G85 Fuel

oh, for pete's sake ed, don't you ever learn anything? we've been around this mulberry bush before. octane rating has nothing to do with calorie content. it's calorie content that gets you mpg's, not octane rating. because of its lower energy content, or calories, higher ethanol means lower mpg's, thus you have to buy more of it to get where you're going. and of course, you're paying more for it at the pump. and it can mess with your car. a thoroughly bad deal. unless you're an oil company or a farmer. or a large agricultural concern that's cornered the market. or a politician that panders to the above.

rhetorically speaking of course...

Fill 'er up with E15: EPA OKs more ethanol [How's that price of corn doing???]

cuhulin

How much cheaper does it need to be? My fuel economy has gone down significantly in the last couple of years. I blame this in part on the fact that "pure" gasoline has completely disappeared from stations in my area. The decrease seems to be more than the 3% to 5% decrease in economy claimed by the EPA. I suspect this is becasue the E10 is absorbing significant amounts of water. Becasue ethanol absorbs water, I suspect I am really getting something like 89.55% gasoline, 9.95% ethanol and 0.5% water (or worse). So now not only is the energy content reduced by a little bit more, the actual heating value of the fuel is reduce by even more (because of the presence of water). In my mind, I would pay at least 4% more for "pure" gasoline compared to E10 ($2.75 for pure gasoline vs $2.64 for E10). I assume in the case of E15, I'd have to see the E15 cost at least 6% less than "pure" gasoline ($2.75 for pure gasoline, $2.59 for E15). I doubt you will see this large a delta. In fact, my experience is there is no delta at all. When stations in my area switched to E10, the prices didn't go down. In fact some stations selling pure gasoline were selling gasoline for less than other stations were selling E10. Now there are no station selling "pure" gasoline (at elast that I can find in my area).

Ed

Exactly whn have I ever claimed that octane rating had something to do with calorie rating (i.e., energy content)? I was merely pointing out that the OP was wrong when he said ethanol had a lower octane rating than gasoline.

If you have an engine that can adjust engine parameters based on fuel octane, then it is possible that the engine could actually take advantage of the higher octane of ethanol and at least partially compensate for the lower energy content of ethanol. HOWEVER, E10 is a blend of gasoline and ethanol, and the octane rating of the combination is what matters, not the octane rating of ethanol alone. My understanding is that companies blending ethaol and gasoline are taking advantage of the higher octane rating of the ethanol by using lower octane rated gasoline and coming up with an overall octane rating that meets the minimum requirements for the grade (i.e., the regular E10 blend has the same octane rating as regular grade"pure" gasoline of the same grade). If companies blended ethanol with gasoline with the orignal octane rating of regular gasoline, then the resulting blend would have a higher octane rating, but since they are not doing this, there is no "octane" advantage for regular grade E10 compared to "regualr" pure gasoline. So since the octane rating of E10 is not higher than pure gasoline, you can't count on any compensatory benefits assocaiated with higher octane rating of ethanol.

Ed

oh, ed, energy content and heating value are the same thing.

gasoline should be sold by energy content, not volume. just like the natural gas that's piped into homes. as long as it's sold by volume, there is the opportunity to sell "volumized" crap, just like bars will sell watered-down drinks.

there used to be a link on the api's website

[now dead]

where they flat-out admitted that ethanol was used as a "volumizer" - their word, not mine.

there is no legal minimum for energy content of gasoline - another problem. on the one hand, if there were one, it would get lobbied so low it would be a joke. on the other, it would draw a line in the sand and stop this ridiculous rip-off.

ed, you're still blathering in a confused way about this. "octane" is an arbitrary measure of pre-combustion resistance. it's not energy content or heating value. thus, you can have high octane gas with minimal energy, and low octane gas with high energy. simple.

but you are right that the higher ethanol content is allowing the oil companies to blend crappier lower energy content fractions into gas that meets the octane ratings. that's why you're seeing lower mpg's than ethanol content would predict. 10% ethanol would predict roughly 5% lower mpg's, but what we're observing is roughly 10% lower mpg's.

it's been the same with diesel. when the new low-sulfur regulations were first discussed, there was a brief flurry of complaint from the oilco's about their increased refining costs. but that suddenly and miraculously died, and there has been deafening silence ever since. why? because this "new" low sulfur diesel has 5% lower calorie content than before. why exactly diesel's calorie content has to drop just because crud is removed is something no chemist will be able to tell you...

