E85 fuel in Dodge question
Posting Legend
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 30,255
Likes: 37
Anecdotal tales of E85 "working" or "not damaging elastomers" and "improving mileage" are contrary to physics, chemistry, years of research by chemical and material engineers, and the automakers own research. You can choose to believe "fairy tales" if you wish but it won't change physics or chemistry. Ford and other OEM's didn't spend millions of dollars on development and hundreds on special components for each flex fuel vehicle for no reason.
Hotshot
Joined: Feb 2004
Posts: 11,697
Likes: 3
From: Marengo, Iowa
then why can college teams meet and exceed the fuel mileage continuously year after year? I know what I have seen from running it in my own equipment. Call it what you will, I know the results I have gotten on my own vehicles, Take it or leave it, I know what happens right in front of me.
Posting Legend
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 30,255
Likes: 37
College teams build vehicles that would not live or even work in the real world. It is great practice for the kids and they can also check the results of their creations if they ever do postmortems which are the most fun part IMHO. Most of their creations barely make it thru the testing and they sure would not win any performance or driveability prizes. If similar vehicles were sold to the public the volume of complaints would be huge!
If you get better mileage with E85 there was something wrong with your vehicle to begin with. The laws of Physics do not magically disappear with wishes...
If you get better mileage with E85 there was something wrong with your vehicle to begin with. The laws of Physics do not magically disappear with wishes...
Hotshot
Joined: Feb 2004
Posts: 11,697
Likes: 3
From: Marengo, Iowa
so either you are saying I am lying, or my equipment is faulty. Didn't know getting 27 mpg out of a 2002 Buick Le Sabre was faulty, considering it has been that way for about 100,000 miles. The college test vehicles will last no less than OEM vehicles if they were built correctly. The difference is that the vehicles are set up to ONLY run E85, capitalizing on it's better points, but not being able to cross over and run gasoline as well. When you try to run an engine on ethanol, but leave the settings as you would have them for gasoline, yes, it would most definitely not be any too efficient, but when you optimize timing to be advanced far enough to capitlaize on the octane gain of ethanol, it will produce better power for the fuel use, being more efficient than gasoline alone. Also, you are calling other forum members liars as well, since they report on their results, stating much the same as what I have said, like the thread "Pure alcohol." 50,000 miles and no problems... also, other people are researching it, and also exposing lies that you continue to push. http://running_on_alcohol.tripod.com/id7.html
If alcohol is such a great fuel (and fuel additive), then why isnt everyone using it?
The truth is, most petroleum companies have used it, at some point in their history, and many continue to use ethanol as an octane booster / oxygenator. Pure grain alcohol is rated at 106 octane, and it is so good that it doesnt take all that much to raise the octane of 85 or 87 octane up to 90 octane, so that it can be sold as premium and obtain a much higher price. Alcohol fuel has been the main fuel of the Indianapolis 500 for almost its entire history, and fuel dragsters racing the ¼ mile drag strip use alcohol fuel. Ethanol (grain alcohol) was popularized during the OPEC oil embargo, around 1979-1981, because US-produced ethanol could displace from 5% to 10% of the fuel needed in the US, while imports were being shorted. So, the big five oil companies (at that time they were Shell, Arco, Standard Oil, Texaco, and Mobil) all started building big commercial distillation plants in the deep South, including Texas, but mostly around Mississippi and Louisiana (this was because it was easy to bring in the large quantities of grain (as well as imported molasses from Caribbean sugar cane, and sugar beet pulp from all the Southern sugar beet farms. This wasnt the first time ethanol was used, either. During World War Two, ethanol was produced in very large quantities, and many new plants in the Midwest were built to supply the US Navy & Airforce planes with aviation fuel, which was anywhere from 20 % ethanol to pure 100% alcohol. People in the US used ethanol- spiked fuel to conserve petroleum for the war effort, and gas rationing was so stringent at this time that people were issued gas stamps which they had to show at the gas station, to show that they were allowed to buy gas say, twice a month (or whatever their allotment).
