There's also the fact that the injectors, seals and plastic parts in the MINI's fuel system aren't designed for a steady diet of 85% ethanol.

There's a reason why manufacturers make "Flex-Fuel" vehicles that are specifically designed to be able to run E85 - the "normal" versions of the cars won't tolerate it over the long term. If they would, the manufacturers would market them as "Flex Fuel" and take advantage of the associated tax/emissions credits.

 

I though that was strange, too. It's also strange that the paragraph I quoted says that the base gas must produce *at least* 500mg of intake valve deposits during the Intake Valve Deposit (IVD) test, but the very next paragraph says that the base gas must have enough anti-deposit additive so that the "final gas" (base gas plus additives) produces less than 50mg of intake valve deposits in the same test.

I wonder why they can't use a base gas that produces less than 500mg of deposits?

 

That would mean that you had to get base stock from crappy refineries, and then add other stuff to the gas to make it cleaner! Seems like the chemical lobby may have been involved as well.

Matt

 

Yes - very peculiar, unless the necessary refining process to get the IVD numbers for the base stock below 500mg involves some chemical or process that's undesirable for one reason or another.

My brother's pretty senior at Chevron, so I'll ask him if he knows anything about it. He started off with them about 25 years ago as a chemical engineer (although he worked more on the drilling/extraction side of the house than on the refining side). Still, he knows a lot of the lab guys at the Houston facility, and I think he's familiar with the various tests.

 

Not so. Corn based ethanol has a EROEI of 1:1 (zero sum) if you account for all inputs (diesel for tractors, fertilizers based on nat gas, distillation, transportation of corn, farm subsidies, transporting materials). Some sources will call corn ethanol 3:1, but you have to look at the #'s. Corn ethanol is a huge green wash job, I will call it a hoax.

 

That is a good point on the fuel used to produce it. From what I read now is that it takes 3 gallons of gas to produce 4 gallons of ethanol.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/htm...ethanol11.html


Truely the solution IMHO is plug-in electric hybrid cars that get their electricity from Nuclear power, Solar, Wind, and hydro. Heck even if you had a clean buring coal fired plant it is much easier to control a few powerplants pollution vs. millions of individual cars.

Mr. Fusion anyone?

 

it's not any true greenie. With distilled ethanol, you're putting a bunch of power in as well as water and the like. But some oil wells take more energy to get the oil out than the oil provides, it's just cost structures and portability that make the money.

Most environmentalist who do push ethanol want the subsidies and terrifs to go away. It's ~$.5 per gallon barrier, and ~$.5 gallon incentive to domestic sorces. That's a buck a gallon over the cost of foreign producers. ADM is laughing all the way to the friggin bank! As are the corn states.

Follow the money....

Matt

 

Interesting article I just found about ethanol production.

EDIT: Just realized this posted already. OOPS!

 

lotus made an exige last year that ran off of e85. It made 265 HP vs. 216. 0-40 4.1 sec. http://www.windingroad.com/reviews-p...265e-bio-fuel/

 

Time to list some interesting stuff...

Check out the Scientific American article regarding ethanol production. Corn is a terrible way to go about it...switchgrass makes around 5 times the energy per amount of energy consumed to produce it. Article here: http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=...anol-than-corn

Ethanol contains less pure energy, but in a car, can be made to be more thermally efficient. Per gallon of fuel, I believe Ethanol has in the 75k range, whereas normal fuel has around 115k BTU's. See: http://www.carbibles.com/fuel_engine_bible_pg2.html

As far as the affect on car internals goes, it's a lot more than just a tune and injectors. You're actually able to run hotter BECAUSE of its higher octane. (this gets back to the thermal efficiency thing). Aside from that, ethanol, in large proportions in combustion, will rot out the seals, internals etc...it creates an acid as it burns. You need especially designed engine and fuel internals.

So yeah, its not all bad. Eventually it breaks down as to whether the lesser mileage will be offset by an equally reduced price point (i.e. if you're now getting 75% of your mileage, as per BTU calculations...price should be 75% of a gallon of regular gas). Brazil has already proven ethanol (sugar-produced though) as a viable energy source...they have federal mandates requiring their vehicles to be able to run on pure ethanol as well as regular petrol...many to most of their stations carry pumps for both. Their price points reflect the lower energy value as well.

So like anything, there's multiple sides to it. I for one see nothing too bad coming from it....if the U.S. gets smart and quits dicking around with corn (what a joke). But thats gets into my opinions on farm bill policies, subsidies, and tariffs, and thats a whole 'nother basket of crap.

I like regenerative turbo-diesels myself.

- Matt

 

Let the market dictate the demand.

 

Correctamundo!

Ethanol = 30% less BTU's per gallon than straight gasoline. At a 90% gas/10% ethanol mix that's 3% less "power" per gallon which equals the 1-2 MPG loss everyone's seeing when running the 90/10 blend.

E85 and E90 will be ~25% to 27% less "power" than gas and MPG loss will be about the same amount.

 

Check with your local racing mechanic who uses alcohol and he will tell you that it requires almost twice as much alcohol to go the same distance as on gasoline. Why? (1) Alcohol does not produce as much BTU's as gas per gallon ( that means less heat ). (2) Alcohol burns hotter than gasoline so you must re jet or use more alcohol to cool the internal parts such as valves.

Another issue is that alcohol is much more corrosive on plastic. rubber, aluminum.etc and finally alcohol does not vaporize as well meaning that 100% alcohol engines in cold places will not start.. Cars using large amounts of alcohol must be started on gasoline and then switched over to alcohol.

Guesss what, Brazil is mostly warm.

If proponets of alcohol were honest about the short comings it would be nice but frankly most of them DO NOT KNOW what the down sides are.

 

are the farm lobby and the likes of ADM. Makes no energy sense, no green house sense, no sense of any kind I can tell at all!

Matt

 

More like let the fed's dictate!

And I thought the whole purpose of 10% ethanol was to lessen emissions....which is why we run it here in Colorado, especially in the winter.