write your congress-critter - increased ethanol in gasoline

No that is just foolish ignorance. In the last 50 years surplus corn has been used to make animal fat, soda pop sugar and putting 3rd world farmers out of business. Using surplus corn for Ethanol is a lot better than anything else that has ever been done with US farmers excess corn.

Not true.

Not true.

It is retarded to believe that. There has been no increased petroleum imports or increase in agriculture fuel usage due to ethanol. Farmers are using less fuel today than they were 20 years ago. Where is the evidence for these increased imports?

Taxpayers have been subsidizing corn for 80 years. And that subsidy has been decreasing lately due to higher corn prices. That is saving taxpayers billions.

Supposedly there are good scientific studies that say oxygentes do reduce smog in areas prone to smog. The realty is the government has been trying to put the brakes on ethanol production for several years now and hasn't had much success. it is private investment not government that is driving the ethanol boom.

The poor around the world are mostly 3rd world farmers. They have been made poor by having their markets flooded with cheap US and European farm commodities. US Ethanol production is the best thing that has happened to the 3rd world poor since W.W.II.

Sure the government should stop subsidizing oil companies and start taxing oil companies. If that doesn't happen we are in for repeated cycles of recessions interspersed with feeble recoveries.

Your congressman doesn't have much say in how much ethanol is available at the pump. In most places you can get ethanol free gasoline if you want it. Go ahead and purchase ethanol free gas if you want to vote with your pocketbook.

Stupid math question. It takes 3% more base petroleum energy to produce the gallon of gasoline at the required octane without ethanol (this is the real reason for ethanol in the gasoline). It takes energy to raise octane and that will only get worse as the world's lighter petroleum fractions become more scarce.

75% or more of the energy burned in a gasoline car is wasted. The key to saving fuel is decreasing that wasted energy. Ethanol is likely to be apart of that more efficient use of energy. For instance with gasoline it is difficult to achieve direct cylinder injection, but with ethanol it's easy.

I don't know what you think you are saying, but look at what it costs at the pumps that sell ethanol free gasoline if you want some idea of what it will cost to not put ethanol in the gasoline.

-jim

I believe this IS true. Ethanol, according to the handbooks I used, has about 60% of the energy content by weight compared to gasoline. The densities are quite similar, so energy content by volume (harder to find) would be less.

I object to much of the original post, but I believe this is true.

I say we use it for this:

I have never been positive on fuel alcohol from corn. Corn requires too much ammonia, which comes from petroleum. Other crops should be a better choice than corn.

Ethanol has less energy content than gasoline. If it is economical to make and avoids foreign oil, it is still a possible future fuel.

Not true, IMO. Properly chosen elastomers stand up to ethanol well.

Ethanol from corn...see (1) .

Yes, there are subsidies for growing corn. There are two sides to this coin, maybe.

Nope, not quite BS. Ethanol burns a bit cleaner than many components of gasoline. And, it is not adding to the carbon loading of the atmosphere, as gasoline does. So there are some ecological arguments for ethanol.

I have a better idea...Let's vote them ALL out and send the grafters home. Replace them with some new blood, and put term limits on every one of them.

I will contribute to any campaign to unseat Rep. Joe Barton of Texas. Surely the oil companies will hire this undercover agent for them as soon as he is out of office. They owe him.

idiot.

No it is not true. E10 has 3% less energy than E0. But with 75% of the energy content of E0 gasoline being wasted and good reason to believe that ethanol blended gasoline can be burned more efficiently than gasoline alone it is not a given that ethanol blends will reduce gas mileage. In fact several studies have shown some engines get better mileage with ethanol blends. For instance, MIT has a prototype ethanol+gasoline engine that is 30% more efficient than a equivalent gasoline engine alone. That is special engine deigned to take advantage of certain properties that ethanol has that gasoline doesn't. Now that the vast majority of spark engines are being fueled with ethanol blended gasoline in the continental US you can expect to see engines designed for the US market to be more efficient on ethanol blend than straight gasoline.

-jim

efficiency and calorie content are two completely different things.

but you knew that and were trying to muddy the water because you just wanted a fight. idiot.

Better choice in your opinion, but what crops farmers grow isn't based on your opinion. Farmers planted 40% more acres to corn in 1940 than they do today. Farmers have been planting large amounts of corn long before ethanol became popular as a gasoline additive.