So the petroleum companies already knew a lot about ethanol as a fuel and as an additive, and have had this in their bag of tricks for a long time. All through the 40s and early 50s, premium gas wasnt called premium, it was called ethyl, short for ethyl alcohol. In the 50s, though, someone came up with the idea of adding this incredibly cheap waste product, lead dust from the mining and metals industry, to gasoline. Leaded gas displaced ethanol because it was a lot cheaper and because it did slow down the combustion of the gasoline (which tends to burn to fast to be able to get all the power out of it). They could still offer a premium brand, and it cost a lot less to make it, the oil companies profited enormously. They just ignored the fact that lead did not enter into the combustion cycle at all: it just inhibited it, and ended up as lead dust all over the cities, which started getting heavily polluted and grayish colored from all the lead dust landing on the streets, of the walls of buildings, and on the hands of little children playing outside. Well, with the oil embargo of the 70s, they went back to ethanol, as an octane booster. They made a marketing mistake, though: they decided to call it Gasohol, and they promoted it hard and heavy. The term, gasohol confused people though, and a very high percentage of people werent sure if they could put it in their car.
At this time, ethanol started so getting popular as an alternative fuel, that many people, from farmers organizing alcohol production co-ops (like the one we started in California: the Calif. Alcohol Fuel Producers Association, or CAPFA). Even big companies like Archer-Daniels/Midlands (as in Midlands Oil) started turning corn into fuel grade ethanol. Ethanol production came into its own during the late 70s early 80s, so much so that a new trade journal, Gasohol, USA, flourished almost immediately after going to press, and became a major industry trade journal, with big advertising dollars from the growing ethanol industry. Suddenly farmers knew they could produce their own fuel, as well as the fact that this was a clean- burning fuel, much better for your engine in many, many ways. Now these people had a voice, with this widely circulated magazine.
What happened then was that the petroleum industry started running a counter-advertising campaign against the growing grass-roots effort intent on converting cars to switch to alcohol. To give you an idea of how big this movement was, many groups, such as CAPFA, and Chuck Stones company, Future Fuels of America, started lobbying their congressmen, and talking to their state governors, and we even got an alcohol fuel tax exemption passed in Congress (an exemption which continues to this day). So every week you started seeing articles in the newspaper about how corrosive, or how inefficient pure alcohol was, while at the gas pumps, people saw gasohol with signs saying, contains ethyl alcohol, and they didnt know what to do. So gasohol sales dropped, and the shortage of unleaded regular persisted, keeping the unleaded gas market overextended. So, regular gas prices continued to soar, and oil companies continued to make a killing with the high prices they were getting. A lot of this was totally twisted propaganda, with adulterated and manipulated statistics. They would say things like it takes more energy to produce it than you get out of it. Well sure, you could make a case for inefficiency if you purposely built a plant that was designed to be inefficient. This would be like only testing one particular car, say, a big 1960 model Cadillac V-8 engine for fuel efficiency, and never bothering to ever test another car on the road to see if there was ever anything better than that. In fact, the propaganda was even worse than that: they didnt bother to actually test alcohol production facilities, rather, they just built a case from a theoretical, completely made-up assumptions, in short, a flawed mathematical model. This same mathematical model would keep re-appearing in so many reports, that people accepted it as true, just because the oil pundits had told them so many times that it was true. A couple agricultural universities, such as UC Davis, subsequently did studies of these new commercial distillation plants to disprove this myth, and they determined that with an efficiently run distillation plant you have a net energy gain of over 65%, which is not a bad equation at all.
Also, in regards to BTU's we aren't boiling water, we are expanding gasses to do the work. Candle wax has higher btu's than does gasoline, but I don't see it being a viable option as a motor fuel. Flame properties and such have more to do with internal cumbustion efficiency than does how much water we can boil. Have you ever tried doing any of this experimentation yourself, or are you relying on info that may well have a negative slant to the fuel? Have you checked to be sure that every angle was considered or just taking it at face value without checking the facts for yourself? I have done the testing in the real world, have you? If you take all that is handed to you by the experts to always be fact, you may miss reality. If you ask an aerospace engineer, aerodynamically, a bumble bee cannot fly, but someone forgot to tell the bumblebee.
If alcohol is such a great fuel (and fuel additive), then why isnt everyone using it?
