Ethanol

[Canada]

I grew up on farm so I'm a big believer in ethanol. Helps out the corn market a bit. I've always burned it, and it tends to be a few pennys cheaper. What do you guys think of it compared to regular unleaded and even premium? Some people around me have converted there cars/trucks to LP,are there any power benefits to LP?

[89GTZ]

Is gasahol (sp?) the same thing as ethanol, or is it just a combination or hybrid of it?  A station near my house used to have it and it's all I used for a couple of years.  It was 89 Octane and I had a hypertech chip.  I can't say I had any problems with it at all.

[Canada]

yeah, gasohol, its blended, 10 or 15% ethanol, the rest is straight gas, some prototype cars are able to run on 85%

ethanol is a corn based product, it burns cleaner than normal gas, and is cheap and cleaner to produce. Its condifered a renewable resource, because the CO2 in the exhaust goes back to the plant

[rweatherford]

Quote (Canada @ April 01 2002,10:28)yeah, gasohol, its blended, 10 or 15% ethanol, the rest is straight gas, some prototype cars are able to run on 85%

ethanol is a corn based product, it burns cleaner than normal gas, and is cheap and cleaner to produce. Its condifered a renewable resource, because the CO2 in the exhaust goes back to the plant
I am a big time supporter of both Ethanol and BioDiesel.

E-85 is 85% ethanol and is between 108-110 octane.  I would like to burn it in my new turbo motor, but there is no where to buy it here yet.

I delivered 2000 bushel of corn to our ethanol plant just yesterday...  More to go today.

BioDiesel is great too!  It uses soybeans or recycled vegtable oil (like from McDonalds) to produce diesel fuel that you can burn in trucks and tractors.

I can't figure out what is taking people so long to catch on to these things and why there aren't more pumps out there selling it!

[RebelGT]

what are the prices of these comparitively to regular gas?

[Canada]

The government has cut the tax on ethanol to make it 3-4 cents cheaper. This product should be cheaper to the consumers but the gas stations jack the price back up. If you see gasohol more than regular, someone is making a #### ton, and the owner of the gas station could be looking at fines if they are.

It should be a lot cheap than what it is.

[Guest]

I avoid it like the plague. It gives poorer gas mileage and they seem to sell it for the same price. I'm a looser if I buy that stuff. They have to cut the pice to at least the break even price for the reduced mileage. But with so many uneducated drivers why should they.

[Guest]

I would like to see some actuall figures concering the number of BTU's that are used to make it from seed all the way to final processing.

I do not see how it can be efficient to use a bunch of fossil fuel and other materials that are refined with various forms of energy to grow corn.  Then turn around and expend energy on refining it to ethonal which we then burn.

Seems like to many changes in state all at the expense of other sources of power to get it done.

Also I remeber reading in Car and Driver, probably a little biased, that a study done by the Federal goverment showed that it actual increased the ozone levels in the air, with is the major source of smog.

[rweatherford]

Quote (Bentor @ April 02 2002,11:06)I would like to see some actuall figures concering the number of BTU's that are used to make it from seed all the way to final processing.

I do not see how it can be efficient to use a bunch of fossil fuel and other materials that are refined with various forms of energy to grow corn.  Then turn around and expend energy on refining it to ethonal which we then burn.

Seems like to many changes in state all at the expense of other sources of power to get it done.

Also I remeber reading in Car and Driver, probably a little biased, that a study done by the Federal goverment showed that it actual increased the ozone levels in the air, with is the major source of smog.
E-85 is the way to go.  It is 85% Ethanol and only 15% gas.  This burns very clean.

E-85 has approximately 10% less BTU and therefore you burn about 10% more to get the same HP, therfore your fuel mileage drops by 10%.  The thing is that it should also be about 10% cheaper than regular gas.  

However E-85 is not for any stock beretta and to be used efficiently it requires ECM modifications and higher compression.  Some newer cars are set up for this from the factory.  These things are why E-85 is not yet catching on.  It is rather new.

The GM factory brochure on alternative fuels says that and acre of corn can produce enough ethanol to run 4 cars for a year...  Considering that we farm over 800 acres of corn you can see how we could make some impact in the foreign oil market, which is probably another reason why it has not taken off....  

Try here for more info..

http://www.ethanol.org

[Canada]

Acre of corn making gas for 4 cars for a year. Thats a good fact to know. Just dads 120 acres of corn is produces a lot. I wonder what kind of yeilds these estimates are made with.

[Guest]

From the site:

Ethanol production is extremely energy efficient, with a positive energy balance of 125%, compared to 85% for gasoline. Ethanol production is by far the most efficient method of producing liquid transportation fuels. According to USDA, each Btu used to produce a Btu of gasoline could be used to produce 8 Btus of ethanol.




I would like to know if this includes the energy used in the whole chain or just in refining?

Dan

[rweatherford]

Quote (Bentor @ April 02 2002,10:50)From the site:

Ethanol production is extremely energy efficient, with a positive energy balance of 125%, compared to 85% for gasoline. Ethanol production is by far the most efficient method of producing liquid transportation fuels. According to USDA, each Btu used to produce a Btu of gasoline could be used to produce 8 Btus of ethanol.




I would like to know if this includes the energy used in the whole chain or just in refining?

Dan
I would guess just in refining, but I am not sure.

I read one of the files last night about handling of ethanol and it is a little bit of a pain.  Since ethanol is conductive you have to be careful about metals and certain rubbers.  Aluminum does not agree with ethanol so I doubt that I will be using it in my car since I have aluminum heads and intake.  I sure would like to though.