Running Ethanol

[Zues]

So im writting a paper about the effects of running ethanol on a motor. E85+. Im wondering if anyone one the forum is doing this or has any background or knowledge on the subject. Fill me in please.:)

[mrsleeve]

e85 in engines not designed or equipped to handle it suffer from lots of fuel system troubles. As the High eth content eats all the rubber and seals in the fuel system. Also since there is less BTU per given amount of e85 vs gas you will will run lean as hell with out proper retrofitting. Then you would be rich as shit if you go back to gas

Besides ethanol is a inferior fuel and a energy negative proposition. It takes more fossil fuels to make corn into automotive fuel than it dose to make a equal amount of Gas from Crude. Ethanol has only 85% of the BTU of an equal amount of straight Gas. In other words you get 15% less fuel mileage (or work) for the same vehicle under the same conditions if the only thing you change is the fuel from gas to ethanol.


Ethanol, is a dead end feel good hippy idea that will not work to fuel the USA let alone the world. There is hardly enough land and water resources to grow enough food to feed the planet let alone food and fuel.

You can see the effects of this on the corn prices and food prices in general in the last 3-5 years. As our FED govt moved to subsidize production of corn for fuel. The farmers moved to a more biased production of corn to get the subsidies and there for any corn that comes from that land cant be used for food. Also this ends in shorter supply of beans, grains and hay thanks to the switching of more land into fuel crop production. This has lead to less of the other stuff I mentioned to feed us and the livestock we like to eat. Also driving up the price of corn used in food goods from the supply side of things, making your corn flakes that much more expensive or anything with corn in it more expensive for that matter.

Moral of the story, You grow food and eat corn, burn Oil and gas to stay warm and cook you food. I know thats not really what you asked for but that ought to make a better paper for you.

[fryerfighter94]

I did a 12 page paper on peak oil, and one of the things I had to discuss was biofuel. Everything that Mr. Sleeve said was right, however, Brazil has a large ethanol usage but its made from their largest crop, sugar cane. A mixture of ethanol is safe in most engines, I have yet to read anything about it ruining engines... A more viable option is algaefuel, which produces more energy than ethanol and is a more viable method of production.

[mrsleeve]

I did a 12 page paper on peak oil, and one of the things I had to discuss was biofuel. Everything that Mr. Sleeve said was right, however, Brazil has a large ethanol usage but its made from their largest crop, sugar cane. A mixture of ethanol is safe in most engines, I have yet to read anything about it ruining engines... A more viable option is algaefuel, which produces more energy than ethanol and is a more viable method of production.

heres a little comparo for you, even the slightly more efficient Sugar cane is not viable

Ok yeah sugar is a little more efficient but not much, still takes 2 1/2 times the energy to make fuel outta it compared to equal amount of gas with less BTU.

lets think about this for just a sec ok.
Brazil has 1.23 million mi of roads and 14,820,000 passenger cars, and 3,300,000 commercial vehicles. with a population of 191,971,506 people and a land mass of 3,300,171 sq. miles

the USA has 4 million miles of roads and 254,403,082 total registered vehicles with a population of 304 million. Land mass of 3,618,780 sq mi

So to recap we have 100m more people, we have 236,283,082 more vehicles and 2.75m miles more roads and more land mass thats not impenetrable rain forest. We are spread out much more and a more mobile society. rather than being confined to a few population centers in the middle of the jungle. That = much more driving and more demand. In other words it may work there it wont work here. Oh that and Brazil is a big exporter of oil, thanks to its lower demands.

Dont know that much about Algae fuels, but till you get the feds and the EPA outta regulating diesels outta of existence here in the US then its not a good alternative either

[foofopps]

Isn't good & tight running a turbo m30 on ethanol?

[Emre]

Ethanol has only 85% of the BTU of an equal amount of straight Gas. In other words you get 15% less fuel mileage (or work) for the same vehicle under the same conditions if the only thing you change is the fuel from gas to ethanol.

Sure. But the whole equation changes dramatically if you specifically design an engine to run on ethanol from the get-go.

The big advantage of ethanol is that it has a super high octane rating. If you were designing an engine from scratch to run on ethanol, you would use a far higher compression ratio than any gas engine. Alternatively, you could run a staggering amount of boost.

So, yeah...all else being equal, ethanol is inferior. But all else doesn't have to be equal.

Think of a small (maybe 600cc) engine with a high compression ratio to begin with (say 12:1) that's also being fed a significant amount of boost from a super- or turbo-charger. It would have a very narrow power-band, but you could keep it on the boil using modern transmissions (a CVT would be perfect). You couldn't do that with gasoline...but you could do it with ethanol.

[fryerfighter94]

Thats correct. I see threads and videos all the time of somebody or a car manufacturer that has a car, tunes it for gasoline, its strong, and then as an option you can run ethanol with even higher amounts of power. As a viable option, its not the best idea, but it can be blended with gasoline, which takes gasoline further.

[mrsleeve]

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
GM's flex fuel engines. The 5.3 dose terrible on e85 like 13-14 mpg and 18-20 on good ol 87 octane petrol.

Sure. But the whole equation changes dramatically if you specifically design an engine to run on ethanol from the get-go.

