Ethanol conversion?

Reply to
Uncle Ben
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On Jun 1, 7:29=A0pm, Uncle Ben wrote: =2E...

Make that 3 in Portland.

Ben

Reply to
Uncle Ben

I do try to listen to both sides sometimes and then draw my own conclusion as both sides seem to get carried away.

Fortunately I almost never drive into the greater Portland area. But, that also means, even if I wanted to go the route of a conversion kit there would be no immediate benefit, if ever, and Eugene I frequent even less.

My car I drive most often (a couple of hours a day, 365 days a year) is a '93 Impreza, so no benefits of OBD-II there.

I think I can understand what you mean when you say, "I think that E10 gives benefit to the environment," but I would also wonder if you have to restrict that to the final act of combustion. To be as reasonable as we can don't we need to try to look at the broadest picture possible and not focus on just one aspect ethanol may have toward environmental concerns? Factor in manufacture, transport, food costs, new pollutants, new chemical reactions, and is ethanol giving an overall benefit or is it a costly distraction?

Don't get me wrong though, I am not claiming ethanol as a big shameful creator of food problems, or trying to deny that it may impact the cost of food, just trying to gather a few of the arguments I've heard. Not to sound unsympathetic but folks were starving before ethanol came on the scene and people will continue to be starving after, whether or not we continue on with ethanol.

For the moment, I would pay extra if I could purchase gasoline without ethanol and I may even sleep a little better knowing I've done my part to help stave off rising food costs, but I can't even do that because unscientific people have decided for me what is best, so for now, I guess the extra money goes to charity. Why can't the little guy buy himself a few carbon credits to offset his scary carbon footprint with the extra we might pay for straight gasoline? :-) My puny mind doesn't want to see much past efficiency being beneficial to the environment. More miles per fuel unit expended, the less fuel I consume, the longer the fuel lasts, the more there is to go around, and the less people like me whine, so that is even good for noise pollution as well (which may or may not help the environment!) :-)

I did think about experimenting with Ethanol though, to be honest. Years ago, a customer where I was working who "brews" his own ethanol got me interested, and the more I thought about it, the less I liked the idea. For my purposes it just doesn't seem practical.

~Brian

Reply to
Brian

=2E....

You don't live near Happy Valley, do you? They get lots of E85. I wonder why.

Putting these facts together, I agree that it may be premature for you to think about using E85. (I think OBDII came in around 1996.)

By the time you are shopping for your next car, gasoline may well be $7.00 per gallon. China and India are competing for the oil we import, and that won't stop. Gas is never going to go back to $2.00.

Of course. But ethanol has been around a while, and we have answers to these questions.

The combustion reactions in burning ethanol are known. There is a tiny amount of formaldehyde and acetaldehyde, but the major pollutants of gasoline are much worse -- and carcinogenic. Overall, it is estimated that emissions from ethanol burning are down 70% from gasoline. The main improvements are less CO and NOx. E10 helps with this, but I don't have the figures.

The competition for food is all in the news nowadays, but the USDA has done the study and has found that diversion of corn from food to fuel accounts for only 5% of the increase in world food prices. The main culprit is the dramatic rise in the price of fuels used by farmers and fertilizer manufacturers. When input prices go up, output prices go up too. And then there is the wave of droughts we have seen around the world, especially Australia.

In fact, the use of ethanol in place of gasoline exerts a downward pressure on gasoline and diesel prices. =2E..

If I were limited to E10 vs E0, I might do the same, unless I lived in LA. =2E...

Please explain. I think it is very practical. Brazil, helped by a new oil find to be sure, imports zero oil; they used to import 60% of their liquid fuel. They make ethanol from sugar cane for $0.83 per gallon producer cost and sell it for half of the price of gasoline. People have the choice and they choose ethanol -- duh! A good fraction of their cars are flex-fuel now, and those folks go for E85 massively.

Lower harmful emissions, lower price per mile, high performance, a dent in the $2 x 10^9 we in the US send to overseas oil producers EVERY DAY, some of which is going to support our enemies -- what's not practical?

Ben

PS: I have learned that I can fine-tune my FFI converter to improve my ethanol mpg. Stay tuned.

Reply to
Uncle Ben

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