Too bad you have no idea what any of those big sounding words you are mumbling mean. There is a thing called flex fuel vehicles. It has been shown in several studies that flex fuel vehicles get optimum miles per gallon when the fuel is a blend around the 20%-30% ethanol range. This is of course no big surprise. These engines are designed to run with ethanol in the tank and mileage drops off when pure gasoline is in the tank. But here is a study that surprised lots of people:
formatting link
Today some engines get better mileage on ethanol blends and some engines don't. In the future every car made for the US market will get better gas mileage on ethanol blends because manufacturers will be designing engines to run best on what they know will be in the vehicle's fuel tank.
No, nobody but the retarded Mr. Bean says " octane = energy yield". You have lots of weird and incoherent ideas.
Octane is a property of a fuel. Energy yield does not predict how far down the road a vehicle travels on a gallon of fuel. The typical gasoline engine is wasting around 75% of the energy yield. 75% of the calories in the fuel produce nothing but wasted heat. Only 25% of the energy content of the fuel contributes to moving the car down the road. If you can improve the efficiency so that the engine is wasting only 74% instead of 75% of the calorie content of the fuel, then you will have increased the miles it travels on a gallon by 4%. That means even if the fuel used contains 3% less energy per gallon you still travel a little farther farther down the highway on a gallon of fuel. This explanation of course is way more complicated than anything you read in your owners manual so there is little hope that your pea brain will understand any of it.
Do you think that putting capital letters interspersed with dashes in your reply explains why a diesel produces more mechanical power per calorie of fuel than a gasoline engine does?
Is this something your owner's manual didn't explain - so now you are completely lost?
OK that is a fair question. Lets see, shape of the combustion chamber, valves, camshaft, pistons, crankshaft, connecting rods, fuel injectors, intake manifold, throttle body, block, waterjacket..... Probably a few more that I missed. Spark plugs may be redesigned or stratified charge compression ignition may be used instead. Higher ethanol content in passenger car fuel will bring about lots of changes to engine design.
1)Ethanol has value as an oxygenate that helps lower HC emmisions. I'd rather they use ethanol for this purpose instead of MBTE.
2) While the sort of corn used to make ethanol is food, it is mostly food for livestock. And after you use it to make ethanol, the stuff left over is actually still usable as high protein animal feed, so the loss to the food chain is much much less than the anti-ethanol people claim.
3) Even the most pessimistic energy balances show a net positive energy gain from using corn based ethanol and they ignore the feed value of the left over mash. The energy balance is actually much better than the anti-ethanol crowd claims.
4) The price for number 2 yellow corn (the corn used to make ethanol) is at a historically low level. So clearly the use of corn for ethanol is not effecting food prices.
5) Actually the only subsidies paid to farmers related to corn production are the result of the low price of corn. If corn prices increased becasue of the deamnd for more ethanol, the subsidies related to corn production will likely disappear. None of the current subsidies encourage production since they are not based on the quatity produced. In theory the LDP payment could encourage production by setting a floor on the price, but the floor set by the current LDP price is below the cost of production, so it has no impact on production. As it is, the subsidies paid to farmers related to corn production that do exist are small and decreasing. The subsidies to oil companies are another matter. I am not in favor of those, but then I am not in favor of all the subsidies that encourage the use of pertroleum either. How much lower would our defense budget be if we weren't defending oil producing states?
6) Modern cars are all ethanol tolerant. Of course that doesn't help people with older cars (or boats) that are adversely affected by ethanol in the gas.
7) I know that in theory ethanol should reduce fuel economy. I keep detail records of my gas purchases for both of my vehicles. I can't honestly say that I can detect a difference in fuel economy based on the presence or absence of ethanol. Some pumps are labeled with a warning that the fuel may contain up to 10% ethanol, but many are not. Costco has added the warning, then removed it, then added it back. I general I buy gas at either Costco (currently has up to 10% ethanol), Hess (no ethanol label), BP (no ethanol label) and Murphy (has 5 % ethanol). I've tried comparing the mileage when just using Costco gas to similar periods when just using BP gas and can't find a consistent difference. Maybe it is there, but the diffrence is so trivial it is masked by other factors. I assume on a national average basis it is real and significant, but I sure can't prove it based solely on my records.
