I once read that, well to wheel, gasoline is also energy negative. In other words, the ammount of energy that you get out of the refined gasoline is less than all the energy that went into pumping, refining and transporting it. I don't remember where I read this, but I will try to find the source.

Also, while it is true that you get less mileage with ethanol, this is not anything of consequence. Ethanol has less energy content per gallon that gasoline, in the same way that gasoline has less energy content per gallon than diesel. I believe that premium gasoline also has a lower energy content than regular gasoline and thus, assuming that the engine can run on both, a car will get better mileage on regular than premium. That being said, it may be possible to get higher efficiency (energy out / energy content of the fuel, not necessarily mpg) from premium due to the fact that an engine designed to run on premium can run at higher combustion pressures, and thus higher temperature, which allows a more efficient conversion from heat energy to mechanical energy.

 

Please do so.

 

The thing that gets me in the whole argument is that we are just supposed to accept that oil is the most efficient fuel out there. It is becoming increaseingly more difficult to pull oil out of the ground (partly due to our idiot government). This is NEVER factored into the equation.

Any fuel used in the creation of ethanol is factored in, however, I never see or hear the same analysis of oil.

It is not a die hard solution, but it sure helps. I run E85 every day, and get better mileage than my Dad's D1500 with a similar sized engine does on regular gas.

I like the earlier post that said, this should be ranked with Politics and religion. It's easier to convince most of you to belive in Jesus than it is ethanol, however.

 

It seems that Oil is cheaper compared to ethanol on a per mile basis based on EPA.gov cost to go 25 miles. The numbers on this Minnesota website: http://www.mda.state.mn.us/renewable/renewablefuels/balance.htm
indicate a major (.75) difference in energy balance.

Wikipedia uses a positive but coherent description of Ethanol's 1.24 energy balance. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol...energy_balance
Cane Ethanol energy balance: 8
Cellulosic Ethanol balance: 2
Compared to Corn Ethanol's measily 1.24!?

This guy here:
http://i-r-squared.blogspot.com/2006/04/energy-balance-for-ethanol-better-than.html
Claims a 500% energy balance for Crude Oil. Sounds at least competitive with Cane Ethanol now.

And here is a study of the thermodynamics.
http://petroleum.berkeley.edu/papers/patzek/CRPS416-Patzek-Web.pdf
Page 95 is the results: 9.21 GL GE/yr produced from 10.01 GL GE/yr, so is that 92% of energy balance?
But after reading all of that "scathing" material. I could care less about the energy efficiency. I was thinking of direct energy conversions here.

IMHO:
A more accurate description of an economic fuel is how much per mile it costs compared to other fuels.

A more accuracte description of a renewable energy source is whether it's production can be constantly renewed over an indefinate period of time.

The truth about ethanol? Corn ethanol is half as efficient as Cane Ethanol or it costs twice as much to produce. Meaning Brazil can get by with paying $30 per displace barrel of oil(meaning ethanol) while it takes $60 to displace the same amount with corn.

The truth about Gasoline is; it stinks, it's dirty, it contains water, but as a commodity it can be cheaper to keep it as a primary vehicular fuel source then to switch to something else.

Lately the wonders of diesel engines struck me. Especially considering biodiesel can be made from processing low grade kitchen cooking oil. Bought in bulk it can cost around $3 a gallon but with diesel's inherent mpg efficiency it works out. The biggest problem is all the good diesels are in Europe and veggie conversions have big price tags like EV, Ethanol, and Hydrogen conversions. Back to square one, again.

 

No one said that you are suppose to blindly accept that oil is the most efficient fuel out there. What is being debated is that oil happens to be more efficient than ethanol. It's more efficient per gallon; more efficient for the environment; it doesn't require over use of our land; and it's most definitely cheaper. It's cheaper in it's own right, plus when you add in the government subsidies for ethanol, which equates to higher taxes, and the increase price of food because of growing ethanol, oil is a better fuel.

Now, does that mean that oil is the most efficient fuel out there? No, on the contrary. The most efficient means of energy for a vehicle is electricity and not the combustion engine. Now, how you produce that electricity is where people will debate. An electric car can be built cheaper and last longer than a combustion engine. Even if that car was to cost more, which it wouldn't if it was mass produced, it would pay back the initial extra investment in fuel costs, repairs, and recurring upkeep. But because this is an automotive forum, we tend to concentrate on fuel for cars. If we just stopped using fossil fuels for producing electricity and our factories; i.e. use solar, wind, hydro, nuclear, etc... instead, then that alone would take care of more than 50% of our fossil fuel usage and global polutants and affects.

