Ethanol Gas Sucks!

[ryker]

Originally Posted by ryker

Agribusiness giant Archer Daniels Midland Co. (ADM), the single largest beneficiary of a controversial federal ethanol tax subsidy, contributed more than $3 million in unregulated "soft money" to Republican and Democratic national party committees during the past 10 years, according to a study by Common Cause.


The tax break costs the Treasury $600 million a year, according to the General Accounting Office.

Originally Posted by ryker

The bill signed into law by Bush - would permanently extend tax breaks for ethanol and biodiesel production.

The proposed legislation would create a permanent 51 cent-per-gallon ethanol tax credit and a 10 cent-per-gallon small producer ethanol credit. (to the manufactor notice how the big producer gets the larger tax break???)

Originally Posted by BoulderFA5

One thing I haven't seen on this thread yet is an explanation of why e10 gas exists. !

see the above quotes

[rbsjnh]

Ryker these seem to me more of problems with our current gov't situation, rather than issues with e85 itself...

[ryker]

Originally Posted by rbsjnh

Ryker these seem to me more of problems with our current gov't situation, rather than issues with e85 itself...

refer to post 59. Shows that federal support of FFV and alternative fuel choices have potential hurt other developments. aka electric cars or diesel engines

[rbsjnh]

in honda tuning a few months back they mentioned a new engine which could run a 64:1 a/f...realistically wouldn't that increase gas mileage enough to off set the 85% ethanol used...

sorry public school math:

if the current a/f run around 13.5:1...then realistically a new honda w/this motor should be able to get around 150 mpg...

is that correct?

[ryker]

The Honda Insight manual trans featured lean burn technology. A skilled driver could pilot the 1800lb hyrbid car to 100mpg on regular gas. No matter what the a/f ratio is. X amount of energy is required to move X amount of mass. Ethanol has less energy per gallon.

[sdiori]

e85 is highly overrated, IMO. I've used it in my company-car Impala and was not impressed. Whereas I normally see about 20-22 MPG w/ mixed city and freeway driving using Reg 87, when I switched to e85 ($2.69 in 'burbs of Chicago), I struggled to get 14-15 MPG. If my math is correct, that's a 30-36% decrease in fuel economy. It was startling to say the least.

[magbarn]

Originally Posted by sdiori

e85 is highly overrated, IMO. I've used it in my company-car Impala and was not impressed. Whereas I normally see about 20-22 MPG w/ mixed city and freeway driving using Reg 87, when I switched to e85 ($2.69 in 'burbs of Chicago), I struggled to get 14-15 MPG. If my math is correct, that's a 30-36% decrease in fuel economy. It was startling to say the least.

Another confirmed here. I use a Flex impala here for work and around the city I'm only getting about 13-14mpg on E85 and getting about 20 on good ol regular 87. Company pays for the gas so I don't really care, but if I was the one paying I'd definately run regular gas. Even if the price was more equal I'd still run regular gas as I hate going to the gas station.

[televascular]

The auto industry should not invest in ethanol. It is counter-productive.

Brazil is the world's model for ethanol use, and it is mostly successful there. Incorrectly, America sees this as motivation and tries to emulate them. Brazil has been developing their ethanol infrastructure for much, much longer than we have, and can output enough per day for a large portion of what they need.

If we were to try to match Brazil's output in ethanol, it would take billions of dollars and a couple decades to catch up. And if by some miracle, we were able to do it, America would have a consistent supply of ethanol for... less than 10% of the nation.

Proponents and opponents both agree that ethanol would not survive without subsidies from local/federal governments. Ethanol has less BTUs and is less efficient than gasoline (even though CAFE doesn't think so). Funding goes to several large farming business (that are capable of large-scale corn farming), instead of the thousands of smaller farms that need the stability. Contrary to popular opinion, ethanol will not reduce our dependence on foreign oil.

We are chasing after a fad, which becomes popular purely because of its image and supposed benefits, and it doesn't work. A gas tax, however, would do MUCH more to reduce consumption and foreign dependence, although it is extremely unpopular. It would also not require billions of dollars of infrastructure change.