At least where I live (NC) the Federal gas tax is a fixed amount per gallon, not a percentage. The North Carolina state gas tax has a fixed component and a componet adjusted based on the price of gasoline. Yesterday I paid $2.489 for gas at the local Costco. I believe the price breaks down as follows:
Gasoline - $2.004 per gallon Federal Tax - $0.184 per gallon (this is a fixed amount, not a percentage) Current NC Tax - $0.301 per gallon (0.25cpg inspection tax.17.5 cpg flat rate plus a variable rate of 12.35 cpg wholesale price component)
If you assume the US uses around 140 billion gallons of "pure" gasoline a year, and that ethanol increases fuel consumption by 1%, then you would assume that the US would use around 141.4 billion gallons of gasoline a year and that this would generate an additional 0.26 billion dollars ($26,000,000) of revenue per year. However, US gasoline consumption is actually declining at the moment, so I am not sure how to account for the effect of ethanol. I am also not sure how to account for the ethanol subsidy paid to oil companies. I believe oil companies get a subsidy of $0.51 per gallon of ethanol blended into gasoline, which works out to something like $0.051 per gallon of E10. So I suppose you could say that the Feds could paid out nearly 7 billion dollars in subsidies to fuel blenders (assuming all 141.1 billion gallons of gasoline were E10 which is not close to true) in order to create an additional 0.37 billion dollars of tax revenue. A net loss of over 6.6 billion. So I don't think it is reasonable to suggest that requiring the use of ethanol is some sort of revenue enhancement plan.
Other posters here have claimed the oxygenates like alcohol cause problems with emissions. I will have to go back and check their links.
There were, just a few years ago, strikes and threats of civilian violence because of the cost of corn for their tortillas. The "line" at the time was that American producers had run the Mexican producers out of business. There are lies, damned lies, and political correctness. I dont know the truth.
Could be. There is more involved, I think, than just the energy balance. I believe we need to reduce the rate of usage of foreign oil, which is now close to 12-14 million barrels per day. Ethanol could do this, maybe. Our great East Texas gas fields can do it perhaps easier. The Haynesville shale has been estimated at having petrofuel reserves equivalent to three Saudi Arabias.
Something is.
Our cars in Brasil were available in alcohol tolerant models in the 1975 era, give or take a couple of years. The government announced a plan to produce one billion litres of alcohol to use as fuel..and they did it. That alcohol plus the new production of petrofuel found in Brasil now has made them energy independent.
Some here claim it does, substantially. Others dont seem to notice it. In the day that ethanol is all we have, we will use it and be proud to have it. If it is good enough to run Indy type cars, I will use it and wont bitch too much.
The energy of ethanol relative to gasoline A. 76,000 = BTU of energy in a gallon of ethanol B. 116,090 = BTU of energy in a gallon of gasoline There is no magic that will make it more, although engines designed to run ethanol specifically can perform well. At the end of the day, thermo- dynamics rules. There is no way around it.
you keep regurgitating the same old ethanol marketing crap retard, but each time, you're avoiding the fundamental scientific basics:
energy content != octane rating. they're not even vaguely related. to keep confusing them after you've been informed to the contrary and have had the opportunity to look this up for yourself is utterly retarded.
energy yield is dependent on thermodynamics. low calorie content cannot yield more than high calorie content. look up the basic laws.
now get back into your school bus and wipe off those seats.
oh dear, trying to deceive by quoting me out of context again retard? sorry, doesn't work - YOU are saying octane = energy content, not i.
having trouble with thermodynamic principles again? [rhetorical]
er, that's not a problem with the energy content retard. see above...
and that /still/ doesn't mean that ethanol is more efficient! thermodynamics rules the universe. learn about it.
don't put false words in my mouth retard. you are the one that doesn't understand basic science. lower energy content means more fuel needs to be consumed. end of story.
"lost"? as in getting confused between octane rating and caloie content like you hopelessly are? or "lost" like trying to put false words in someone's mouth in the hope that it doesn't show you to be a retarded asshole?
oh dear, you simply don't have the slightest clue...
stratified charge is not specific to ethanol, retard asshole.
isn't it amazing - some asshole picks up some buzzword off the internet, and suddenly they're a combustion thermodynamics expert. except that they're utterly clueless about anything basic like the second law, and even make classic gaffe's like confusing octane rating with calorie content.
stick to driving that school bus retard. and wash your hands after sniffing those seats.
it increases the "oxygen content" of exhaust, simply because there is oxygen in an ethanol molecule. but that oxygen doesn't help combustion because it's already chemically combined.
