Originally Posted by dinosaurfan
Snow, I thought the boiling water explanation was great, 'cause that is how btus are defined. As to 'Alcohol not catching gasoline' for mileage, it not only can happen, it already has- and it was so easily achievable, the corn guys don't hold an Ethanol Vehicle Challenge anymore. It seems they and the OEs feel the tech issues have already all been figured out. About the hard starting, you have a valid concern. The colder it gets, the less alky wants to vapourize. There is also the issue that the alcohol that works best is the same alcohol that folks can drink. The government is absolutely terrified about the possiblility that someone might drink that ethanol and have some fun with it before they can collect a beverage tax on it. Both of those problems can be combated in the same way. The corn guys have been pushing for ethanol to be sold a E85- 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline. That makes it undrinkable and the 15% gasoline helps the engine start more easily in cold weather. In some places, in the winter, E85 is really a 70% ethanol 30% gasoline blend, the extra gasoline being added for easier very cold weather starting. Methanol was tried as a transportation fuel, but it didn't seem to get much consumer acceptance. The ethanol guys are having better success, currently at least, and they are working hard at getting more efficiiiiient all the time. And it doesn't have to be made from corn. Brazil uses cane sugar. Sugar beets work well also. Henry Ford used and recommended potatoes. The Chinese are using several differant types of sorghum. If one uses genetically modified yeast, you can get ethanol from wheat straw, wood chips or sawdust. There is even a distillery out west someplace that is burning cow chips ( for real ) to heat up their mash pots. I think converting some of our trucks to ethanol ( or E85 ) deserves a real serious look. Oil isn't getting any cheaper, and we in the US of A have lots of farmland. Shouldn't we at least try it and see how well we can make it work ? DF
You completely mis the point here. It takes BTU's to heat the air in the engine to drive the pistons and a lot of them some you have to burn more fuel with alchol. Sure you can raise the CR ratio to try to help but you can with a gas engine too. Simple physic here, if you run three engine,with say 12 to 1 CR and one on gas (with a high octane) one of propane and one on alchol, the gas will get the best MPG because it has the highest energy content per gallon. followed by propane and last by alchol with its lowest content. If they would dump 87 octan and take it off the market, they could build engine with higher CR's for better efficency. WHen you conpare motor fuel, you must have common point of reference as in the CR ratio in engine because when you change that you change the whole comparison. Ethanol is just a flash in the pan because they could never produce 250 million gallons of ethanol a day to meet 25% of our imports or even 100 million a day for 10% (actaully about 500million and 200 million when you consider the fuel used to make it) There is not the resources to do it and never will be. People would like to believe that the answer to their big SUV is in a corn field, the promblem is that there are tens of millions of those things to fuel and it is just not doable. The answer lies in a coal based fuel AND vehicle that are a lot more efficent than some of the SUV's that detriot is pushing. No we do not need to all drive 40 MPG cars but then you do not need a CC 4x4 to go to the store either (or a 4x4 SUV)