The main problem however is similar to people and their PC's. There is already much better, faster, more efficient, etc... computer technology out there. Unfortunately, most people don't like change and they get pissed when something they have becomes obsolete. So instead of marketing this better technology, they gradually add technologies to the existing products to allow them to be "Backward Compatible". This way you can continue to use your pc a couple of years down the road. This is why IP6 has been in the process for a number of years to replace IP4; (The standard networking scheme). IP6 is proven better, but unfortunately it is totally incompatible with IP4. So, how do you use it without asking people to abandon their existing hardware and software.

Vehicles are no different. The way they do it so it doesn't screw up the economy, stocks, customer satisfaction, etc... is to gradually move people towards it. That's why they have hybrids. Eventually, more and more cars will be hybrids and then "All Electric" cars will be introduced in mass market.

The most efficient form of energy on the planet is solar. It can be directly used as energy. That is why ethanol is not very efficient. It requires solar to make corn or whatever grow. Then it takes fossil fuels to harvest this crop. Then it takes fossil fuels and other forms of energy to refine the crops into ethanol. Then it take more to ship the ethanol around the country. (It CAN'T be piped through the same pipeline that moves oil and gas). When you take into account all these factors, ethanol is not efficient. Then if you take out the subsidies, you find that ethanol is even more expensive than gasoline in most cases. Now, should they build a car that is 100% engineered for ethanol, then they could make one that is more efficent to operate than gasoline. Unfortunately, even if this was done, we don't have enough land mass in the ENTIRE United States of America to produce the amount of crops required to satisfy our fuel needs. That's assuming everyone was willing to buy a new ethanol only vehicle.

They've been trying to get ethanol into mass production for more than 30 years. Even Henry Ford and others who first invented automobiles used grain alcohol as fuel. Even they realized it wasn't as efficient as they needed. The ONLY reason ethanol is still being pursued is for political reasons. It makes the politicians appear to voters as though they care, and it gets vote among the farming states. Even though most of the farms are corporate farms and are not individual private farmers.

So, if you want to believe that ethanol is some wonderful fuel that we should embrace, then have at it. The truth is; 1st, we should be concentrating on our fossil fuel use in the production of electricity and in our large industrial uses. If we removed it out of those areas, we reduce our usage by half. 2nd; If we spent all the money being used to lobby politicians for and against ethanol, oil, etc... and instead invested that through our universities to promote research and developement of true alternative forms of energy that efficiently produced electricity, we would solve our fossil fuel dependancy and any debatably environmental contributions made by the use of fossil fuels.

 

Christcorp sez:"That is why ethanol is not very efficient. It requires solar to make corn or whatever grow. Then it takes fossil fuels to harvest this crop. Then it takes fossil fuels and other forms of energy to refine the crops into ethanol. Then it take more to ship the ethanol around the country. (It CAN'T be piped through the same pipeline that moves oil and gas)."

That's why ethanol plants are regional-BECAUSE of the distribution problems. And alot of the ethanol produced stays within the region it's produced in. In early gas/diesel production, we didn't have pipelines either. We only have a handful of refineries in this country, that's why we have a pipeline system, and when we get a major storm or one of them shuts down for maintenance, the price of fuel skyrockets, if an ethanol plant has a problem, it only hurts a small region temorarily. No one wants to build a new oil refinery due to EPA standards ect..., but then everybody gets pissed off when a disaster hits and gas a diesel, heating oil ect... goes up. If regional ethanol plants can relieve some of this-then so be it. Also oil isn't coverted by the REFINING GENIE-it takes energy-lots of it to crack the molecules down into the low sulpher fuels we use today. Like I have said, Ethanol may not be the total answer, but right now it helps.