isn't livestock classified as "food"? feeding corn to cattle makes a damned sight more sense than burning it. especially when that corn consumes more energy during cultivation and processing than it yields in energy output.
only if you ignore the input energy of the herbicides, pesticides, fertilizers, processing and distribution...
so feed it /all/ to cattle and get more food! duh.
show your numbers ed.
er, actually ed, while they're not at their 2008 craziness levels, corn prices are still well above historic trends.
formatting link
jeepers, "likely" disappear? so they haven't yet? how freakin' high do they need to be to make them disappear then???
eh? so why is corn acreage at historic high if it's not about price and therefore quantity?
no that ed, is a grand question. you should have words with your friends about this. but we're not defending oil producing states...
we are /all/ adversely affected by ethanol in gas - because lower energy content means we have to burn more, thus buy more, thus have less money to spend on anything else. giving tax subsidies to ensure we have to pay more is utter bullshit and you need to tell your friends that.
not recently. when mtbe was suddenly mandated as "oxygenate", and the gas companies weren't uttering a cheep of protest, guess why? because, like ethanol, mtbe lowers calorie content! amazing isn't it.
ever wondered why the expense of producing new federally mandated low sulfur diesel hasn't been met with a storm of protest by producers? not event he faintest cheep? because it's about 5% lower calorie content, that's why! you'll take 5% greater sales in return for bringing forward a little of your routine maintenance won't you ed?
the content of each refining run varies hugely. and you can bet your rear end, the refineries know /all/ about keeping to the low end of the calorie content range - because it directly feeds sales.
no, increasing ethanol by a further 5% increases consumption by ~1%.
10% ethanol increases consumption by ~2-3%.
it's declining because people are out of work and thus driving less. this is the retardation of high gas pricing - it's skinning your sheep, not shearing it.
those are the direct subsidies. you need to add the accelerated write-offs they get which help increase the final #'s further.
well, the states are all for it...
formatting link
~3% extra sales volume at 62¢/g works out as???
and it's still a raw deal for the consumer federally. giving tax subsidies to get lower mpg's so we need to buy more gas? that's bullshit.
What you wrote was the truth. It is called NAFTA. As part of the treaty Mexico was required to remove the tariffs and trade protection that protected the mexican farmers from low priced imports. Massive amounts of cheap US corn were dumped on the Mexican market and the small mexican farmers that were just barely making a living growing corn couldn't compete when the price of corn in Mexico fell by 70%. It is estimated that a million small farmers lost there land and livelihood as a result collapse of corn prices. Of course then after those farmers were gone the price of corn went up in the US when the price of gas went up to more than $4, but there was no one but the big producers left in mexico to grow the corn and prices went through the roof. BTW, There were no jobs in Mexico for the displaced farmers so you no where they headed. That same scenario has played out over and over again in third world countries. Surplus corn has not been used to feed the poor it has been used to drive the poor deeper into poverty. The best thing you can say about ethanol production in the US is that it has removed the US corn and other grains that have been dumped on the world markets. And the taxpayers of the US and Europe are the ones to blame. It is the taxpayers that have poured more than a trillion dollars in farm subsidies since WWII to fund the destruction of rural economies all over the world.
That is false. The math is quite simple even a grade school kid should be able to understand it. A gasoline engine at its very best uses only
25% of the energy in the fuel. That means only 29,000 of the 116,000 BTUs is used to propel the car down the road. An ethanol engine that operates at 40% efficiency will use 30,400 BTU's to propel the car down the road. Which engine will make the car go farther down the road? The problem with gasoline has always been it is an inherently prone to thermal inefficiency. Adding ethanol to gasoline makes it possible to overcome that problem. The energy content of a fuel does not predict what mileage the vehicle will get. The most important predicter of fuel economy is how efficiently the fuel can be utilised to produce mechanical power.
wow, asshole, not only are you retarded enough to make that mistake in the first place, you're also either too retarded to too dishonest to admit it when confronted with your own written ignorance!!! frankly, i'm surprised you're even allowed drive a school bus.
where /you/ got lost, asshole, is when you said that ethanol reducing calorie content was "not true". from that point on, all you've done is bullshit and bluster with a bunch of crap about "octane" that simply further proves you're utterly clueless. but you don't know /how/ clueless because this is so far off your tiny little school bus knowledge chart, you don't know what you don't know.
MotorsForum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here.
All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.