leak detection, the dispensers, the islands and canopy, the upgrades to the computer system, etc. Get my drift? Even for my small gas station the would be a half million dollar plus upgrade. And there's no way I would ever recover those costs. Truth is that ethanol is not required in gasoline. Check http://pure-gas.org/ for a list of stations that don't have ethanol in their fuel. | ||
| Pwnzor |
Netflix the movie King Corn | ||
| Just_ziptab |
I think you guys are confusing ethanol with methanol.Methanol(wood alcohol) in racers requires something like 50% BIGGER carb jets. It is very dry and will lock up your throttle shafts if you don't spray them with WD-40 or something like that after each run.It also has a huge cooling effect. There are some promotional races that do require 100% ethanol........whole different dealio.Ethanol never has been and never will be a magic bullet.......but you can believe what ever you want if it's dangled in front of you and you have no understanding of physics.........or over trust your lawmakers.It's nothing but a great ponzi scheme that crates pointless jobs and boosts the economy. | ||
| Cityxslicker |
I was reading the Popular Mechanics.... and they had a previous cover from 1981.... on the debate on Ethonyl - seems to be it didn't make much economic sense then..... I honestly doubt the new iteration of it makes much more fiscal sense - I do know that running shine in your car will give you an added performance boost.... but you are tinkering with that engine alot in the non still'n times | ||
| Mark61 |
Corn based ethanol is the biggest welfare scam ever thought up by corporate America! | ||
| Ulyranger |
If you are burning more of it for the same amount of work being done, how much cleaner can it really be? If more long term stored fuel is being disposed of due to the phase separation, how much "greener" is this fuel? Don't even get me started on the maintenance mayhem related to keeping older, and small (particularly two-smokes) engines from the boneyard. It's a scam designed to line pockets and change peoples habits, NOT about long term power source evolution. YMMV... | ||
| Aesquire |
Often, a "moonshine" runner car would have the gas tank replaced with a huge one for alcohol. Shave the heads, change the timing, you had the beginning of NASCAR. With only one tank for the engine and transport, you simplified things enormously, and, after all, you were making the fuel, weren't you? As I've said, booze for fuel makes sense if you are making it from waste material. Why throw the huge amount that gets discarded from food processing plants away when you could make fuel? And, as noted, the waste from the booze making is often used for feed and fertilizer. As an alternative to MBTE, a cancer problem, alcohol makes sense. Unfortunately, the Congress saw it as a way to make a donation machine. Farming is now largely agribusiness, and companies like ADM donate a LOT. to both sides. ( I keep pointing that out to my Union, to their disgust, that SMART donors cover their bets and make both candidates beholden.... so no matter who wins, you do. ) BTW a "shining moon" is half to full to give light for working on the still. A "runners moon" is quarter to new for delivering your hard earned product to the consumer without being seen. All in all, the alcohol for fuel thing had/has the potential to be a positive thing. It's NOT, but thats because Government does Bureaucracy best, not production or reason. It's like the idea of making all cars run on natural gas.... great! except now you hang all the users on ONE pipe. We've already moved new power plants to natural gas, ditto homes, ditto plastic plants. Add cars to that, and you won't be able to afford to heat your house next winter. Gee, it's like politicians have never heard of the laws of supply and demand, and only took social studies courses, never science and math..... Oh. Crap. | ||
| 99savage |
Just_ziptab brings up an interesting point I think you guys are confusing ethanol with methanol.Methanol(wood alcohol) Was not confusing them, both are perfectly fine fuels in the sense both have good anti-knock, anti-preignition properties BUT I overlooked (i.e. forgot in my dotage) something important. Normal distillation can produce AT MOST about 95% pure ethanol, the balance being water. - To get 100% ethanol exotic chemical processes must be used. Do not know if the ethanol being added to gas is 100% or something < 95%, pure alcohol. If the water is present the efficiency of the blend is really reduced as it takes energy to convert water to steam. | ||
| Hootowl |
"Corn based ethanol is the biggest welfare scam ever thought up by corporate America!" If you mean corn farmers, yes. If you mean the wheat farmers who are now growing corn because it a guaranteed sell, yes. If you mean greens and the idiots in congress, yes. If you mean the rest of America's corporations...not so much. |
