it's funny to me, everyone complaining about the "subsidies" to ethonal and then saying that you don't hear big oil complaining thus it proves that ethanol isn't a threat. Where do you think that figure comes from and haven't you been paying attention? One of the complaints is that big oil gets a bunch of subsidies too in the forms of huge tax credits etc.
Do I think ethanol is teh answer? Not by a long shot, nor is biodiesel, electric cars, most definitely not hydrogen cars, etc. But I do believe all the above need to be a part of the solutions and not overlooked or shoved aside because you want to side with big oil, or you live in a state that isn't going to benefit from ethanol because you don't grow a product that can be turned into it.

 

That .51 ethanol subsidy is per gallon of PURE ethanol. Effectively it should reduce the market pricing of, say, $3 a gallon pure ethanol by 17%.

But http://www.ethanolrfa.org/industry/statistics/ has a good bit on Ethanol pricing. Just click Ethanol Prices.

 

I'm willing to bet a rather large sum of money that barring some major scientific breakthrough to come up with something entirely new, hydrogen will be the main fuel for new personal vehicles for a while in a few years.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/09/automobiles/autoreviews/09HONDA.html?_r=1&pagewanted=2&oref=slogin
One major roadblock is cost, and that should fall significantly over the next few years.

 

aurgathor actually the hydrogen vehicles are like was said in a thread I read about rail guns, it's a holy grail mainly because it's not obtainable and if you actually, honestly truly look at it you will find out how bad it really, really is. I was like you thinking it was the hot ticket but got severely schooled first off then did some real searching and started reading beyond the propaganda on it. turns out almost all hydrogen fuel cell vehicles require the use of platinum, and it seems that in order to replace just 50% of the cars JUST in California would require ALL of the worlds known platinum resources both already mined and known good mines in existence to date.
Next it seems the only way to economically produce hydrogen is to produce it from Natural gas, which the tree huggers have conveniently locked us out of as securily as anwar (the HUGE natural gas reservoir in Colorado was turned into a national park pushed by Gore back during the Clinton area and buried so no one would notice, seems this reserve was enough to provide us with the nations entire NG requirements for 100+ yrs but NOPE we can't drill it or use it) So basically we would have to import the natural gas, run it through a refinery, taking up much more of it's energy potential etc and keep giving money to big oil Turns out it's actually much more efficient to just build a NG power car, by a long shot. hydrogen refining is like many claim about ethanol it takes something like 50% more BTUs to pump, and refine it as it produces.

 

I paid nothing extra for the Flex Fuel capability. And, my fuel bill is break even.

 

Please provide some reference to that natural gas reserve since I only heard of big oil shale deposits there.

As for the hydrogen I'll answer that a little later.

 

Minor reference to it here
http://www.mnforsustain.org/natural_...uncan_1203.htm

Basically the references I found to it were when I got into this arguement before and it's found that the only real economically feasible way to produce hydrogen to make these vehicles work is from NG, which production of is declining, and which heads some high percentage of American homes, (I believe the number was somewhere around 80%) so this would put yet another use of NG against home heating and once again increase those cost. And the references are in many of the known NG reservoir are being declared off limits and that the working wells are declining rapidly forcing the US to increase the importation of even more NG (a lot of it from Canada but other places as well) Thus a switch to hydrogen vehicles would actually make us even MORE depend ent on foriegn sources than we are. but like hybrids the hydrogen cars are a feel good deal with actually detrimental affects but those that have them think are benifits.

So hammer away and give it your best shot cause until I actually hear something that shows or needs me to go any further I ain't gonna bother, the last time you or someone tried to show that hydrogen cars were feasible and a good idea they didn't come up with anything but the propoganda.

 

"With pipelines in all 50 states, gas now fuels more than one‑half of United States homes."

I hit that roadblock the other day while researching CNG conversions. Natural Gas prices jump in winter, along with other forms of heat. But what are average winter prices? Right now it's still half as much for a Gallon Gasoline Equivalent. The interesting point of CNG I found is you can have a home refill station not unlike Hydrogen but public/private stations are fewer than E85 stations.

