Fuel conversion

Don't know.

Bioethanol is currently available in a 5% blend at over 250 Tesco petrol stations in the South-East of England. This petrol is supplied through ordinary unleaded petrol pumps and is not identified as bioethanol-blended petrol.

Morrisons have now begun to sell E85 petrol (85% ethanol, 15% petrol) at the following Morrisons filling stations:

Albion Way, Norwich East Dereham Lowestoft Diss Ipswich

plus five sites in Somerset. Further filling stations are planned.

"Griff" wrote

People forget that Brazil has cut down a lot of rain forest to grow enough sugar cane to produce the ethanol that has reduced their dependence upon oil. They run most of their cars on a blend of

Right now, the processes used to produce ethanol do not convert all the cane into ethanol. They use a portion to burn for heat to run the process. It will never be 100%. The question is how close you will be able to get to 100%. Probably no more than 75%, actually.

Although the octane is higher, the energy content per volume is much lower. Your mileage on ethanol will be lower - 30%-40% is the figure I see - on pure ethanol. E85 is around 5% lower mileage. The advantage to E85 is that the octane is higher, the emissions are lower (due to the oxygenate properties of ethanol), and most cars can run on it with little change (really only the engine's computer program.)

Yes, anything is possible. However, pure ethanol is not desirable. My guess is that an 840i would cost little (ECM program, some fule lines and seals) to convert to run on E85. It would cost a LOT to run on pure ethanol.

Heck if I know; I'm in the US.

FloydR

"Griff" wrote

Oh, yeah, forgot to mention that lots of ethanol discussions have happened on rec.autos.driving and misc.transport.road and alt.autos. Probably others. Google/search for E-85 - you will probably find lots of places on the www to look.

FloydR

You do realize that you will use almost double the volume of ethanol as gasoline?

- - Rex Burkheimer

Griff wrote:

Get an LPG conversion. they work really well on large engined BMWs and it's not that hard to buy LPG in the UK now.

The latest Car & Driver has a good article on ethanol. It cuts through the hype and shows that it ain't quite the panacea its made to be by ... the ethanol producers.

OBTW, your not particularly frugral 840 will get considerably poorer mileage with ethanol. There's just not as many BTU's per liter/gallon as gasoline. Soooo, unless its considerably less expensive, it'll cost you more to run ethanol.

R / John

" This means that even the most fuel-guzzling vehicle isn't actually adding to global warming because it's all reclaimed carbon."

WTF? According to most scientists, the major contributor to global warming is internal combustion engine emissions. Mostly CO2, CO, and NOx. While bio fuels may not have the NOx, there is still the same amount of CO2 and CO, maybe more since you have to burn more if it. Since we humans are a greedy lot, we keep cutting down the forests which remove CO2 and convert it to O2, and keep us alive.

So, don't convert because you feel guilty. Convert because you got tired of keeping the Saudi's (90% of the 9-11 hijackers, and we invade Iraq?), Sheiks, Imams, and other oil barons rich.

What's your point? So is gasoline. The carbon was trapped in the earth for eons, but it was originally spme kind of plant or animal matter at one time...

The point is that the release of CO2 that was stored for a long time is unsetling the atmosphere. The release of CO2 coming from recent crops is canceled by the CO2 that such crops absorbed, the only effect being the use of large areas to grow the crop. The process needs to be worked, as the eficiency of the whole cycle is less than brilliant. If engines dedicated to run on ethanol where used, the problems of the mileage and efficiency could be improved.

I think the best way to go now is GPL conversion. It is still a fossil fuel, but if the GPL is not used it goes to waste at the refining process, creating useless polution. Better burn it in your car, than in a stupid torch on top of the oil refinery!

J.P>

IIRC, that "torch" is a safety feature to release unexpected pressure surges. It's better to have it burning all the time rather than be ignited by a spark, causing a different kind of unexpected pressure surge.

Andrew