Al Gore's Ethanol Epiphany

Just thinking said:
Yes ... which is why I'm still wondering why we are still diluting gasoline with the stuff. Leave what works best alone.
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I think it goes higher up the food chain than you and I will ever get. Processing jobs, contracts with farmers, subsidies and government grants seem to be what's at the heart of it. Certainly not fuel efficiency and the environment, at least not as much as we were lead to or would like to believe.
 
Just thinking said:
Yes ... which is why I'm still wondering why we are still diluting gasoline with the stuff. Leave what works best alone.
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It's still used as an additive to allow for cleaner combustion. So pure gasoline doesn't "work best alone".
 
daenku32 said:
It's not just about mileage.
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I'm not so sure it isn't.

With EFI and what the onboard computers do, today's engines just don't get as dirty as they used to. Unless you're driving short distances a few tines a week and engine shouldn't get carbon fouled.

As long as you change oil, air and fuel filters, do regular oil changes and maintain sensors if and when they go an engine should easily last 500 000 miles without a problem.

You consider how many gallons of gas that is, what the loss is in fuel economy, and you're talking about thousands of dollars over the cars life no?

I wouldn't be surprised if mixed fuel amounts to driving the car at 90 mph for 15 minutes every 10 000 miles or so. The best way to clean carbon off an engine is to get it hot.

87 octane straight gas for me. That's all I'm saying.
 
Almo said:
Um... doesn't corn take tons of fossil fuel (generating fertilizer and farm machinery) to harvest?
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Yep. The farmer buys fertilizer and fuel, and includes those costs in the price of the corn he sells.

My question is, how much ethanol would it take to cultivate a given amount of fuel-corn, and would that yield enough ethanol to cultivate that amount of fuel-corn?
 
theprestige said:
Yep. The farmer buys fertilizer and fuel, and includes those costs in the price of the corn he sells.

My question is, how much ethanol would it take to cultivate a given amount of fuel-corn, and would that yield enough ethanol to cultivate that amount of fuel-corn?
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Yes. Barely. (20% gain is what I have read.) But you pay the opportunity cost of using that land to grow food instead, and this pretty much kills the deal.
 
3bodyproblem said:
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You consider how many gallons of gas that is, what the loss is in fuel economy, and you're talking about thousands of dollars over the cars life no?
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Sure thing. It's nice to burn your fuel cleaner, but if you have to burn more of it per trip, what's the gain? (And that's not even factoring in the energy burned to make the ethanol.)
 
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Just thinking said:
Sure thing. It's nice to burn your fuel cleaner, but if you have to burn more of it per trip, what's the gain? (And that's not even factoring in the energy burned to make the ethanol.)
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With Cellulosic Ethanol the gain come from the fact that while the crop is growing it's removing CO2 from the atmosphere and after taking the useful part (grain etc) the pulp is made into fuel. That fuel when burnt is only releasing CO2 that was just taken from the atmosphere over the past year, not 500 million years ago.
 
Puppycow said:
But I thought that the Tea Party wanted a smaller government.

Are you saying that once in power they won't do what they promised to do? :eek:
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Tea Party/Baggers will never be in charge - too few, too dumb. Republickers will use them like they used religious fundies (also too few, too dumb) - give them a few crumbs and a little song-and-dance about how valuable they are, but that's pretty much it. Then they'll find some other deluded group(s) to hitch their wagon to.
 
Just thinking said:
Sure thing. It's nice to burn your fuel cleaner, but if you have to burn more of it per trip, what's the gain? (And that's not even factoring in the energy burned to make the ethanol.)
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This was a big deal with 18 wheelers and catalytic converters and the change to sulphur-less diesel. That was another case where emissions went down, but so did the fuel mileage.
I stopped working in the trucking business right around the time things started to change. I think it worked out as improvements to fuel efficiency coincided with the new fuel standards, but only barely.
 
Somewhere on here I had the dyno results from a friend's college experiments running different fuels in my old 360 73 duster. The 10, 15 and 20% ethanol blends were horrid at every base octane level. Straight gas killed it. On the other hand, pure alcohol, test fuel and AVGas gave me something like 15 degrees more total advance and absolutely smoked the gasoline, not only in power, but in summer driveability
 
pipelineaudio said:
On the other hand, pure alcohol, test fuel and AVGas gave me something like 15 degrees more total advance and absolutely smoked the gasoline, not only in power, but in summer driveability
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If I'm not mistaken the problem with this is that it burns too hot and reduces the engine's lifespan. You'd have to use exotic metals and expensive production methods to get an engine to last 250 000- 500 000 miles with high octane fuels. If such an engine were to fail prematurely the cost of replacement would be astronomical in comparison.
 
pipelineaudio said:
Somewhere on here I had the dyno results from a friend's college experiments running different fuels in my old 360 73 duster. The 10, 15 and 20% ethanol blends were horrid at every base octane level. Straight gas killed it. On the other hand, pure alcohol, test fuel and AVGas gave me something like 15 degrees more total advance and absolutely smoked the gasoline, not only in power, but in summer driveability
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But now you're in the realm of serious engine modifications, which is OK if that's what you're into. (I am, myself.) But for the other 99.9%, I think we do better with straight gasoline at proper octane levels.
 
Just thinking said:
But now you're in the realm of serious engine modifications, which is OK if that's what you're into. (I am, myself.) But for the other 99.9%, I think we do better with straight gasoline at proper octane levels.
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I wouldn't say "serious" engine mods are needed to run alcohol in a gasoline engine. This has been a common racetrack cheat for decades. Bigger jets in the carb, advance the timing and go up a couple heat ranges on the spark plugs and you're ready to eat everyone's lunch.


This is on the track, of course. To run your grocery getter on alcohol, you'd need to change the fuel lines and a few other things, but the hard parts of the engine would stay the same.
 
Howie Felterbush said:
I wouldn't say "serious" engine mods are needed to run alcohol in a gasoline engine. This has been a common racetrack cheat for decades. Bigger jets in the carb, advance the timing and go up a couple heat ranges on the spark plugs and you're ready to eat everyone's lunch.


This is on the track, of course. To run your grocery getter on alcohol, you'd need to change the fuel lines and a few other things, but the hard parts of the engine would stay the same.
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Non-metallic gaskets and any plastic parts in contact with fuel have to go.
 
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