Add recent stats for or against Ethanol if you find them.

Here is recent pricing in the last 30 days of ethanol and regular gasoline.

http://e85prices.com/_price_e85

The greatest price difference where E85 was cheaper was by 29%. The lowest was where E85 cost more than gasoline by 3%. In just about every report published on E85, even those quite biased towards it, everyone agrees that E85 is between 15-30% LESS EFFICIENT than regular gasoline.

So, depending on where you get your E85 gas, there is a strong chance that you might barely break even by using E85. Many times, it will actually cost you more to use E85. Maybe a third of the time could you actually save money.

So, most times it's not cheaper. The debate is still going on if it causes as many health and environmental issues as it's supposedly is helping. Our country can't produce enough ethanol to make us 100% E85 capable. Add to this the disturbing fact that you hear all these PR lines about how the automobile industry has teamed up with the gasoline and petroleum manufacturers to produce E85 and Flex-Fuel-Vehicles and it becomes suspicious. Why would these industries want you to use less gasoline and oil.

Anyway, the more I read, the more I question E85 and ethanol all together. I am still convinced that it's a political solution for the consumer, the farmers, the oil companies, and most of all the voters. Add more stats if you find some. Later... Mike....

 

In my opinion, when E85 is available in my area, I will run it in my '70 F100. I'm aware of the modifications required to do so. And I will buy vehicles that will run it in the future.

Our country can't produce enough ethanol, yet. There's a new ethanol plant just twenty two miles west of me that's coming online, or nearly ready to. And maybe those folks who work for Ford, GM, and Chrysler are seeing that there's a big market for these flex-fuel vehicles.

I think those folks understand there are people like me who don't give a rat's behind how much less efficient ethanol is or how much more it could cost. There are people that look beyond their pocket books, and can see the greater solution here.

 

I don't think you understand. When I said that our country can't produce enough ethanol, I didn't mean because of economics. Based on how much that can be produced per acre of land, the amount currently being produced, and the amount of gasoline it would replace, it has been estimated by Universities and researchers that to replace our gasoline with E85 for ALL vehicles, that it would require approximately 71% of all our farm land dedicated to growing crops dedicated to the purpose of making ethanol. What will that do to growing food to eat? We'll have to subsidize farmers even more because they will want to grow whatever they make the most profit from. If that's producing corn or whatever for Ethanol, how do you get them to grow vegitables, grain, and other items. Then there's the fact that because our country is so vast, there are many items that can't be grown everywhere. I.e. you can't grow corn everywhere. You can't grow tomatos everywhere.

Now, if they can find a crop that can be converted to ethanol; doesn't require taking 70% of our farmland to do it; isn't going to cost the taxpayers more per gallon than it's worth as a commodity; and isn't going to harm the environment; then maybe it can be a solution. Unfortunately, none of that can be done at this point. The crops they currently use for ethanol is too inefficient. It requires too much land. It's being subsidized $0.51 per gallon with our tax dollars. And there are many studies that show that burning ethanol may actually be as bad to the ecology as petroleum products are. Better in some respects, but worse in other. later... Mike....

 

you know what, forget about ethanol and bio diesel, studys have proven that ethanol is worse then gasoline, it creates low levels of smog which we breathe in, and bio diesel is 50% worse then regular diesel, electric, hydrogen,compressed air is what we need to save the planet

 

By the same token those studies are botched from the beginning, because engines used in flex fuel vehicles are not optomized for Ethanol. If you ran compression ratios to burn Ethanol cleanly, you would see gains of 10 - 15%, but would be unable to run pump gasoline. If I were you, I would look in the barkward economics of hydrogen. It takes more engery to produce, store and transport hydrogen than it actually contains. And on biodiesel, you should pay attention to who is paying for these studies. It is being paid for by either the oil industry of the pro-hydrogen groups. They also deliberately choose to test inferior quality base stocks. If they choose to test raw filtered soybean as opposed to reused cooking oil, they would find it is cleaner. If they further opted to test catalyzed biodiesel, they would find it is one of the cleanest fuels you can burn in an internal combustion engine.

