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Hybrid Vehicles Ethanol - E85 FlexFuel The Inconvenient Truth About Ethanol
921 messages, Last post on Oct 07, 2009 at 10:53 AM
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Replying to: galonga (Jun 27, 2009 5:12 am) You are making bold statements you cannot back up with facts. First Brazil depends on Sugar ethanol for about 20% of its vehicle fuel. They are independent because of huge oil reserves found over the last few years. There Ethanol production went to almost ZERO during the late 1980s. Brazil left many people with vehicles that would only run on ethanol stranded. The vehicles that will run on E100 will run on regular gas also. The government offered subsidies to sugar cane growers and forced service stations in every town of at least 1,500 people to install ethanol pumps. By the early 1980s, almost all new cars sold in Brazil ran on 100 percent ethanol. But as the decade progressed and the military government was replaced by democracy, oil prices plummeted and the subsidies granted to ethanol producers were eliminated. Sugar processing plants turned from ethanol to edible sugar, creating a shortage of supplies at service stations. The auto industry, which had dedicated itself to ethanol-only cars, stopped producing them almost entirely. "It was as if from one day to the next, the people who had ethanol cars had a problem on their hands, because no one wanted to buy them," said Henry Joseph Jr., head of the engineering program for Volkswagen of Brazil. "Ethanol cars went all the way from more than 90 percent of sales to less than 1 percent." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/19/AR2006081900842.- html |
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Ethanol and water up to 100 proof will run an engine better than pure ethanol. Then you get 2 gallons of fuel for the cost of one gallon of pure 99.9% ethanol. The added water makes up the other gallon. So you run on about 51% ethanol. About 1% below the saturation point. The other benefit of pre-mixing ethanol with water is, should it catch fire you can put the fire out with water. This makes the fuel safer to use also. You could ask any moonshiner about running on 100 proof. I think there are to many people that have oil stock that they are worried about, or maybe they have their head up their you know what. This is old technology that has been hidden under the smoke screen of burning oil. LESS TOXIC: I would rather smell the fumes of something that I could drink without it killing me. Though I personally feel it is safer to burn it than drink it. You do not need to believe me. Here is an old link to information about this. You will need to go down about 9 paragraphs to find the one about water injection. I will copy it for you and post it below the link. Because the rest of the information is common knowledge. http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel_library/ethanol_manual/manual1-2.html WATER INJECTION During World War II, the military made extensive use of water injection in high performance piston aircraft engines. Later, water injection was used by both civilian and military jet aircraft to provide extra thrust, principally on takeoff. Even today, water injection systems are available that can be installed in automobiles. The fact is that, within certain limits, these systems actually do increase power. Referring back to Figure 2-2, note that the latent heat of vaporization for gasoline is about 140 Btu/lb and for ethanol about 361 Btu/lb. Water has a latent heat of about 700 Btu/lb! Therefore, if a little water is injected into the carburetor in the form of an ultra-fine mist, the latent heat of the water will cool the charge and increase volumetric efficiency. In addition, when the charge is fired in the cylinder, the water will turn to high-pressure steam and provide additional power due to the pressure exerted by the steam. There are definite limits, however, to the amount of water that can be injected. Too much will cause excessive cooling and misfiring. The use of water injection with a gasoline fueled engine requires a separate metering and injection system because water and gasoline do not mix. Ethanol and water, however, do mix and the benefits of water injection can be had simply by adding the desired amount of water to the alcohol in the fuel tank. Get with it people. I am sure that there are some of the 3rd world countries that will be glad to pick up on this oversight. WHY IS THERE NO RESEARCH INTO THIS PHENOMINA. 2 gallons for the price of one. We will be back to 1.00 per gallon fuel. The fuel is safer when mixed with water. You can put out the fire with a garden hose. John EMM
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Replying to: everymansmediu (Jun 27, 2009 9:08 am) "It gets 100 miles to the gallon...and it runs on water man!" If you'll recall either the first or last episode of That 70's Show, just keep in mind he was smoking something other than nicotine when he said that. 