The truth is, most petroleum companies have used it, at some point in their history, and many continue to use ethanol as an octane booster / oxygenator. Pure grain alcohol is rated at 106 octane, and it is so good that it doesnt take all that much to raise the octane of 85 or 87 octane up to 90 octane, so that it can be sold as premium and obtain a much higher price. Alcohol fuel has been the main fuel of the Indianapolis 500 for almost its entire history, and fuel dragsters racing the ¼ mile drag strip use alcohol fuel. Ethanol (grain alcohol) was popularized during the OPEC oil embargo, around 1979-1981, because US-produced ethanol could displace from 5% to 10% of the fuel needed in the US, while imports were being shorted. So, the big five oil companies (at that time they were Shell, Arco, Standard Oil, Texaco, and Mobil) all started building big commercial distillation plants in the deep South, including Texas, but mostly around Mississippi and Louisiana (this was because it was easy to bring in the large quantities of grain (as well as imported molasses from Caribbean sugar cane, and sugar beet pulp from all the Southern sugar beet farms. This wasnt the first time ethanol was used, either. During World War Two, ethanol was produced in very large quantities, and many new plants in the Midwest were built to supply the US Navy & Airforce planes with aviation fuel, which was anywhere from 20 % ethanol to pure 100% alcohol. People in the US used ethanol- spiked fuel to conserve petroleum for the war effort, and gas rationing was so stringent at this time that people were issued gas stamps which they had to show at the gas station, to show that they were allowed to buy gas say, twice a month (or whatever their allotment).
So the petroleum companies already knew a lot about ethanol as a fuel and as an additive, and have had this in their bag of tricks for a long time. All through the 40s and early 50s, premium gas wasnt called premium, it was called ethyl, short for ethyl alcohol. In the 50s, though, someone came up with the idea of adding this incredibly cheap waste product, lead dust from the mining and metals industry, to gasoline. Leaded gas displaced ethanol because it was a lot cheaper and because it did slow down the combustion of the gasoline (which tends to burn to fast to be able to get all the power out of it). They could still offer a premium brand, and it cost a lot less to make it, the oil companies profited enormously. They just ignored the fact that lead did not enter into the combustion cycle at all: it just inhibited it, and ended up as lead dust all over the cities, which started getting heavily polluted and grayish colored from all the lead dust landing on the streets, of the walls of buildings, and on the hands of little children playing outside. Well, with the oil embargo of the 70s, they went back to ethanol, as an octane booster. They made a marketing mistake, though: they decided to call it Gasohol, and they promoted it hard and heavy. The term, gasohol confused people though, and a very high percentage of people werent sure if they could put it in their car.
At this time, ethanol started so getting popular as an alternative fuel, that many people, from farmers organizing alcohol production co-ops (like the one we started in California: the Calif. Alcohol Fuel Producers Association, or CAPFA). Even big companies like Archer-Daniels/Midlands (as in Midlands Oil) started turning corn into fuel grade ethanol. Ethanol production came into its own during the late 70s early 80s, so much so that a new trade journal, Gasohol, USA, flourished almost immediately after going to press, and became a major industry trade journal, with big advertising dollars from the growing ethanol industry. Suddenly farmers knew they could produce their own fuel, as well as the fact that this was a clean- burning fuel, much better for your engine in many, many ways. Now these people had a voice, with this widely circulated magazine.
What happened then was that the petroleum industry started running a counter-advertising campaign against the growing grass-roots effort intent on converting cars to switch to alcohol. To give you an idea of how big this movement was, many groups, such as CAPFA, and Chuck Stones company, Future Fuels of America, started lobbying their congressmen, and talking to their state governors, and we even got an alcohol fuel tax exemption passed in Congress (an exemption which continues to this day). So every week you started seeing articles in the newspaper about how corrosive, or how inefficient pure alcohol was, while at the gas pumps, people saw gasohol with signs saying, contains ethyl alcohol, and they didnt know what to do. So gasohol sales dropped, and the shortage of unleaded regular persisted, keeping the unleaded gas market overextended. So, regular gas prices continued to soar, and oil companies continued to make a killing with the high prices they were getting. A lot of this was totally twisted propaganda, with adulterated and manipulated statistics. They would say things like it takes more energy to produce it than you get out of it. Well sure, you could make a case for inefficiency if you purposely built a plant that was designed to be inefficient. This would be like only testing one particular car, say, a big 1960 model Cadillac V-8 engine for fuel efficiency, and never bothering to ever test another car on the road to see if there was ever anything better than that. In fact, the propaganda was even worse than that: they didnt bother to actually test alcohol production facilities, rather, they just built a case from a theoretical, completely made-up assumptions, in short, a flawed mathematical model. This same mathematical model would keep re-appearing in so many reports, that people accepted it as true, just because the oil pundits had told them so many times that it was true. A couple agricultural universities, such as UC Davis, subsequently did studies of these new commercial distillation plants to disprove this myth, and they determined that with an efficiently run distillation plant you have a net energy gain of over 65%, which is not a bad equation at all.
