Has the Ethanol Threat Manifested In the US? 432
Five years ago today, we mentioned here what was characterized as "The Great Ethanol Scam." According to the central story in that post, the ethanol in gasoline was (or would be) "destroying engines in large numbers," and the only real winners with a rise in the use of ethanol as a gasoline supplement would be auto mechanics. An increasing number of cars are officially cleared for use with E15 (15 percent ethanol), and a growing number of E85 vehicles are in the wild now, too, though apparently many of their owners don't realize that their cars can burn a mixture that's mostly ethanol. When I can, I fill my car with no-ethanol gas, but that's not very easy to find (farmer's co-ops are one handy source), so most of my driving over the past decade has been with E10 fuel. I seem to get better mileage with all-gas, but the circumstances haven't been controlled enough to make a good comparison. What has your experience been? Have you experienced ethanol-related car problems, or were the predictions overblown?
I dont know about cars... (Score:2, Informative)
but with motorcycles, ethanol has continually given Carbs troubles by promoting gas that gets all sorts of bacteria growing in it within a week due to the ethanol being a great thriving place for it.
I hate ethanol and it ruins motorcycles really quickly :(
A lose/lose/lose situation (Score:5, Informative)
Ethanol is a lose/lose/lose situation all the way around here in the US:
1: The corn used to make ethanol causes higher fuel prices, either directly or indirectly because feed for livestock is up in price, so ethanol takes food out of people's mouths.
2: E-15 voids car warranties, and ECMs can tell if E-15 is put in and throw a code that can't be cleared by a ScanGauge, but only by a dealer.
3: Gasoline has a very shitty shelf life. I used to be able to store gasoline for a lawn mower for 1-2 years. Now, even with fuel preservative, even six months may be pushing it, and can clog up the carb or cause a bad reaction.
4: As an RV-er, the #1 cause of generator malfunctions is bad gas. This was not an issue 1-2 decades ago, but when looking at a used motorhome, the first thing you have to do is rebuild/replace the carb unless the previous owner either ran the generator every so often, or fogged it, with OnaGard fogging spray.
Then there is the E85 scam. It has significantly less MPG than regular gas... but the cost difference makes it not worth getting. The only advantage it gives is that with a Flex-Fuel engine that can adjust fuel/air ratios, it burns hotter so you get 5-10 more horsepower.
If the US had plants like Brazil did that were by products of growing, I'd champion ethanol, but as it stands right now, people are starving due to E-10, so anyone who has a shred of ethics can't champion this.
Avoid ethanol at all costs (Score:0, Informative)
I have done numerous calculations in different vehicles for fuel economy using ethanol blends and discovered that my fuel economy is always worse than it is with pure gasoline. Makes sense because the energy content of methanol is much lower than gasoline.
Re:Comment from a Chemist (Score:0, Informative)
But this doesn't really reduce the carbon footprint since the farmers burn plenty of fossil fuels to produce the crops to make the ethanol. Contemporary factory farming is all about petroleum, from fertilizer to tractor diesel you can't claim the moral high ground.
Ask Slashdot? (Score:5, Informative)
Once again you have posted an "Ask Slashdot" article in a different section than where it belongs. Some of us regulate what articles we see by section and would appreciate it if you would at least try to get it right.
Thanks.
Fnord666
Re:Get 10% less fuel economy with E10... (Score:5, Informative)
I firmly believe that E10 is a total scam. Anecdotally, doing pure highway driving, I get 8-10% less fuel economy with E10 than E0 (pure gasoline), so what's the point?
Well, if you actually paid attention to the science, you'd realize that the point was to alter the tailpipe emissions from your engine, to the point where you driving your car, even if you use more gas in the end, will produce less pollution.
Seriously, you could look this up in the law they passed. The math is right there. So is the research. Believe it or not, they did look at alternatives. But ethanol worked out.
This has been consistently the case with the last 3 cars I've owned (V8 RWD, turbo I4 AWD, regular I4 FWD). Losing 10% fuel economy for the privilege (more accurately, the forced subsidy of corn growers in many states) of driving E10 makes no sense to me. Just water down my gasoline by 10%--same effect but water is cheaper than ethanol...