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Any talk about Brazil's Ethanol program in 1980 was a old news. This is the latest news. All gas sold in Brazil has 23% Ethanol. Also 20 % of all the vehicles on road in Brazil today are Flexfuelled cars which can run on 100% Ethanol. So as of now, 50% of all fuel for private vehicles is Ethanol. Another news is in year-2008, the Oil consumption in US fell by over 6% and Worldwide, it fell by 0.6% even after including Ethanol (which actually grew 40%). Ethanol would have taken some market share from Oil. Ethanol is the easiest and #1 alternative for Petro-fuels. People can talk about food production. With the same amount of land as US, China produces food for 4 times the number of people, so US has lot of surplus land to grow Corn, Switchgrass and other crops for Bio-fuels. So, Ethanol production and consumption will continue to grow in the years ahead. BTW, cellulose Ethanol has already hit the market. It seems there are 2,170 Ethanol stations in US today compared to 500 in 2005. http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/27/e85-ethanol-in-every-car/?hp http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2009/06/10/10greenwire-shell-sells-cellulosic-ethan- ol-blend-in-canada-10074.html Paralelly, E15 may also come to market. http://ethanol-news.newslib.com/story/6938-32647/
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Replying to: yerth10 (Jun 27, 2009 8:46 pm) |
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Replying to: yerth10 (Jun 27, 2009 8:46 pm) sugarcane ethanol represented 16.7% of the country's total energy consumption by the automotive sector in 2007.wiki I gave Brazil the benefit of the doubt with 20%. No one here has said that sugar cane ethanol was not a viable product. It is damaging to the environment which ethanol advocates want to gloss over. Every acre of the rain forest that is cut to produce sugar cane will take nearly 100 years to mitigate, if ever. If you have data that refutes what I have posted feel free to share with us. Just because the brain dead in Washington DC have bought into the Corn Ethanol scam does not make it a good thing. I am sure when they kick up the ethanol content to 15% from the current 10% my mileage will go down by another 5%. Kind of like the guy with his car that runs on water. It is an illusion that ethanol from corn is a winner.
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Replying to: yerth10 (Jun 27, 2009 8:46 pm) I have several issues with your broad statement. Most are answered by your own link. If there is a breakthrough in cellulosic ethanol development, that might change the equation. Cellulosic ethanol promises larger yields than corn-based ethanol, but processes to produce it in any substantial quantity are still being developed. Corn is not the right crop for biofuels, Mr. Chu has said. Last month, the Energy Department announced that $786.5 million in stimulus funds would be used to speed advanced biofuels research and demonstration projects. That is exactly what I have posted since this thread was started. Corn ethanol is NOT a good choice for America. From your second link comes this statement on Cellulosic ethanol R&D. It is FAR from becoming viable. The process is at the same point it was 5 years ago. Not commercially viable. What is so hard to accept about that? It takes more energy to produce ethanol than you get out of it. Shell and Iogen are no longer pursuing U.S. Department of Energy funding for a second commercial-scale plant, in Idaho Falls, Idaho, but have not ruled out building the facility as part of a broader commercial fuel rollout, noted David Williams, a Shell spokesman in London. "The vision is large-scale production and significant commercial availability," Williams said. "However, cost-competitive advanced biofuels in substantial quantities we estimate are five to 10 years away." More R&D should be done before they experiment with peoples cars. So far corn ethanol is a BIG ZERO. |
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Replying to: gagrice (Jun 28, 2009 5:23 am) I can provide you with links but they are in portuguese (guess you can still use google translator) as proof. As for being damaging to the rainforest, itīs just BS for a simple fact: sugarcane does NOT grow well in the amazon, as the land there is sandy and too moist. So nobody grows it there simply because of that: it does not grow well. period. Now, if you say they are deforesting for cattle Iīll keep quiet because I know thatīs true (even though last year deforestation had a 82% drop). I do agree however that corn ethanol is financially unsound. America could just import ethanol from Brazil and get it over with.
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Replying to: galonga (Jun 28, 2009 5:49 am) You probably know that this is at least a 100 year old battle on what to use in our cars. Henry Ford wanted to continue running on alcohol and Rockefeller wanted to use his waste product from heating oil production. That being gasoline. It is very interesting reading how Rockefeller won the battle.
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Replying to: gagrice (Jun 28, 2009 5:35 am) Actually, that's a pretty good reason to keep chipping away at it from an R&D perspective, though it's also justification for not doing so. No, there's no money in it right now so the market doesn't really want to invest in it...one of the reasons is careful manipulation of gas prices by certain countries.  The smart thing to do would be to continue research on it so that when someone shuts off the taps again and/or oil gets scarce there is at least one alternative ready to go. Waiting until after the oil is scarce to complete the R&D is a bad move and could be catastrophic to our economy. The market isn't always good at planning ahead, and to be frank, having a sudden loss of our primary fuel source with nothing even remotely in place to replace it has major national security implications as well. Mind you, I'm talking about stuff like switchgrass and other biomass. Not that whole idiotic corn-ethanol giveaway to big Ag. |
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