Last edited by fellro86; Apr 4, 2006 at 10:53 PM.
Posting Legend
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 30,255
Likes: 37
So I push lies and am a liar, -very nice, thankyou! 
I am sorry that you do not understand chemistry and physics or even boiling water, but I am not going to argue with ignorance, nor am I going to call anyone a liar, -people just misunderstand physics and need more education. This is one of the reasons that people continue to buy tornado fuel savers, cow magnets, fuel pre-heaters, magic catalytic screens for their intakes, etc. Perpetuating magic myths does not help anyone. E85 is NOT a perpetual motion machine. You can't get more out than you put in. The fuel energy is just not there per gallon. Engines can be built and are built that run higher compression to make more power from the E85 but the energy per gallon is still not there. Purpose built E85 vehicles will not work with regular gas so they need a long fuel hose back to the station just like electric vehicles need long extension cords. We are making strides with hybrid vehicles but in their final form they will probably be diesel electric and maybe if we are lucky bio-diesel. They are a number of years away and they will be expensive and complicated. There are studies that show E85 and alcohol in general does help energy independence and there are those that say it does not. Figures never lie but liars figure, and since the studies that show energy independence are done for, or by, agricultural interests I tend to wonder... This isn't rocket science but it does take some basic understanding of science. Believe in fairy tales, 100mpg carbs, fantasies, and magic potions if that makes you happy but I will stick with basic science. 
Have a nice day!
I am sorry that you do not understand chemistry and physics or even boiling water, but I am not going to argue with ignorance, nor am I going to call anyone a liar, -people just misunderstand physics and need more education.
This is one of the reasons that people continue to buy tornado fuel savers, cow magnets, fuel pre-heaters, magic catalytic screens for their intakes, etc. Perpetuating magic myths does not help anyone. E85 is NOT a perpetual motion machine. You can't get more out than you put in. The fuel energy is just not there per gallon. Engines can be built and are built that run higher compression to make more power from the E85 but the energy per gallon is still not there. Purpose built E85 vehicles will not work with regular gas so they need a long fuel hose back to the station just like electric vehicles need long extension cords. We are making strides with hybrid vehicles but in their final form they will probably be diesel electric and maybe if we are lucky bio-diesel. They are a number of years away and they will be expensive and complicated. There are studies that show E85 and alcohol in general does help energy independence and there are those that say it does not. Figures never lie but liars figure, and since the studies that show energy independence are done for, or by, agricultural interests I tend to wonder... This isn't rocket science but it does take some basic understanding of science. Believe in fairy tales, 100mpg carbs, fantasies, and magic potions if that makes you happy but I will stick with basic science. Have a nice day!
Lead Driver
Joined: Nov 2002
Posts: 9,557
Likes: 44
From: Concord, NC
The fuel energy is just not there per gallon. Engines can be built and are built that run higher compression to make more power from the E85 but the energy per gallon is still not there
This summer, there's a possibility I am going to work for Lotus implementing a supercharged E85-powered engine in something, we aren't sure what yet. I hope to learn a lot through this experience should it happen.
Cargo Master
Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 2,931
Likes: 12
From: SW Michigan
its like this......