Overseas demand and the relatively weak dollar have more to do with rising corn prices than ethanol production. Adjusted for inflation, corn prices are almost back to the levels of the 70's. To bad the prices for all the inputs (fertilizer, equipment, fuel, labor) have increased well beyond the prices of the '70's even when adjsuted for inflation.

I have raised corn all my life. I lost by butt on corn this year (drought cut the yeilds greatly). I plan to plant half as much next year. In my area the real money these days is in soybeans and cotton. The prices for both of those have increased at a much greater rate than corn recently.

One interesting aside - a company in Hopewell, Va has been sending out letter to local farmers encouraging them to grow barely to be used to make ethanol. They are offering a contract price for any barley you are willing to raise. I've never grown barely but have grown wheat and oats. In my area small grains like these are planted in the fall (now till mid-November) and harvested in June/July. After harvesting the small grain, we generally plant soybeans on the same land for harvest in October/November. The later palnted soybeans yeild almost as well as soybenas planted in May, so this can be an attractive proposition (two crops on the same acerage). I considered planting barelyy for this company, but in the end decided against it, since I was already committed to planting oats on the suitable land (I use oats and oat hay for cattle feed).

Ed

Actually they are not. Look it up. There are subtle differences among the terms gross energy content, net energy content, caloriffic value, lower heating value, higher heating value, gross heating value, etc.

In this case I was talking about how the presence of water not only lowers the total energy content of the fuel (ethanol plus gasoline plus water) becasue the water in the mixture provides no energy, but it also resutls in a decrease in the lower heating value of the fuel, since part of the energy in the gasoline and ethanol must be used to vaporize the entrained water during the combustion process. If you have an engine that has problems with pre-ignition, adding a little water might be OK, but for most of us boiling off any moisture inadvertenly included in the E10 is just wasting energy.

In theroy this sounds like a good idea, but I am not sure how it would work in practice. Would you vary the price of a gallon of gas based on the energy content, or have some sort of caluclating pump that displays a price in BTU's per dollar?

Al though I have noticed a general decline in my fuel economy, I don't see a lot of tank to tank variation. Years ago I tried figuring out if one brand of gas was better than another. For a months I'd only buy brand x and then switch to brand y for a month then back to brand X. I did this for a year. I could tell no difference in fuel economy between brands for the period. Recently I started comparing gas mileage for fuel purchased near my farm (most of which is trucked in from the Tidewater, Va area which has a BP Refinery) to gas purchased in the Raleigh area (most of which comes up a pipeline from god know where in the southwest). For a period of time I was convinced that I got better fuel economy using the gas from my farm. Now, I don't see that. It might have been a figment of my imagination, since at most the difference was on the order of 0.2 mpg.

Ed

I never said otherwise. In theory, if you blended ethanol with "regular" gasoline that already met the octane requirements for "real regular" gasoline, the blend would have a higher octane rating. If you have a vehicle that can adjust engine parameters to take advantage of the higher octane, then you might increase the overal engine efficiency slightly, thus slightly offsetting the decreased energy content of the blend. However, I think we both agree that oil companies are actually using lower octance gasoline to blend with the ethanol thereby eliminting any possible increase in efficiency thast might have been available if the ethanol had been blended with real regular gasoline.

In theory the reduction in energy contnet should only be on the order of

3.5% (Ethanol has roughly 65% as much energy as regualr gasoline). My reduction in fuel economy has been around 5%, not 10%. But then I have a realtively new fuel injected car (and truck). I am sure it would be much worse for an older car. I'd actually like to find a station still selling pure gasoline for a comparison. I have searched in vain for such a station in a convient location. I hear rumors of stations near the coast that advertise ethanol free gasoline, but have yet to actually see one.

