98 Jeep Wrangler and E85 fuel

Buy a car that's compatible using twice the fuel for half the energy:

water in and that condense in alcohol will destroy your engine in notime at all. God Bless America, Bill O|||||||O mailto: snipped-for-privacy@aol.com

Alchol is "O H" based for it can be corrosive to your fuel system and also hard on some hoses. Also as stated before it has less energy per gallon (about 40% for E85) si you will just more fuel too. Politicians push E85 as our magic solution to our energy needs when it is not and it actually increase CO2 emissions by about 40 to 50% too. This is because Alchol is considered a preburnt fuel (has a high carbon content) and you have to burn more of it to get same work and net result is more CO2. The public wants to here that this is a solution so it keeps the masses thinking that there is a solution. Also, if you live in a really cold climate, E85 can be harder starting and really get bad MPG during those times too. Bite the bullet and stay with gas and maybe try running 89 for a while as you might find it is actually a bit cheaper in long run if MPG improves.

----------------- TheSnoMan.com

It is possible. There are companies out there making conversion kits, add-on computers, etc. There are even some on Ebay now. Of course a lot of these companies are claiming improve mileage, reduced emissions, etc. While all of this is possible, just remember, like any other product, there are quality items and junk items. I can believe the emissions claims much more easy than I believe the mileage claims, but I am sure as the technology grows, the mileage will get better. There is even a fuel they are calling diesanol now, which is 98% ethanol and 2% diesel. To me this would have more potential to reduce emissions and increase power since ethanol has a high octane rating and could take advantage of the compression ratio of a diesel engine.

The drawback to E85 is that it requires more fuel to make the same amount of power if applied to the same engine. If the engine was specifically built for E85, there are a lot of changes that could be made to increase the power of the engine. the main one being the compression ratio.

My suggestion is to do some research on the conversions, look for independent studies (such as colleges), an then weigh the cost of the conversion and a roughly 20-25% loss in fuel economy compared to just continuing to use gasoline.

Chris

Ethanol has higher CO2 emission than gas by about 50% because the fuel has a high carbon to energy contant which means more CO2 is produced doing same work. (the people pushing it never tell you that because they likely do not believe green house gasses are a issue anyway). Also, far as techology, it has been around since the 40's, it is called high compression (like 12 to 1 or better for pure meth or ethyl alchol) but that will never happen as long as 87 octane is on market and can be put in a engine designed for E85 or higher because 87 octane would destroy a high compression motor is short order even with a knock sensor. Also on diesanol, I fail to see any advantage with it at all because it would have less than 1/2 the energy of regular diesel and heat energy drives the engine so economy would suffer greatly. Strange thing is that the politics that pushes grain based fuels never thinks about food prices or the fact that it takes more of it to do same work and produces more CO2 as well. BioButanol may hold the most promise for a grain or waste product based fuel because in its pure state it has about 90% of the energy of gas vs pure ethanol having only about 55% and performs well in todays engines with out needing to raise CR of them. BioButanol is still several years away as they search for a cost effective enzyme to make it profitable for mass production.

----------------- TheSnoMan.com

Don't forget the fuel which is needed to produce ethanol. If you are counting greenhouse gas emissions, you have to count all of them for it to mean anything.

Earle

Agreed but in all fairness they make a lot of green house gas "cracking" crude oil too. Realistically, growing fuel is not a long term answer.

----------------- TheSnoMan.com

Heh, I like the open flames one sees over oil wells to burn off "surplus" natural gas.

Earle

Gee, another "Inconvenient Truth" that Al forgot to mention. ;-)

Hi Earle, Which is six gallons of petroleum to make one gallon of ethanol. The Bore people want to buy windmills and solar diodes to produce electricity, that have used the same amount of petroleum to make and last their life time.

God Bless America, Bill O|||||||Omailto: snipped-for-privacy@aol.com

The candles are in all the oil crackers I worked, and they regularly exploded. When it goes out, run for you life:

God Bless America, Bill O|||||||Omailto: snipped-for-privacy@aol.com

On that nothing, up until about the 50's they used to burn of Propane in massive fires (it is a byproduct of cracking) until they decided to develop a market for it in late 50. A lot of farm tractors were built to run on it until early 70's as it could be had for 10 or 12 cents a gallon then.

----------------- TheSnoMan.com

What is the name of that old movie about the guys who put out the flame in an out of control oil well, using dynamite? I am thinking 40s-50s, but that is all that comes up.

Earle

A favorite, very relevant to what's happening over there now. I TiVo it for Wednesday, tomorrow, 11:45 Preferred Time, AMC channel 254, via DirecTV. John Wayne: American:

God Bless America, Bill O|||||||Omailto: snipped-for-privacy@aol.com

It works by removing all of the oxygen from the fire for a bit and fire goes out. Kinda extreme but it does work well when done properly.

----------------- TheSnoMan.com

Energy in itself is not a problem, we have solar, wind, nuclear, coal, etc. The serious problem is how to run vehicles. Petroleum fuels are the only viable way to do it right now, just think of a jet. Ethanol, hydrogen, nothing is efficient enough yet to compete with direct burning of fossil fuels. We also need to save some petroleum for lubrication of machinery. Another thing that is often overlooked is that food production is what it is thanks to the use of fertilizers made from petroleum, we are actually eating our oil supply.

Hydrogen is very efficent but there is two problems with using it. First currently it is made from crude and cost about 10 to 12 bucks a gallon. Next is its storage. To be stored in a liquid state for greatest fuel density it has to be keep extremely cold. (about 423 degrees below zero) As far as energy density, gasoline has about

18,500 BTU's per pound and Hydrogen about 60,000 BTU's per pound (and a gallon weighs about .6 lbs). Pure ethanol has only about 8500 BTU's per pound. As a comparison, Propane has about 22,500 BTU's per pound and a #2 Deisel has about 21,500 BTU's per pound or just a bit less than Propane (this is lbs not gallons and a gallon of Propane weighs 4 lbs)

----------------- TheSnoMan.com

Those are interesting facts. About hydrogen, what I'm considering is that

1) if it is obtained from crude, it is more efficient to burn the fossil fuel directly rather than use it to get hydrogen and then burn the hydrogen. Plus we end up using more fossil fuels. If the separation here takes less energy than what is released when burning hydrogen by reaction with oxygen, it might work but I don=B4t think any existing process is this efficient yet. Any chemist here that could clear up this point? 2) if it is obtained by separating from oxygen in water, then it takes more energy to seperate than you get back by burning. There is no way around this, in the end hydrogen is just a way to transfer (not all that efficiently) the energy used to obtain it to another use like running a car. It=B4s not really a source of energy. Its like a compressed spring, once it is compressed it can provide a lot of energy, but not as much as it took to compress the spring.