EricTorque, its like this, I won't call you a liar, but will say that you have been LIED TO. The petro industry knows very well that alcohol can replace gasoline on a gallon to gallon basis. They always have know it. But they now have an almost total lock on the transportation fuel market, and they won't give that up without a fight. There are lots reasons that petro fuels dominate, and none of them have anything to do with being 'better', cause it isn't. But for the last 100 yrs, the petro industry has lied, cheated, stolen, helped the enemy ( *****, in WW 2 ), and murdered some and accidentally killed dozens. Do a little digging in the history books and you'll find pure EVIL. But thats just my opinion, so here is the science. Gasoline, at 120,000 BTUs per gallon, burns in a 9 to 1 engine at 25% thermal efficiency, giving us 30,000 btus of work. Ethanol, ( or E85, if you prefer ) has 80,000 btus per gallon and burns in a 12 to 1 engine at 40% thermal efficiency for 32,000 btus of useful work. Which shows us that mileage IS NOT directly related to btus per gallon. It just ain't that simple. Now, if ,IF, you could get a gasoline burner to run at 40%TE, the gas burner would win. But you can't. our own government knew this in something like .....1906....but the API has done their best to manipulate gov't to squash the competition. Up to now, they have been successful. Finally, the truth is starting to come out, thanks to things like the internet being beyond the APIs or the Gov'ts control. Ethanol is not listed as being corrosive in MY chemistry textbooks, maybe someone has been telling you stories about methanol, which IS corrosive. The API knows most folks don't understand the ddifferance and love to try to benefit from the confusion. If you look at the parts list for a flex fueler, you'll find mostly standard stuff, with differant programing for the fuel mixture. Injectors are sometimes bigger, but aren't constructed any differantly than gasoline injectors. 99% of the bad things you hear about ethanol are lies from the API or thier friends, or folks repeating something they heard but misunderstood. Ok, thats my rant for the day...back to work I go. DinosaurFan,@ work on lunch
Post Fiend
Joined: Jan 2003
Posts: 8,600
Likes: 4
From: Iowa
THANK YOU DF.
Here's what I've heard / read:
If you use the grain to JUST make alcohol, and throw away all the byproducts, it's about a wash for energy in / out. But, if you use the byproducts for other useful things, like cattle feed (it makes an excellent high protein cattle feed BTW) you get a lot of your energy back out of it, as well as making it VERY PROFITABLE! If every ethanol manufacturer did this, I'd bet there wouldn't be any need for subsidies any more.
Also, BTU is a measurement of the heat it takes to boil water. While a good indicator of the amount of energy in a substance, it is a lousy indicator of how a fuel will burn in a internal combustion engine! Imagine burning diesel fuel in a gasoline engine. Wouldn't work very good, would it? But the energy content is higher, so it should get more miles per gallon. Now why is it such a stretch to think that E85 would get better mileage than it's BTU's would indicate?
Here's what I've heard / read:
If you use the grain to JUST make alcohol, and throw away all the byproducts, it's about a wash for energy in / out. But, if you use the byproducts for other useful things, like cattle feed (it makes an excellent high protein cattle feed BTW) you get a lot of your energy back out of it, as well as making it VERY PROFITABLE! If every ethanol manufacturer did this, I'd bet there wouldn't be any need for subsidies any more.
Also, BTU is a measurement of the heat it takes to boil water. While a good indicator of the amount of energy in a substance, it is a lousy indicator of how a fuel will burn in a internal combustion engine! Imagine burning diesel fuel in a gasoline engine. Wouldn't work very good, would it? But the energy content is higher, so it should get more miles per gallon. Now why is it such a stretch to think that E85 would get better mileage than it's BTU's would indicate?
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Posting Legend
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 30,255
Likes: 37
Check the article that fellro posted yesterday, -even in a high efficiency diesel at 28:1 compression the fuel energy is just not there:
https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/s...d.php?t=480249
You can believe all the conspiracy theories you want to if you find them convenient. War is hell and has always made strange bedfellows just like any other political process. We have farmers and agribusiness sucking up to politicians to line their pockets at the public trough nowadays, -or business as usual. There is no free lunch, and you can't get more energy out of something than is put in. Your figures are wrong and misleading at best.
Advocating using E85 in non flex fuel vehicles is wrong and is not safe. It can get people killed and maimed as well as messing up their vehicles. Can we send our bills for alcohol related fuel system repairs to you for reimbursement? I had a few here that would be nice to get paid for. Some people want to believe in "patriotic" fuel independence so badly they will believe anything they are told even if it is contrary to the laws of physics, or supply and demand.
I would LOVE to see alcohol or biodiesel produced from biomass or waste like wood chips, brush, agro waste, lawn waste, turkey etc offal, or trash dumps.
It is not I that have been LIED to...
https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/s...d.php?t=480249
You can believe all the conspiracy theories you want to if you find them convenient. War is hell and has always made strange bedfellows just like any other political process. We have farmers and agribusiness sucking up to politicians to line their pockets at the public trough nowadays, -or business as usual. There is no free lunch, and you can't get more energy out of something than is put in. Your figures are wrong and misleading at best.