 

CCMike, I can't agree with some of your basic presumptions. Ethanol isn't less efficient, even per gallon, than gasoline. It makes a HUGE differance which engine you do your testing in. Are we going use a low compression engine, which gasoline demands, or are we going use a higher compression engine which increases efficiency, but that ethanol can do very well.
It would seem that oil production COULD be kinder to the enviroment, but it usually is not. I wish that oil producers were more closely held to account for the messes they frequently make.
Oil isn't cheaper, but the myth seems to die awfully hard. In October of '07, the latest numbers I recall, gasoline on the wholesale rack cost 2.04 per gallon, and ethanol cost 1.54 per gallon, and that is withouts ethanol's 51 cent per gallon tax credit. It sure looks like ethanol is cheaper to me. Isn't oil production exceptionally heavily subsidized as well ? How many tax dollars go for that ?
Why can't oil go down the pipelines ? Is there some tech problem ( No ) or is it just that the pipelines are owned by a consortium of oil companies and they won't allow it to go through ? That is the case in my State, Michigan.
Ethanol doesn't have a bad effect on the price or availability of food. The stuff we feed to farm animals is actually the hi protein leftover stuff the distillery doesn't want for corn squeezins'. The 'food or fuel' arguement is just so much oil industry BS. DinosaurFan, son's computer

 

Here is a Pivot table of the mileage I get in my 2008 Silverado FFV truck that I drive at work. This table is gas mileage from April of 2007 to December of 2007.


Average of Miles/Gallon
Fuel AVE MPG
87 15.3
91 13.7
E10 15.1
E85 12.9
AVE 13.5

Divide 12.9(E85) by 15.3 (87) and you get a difference of 16%. There is a 15% difference with E10. Now, the price break is 30-50 cents per gallong here in Central Iowa. At 30 cents, it is a break even situation.

I drive E85 as long as I am in the area, and I will search out a pump when I can. 87 or E10 are generally run on trips out of the area, which is about 30% of my driving.

Here is the chart from which I derived my Pivot:

Fuel Miles gallons Price Miles/Gallon Cost/Mile
E85 186.6 14.1 2.38 13.2 0.18
E85 126.4 10.1 2.38 12.5 0.19 High 17.6
E85 201.2 15.5 2.38 13.0 0.18 Low 9.6
E85 158.1 12.9 2.44 12.3 0.20
E85 199.6 16.9 2.47 11.8 0.21
E85 91.2 6.95 2.47 13.1 0.19
E85 69.7 5.9 2.59 11.8 0.22
E85 212.9 17.3 2.59 12.3 0.21
E85 285.6 21.6 2.59 13.2 0.20
E85 195.7 14.6 2.59 13.4 0.19
E85 98.1 8.6 2.59 11.4 0.23
E85 121.8 10.5 2.59 11.6 0.22
E85 279.4 21.4 2.79 13.1 0.21
E85 126.7 9.4 2.79 13.5 0.21
E85 184.5 14.8 2.69 12.5 0.22
E10 181.3 10.7 3.09 16.9 0.18
E10 267.5 17.5 2.84 15.3 0.19
E85 242.2 17.9 2.53 13.5 0.19
E85 116.2 7.7 2.53 15.1 0.17
E85 180.9 14.6 2.56 12.4 0.21
E85 309.6 19.8 2.79 15.6 0.18
E10 289.4 22.1 2.95 13.1 0.23
87 236.4 14.9 3.22 15.9 0.20
E10 295.2 16.8 2.97 17.6 0.17
E85 191.1 13.6 2.72 14.1 0.19
87 348.9 24.3 3.09 14.4 0.22
E85 103.3 10.5 3.09 9.8 0.31
E85 186 14.5 2.94 12.8 0.23
E85 189.5 15.6 2.94 12.1 0.24
E85 156.6 11.2 2.94 14.0 0.21
E85 58.7 4.9 3.12 12.0 0.26
E85 196.2 18.05 2.99 10.9 0.28
E85 275.7 22.2 2.99 12.4 0.24
E10 237.6 16.4 2.81 14.5 0.19
E10 167.7 13.1 2.79 12.8 0.22
E85 133.6 11.05 2.49 12.1 0.21
E85 175.8 13.48 2.49 13.0 0.19
E85 192.8 14.58 2.46 13.2 0.19
E85 178.9 13.33 2.61 13.4 0.19
E85 238.2 17.6 2.59 13.5 0.19
E85 61.3 4.65 2.59 13.2 0.20
E85 177.1 14.9 2.59 11.9 0.22
E85 257.2 18.78 2.39 13.7 0.17
E85 211.8 17.9 2.55 11.2 0.23
E85 238.3 21.2 2.59 11.2 0.23
E85 290.2 22.1 2.49 13.1 0.19
E10 210.5 13.7 2.84 15.4 0.18
E10 218 13.4 2.83 16.3 0.17
E10 239.9 14.9 2.74 16.1 0.17
E10 257 17.1 2.30 15.0 0.15
E85 107.4 7.1 2.93 15.1 0.19
E10 155.5 9.95 2.3 15.6 0.15
E85 264.2 18.8 2.38 14.1 0.17
E10 292.9 17.8 2.71 16.5 0.16
E85 284.6 18.2 2.35 15.6 0.15
E85 218.5 17.4 2.83 12.6 0.23
E85 170.3 12.8 2.24 13.3 0.17
E85 138.9 10.8 2.11 12.9 0.16
E85 227.1 15.1 2.07 15.0 0.14
E10 277.3 20.6 2.54 13.5 0.19
E85 190.4 15.4 2.21 12.4 0.18
E85 210.8 17.4 2.17 12.1 0.18
E85 297.8 23 2.17 12.9 0.17
E85 223.7 15.1 2.54 14.8 0.17
E85 210.8 13.1 2.25 16.1 0.14
E85 136.8 11.4 2.25 12.0 0.19
E85 227.3 18.7 2.25 12.2 0.19
E85 200.5 16.1 1.99 12.5 0.16
E85 154.7 12.1 12.8 0.00
E10 149.7 9.4 2.85 15.9 0.18
E85 190.6 13.6 2.19 14.0 0.16
E10 189 12.3 2.95 15.4 0.19
120.5 8.6 14.0 0.00
121.7 10.1 12.0 0.00
E10 280.2 17 2.79 16.5 0.17
E10 108.8 6.9 2.81 15.8 0.18
87 352.2 22.4 2.89 15.7 0.18
E10 72.3 7.5 2.78 9.6 0.29
E85 173.8 15.7 2.25 11.1 0.20
E85 199.8 18 2.44 11.1 0.22
E85 156.2 12.8 2.62 12.2 0.21
E85 199.7 16.2 2.62 12.3 0.21
E85 268.1 22.4 1.99 12.0 0.17
91 83.6 6.1 3.31 13.7 0.24