[honda93]

Originally Posted by BoulderFA5

One thing I haven't seen on this thread yet is an explanation of why e10 gas exists. The ethanol acts to reduce the amount of carbon monoxide and unburned hydrocarbons going out your tailpipe. Before this, gas companies used MTBE (methyl tert-butyl ether) as an additive to do the same thing. The problem was the MTBE is carcinogenic (causes cancer), so it was pulled, and we're stuck with e10 for the time being, at least out here in CO.

It took almost the entire thread (to date) for this to be mentioned, but here's why I am in favor of E10. We had MTBE in NJ as well for years. Bad shit. Yeah, alcohol burns a little faster, but it does make combustion more efficient in cold winter months. Those of you well below the snow belt wouldn't appreciate that. :)

Anthony "Mario" Crea
NNJR-SCCA

[nayilsi]

ethanol sucks ass

[schield]

Instead of sticking all this money into Ethanol products, it should be used for renewable energy research. One of the biggest promises of renewable energy is hidden in wave power from the oceans. Harnessing this would solve many problems.

Once this is done (renewable energy), Hydrogen fuel will become much more viable. To make Hydrogen electricity is used to "electrolyse" filtered water into its constituents. Right now, most Hydrogen that is produced receives its electricity from greenhouse gas emitting power plants or as by-products from other chemical reactions. If instead, all of the the electricity came from renewable energy such as solar, wind and water power, the only greenhouse gas emission would be water vapor.

I believe Sweden is in the lead right now for their Hydrogen producing technology. They are trying to develop Hydrogen fuel pumps that run on renewable energy and creating a pipeline to deliver the energy across the nation.

Few facts about hydrogen:
-contains three to four times as much energy as gasoline
-two gallons of water produce enough Hydrogen to power a car for 300 miles

[fox]

hydrogen is very interesting, but my concerns with it are this:
holding the smallest atom will be a challenge. evaporation rates will be very high.
if two gallons of water can produce enough power to make the car run for 300 miles, how do we convert it? does the car do it onboard so you only have to add water, and if so, what kind of water?

drinking water for the world is extremely low, so why would we invest money into using it for fuels?
i prefer wind power. wind is very clean, and we could run the entire countries electric bill if we had windfarms. this would in turn relate to plug in cars.
plug in cars that get energy from wind sounds amazing to me.

[schield]

Originally Posted by fox

hydrogen is very interesting, but my concerns with it are this:
holding the smallest atom will be a challenge. evaporation rates will be very high.
if two gallons of water can produce enough power to make the car run for 300 miles, how do we convert it? does the car do it onboard so you only have to add water, and if so, what kind of water?

drinking water for the world is extremely low, so why would we invest money into using it for fuels?
i prefer wind power. wind is very clean, and we could run the entire countries electric bill if we had windfarms. this would in turn relate to plug in cars.
plug in cars that get energy from wind sounds amazing to me.

Containing Hydrogen used to be a problem, not anymore.

No, the vehicle would not produce Hydrogen by filling it with water. This would be done elsewhere, but the system schematics of production and delivery are still being developed and studied. Hydrogen stations would be just like a normal gas station of today. If you add crude oil to your car, does it convert it? If you think about it, it would be pointless for a car to produce its own fuel since it would most likely add weight (decreasing efficiency), another thing that could go wrong on your car, and an added level of complexity.

Yes, fresh water is becoming scarce around the world, however if you think about it, the car itself produces fresh water. Maybe all the water produced from powering the vehicle could be stored on the vehicle since it is a relatively small amount (2 gallons). When you go to fill up again, you could "recycle" the water by delivering it back the fueling station and receiving some type of "credit."

On a more complex note, Desalination Systems have been developed that can generate fresh water from salt water. These systems are being used in the Carribean and Arabian Gulf States where water supplies come mainly from desalinated water. Is this the answer to the fresh water shortage? No not now. It is three times more expensive to desalinate water versus supplying fresh water. Much of this cost is because of the electrical energy need to desalinate water; so once again renewable energy must be further studied.

The trouble with wind power is that windmill sites are hard to find. The wind must be almost always being blowing at a certain rate in order to make building windmills practical. This is why wave power is so promising; the oceans always produces waves, thanks to wind and the moon.

[schield]

I found this interesting about BMW's new Hybrid gas/Hydrogen vehicles:
BMW officially announces the BMW Hydrogen 7 - AutoblogGreen