Another Look at Ethanol

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Personally, I think its immoral to burn food in the gas tank of a car. There are some areas where its a legal requirement, because of the oxygenation feature.

I found the puregas.org site on the web and found out there's a no ethanol pump in my town. I'm not ashamed to say I try and finagle a a reason to be in that neighborhood so as to gas up there if I possibly can. Car has more zip and gets maybe 1 mpg better mileage with the no ethanol. Its also premium, but I don't know if that makes a difference.
 
Originally Posted By: RiceCake
What I would like to see is hydrogen worked on, versus a fuel that essentially has no ability to develop anywhere beyond "grow more".


The achilles heel for hydrogen is the amount of energy needed to convert water to hydrogen. When the input power exceeds the output, it is always a losing proposition.
 
Originally Posted By: jimbrewer
Personally, I think its immoral to burn food in the gas tank of a car. There are some areas where its a legal requirement, because of the oxygenation feature.

I found the puregas.org site on the web and found out there's a no ethanol pump in my town. I'm not ashamed to say I try and finagle a a reason to be in that neighborhood so as to gas up there if I possibly can. Car has more zip and gets maybe 1 mpg better mileage with the no ethanol. Its also premium, but I don't know if that makes a difference.


There is a whole list of chemicals that can be used as oxygenators.
 
I agree that corn-based ethanol is probably an idea that does more harm that good, but I think it is temporary now. In the future I see companies developing a more efficient means of producing ethanol using various types of algaes.
 
Its a perfect example of un-informed enviromentalist causing exactly the opposite of their intentions. Your car uses more gas, you use more water to make ethanol and it does more harm then good. Plus, the cost. The only place you can find non-ethanol in Florida is at Marinas and you pay out the Ying yang, but its still better than the agrevation of dealing with it in smalll engines. Now I wish they would clear cut all the dead trees down here, instead of being a "Save Old Florida" kick. Old trees use more oxygen then they make, again un-informed and hard headed enviro-nuts.
 
Originally Posted By: Danno
Originally Posted By: RiceCake
What I would like to see is hydrogen worked on, versus a fuel that essentially has no ability to develop anywhere beyond "grow more".


The achilles heel for hydrogen is the amount of energy needed to convert water to hydrogen. When the input power exceeds the output, it is always a losing proposition.


Not really. No matter what you're gonna lose some in the conversion. The benefit of hydrogen however is you can get energy from completely renewable sources, like solar or hydroelectric, you can burn it in a piston engine or a fuel cell, and the exhaust is water vapour.

The main issue right now, besides storing hydrogen, is of course using fossil fuels or nuclear to generate it...which obviously combined with inefficiencies means its a pretty stupid idea.

But it has a future, somewhere. That or batteries if we can make them from something other then tons of nickle and other polluting industries, make them charge faster, and make them last more then a few brief years...
 
Originally Posted By: Nyquist
I agree that corn-based ethanol is probably an idea that does more harm that good, but I think it is temporary now. In the future I see companies developing a more efficient means of producing ethanol using various types of algaes.

They've been making vehicle fuel this way for at leaast four decades. This is more than temporary. It's a clear indication of the stranglehold special interests have on the public. The move away from corn could have and should have happened a long time ago.
 
Originally Posted By: Danno
Originally Posted By: RiceCake
What I would like to see is hydrogen worked on, versus a fuel that essentially has no ability to develop anywhere beyond "grow more".


The achilles heel for hydrogen is the amount of energy needed to convert water to hydrogen. When the input power exceeds the output, it is always a losing proposition.


Then you better not study the production of ethanol for automobiles!!!!
 
Originally Posted By: Panzerman
Its a perfect example of un-informed enviromentalist causing exactly the opposite of their intentions. Your car uses more gas, you use more water to make ethanol and it does more harm then good. Plus, the cost. The only place you can find non-ethanol in Florida is at Marinas and you pay out the Ying yang, but its still better than the agrevation of dealing with it in smalll engines. Now I wish they would clear cut all the dead trees down here, instead of being a "Save Old Florida" kick. Old trees use more oxygen then they make, again un-informed and hard headed enviro-nuts.



Please do not confuse the corn lobbyists with the environmentalists. The greenies simply helped, it was the corn lobby that did the heavy lifting here...
 
The corn lobby is an indescribable evil, and have co-opted the greenies in supporting the unsupportable grain ethanol business.

They argue that feedlotting is efficient (same amount of land would raise many more cattle without a middleman, and have a far better health outcome for beef eaters...and vut out a lot of enviro arguments against meat).

They argue that the grains aren't suitable for human consumption anyway (but the land could be used for food grains or other stuff if it weren't for ethanol).

They take your tax money, and keep other renewables out of the scene.

If the grain/ethanol lobby were honest and serious, they'd run their farm equipment and transport on it...and we'd watch them disappear up their own fundamental orifice.
 
I am neither a tree hugger nor a corn farmer and I do dislike the special interest politics referenced above. But (there is always a but) the USA is currently using 3.7 million gallons of gasoline PER DAY. This has resulted in a huge transfer of wealth to some places that don't like us too much (middle east, Venezuela, etc.). Given current day politics (pipeline construction, EPA, middle east political instability, etc) some alternative is going to have to be found. Why not "blender" pumps where a consumer could purchase E-0, E-10, E-30, E-85. Brazil did this years back and now imports little or no oil. Ethanol may not be the end all, be all solution, but it works for me. Hydrogen could be OK, but requires Kevlar/fiberglass weave tanks that are DOT approved. Very expensive and you need 4 for an 8 hour run time. I know this because my company investigated retrofitting a small fleet of 40,000 lb. medium duty trucks. Turned out the conversion was not cost effective. Why couldn't we take a hard look at something (ethanol) that is already sold at some stations and can be tranported by conventional means (which hydrogen cannot).
 
beechcraftted, we do not object to having ethanol in our fuel as much as we object to where it comes from. They should not be making it out of corn. It should be made of something that we don't eat and something doesn't require us to set aside prime arable land that could be used to make food. Corn (and sugarcane) is not the only possible source for ethanol.
 
^^^Thanks for that.

Whether you go left or right ethanol the way we do it is purely a political solution that benefits farmers. Consumers get to pay for it, and in so many different ways that I wonder if many understand what it's doing to food prices and such.

Despite the spin, the facts are very different than what is reported on the news. And we haven't even mentioned the interesting and highly toxic byproducts of ethanol when combusted in an engine, most of which end in "zene"!
 
Production of everything we consume burns more fuel than for propulsion. What is the "footprint" of a car that is already here? If all Americans across the board kept their cars running an extra two years, extended OCI 1,500 miles and simply drove it 10% less there would be a huge shift. The danger in this is would affect the US economy from lost taxes, car sales, retailers. Everyone made fun of the pump up your tires and save millions in a speech but the most common sense conservation tactics on the ground level is easier to give a go than Washington, or other countries' interests.
 
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