MTBE was the first replacement for tetra ethyl lead in gasoline starting in the 70's. MTBE is a lot harder on rubber products than ethanol. MTBE is a lot more toxic and it has been shown to be extremely dangerous for the nations drinking water, Yet the EPA never place a limit on how much MTBE could be used in gasoline. It never required labeling at the pump for MTBE content. Ethanol is now being used because MTBE was showing up everywhere in the nations drinking water. If ethanol were banned the cost of refining gasoline in the US would increase dramatically. Most of the gasoline consumed in the US is 82-83 octane fuel that has ethanol added to raise the octane to the required minimum legal value. If all the refineries had to produce all of their output as 87 octane or higher fuel the cost of gasoline at the pump would jump upwards significantly. If you want an accurate accounting of the energy costs of ethanol you have to look at how much energy the refineries are saving by not having to produce a higher octane product. And those added refining costs will be increasing in the future as the worlds supply of light crude disappears.

What you are ignoring is that after the corn has been used for producing ethanol, it still has 80% of the value as a high protein livestock feed. What is left after making alcohol isn't just thrown away - it is a valuable product in its own right.

And if you want to make ethanol from cellulose the amount of cellulose in the US corn crop is huge. But ethanol from cellulose just isn't very economical using current technology. If it were economical they would be using corn stalks to make alcohol.

The subsidies for growing corn have been around for almost 80 years. Compare what corn subsidies cost taxpayers 5-10 years ago before ethanol production took off compared to what they cost taxpayers now. If you put ethanol out of business the taxpayers cost for corn subsidies will shoot up again.

-jim

yes I knew that. And that was the point -> The efficiency gain can outweigh the reduction in calorie content. And as engine designs change we can expect that will be the norm for ethanol blended fuel. Besides the efficiency of the fuel burned in the engine, your analysis ignores the refinery's cost and energy usage. It takes energy to produce higher octane fuel. As it happens the amount of energy that the refineries save by producing a low octane base fuel to be blended with ethanol is pretty much equal to the difference in energy content of E10 compared to E0.

HA HA HA. Yes an idiot like you would consider looking at the whole truth to be muddying the waters.

Yes, a better choice, in my opinion.

We're talking about ethanol, not MTBE.

That is true. It is also true of some other crops used to produce ethanol.

Right, it takes some chemical reactions to break cellulose down into its component sugars. Starches and sugars are the better starting materials from which to make ethanol.

Explain why we should be paying corn subsidies in the first place....

Losses in a heat engine have little to do with the fuel. These losses are do to inefficiencies in using the heat produced. About a third of the thermal energy released in the fuel goes into useful work at reasonable throttle openings, a third goes into exhaust entropy and a third into the cooling system. That is true reguardless of the fuel.

Now, it IS true that both ethanol and methanol have a higher octane than most gasolines. If the CR is increased to take advantage of this higher octane, then indeed we could have increased efficiency.

To a limited degree, if a certain gasoline is too low in octane so that a knock sensor equipped ignition is retarding the spark, then an alcohol mix could allow the engine to regain proper spark timing.

But the increase in efficiency in that case would come nowhere near 30%. What alcohol ratio is the MIT engine using?

not thermodynamically it can't. by definition. [you've heard of "thermodynamics" haven't you?] so if it's just combustion efficiency, comparing a properly tuned engine with one that's not is a bullshit false premise. but again, you already knew that.

octane rating has nothing to do with calorie content, retard.

if your idea of "the whole truth" allows for being fundamentally ignorant of thermodynamics and energy yields, you have some serious issues. but we already knew that too, retard.

Yes I already knew you were an idiot. No need for your constant reminders.

Energy yields mean nothing if that energy is left as a trail of hot air wafting out your ass end. You and E) gasoline have that in common. Both produce lots of excess wasted hot air.

It is an unrealistic opinion.

Were talking about the EPA regulation against ethanol. The purpose of those regulations putting limitations on ethanol and requiring labeling for ethanol were intended to favor the usage of MTBE. Meanwhile, 35 years have now passed and the use of MTBE as a gasoline additive is over, but the restrictions on ethanol still remain.

