Quote:
Originally Posted by solarguy
troy
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If we did what you say, Ethanol could fuel a large part of our vehicles. Not like it does now.
The Dept of Ag people are the most "unbiased" source you're going to find. Which isn't much considering the political climate, there aren't really many unbiased sources. But you have to remember the Dept of Ag isn't CARB or ADM. They're don't have any stake in Ethanol production they just measure input-output and go from there. The 1.5 figure is state-of-the-art, 1.3 is average from what I've found, while .89 is Gasoline energy input-output. If there was a better way to produce Ethanol the Dept of Ag would probably be promoting it don't you think? Not unless there is some tie to ADM that can be found.
Flexfuels are greenwashed. Calculating MPGe with gasoline when you're also burning ethanol but usually burning regular gasoline is a terrible way to promote something. They are also EXACTLY as efficient at burning Ethanol as a Regular Gasoline car. The only way the could get any better was lean burn, which isn't likely since Gasoline is more susceptible to detonation and limited on load running lean burn.
Despite what you say Ethanol has already been a major factor in fuel usage even with the little percentage they're mixing. Have you noticed that the price of fuel is still comparatively low? For the same amount of skepticism perhaps you should work on your own diesel fuel efficiency thread. Afterall Diesel's fuel efficiency is from running lean at part throttle, low rpm events. Ethanol can perform the same level of lean burn at part throttle to get similar thermodynamic efficiency. The only disadvantage ethanol has is the lower energy content per gallon. It beats out Gasoline and the requirements can be loosened with Ethanol vs Diesel on engine size. Just like a Diesel, Ethanol can run a turbo for added power even on a production car. The production of Ethanol from Corn hasn't peaked either due to the demand being so low. Diesel production peaked here in the 80's.
After Ethanol production fulfills enough to meet the 10% requirement of Ethanol in Gasoline there isn't much demand to speak of between Flexfuels and Car modders running E85 for Ethanol to really go anywhere.