I've actually understood corn is cheap and supply is high thanks to numerous subsidies that make it easier for corporate farmers to overproduce, sell their corn cheap, and still generate a profit. But I read that info mostly from 2000-2002 era farming. That's part of why I'm hoping to buy into ethanol fuels rather than stick with fossil fuels. Sure, I'm more of a small time farmer myself. Working to dehybridize my own corn supply over the last few years. But it's cheaper to rely on corporate corn production for ethanol to be economically acceptable and therefore mainstream. From researching ethanol in Brazilian gasoline and sugar cane they run close to 1:1 cost on Ethanol Vs Gasoline per mile. But sugar cane ethanol costs half as much as corn based ethanol. So until researchers can turn cellulosic ethanol commercial and therefore make corn competitive with Brazilian sugar cane we will have to rely on corn based ethanol for our ethanol fuel to continue the ethanol R/D movement. This may require further financial assistance and therefore government subsidies until a breakthrough happens. Hopefully this breakthrough doesn't involve the government and corn can continue to be plentiful and still become profitable. But unless something else happens I think we can rely on subsidy based corn ethanol as an alternative. Those who don't like it can still choose regular gas, which only contains minimal ethanol and that is used mostly for emissions. Or they can vote against it. We should keep ethanol as a valid and developing option.

Plus if we take all of the corn supply normally used for feeding squirrels and other small fury creatures we can use it as fuel instead of feeding those nasty pests. But that's just my personal wish. No doubt that supply is too short to be effective but I just wanted to add how I deteste the little vermin . Oh nevermind, forget it.

 

Hey guy's-been out of the loop for awhile with massive amounts of overtime in the past 3 months I barely have time to check e-mail, but I see Christcorp is still up to his anti-ethanol campaign. Awhile back, he stated that ethanol is driving up our food costs. The facts for this year are out-we had another record harvest, ethanol plants under construction have been halted, due to high corn prices and and ethanol glut in the market due to increased efficiency of existing plants, resulting in record low prices for e85. In Indiana it's going for $2.37 while gas is $3.07. Cattle aren't starving either because the local plants offer feedstocks (which are by-products of ethanol productions) at very low prices-beef is priced lower than last year. Other produce and food costs have been rising due to costs of fuels, and fertilizers which are largely made from fossil fuels. There are many farm journals and newscasts such as AGDAY produced in South Bend that report these things and I watch them every morning. The cost of steel for equipment is rising through the roof and $100.00 a barrel for crude oil isn't helping either, but ethanol surely isn't the main culprit for driving up food prices. Sure, it's not the complete answer for fuel independance, but until we find other technologies, it helps. I now have put 49,000 of my 79,000 miles on my converted F150 with E85 and the only problem I have found is below 15 degrees, it starts a little harder. So in the winter, I add another gallon or 2 of gas and it starts just fine. Still getting 16 mpg combined driving-not bad. Also, there have been major oil discoveries that have been reported that are here and Canada, but are hard to get to. Also our domestic crudes are "dirtier" and takes more to refine out sulphers ect... which also takes more energy. Also it has been stated that ethanol uses more energy to produce it than what it gives back, but things are getting more efficient. Just as we had radios and TVs that ran on vacuum tubes, now run on transistors and semiconductors which are many times more efficient, so will we find new technologies to streamline ethanol production, not to satisfy Greenpeace, Al Gore, and Richard Branson, but because it will be a bottom line motivator, and these companies will want to make a profit. And in the future, corn will be replaced by garbage, cellulose waste ect... which will reduce still the need for corn. Christcorp should understand that as a mechanic, I love the smell of diesel and gas-it's kinda like the Chanel #5 for us in the shop, and I would miss it, but I love ethanol too both as a fuel and a mixer for my favorite beverages, but EPA sez we gotta use it because MTBE causes cancer and has been banned. 10% ethanol will be mandated in most major cities and states this year. Sorry!

 

Interesting reading....sort of. Degenerating quickly into half-truths, assumptions, and falsehoods.......

Bought the wife a Dodge Grand Caravan a little over a month ago. We've run it for two weeks on both E10 and E85. Same drivers, same driving patterns, and same basic weather(its Illinois, weather changes by the minute here)

18.1 MPG on E10(the only non-e blended stuff here is the REALLY bad Casey's stuff)
17.7 MPG on E85.......
So where exactly is the 30% MPG we are supposed to lose????????