Average: 13.4 0.2

 

Okay... next question...

Those here promoting ethanol... do you have a financial stake in its production? In other words, are you working for a producer, are you a producer, do you grow the crops that produce it, do you get government subsidies, etc?

 

I am just finishing up the installation of a new ethanol plant. If not for the government subsidies, we would not be building it. Corn based fermentation of ethanol is in no way a renewable fuel.

 

I have a stake in ethanol. That is, I want to impoverish the oil producers that we currently buy oil from because they have made themselves our ememies. I also want to use a renewable resource rather than a finite one. I want to dramatically improve our trade imbalance. I want to provide Americans with jobs and create a farming boom in the USA. That's my stake.

 

I breed corn for it.

 

That's not what I'm talking about. I'm trying to show that there is some apparent financial bias of some individuals involved -- which is quite ironic when one side says the article is biased because its ties to big oil yet that side has ties to ethanol.

I fully agree with many that we need to seek alternatives to oil. But I have serious doubts ethanol is the way... too many indications that scientifically its a waste, and a huge government mid-west vote buying scheme. If we really wanted to use alcohol to supplement oil ethanol is not the way to go... but its the one way which buys a lot of votes.

 

Ken, I have no ties to any part of the ethanol industry. I started looking at ethanol as an engine fuel during and shortly after high school. Sunoco 260 was getting exspensive or impossible to find. Upon learning that ethanol was what Mr Ford had in mind for his creations all along, and learning about the octane value of ethanol, it seemed the obvious choice. If you do a little digging, you may be able to find Scientic American's articles from the early 1920s that claim the ethanol is better than gasoline. Ethanol really is better, and can be the answer. But the oil industry has enormous profits at stake and the will lie, cheat, steal and even murder to protect them. I would expect to hear all sorts of wild dis-information from the oil guys, they are absolutely panicked about the idea that the public might find out there are alternatives to their product. DinosaurFan, on son's 'puter

 

You may have no tie to the ethanol industry, but interestingly enough, with a few exceptions, geographic location seem to be a very good predictor of whether someone is for, or against ethanol.