Water wouldn't have the same effects that ethanol does. In fact, it'd reduce your mpg even more than ethanol, without having the beneficial effects.
So no, no, thank you.
Re:A brazilian point of view (Score:5, Informative)
is the US climate and land conducive to growing sugar cane?
Mostly it is not, unless you somehow genetically engineer sugar cane for different climates (some groups are working on it). The reason our climate and land are so conductive to growing sugar cane gives Brazil an edge, and is perhaps the reason it is more successful than a few other countries that also have a huge alternative fuel program.
Corn based ethanol has less energy potential and is much more expensive. However, it is the only viable option available for the US right now. There are several studies involving kelp, sugar beat and castor beans that might benefit the US. Castor beans has a lot of potential. But it is much easier to pass laws and incentives for corn related programs in the US, for obvious reasons.
Re:ok if your car is new (Score:5, Informative)
2012 honda insight runs the e10 fine but gets better mileage using 0% ethanol gas from the local marina, ive had to rebuild the fuel system on my 65 datsun van because of the ethanol eating the hoses.
That is why as I restore my 1972 Charger, she is getting ethanol compatible gaskets and lines. Going with a six-pack traditional carb setup too because MPFI additional expense on a small block is just not justified.
From the post above:
The energy density of gasoline is higher than with ethanol, so the more ethanol you add the more you "dilute" the energy contained in a particular volume. One thing the ethanol seems pretty good for is cleaning out your fuel system. If you are in an area where they seasonally increase the ethanol you might want to change that fuel filter a tank or two after the swap. Also, a fuel drying additive is a good idea if you have any ethanol, because that stuff collects water like mad. Keeping the water in solution reduces fuel tank corrosion.
Re:ok if your car is new (Score:2, Informative)
Sadly the stats don't agree with your anecdotal story.
Canada has required a minimum of 5% ethanol in gas since 1999. Typically you'll see 15% ethanol. The percentage of original vehicles that have survived long term has gone up. Especially on the 12 years and up vehicles which the survival rate has gone up as much as 14%. http://www.fleetbusiness.com/p... [fleetbusiness.com] see page 7.
Re:A lose/lose/lose situation (Score:2, Informative)
The person you're responding too is one of those people who knows a little about engines, but not enough to know what they are doing ... just enough to sound like it.
He thinks he knows all about it but then makes silly statements where he's confusing two different things and doesn't even realize that cause A does not result in effect B.
Re:Compromise is implied by multipurpose (Score:3, Informative)
What are you talking about? It's been decades since you have had to redesign an engine for natural gas (and back then "redesign" meant replacing the valve seats). In fact, it's simple enough nowadays, the typical way to do it is to take a gasoline car, add the appropriate injectors to the manifold for natural gas, add a controller for said injectors (and possibly a spark controller as well), add tanks, then connect it all up. This permits the car to start on gasoline (much easier for those cold winter days) and once the engine is warmed up (a couple of minutes later) the controller switches to natural gas at some point when the engine is at ~2000 RPM. The driver doesn't even notice the change.
There's no compromise other than the additional weight of the new system and fuel, but frankly, there's no way around that other than being able to get the manufacturers to integrate natural gas fuel patterns into their controllers, and the controllers are only perhaps 0.1% of the system's overall weight anyways.
Go speak with a propane (yes, it is a little different, but still, not different enough to matter) or natural gas conversions place and verify that I'm correct.
Re:ok if your car is new (Score:5, Informative)
Also, a fuel drying additive is a good idea if you have any ethanol, because that stuff collects water like mad.
You do know what fuel-drying solutions are made of, right???
Keeping the water in solution reduces fuel tank corrosion.
Which is exactly what ethanol does...
Re:A brazilian point of view (Score:5, Informative)
Ethanol as a fuel is just a different fuel. It has slightly different characteristics and requirements than gasoline. But these can mostly be designed around. Using ethanol fuel is a technical problem, one which can mostly if not entirely be engineered around.
