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Hybrid Vehicles Hybrid Vehicles - Archived Discussions Will ethanol E85 catch on in the US? Will we Live Green and Go Yellow? 
2104 messages, Last post on Oct 27, 2006 at 5:34 AM
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Replying to: john1701a (Mar 29, 2006 6:31 am) I hate to burst your bubble but E85 cannot be in the solution. Even if everyone used plug in hybrids that ran on E85 (an event that will never even come close to happening) we would not be able to produce enough ethanol. The solution has to come from another fuel source. One that isn't in a finite amount and one that doesn't need huge tracks of land to grow it on.
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Replying to: gagrice (Mar 28, 2006 6:57 pm) Now, the government and why they are involved...at least on the local level (possibly the national level). When you invest $40-150 million dollars in a plant in a community, bump the price of corn 7-12 cents/bushel for several surrounding counties, hire 20-40 people, put a load on the local infrastructure in the form of water, power and gas/coal use: (p/P)olitics will be involved. On the national level, the DOE and USDA have been working for decades on alternative energy uses. Through taxation and regulation, congress and other entities can steer (not drive) industry to favor certain technologies. Sometimes this is good (clean water, clean air, etc.). Sometimes this is bad (clean coal & gasification being lumped into "coal"). The reason that politicians are involved is because of you and me. This is most easily seen at the local levels, but believe me, the same rules apply at national level. One more thing, the government can afford to seemingly "waste" money that industry cannot afford. There are several energy projects that would fall in this category. Cellulosic would fall into this category EXCEPT they now have the yeast and enzymes to convert biomass to ethanol the problem now lies in lining up the 2,000 plus farmers, with new equipment, to provide the biomass to a plant to produce the fuel. It is possible, but it will take public support for these initiatives. Political support and funding is nothing more than indirect public support. If you don't believe that, think of the absurd opposite: a politician at a rally chanting "bring us the landfill" Doesn't happen on a national level? One acronym: DPW
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Replying to: snakeweasel (Mar 29, 2006 7:10 am) If plug-in hybrids (like an augmented 2004 Prius) deliver around 70 MPG for real-world averages and a majority of their driving is within the recharge distance, how much ethanol do *YOU* think would actually be needed? Since you already drew a conclusion, please share with us how you were able to determine that. JOHN
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Replying to: snakeweasel (Mar 29, 2006 7:10 am) You have clearly fallen victim to the "E85" marketing. Just because E85 is the maximum the current systems will support does not mean it is the only blend ratio that works. Any percentage up to 85% works just fine in a FFV system. So if the supply is running low, you just use whatever the heck they can deliver to the pump at that time. If it is only 60%, no big deal. Remember, FFV means "FLEXIBLE Fuel Vehicle". JOHN
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Replying to: john1701a (Mar 29, 2006 8:10 am) Now let use presume we could triple the mileage using battery and hybrid technology. That would mean that we would need 52.89 Billion gallons of Ethanol. It would take over 22 billion bushels of corn to make that much ethanol. The entire U.S. Corn crop in 2004 was 11.8 billion bushels. You do the math. Now thats presuming you can get everyone to get a Prius and spend thousands of extra bucks to convert it into a plug in and us it as such. Face it E85 is not the solution nor is it part of the solution.
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Replying to: john1701a (Mar 29, 2006 8:10 am) A number of solutions can be combined in order to achieve an improved result, there's no need to rely on just one fuel source alone. There is no reason that a number of technologies can't be combined (hybrid, ethanol, biodiesel, mass transit, etc.) in order to reduce the world's overall dependency on petroleum. Even if you could achieve just a 20% reduction in oil consumption, that would be a significant gain that would provide a stopgap as more long-term and definitive solutions are sought. |
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Replying to: john1701a (Mar 29, 2006 8:28 am) No just the opposite. E85 as well as E60 or E45 or E72.63745234 or whatever number you want to put next to the 'E' exists in a finite amount. There is only so much fossil fuel that can be pumped out of the ground and only so much ethanol that we can produce. either one will limit how much E-whatever can be made. Ethanol is not a solution just something that may or may not help us until we find that solution. |
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Replying to: boilermaker2 (Mar 29, 2006 7:31 am) Maybe Switchgrass holds the key. I don't see corn as a reasonable solution. You figure our farm produced 130 bushels in a good year. About 90 bushels on average. That was once every 4 years unless you really dumped the nitrogen into the land. 130 bushels of corn at yesterday's $2.22. On the 80 acres I would gross a little over $2000 in a good year. I was going broke in 1979 at $3 bushel. The big AG corporations with thousands of irrigated acres can get 250 bushels an acre. They hire illegal farm workers and get huge subsidies. I do not see that system as beneficial to America. Then you have extremists that think unless every vehicle is SULEV rated it is a polluting piece of crap that should be run through the crusher. That is not helping our energy problems at all. That is only making it worse. I just don't see Ethanol as a viable solution using corn as the crop. I only see "Pie in the Sky" money wasting government programs.
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Replying to: john1701a (Mar 29, 2006 8:28 am) That is exactly right. And most people go ahead and use unleaded as it gets 25% better mileage. If unleaded regular is $2.50 and you can get E85 for $1.85 it is a good deal. Problem anywhere outside the ethanol production area E85 is higher priced than unleaded regular. The simple reason is, transportation limitations that ethanol presents. Ethanol is highly flammable and explosive, unlike biodiesel that is very safe. Ethanol hazards Biodiesel is safe to handle and transport because it is as biodegradable as sugar, 10 times less toxic than table salt, and has a high flashpoint of about 300 F compared to petroleum diesel fuel, which has a flash point of 125 F. Biodiesel characteristics
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Replying to: gagrice (Mar 29, 2006 9:26 am) Correction it gets 33.33% better mileage on average. |
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