Posted by docmirror on May 14, 2018 at 20:32:41 from (107.213.165.255):
In Reply to: Flex fuel..real data posted by Hay hay hay on May 13, 2018 at 18:06:04:
Quoting Removed, click Modern View to see
The 'tout' of Ethanol was never a cost means test. It was a political tool designed by Cargill and other large ag operations to sell grain fuel by federal mandate to 'lower tailpipe emissions of automobiles'. The engineers at Cargill lied their butts off in their - ahem, 'research' reports. Which I mentioned about the difficulty of costing the production of a commodity which is very hard. Frex; we would normally include the cost of the diesel of the tractor used to plant, and harvest the corn. But - the ag people called that a sunk or companion cost because it was going to be planted and harvested for foodstuffs anyway. Do we allocate that diesel/maint/util cost to the production of Ethanol fuel or not? There are a lot more means-tested questions just like this.
As for the efficiency, another poster previously mentioned and it is worth repeating that the Ethanol fuels can sustain much higher C/R, and are very amenable to pressure charging with turbine or a mech pump. A 300 cu-in engine could easily be designed for E85 only fuel with a much higher C/R, or turbo, or supercharging to increase thermodynamic efficiency of the engine overall, not just the Ethanol efficiency, but the mechanical efficiency as well. The downside is the increase in pumping energy required, and the added mass of the engine components to support the greater mech stress. Thus - the 'flex' engines are designed with the relatively lower mech efficiency for E10, and are just de-rated quite a bit for E85. Alternately, a car engine which needs 300HP could be accomplished with much smaller displacement E85 fuel than the engine which must run E10, or non-Eth.
If I were in the business, and I could design what I want, I would offer an E85 engine ONLY, and have owners carry a 5 gal emergency bucket of octane boost for when no E85 is avail to avoid detonation/pre-ignition. But - this is not feasable for Ford/GM/Chrysler, so they live with the reduced thermo-efficiency to accommodate 'flex' fuel.
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