Ed

i don't know where you think you're "looking this up" ed, but it sure isn't anything scientific.

er, same thing ed. why don't you stick to lobbying and astroturfing? this-here durned sciencey stuff has you tied in knots.

no ed, the energy content is reduced on a percentage basis because water does not yield calories.

it's not "boiling off" ed - this is not a separate phase. it's a small [tiny] fraction of *dissolved* H?O. much like there a small [tiny] fraction of dissolved N?, CO?, etc.

btu's per dollar. and it's easy - just like when you buy the natural gas that pipes into your home. it has a calorie content, and while it's metered by the cubic foot, the price is based on the cubic feet x btu's. low btu's per cubic foot means a lower total cost. for gasoline, that would be btu's per gallon. the math should compensate for temperature too so no more of this perennial "hot gas" lawsuit b.s.

you could wait and see how quickly ethanol would get abandoned then - it would disappear overnight since there would suddenly be no profit in volume, but cost savings in reducing the volume shipped.

A guy in that E15 thread at libertypost.org said he has a friend who leaves the cap off of his cans of ethanol fuel for 48 hours.He said by doing that, most of the ethanol evaporates out, before he uses the fuel in his 2 stroke engines/equipment. cuhulin

"jim beam" wrote in message news:6r6dneaKkbYapCrRnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@speakeasy.net...

Read the references you listed, don't just post them and pretend they support your claim. Your references support my claim that there are subtle differences among the terms gross energy content, net energy content, caloriffic value, lower heating value, higher heating value, gross heating value, etc. The higher heating value and the lower heating value are different numbers. You can say the heating value is the same as the calorific content, but which one are you using, higher or lower heating value? And which is the energy content of the fuel? Energy content does not directly equal heating value (or calorific value). If you have a gallon of fuel that includes 0.5% water, the energy content would be the total of the energy content of the ethanol plus gasoline, the water adds nothing to the energy content. But when you burn the fuel, some of that energy is used to vaporize the water. This effects the lower and gross heating values. If you removed the water and measured the caloric output you would get a different value for the lower heating value than if you left it in. The gross heating value is specfially intended to include the effects of water in fuel - which is my original point. If you have water in the fuel, you will effectively reduce the energy provided by the fuel in two ways - 1) you have less actual fuel and 2) some of the fuel is now going to be consumed boiling off the watyer in the fuel.

Back to your original complaint - energy content and heating value are not the same thing. 1.05 gallons of E10 that includes 0.5% water has the same energy content of 1 gallon of E10 that is free of water. The 1 gallon of water free E10 will have a higher gross heating value than the 1.05 gallon of E10 that includes 5% water. This is a fact.

Ed

i don't think we can have any meaningful discussion on this ed because you're so fundamentally adrift on the concepts, i'd either have to take you back to high school and in-fill all the stuff you apparently missed. or i'd have to adjust your thinking with some 2x4.

er, ed, if you're measuring 1 gallon, you're measuring 1 gallon, not

1.05 gallons. 0.5% on 1 gallon is 1.005, not 1.05.

so what? you're still confused.

if your vehicle has a knock sensor, it might. but if it doesn't have the higher compression ratio that usually goes with higher octane engines, it won't.

no, lower calorie, not lower octane. you're still confused.

i never said i think ethanol increases efficiency. you're still confused.

i checked, and revise my numbers accordingly:

we should all run diesels.

I would say that his actions are based on bad science, and that he is probably losing more gasoline light ends than ethanol...Probably picks up more water at the same time.

Here's a hard hitting link:

Other news items say that it's independent gas stations in the Midwest that will offer E15. But read the EPA quote and they just favor the home-grown fuel. Then the automakers say that E15 is not a good idea for current cars. So it seems that allowing E15 is a stragegy of a long term transistion from E10 to E15 so as to reach a mandate of 36 billion gallons of renewable fuel usage by the year 2022. In other words, really the cars need to be designed for the E15.

Why is cotton up so much? Can't be just about the dollar.

Cotton,,, Gun Cotton? Isn't it still used in manufacturing ammo for the Navy? Maybe that's why Cotton is up? cuhulin

Sorry for the typo. Now can you admit you were wrong when you said "oh, ed, energy content and heating value are the same thing"? I know it is a trivial admission that you also can be wrong, but it might be a breakthrough for you that sets your life on a new course.

Ed