Advocating using E85 in non flex fuel vehicles is wrong and is not safe. It can get people killed and maimed as well as messing up their vehicles. Can we send our bills for alcohol related fuel system repairs to you for reimbursement? I had a few here that would be nice to get paid for. Some people want to believe in "patriotic" fuel independence so badly they will believe anything they are told even if it is contrary to the laws of physics, or supply and demand.
I would LOVE to see alcohol or biodiesel produced from biomass or waste like wood chips, brush, agro waste, lawn waste, turkey etc offal, or trash dumps.
It is not I that have been LIED to...
Hotshot
Joined: Feb 2004
Posts: 11,697
Likes: 3
From: Marengo, Iowa
those motors are in contrast to diesel motors, which are typically 40% efficient, so the ethanol comes from behind on that. As I said on the other thrread, I can't see ethanol taking the place of diesel or biodiesel, but potentially replacing gasoline, at least reduce the amount needed.
Posting Legend
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 30,255
Likes: 37
Btw, it does not matter what units are used to measure energy, whether it be BTU's, Kilowatt Hours, or Joules, energy = energy.
1 BTU = 0.0002930711 Kilowatt Hours = 1055.05585262 Joules
You can do energy and other conversions here:
http://www.unitsconverter.net/
Fuel energy equivalences can be found here:
http://www.shec-labs.com/calc/fuel_e...quivalence.php
1 gal Ethanol = 78790 BTU = 23.091 Kilowatt Hours
1 gal E85 = 85765 BTU = 25.135 Kilowatt Hours (rounded, not on list)
EDIT- 1 gal E10 = 120639 BTU = 35.356 Kilowatt Hours (rounded, not on list)
1 gal Gasoline = 125289 BTU = 36.7185 Kilowatt Hours
1 gal Biodiesel = 127728 BTU = 37.4335 Kilowatt Hours
1 gal Diesel = 138205 BTU = 40.5039 Kilowatt Hours
Due to irregularities in energy density in fuels from various suppliers, the conversion calculations are approximate.
It gets real fun at that fuel converter because you can figure the energy in electron volts if you want to. Energy can be expressed in many units.
1 BTU = 0.0002930711 Kilowatt Hours = 1055.05585262 Joules
You can do energy and other conversions here:
http://www.unitsconverter.net/
Fuel energy equivalences can be found here:
http://www.shec-labs.com/calc/fuel_e...quivalence.php
1 gal Ethanol = 78790 BTU = 23.091 Kilowatt Hours
1 gal E85 = 85765 BTU = 25.135 Kilowatt Hours (rounded, not on list)
EDIT- 1 gal E10 = 120639 BTU = 35.356 Kilowatt Hours (rounded, not on list)
1 gal Gasoline = 125289 BTU = 36.7185 Kilowatt Hours
1 gal Biodiesel = 127728 BTU = 37.4335 Kilowatt Hours
1 gal Diesel = 138205 BTU = 40.5039 Kilowatt Hours
Due to irregularities in energy density in fuels from various suppliers, the conversion calculations are approximate.
It gets real fun at that fuel converter because you can figure the energy in electron volts if you want to. Energy can be expressed in many units.
Last edited by Torque1st; Apr 19, 2006 at 03:08 AM. Reason: add E10
Cargo Master
Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 2,931
Likes: 12
From: SW Michigan
lies and misunderstsandings, part 2
EricT1st, yes, you have been lied to, but the problem goes further than that. 
Don't feel bad, you have LOTS of company, most folks don't understand ethanol or why it is a good deal. Firstly, you have to give up the btus per gallon, electrons per pound or whatever other measurement you choose. Energy density is not the be all and end all way of measuring, it is only a start. As has been mentioned, things like candle wax have greater energy density than ethanol OR gasoline, but since they wouldn't work in an ICE, it just doesn't matter. Because ethanol burns a greater thermal efficiency than gasoline, ethanol wins. The differance in TE is big enough to more than make up for ethanols lower energy density ( 32K vs 30K useable work per gallon ). The scandia engine in the other article was a diesel that was modified for exceptionally low emissions. I amtalking about gasoline vs ethanol. This comparison has been tested and tested and tested to death. Ethanol wins every single time. It always has. Yes, you CAN get more energy out than you put in...think of nuclear power...a little energy in and just a bit of fissable matter, and you gets LOTS of energy out. But we ain't talkin' nukes here, so where does ethanol's claimed extra energy come from ? It comes from the sun. If you carefully read through many of the ethanol critic's numbers, they are using an input to their nmumbers to show how much sunlight gets absorbed by the corn plants as they grow. Now it is true that the plants recieve this energy and that there is a 'loss' in total, from what goes in to what comes out. But since our benevolent Creator supplies the sunshine whether the farmers use it or not, and we don't have to pay for it.....why is that included as 'energy input' ? If we apply the same formulae to gasoline as the ethanol detractors use, gasoline shows an 85% or greater loss. I find it extremely interesting that ethanols two biggest detractors, Dave Pimental and Tad Patzek, work for, guess who, BIG OIL! Scientists or researchers they ain't. Now to the nonsense- what is this about people being killed or maimed ? What has ethanol use or not in older vehicles got to do with that ?! I don't understand where you are going with that one, please explain. And damage to vehicles or their parts from ethanol ? Again, please explain, I don't see this happening, haven't heard of it anywhere, EVER, don't even think it is physically possible. But I am willing to listen to what ever information you might have, I'm all ears. DinosaurFan, @ work on lunch.