Automobile manufacturers have been using elastomers that hold up well with ethanol for 35 years, because MTBE was harder on elastomers than ethanol is.

Name one. The fact is, there is nothing in the US that is even remotely close to being as economically viable as corn.

It's all economics. You can make fuel from lots of things. The entire political structure is designed to facilitate making fuel cheaply from petroleum. We spend billions in order to structure things so that we can point to petroleum and say we can't live without oil. Even farming is structured this way. There are massive subsidies for fuel and fertilizer to farmers. You have to be a deluded to expect that farmers are not going to grow crops that don't take advantage of the economic and political realities that exist.

If you are against subsidies to farmers for growing corn you should be in favor of allowing ethanol in the fuel supply. It has done more than anything else in the last 80 years to eliminate those subsidies.

You probably don't understand what it is being discussed. The EPA back in the 70's placed a limit (no more than 10%) on how much ethanol can be added to conventional gasoline. Ethanol producers 15 months ago have petitioned the EPA to lift this restriction that was placed on ethanol. The EPA doesn't really have any good valid scientific reason to limit the amount of ethanol used in the fuel supply. The EPA's response to the petition to raise the limit to 15% ethanol has been to stall for over a year while they do studies (so they claim) to come up with a viable reason to deny the petition. It looks like the EPA will continue to stall for at least another year but eventually they will have to make a decision. When the EPA finally denies the petition, then the ethanol producers will have an opportunity take the EPA to court and both sides will have to present their evidence to a judge. The EPA is doing it's best to avoid a confrontation in court because that will be based on provable fact. The EPA has yet to come up with a reason not to raise the limit to 15%. They haven't even come up with any reason why the limitation existed in the first place.

-jim

Oh really? Apparently you never heard of the diesel engine. A diesel is typically 20% more efficient per calorie that a gasoline engine.

No it is not. It is only true when no particular engineering effort is made to take advantage of the nature of the fuel. If you use the same engine design for diesel fuel as gasoline it wouldn't be more efficient, but that would not demonstrate anything useful.

Ethanol has higher octane than any commercially available gasoline.

Yes that is a significant part of the increased efficiency.

Almost every car in the US now has ethanol in the tank. Engines are being designed around that fact. Go back about 4 years and the majority of spark engine cars didn't have ethanol in the gas tank and back then engines were being designed around that fact.

This particular engine is a high compression (compression is as high as the highest diesel) turbo charged engine. The ethanol and gasoline are kept in separate fuel tanks. The gasoline is fed to the engine under light load conditions from multi-port injection. The ethanol is direct injected into the cylinders under heavy load conditions. The ratio of ethanol to gasoline increases with engine load. The mix of gasoline to ethanol on average is about 30% ethanol and 70% gasoline and yet fuel efficiency is much better than a efficient gasoline engine of the same weight and torque. It isn't just the direct injection that allows for better efficiency due to reduce pumping losses (like a diesel) it is also the much higher latent heat of evaporation of ethanol that produces pumping efficiencies not possible with either gasoline or diesel as the fuel.

-jim

Here is a site for an o-ring selection guide. It can be used to find elastomers compatible with various chemicals. Might be helpful for automotive hobbyists.

As far as corn, Jim, I sense you have a vested interested in this.. Do what you have to do.

>

sorry, but not knowing the basics of thermodynamic efficiency or the difference between octane rating and energy yield is not "vested interest", it's retardation.

T-H-E-R-M-O-D-Y-N-A-M-I-C-S retard. you've evidently never heard of it.

yes it is retard. see above.

what would be useful is you getting another shift to occupy your time between school bus runs rather than wasting electrons here. or cracking open a book that could teach you what you evidently don't know.

so freakin' what? octane rating has nothing to do with energy yield, retard. fact: energy content of ethanol is only 84,600 BTU/gal vs

125,000 BTU/gal for gasoline.

not if the thermodynamics don't support it, retard.

so what part of an engine needs to be "designed" for ethanol combustion retard?

er, you know that turbos have lower compression ratios, right retard?

you're full of it. "higher latent heat of evaporation of ethanol that produces pumping efficiencies" - what a freakin' retard!

W-H-O-O-S-H

right, because octane = energy yield, right? freakin' retard.