 

i seen it on discovery channel, daily planet is the show, and they did a week long show about how the planet is in danger, all the pros/cons of what we can do and are capable of, i highly doubt the oil industry paid em off to say things, and i doubt ethanol can be run in a engine for long periods of time i see it causing corrosion, the latest news ive herd is ethanol can be made out of fruits,(interesting) and they have succesfully re-made gasoline out of the fumes that are already in the air just buy using the sun, hense we wouldnt be creating anymore greenhouse gass's but re-using whats already in the air, of course the goons running the goverment would never let this happen therefore anything else

 

Please read post #119 in https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/6...-get-it-8.html about that efficiency gain.

Well, there's high octane racing gasoline though it's expensive, hard to obtain, and probably not street legal either.

The point about hudrogen is not that it has a positive energy balance like fossil fuels. It is, unlike most other fuels, burns without any harmful byproduct and without any greenhouse gas, and can be made without any greenhouse gas emission anywhere in the production cycle. (regardless of how most of it is made today)

 

Depends on how it's used. In a fuel cell, yes, the only byproduct is water. In an IC engine, burning hydrogen in our nitrogen rich atmosphere can produce just as much NOx as fossile fuels. (check the chemical composition of gasoline. All Cs and Hs no Ns )

 

better check again most Hydrogen is presently most economically produced using fossil fuels. basically it is produced from methane or coal, and is primarily used in making amonia for fertilizer thus switching to it would increase your costs of food. Currently if you do a real total carbon balance a hydrogen powered vehicle produces more carbon in the total process then a gasoline powered car.
Also it's a fact that Biodiesel is cleaner in ever single respect except NOx emissions so anyone saying its dirtier than fossil fuels is probably being paid by big oil, and that comes from epa testing done with it.
As to ethonal, it's been shown that it is more efficient and cleaner up to about 20-25% after that the benefits begin to drop but you know if we were to replace a total of 10% of our gas with ethonal it won't fix the problems but along with other options will definably reduce them, there is not going to be any one single silver bullet for the oil issue it's going to take a bunch of little steps to cure our dependence on oil and constantly harping on anything that is helping even a little is just helping big oil's strangle hold on us and the economy of the world.

 

Yes, I know, and I sort of mentioned that: "can be made" and "(regardless of how most of it is made today)".

I expect that the price of fossil fuels, especially crude and natural gas, will rise faster than the price of electricity in the long run, and at some point (probably between 10 - 100 years) it will be cheaper to make hydrogen using electricity and water than using methane. Using coal might still be cheaper itself, but there might be a CO2 tax by that time, and that will make it more expensive.

 

That is correct, and I should've mentioned that. However, "can" doesn't mean "will".
Wanna bet on that "All Cs and Hs"? Hint: gasoline ain't what it used to be!!

 

Yes, but gasoline burns so hot that it forces the nitrogen in the air to combine with oxygen in the air, thus producing NOX. The reason most biodiesel produces more NOX than conventional diesel is because it burns HOTTER. Hotter = more power/better fuel economy/less HC and CO.

You may also want to double check on what the most powerful greenhouse gas on the planet is on a bassis of the effect it has and the amounts found in out atmosphere. Hint: Its not CO2, NOX, or Methane.

 

My guess would be dihydrogen monoxide.

 

And what does this has to do with the chemical composition of gasoline?

If you want to argue that water vapor is a greenhouse gas, yes, that is technically correct; however, in practice and reality it is a complete BS.

Unlike the real major greenhouse gases, water can easily precipitate out of the air, meaning if you have too much water in there, you're likely get dew, rain or snow as the air cools down. Since roughly 3/4 of the Earth is covered by water (evaporation!), and because it is emitted en masse by plants, humans, IC engines, etc., the amount of water in the air doesn't really influenced by the excess emsisson as a result of a human activity, except on a very local scale.

 

Enlighten me. Aside from Ethanol (Which has no Nitrogen) or MTBE (which has been eliminated in most/all locations) what else is in gasoline? Perhaps a stray Oxygen atom from the oxygenates they add. But what else?