OT- Ethanol efficiency study

First, it quotes an unamed study saying that "doubling or tripling the amount of ethanol usually blended into gasoline improved mileage for three of four cars tested." Only later in the article does it mention that this study was "sponsored" by the government and the American Coalition for Ethanol. (ACE is an ethanol lobbying group.) Sorry, but I can't place a great deal of faith in a study run by a lobbying group and the (highly political) DOE without a few more details of how the study was conducted.

The second study by the Pardee Rand grad school would seem to be a little more objective. Here's an excerpt from what USA Today said about the Rand study:

'Anything's better than ethanol blend E85, even ordinary gasoline, a new cost-benefit analysis of alternative fuels by researcher John Graham at the Pardee Rand Graduate School finds.

'Diesels scored highest, surprising even the researchers. "We were kind of expecting that hybrids would outperform diesels when we went into the study. It's close, but the advanced diesel" provides better performance and fuel economy for the price, he says.

'Compared to gasoline, a driver could spend as much as $1,600 more on fuel over a vehicle's life burning E85, a mix of 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline, Graham calculates, while a diesel could save as much as $2,300.'

Hardly an enthusiastic endorsement of ethanol.

I didn't know anyone out there had not tried or is not using ethanol.

Think about what the price of gas might be if all those gallons of ethanol were not used.

I've never noticed any differance in milage between 10% ethanol and straight gas.

It burns cleaner than gas also.

Gary

Walt

Tank for tank, it consistently gets 3 mpg less on 10% ethanol than on 87 octane regular. Since 10% ethanol is added to the gasoline, and I get approximately 10% poorer gas mileage burning 10% ethanol, I'm still burning the same amount of gasoline to cover the same number of miles.

I know this isn't what the corn farmers, our own renter included, want to hear, but what is the ethanol industry actually accomplishing?

It has little to do with adding to milage. Your fuel would cost more, OR it would pollute more, without the E10. Some engine configurations do the same, some do a bit worse on E10. You happen to have one of the 'worse' models. But on the whole, many do the same for milage, and so there is some small boost in energy supply. But really not the point of E10 - it's for octane & air quality.

E20 or E30 the fuel likely burns in a smoother, even front, & the engine becomes more efficient. Even tho it has less btu to work with, the increased efficiency allows it to gain mph.

E85 engines are designed primmarily as gasoline engines, which can burn up to E85. Thus they are optomised for gasoline, & loose mpg on E85. If they were designed specificly for E85 with higher compression & other refinements they could easily keep up with a regular gasoline engine on mpg. Ethonal burns more smoothly like a diesel engine, a strong long burn front with good power. Gasoline explodes in one bang, slapping the piston with a strong short blast. The high octane could be used with much higher compression, which always makes a more efficient engine.

However, we get to the chicken & the egg - no one will buy an E85 only vehicle uless there are thousands of pumps; and no one would put up thousands of pumps unless there were dedicatd cars to use the stuff.

So, the current compromise of E85 flex vehicles, hopefully it will mature the industry and get both the chickens & eggs out there. No they are not the most efficient, because they are not optimised for all the strong points of ethanol fuel. A dedicated E85 engine would show a lot of positive energy from the whole ethonal equasion. If we could get there?

As to food vs fuel, every bu of corn going to ethonal still produces 17+ lbs of animal feed gluten. Here in Minnesota we export 1/2 of our corn crop out of the state. Even with the ethanol plants we have. I'm pretty happy to have local buyers. Depending on the Missisppi river to thaw, or the rail cars to haul grain trains across the Rocky Mountains makes for _very_ low grain prices here. Any local sale is a good thing, I'm happy to keep the grain & the jobs associated with it local. No shortage of food or feed 'here'.

Compared to the 1960's, corn should sell for $7.00 off the farm if it kept up with other basic staples. It just crossed $4 today for me. Sure has a ways to go yet before it is 'high priced'. Much of the increase in grain prices is from the cheap dollar - our grain looks cheap to other countries, even if it looks high to some of us within the USA. The Asian Rim is growing rapidly & importing grains when it used to export. Their production of grain has not kept pace - their efforts have been on industrial expansion. Soon they will refocus on ag production, and again will be exporting. This is just an ebb & flow.

Penty of room for differing opinions, and ethanol fuels are not all honey & roses. Don't mean to imply it is the savior of all problems.

It is, tho, I believe, a stepping stone?

--->Paul

It is not a perfect solution, but it is better than nothing.

I hope that the industry(farmers and refineries) will grow and improve it"s production processes to the point were it is economical to run E85 or E100 instead of gas.