Gasoline pump price on the 9th ... $3.02 (A Murphy just opened, so Shell matched, it was $3.19 the day before)
E-85 pump price on the 9th ... $2.15

Illinois Farmers just reported another record yield on the harvest...
Beef prices are holding steady...
Milk is up about 15 cents a gallon....
Bread is up about 15 cents a loaf.....

So the basic jist is.....
Debate this as much as the 'oil staters' and the 'farm staters' want to. On the ground in a farm state, at the end of the day E85 has meant more dollars at the end of the week in my families budget....

 

Well said Whowey. As engine management systems become more refined, and better engines are developed specifically for flex fuel, mileage will be about the same. The only reason older engines see a big decrease in mileage is that they are tuned for gasoline with lower compression ratios, and PCM programming that didn't really work well-like the first generation 3.0 Taurus flex fuel. They started hard and got bad mileage on E85 and most of the time the MIL lite would come on with O2 sensor codes. Thanks to people like you who are documenting positive results, and ethanol plants being more efficient and new technology to use waste ect... to produce ethanol, E85 will one day be a big help in reducing our oil consumption.

 

Shadow & Who, thanks for your results. It is intensely frustrating that so many folks assume that just because Consumer Reports got poor fuel economy with E85 they will too. CR deliberately chose the worst possible vehicle to use for their test. GM doesn't seem to have the programming figured out for their flexfulers as well as Chrysler and Ford. Our own CCMike has done some very carefull and methodical tests of mileage using E10 v gasoline containing no ethanol, but did them in a toyota, I believe because his wife has one. So, his results, while very detailed, only apply to that particular model of toyota. It is further frustrating to see these 'tests' done on gasoline engines. What if an engine were tested on gasoline and then the pistons swapped out to increase compression substantially, and then tested on E85 ? Then it would be easy to make gasoline look bad. DinosaurFan, on his son's 'puter

 

I'm going to submit an idea to Mythbusters about the myth that ethanol is 30% less effective in a flex-fuel vehicle that is properly broken in. They debunked the myth that biodiesel sucks as a fuel too-they proved that even filtered waste frying oil got the same mileage as diesel. We shall see. I have my own stats from personal use and it isn't 30%, it's about half of that. But that is a properly converted vehicle and the computer has been specifically remapped for E85. In fact, Motorhaven-a supporter of FTE did it for me on a Diablo chip.

 

That would be interesting, if there wasn't already a half dozen incomplete/halfway/hocked up experiments already done on the subject.
I still haven't seen what an E100 vehicle or even E85 vehicle can do when properly built, designed, and tuned for ethanol fuels. I have read of several people custom tunning their vehicles for E85 instead of using premium, superior, and regular unleaded. A few guys at rangerpowersports did such a thing with positive results but the only FFV ranger was the FF 3slow. It's not like they did any MPG or efficiency tests either.

An ethanol injector/supercharger was conceived awhile back. It would actually improve MPG using ethanol injection. http://www.psfc.mit.edu/library1/catalog/reports/2000/06ja/06ja016/06ja016_full.pdf It's a step in the right direction. If these eventually end up in kits it could really change the opinion of a supercharger. SC already boost efficiency for a given engine size while boosting hp and torque, but with a minor loss in mpg comparable to the addition of 4 wheel drive onto a given vehicle when under limited boost. At least that was what people were claiming. Maybe someone with more indepth knowledge and experience could share with us what effect a SC has one engine's MPG? Because if SC could be used on tiny engines as they claim this could provide better results under (smaller than 2L, possibly as small as the 1L they used in Metros) pure ethanol engines to give out the same power rating as today's vehicles, this could really close the MPG gap. This just opens up a whole list of unknowns for me though.

Several preliminary studies have been done on the effects of using a supercharger to boost engine power without upgrading to a bigger engine block. If this takes hold we could see even more SC 4 cyclinders being used in place of 6's and therefore SC 6's replacing 8's. Or we could just see more SC 8's...