Brazil makes its ethanol from sugar cane, which is actually just about the best crop you can use for making ethanol. It grows fast and has high sugar content, which can easily be converted into ethanol. Unfortunately, sugar cane is rather picky about where it grows, and only a few tropical and semi-tropical environments support it.
The U.S. makes most of its ethanol from corn. IIRC, corn is down around #12 for best crop to use to make ethanol, so low that many question if its even cost-effective (costs more to make than you can sell the ethanol for) or carbon-effective (production uses more energy than the ethanol contains). Why does the U.S. use such a poor crop for ethanol production? Because during the Great Depression, the U.S. suffered food shortages. In response, the U.S. began subsidizing food production to insure there's always an oversupply (this is why we pay farmers not to grow crops - so their fields are available for immediate use should a disaster like the Dust Bowl befall a signification fraction of our arable land). Most of those food subsides are for corn, which means we always have an oversupply of corn. Most of it gets used as feed for cattle. Some of it gets shipped overseas as foreign aid. And some clever chemists figured out a way to convert it into high fructose corn syrup as a substitute for sucrose.
Then during the Arab Oil Embargo of the 1970s, someone got the bright idea of turning that excess corn into ethanol. It's a great idea because otherwise that corn would've rotted in grain silos, feeding rats and mice. You've already paid for its production so it's a sunk cost - the fact that corn isn't an ideal ethanol crop doesn't matter because by this point it's basically free. You're going to lose the money you spent growing the corn anyway, so might as well put it to good use. So in the context of things to do with excess corn, converting it to ethanol is a great idea.
Unfortunately, the Corn lobby then got its hands on it. Now we're growing corn for the sole purpose of converting it into ethanol. The economics which make corn ethanol work for excess corn completely break down when you're growing corn just to convert it into ethanol. Now the cost to grow the corn is no longer a sunk cost; it's a real cost which needs to be added into the price of the ethanol. This is the scam. Ethanol as a fuel is fine. Corn ethanol is a scam. Eliminate the corn ethanol subsidies and the corn ethanol industry implodes because it's uneconomical and uncompetitive with other crops. I hear sugar beets mentioned frequently as a better ethanol crop which will grow readily in the U.S. (they actually produce more sugar than sugar cane, just grow slower).
Re:ok if your car is new (Score:5, Informative)
The difference between propanol and ethanol is trivial in this context. Actually the shorter chain molecule is going to be a slightly better drying agent by mass.
Re:Comment from a Chemist (Score:4, Informative)
No, simply incomplete.
The question is whether it takes more fossil fuels to make the ethanol than are saved by using it.
And the answer is "yes".
For something like solar panels, you can argue that they break even after about 10 years and technology is improving. In the case of ethanol in fuel, it's a derp situation from the word "go".
Re:Comment from a Chemist (Score:4, Informative)
The purpose is to curry favor with corn farmers and related people and industries in key states for politicians.
Re:ethanol and rubber (Score:5, Informative)
Your rubber must be of a more polar nature, that is made to resist nonpolar gasoline, such as nitrile rubber, but that also means it's less resistant to polar solvents, like ethanol. Most rubbers are nonpolar, like the stuff on your tires, (unvulcanized) styrene butadiene, or epdm, or butyl rubber, they completely disintegrate in gasoline, but they would resist ethanol pretty well. There are of course rubbers that resist almost everything, such as teflon-type fluorinated rubbers, but now you're talking something like $15-20/lb of material compared to say $3/lb for nitrile rubber. I don't know what the actual pricing is these days, I used to know a decade and a half ago when gas prices were still near $1/gal, and correspondingly plastic and rubbers were cheaper. For conduits actually polypropylene/polyethylene should be ultra cheap and resist both gasoline and ethanol, as these crystalline plastics have no solvents whatsoever at room temperature, but they are not rubbery, not resilient, so we're really talking the seals and O-rings here, that should be small and possible to make from very high cost materials, like fluorinated rubbers.