The big advantage of ethanol is that it has a super high octane rating. If you were designing an engine from scratch to run on ethanol, you would use a far higher compression ratio than any gas engine. Alternatively, you could run a staggering amount of boost.

So, yeah...all else being equal, ethanol is inferior. But all else doesn't have to be equal.

Think of a small (maybe 600cc) engine with a high compression ratio to begin with (say 12:1) that's also being fed a significant amount of boost from a super- or turbo-charger. It would have a very narrow power-band, but you could keep it on the boil using modern transmissions (a CVT would be perfect). You couldn't do that with gasoline...but you could do it with ethanol.

Yes all that is very true why do you think that racers have been running on Allky and methanol variations for 100 years. Your right you can run incredible Comp/boost combination with the stuff due to the octane. But like you say an engine with a higher comp ratio and boost, take the same 600cc gas engine build it in a similar fashion and feed it at its limits as well, you will get more work outta a equal amount of gas to ethanol. You have to keep the equations equal. It would be no different than comparing N/A vs Boosted gas to diesel engines

The cold facts still remain ETHANOL HAS LESS BTU THAN A GALLON OF GAS PERIOD. There is no way around this, you can only get 85% of the work from a gallon of ethanol as you can from an equal amount of gas. end of story, add all the boost and compression you want its still not going to change the amount of stored energy in a given amount of fuel. The laws of physics and thermodynamics rule this world and you cant beat them. You add boost you have to add fuel to compensate for the extra O2 other wise you melt everything down.

Also not to mention a engine set up to run like you say would be outlawed by the EPA, since its NOx content in the exhaust would be that much higher. Higher combustion temps of a peak efficiency Allky engine will produce EXTREMELY HIGH EGT's. Those supper high egts fuse more N2 and O2 than in lower combustion temp engines. These extra NOx compounds are what has caused the ULTRA HIGH efficient engines of Europe to stay in Europe and not allowed to be imported here into the USA. Yes the feds have effectively banned Allky specific engines in the USA.

Also, allky and bio mass fuels dont like the cold they dont do well in the winter in over 50% of the country. for more than 1/2 the year

[Emre]

The cold facts still remain ETHANOL HAS LESS BTU THAN A GALLON OF GAS PERIOD. There is no way around this, you can only get 85% of the work from a gallon of ethanol as you can from an equal amount of gas.

Sure...no one is disputing this fact.

But all that means is that you need more ethanol to do the work of the same volume of gasoline. In a world where ethanol is cheap and gasoline is expensive, then there wouldn't be much of a problem: just use more ethanol. We're not there yet, but maybe we will be one day.

It's the same as LPG, for example. Burning LPG is less efficient than burning gasoline. But in some European countries LPG is almost 1/3 the price of gas. So even if it's less efficient than gasoline, you still come out ahead.

[mrsleeve]

Sure...no one is disputing this fact.

But all that means is that you need more ethanol to do the work of the same volume of gasoline. In a world where ethanol is cheap and gasoline is expensive, then there wouldn't be much of a problem: just use more ethanol. We're not there yet, but maybe we will be one day.

It's the same as LPG, for example. Burning LPG is less efficient than burning gasoline. But in some European countries LPG is almost 1/3 the price of gas. So even if it's less efficient than gasoline, you still come out ahead.

Thats the thing Ethanol is NOT CHEAP. Its very very expensive. it takes 2 times the amount of fossil fuels to turn it into motor fuel vs a equal amount of petrol based product.

Its only cheaper here in the states because the the Federal GOVT (aka you and me Joe tax payer) is subsidizing both the production of the Corn (which takes away from food supply and makes that cost more) and the building and cost of running the Ethanol Plants. Also the TAXES at the pump are less so the overall cost the consumer sees is less. In reality we all just have to pay for it rather than the end consumer. If it really was a cost effective viable source of motor fuel, dont you think the Big boys would have been doing this on a grand scale 30 years ago with the OPEC embargo ????????

LP is cheaper in Europe for one of the same reason LP and Ethanol are cheaper hear at the pump LESS TAXES

Gas in general costs the same within a few cents everywhere in the industrialized world. Its all the TAXES on the shit that make it cost 8 bucks a gallon in the UK and a buck and a 1/2 US more per gallon in Canada.

Just because you are not paying as much outta pocket, dose not mean it costing you and everyone else Less in the long run. Also you have to buy more of it, make more COx, NOx, and other "bad pollution" the hippies and greenies are always talking about. So its still a net Loss from Petrol, no matter how you slice it.

Petrol is not subsidized ITS TAXED TO BEAT HELL this is why its so expensive and varies county to county, city to city, state to state. Funny though its still very competive with the ethanol and CNG here huh. As each state has its own taxes on each gallon of road fuel, some cities do as well, (the Feds remain constant) and then after all the taxes are tacked on you get to pay sales tax on all of them too. This is just the end consumer taxes, not all the taxes that are built into the price of the fuel as its made and delivered place to place. yes your local gas station pays a tax when it goes into their tanks, then You pay taxes as it goes out.

Want to fix these problems CALL YOUR CONGRESSMAN