Don't feel bad, you have LOTS of company, most folks don't understand ethanol or why it is a good deal. Firstly, you have to give up the btus per gallon, electrons per pound or whatever other measurement you choose. Energy density is not the be all and end all way of measuring, it is only a start. As has been mentioned, things like candle wax have greater energy density than ethanol OR gasoline, but since they wouldn't work in an ICE, it just doesn't matter. Because ethanol burns a greater thermal efficiency than gasoline, ethanol wins. The differance in TE is big enough to more than make up for ethanols lower energy density ( 32K vs 30K useable work per gallon ). The scandia engine in the other article was a diesel that was modified for exceptionally low emissions. I amtalking about gasoline vs ethanol. This comparison has been tested and tested and tested to death. Ethanol wins every single time. It always has. Yes, you CAN get more energy out than you put in...think of nuclear power...a little energy in and just a bit of fissable matter, and you gets LOTS of energy out. But we ain't talkin' nukes here, so where does ethanol's claimed extra energy come from ? It comes from the sun. If you carefully read through many of the ethanol critic's numbers, they are using an input to their nmumbers to show how much sunlight gets absorbed by the corn plants as they grow. Now it is true that the plants recieve this energy and that there is a 'loss' in total, from what goes in to what comes out. But since our benevolent Creator supplies the sunshine whether the farmers use it or not, and we don't have to pay for it.....why is that included as 'energy input' ? If we apply the same formulae to gasoline as the ethanol detractors use, gasoline shows an 85% or greater loss. I find it extremely interesting that ethanols two biggest detractors, Dave Pimental and Tad Patzek, work for, guess who, BIG OIL! Scientists or researchers they ain't. Now to the nonsense- what is this about people being killed or maimed ? What has ethanol use or not in older vehicles got to do with that ?! I don't understand where you are going with that one, please explain. And damage to vehicles or their parts from ethanol ? Again, please explain, I don't see this happening, haven't heard of it anywhere, EVER, don't even think it is physically possible. But I am willing to listen to what ever information you might have, I'm all ears. DinosaurFan, @ work on lunch.
Posting Legend
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 30,255
Likes: 37
DINO- WOW! PLEASE get some help! You seem to be really "out there". You have too many misconceptions and are to paranoid for me to deal with here. Maybe talking to a counselor about your paranoia and odd conspiracy theories would help. There are mental health clinics in most major cities that can guide you to some local help, please get some help and visit them before you start using foil in your hat etc... Then I would suggest going back to school and getting a thorough understanding of thermodynamics, physics, and basic science for a start towards rehab. Please get some help before it gets worse.
Lead Driver
Joined: Nov 2002
Posts: 9,557
Likes: 44
From: Concord, NC
I think that was out of line. Instead of refuting what he said, you just talk about his character and how he's "out there" and needs rehab. How about an explanation based on your thermodynamic, physics, and basic science? I'm not saying anyone is right or wrong, I just want to hear people's arguments one way or the other without name calling and other b.s.
Great job of leading by example Mr. Moderator.
Great job of leading by example Mr. Moderator.
Tuned
Joined: Mar 2005
Posts: 335
Likes: 6
From: Ames, Iowa
I was going to comment about the indepth expertise of a few of the people on this site. Your knowledge of the inner workings of fuel and the energy content is beyond my abilities.
I would guess my people skills are a bit better....
I would guess my people skills are a bit better....