Fuel Economy, Hypermiling, EcoModding News and Forum - EcoModder.com - View Single Post - The Ethanol Scam: Are ethanol advocates giving slanted mpg numbers?

Allch Chcar · 04-19-2010, 03:24 PM

Very much misinformation and ad hoc thinking. The EPA starts requiring Ethanol use and our economy promptly fails apart, very unlikely. The reason these scientists can only give up is that Emissions and VOC are a minor part of climate factors. The Green House effect is a minor player in the entire process and the Sun's nuclear rate and speed of heat ray generation is usually the biggest factor. So I'm no expert but they're measuring gold fish to find the problems with the ocean. Scientists have done silly things to find the answer to problems and this is just crazy talk.

I thought this was going to be a discussion of E85 fuel mileage difference from anecdotal sources. The E85 lobby has also given up on giving mileage numbers and just states that, "E85 has 70% of the BTU content of Gasoline and should return at least that much mileage" and "they have see reports of better MPG" but always less than 100% of Gasoline MPG.

The dry vs wet ethanol argument is simple moot. You cannot mix "wet" ethanol with gasoline. Brazil mixes "dry" ethanol with their gasoline which is a 25% Ethanol, 75% Gasoline Mixture and they sell ethanol in it's maximum wet form of 95% Ethanol 5% water. It's been said that taking Ethanol to 95% alcohol content takes half of the energy and the other half is spent getting to to 98-99% alcohol content. But there's no other way around mixing it with gasoline. I wish we could have "wet" ethanol(denatured of course) here instead of E85, it'd be a lot cheaper and better albeit with more corrosion so changing fuel system components would be a bigger factor than they already are. But with our climate and the required components to make a Flex Fuel car run on "wet" ethanol and regular gasoline would be a major problem for regulators.

Corn Ethanol has been shown to be essentially just be a transient fuel and a is a First Generation Biofuel so it gives a small energy surplus from modern production which uses mostly Coal and Natural Gas instead of Petroleum. The next point is how much more efficient Ethanol is than Gasoline but that's another topic eh?

04-19-2010, 03:24 PM	#15 (permalink)
Allch Chcar EtOH Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: North Coast, California Posts: 429 Cordelia - '15 Mazda Mazda3 i Sport 90 day: 37.83 mpg (US) Thanks: 72 Thanked 35 Times in 26 Posts	Very much misinformation and ad hoc thinking. The EPA starts requiring Ethanol use and our economy promptly fails apart, very unlikely. The reason these scientists can only give up is that Emissions and VOC are a minor part of climate factors. The Green House effect is a minor player in the entire process and the Sun's nuclear rate and speed of heat ray generation is usually the biggest factor. So I'm no expert but they're measuring gold fish to find the problems with the ocean. Scientists have done silly things to find the answer to problems and this is just crazy talk. I thought this was going to be a discussion of E85 fuel mileage difference from anecdotal sources. The E85 lobby has also given up on giving mileage numbers and just states that, "E85 has 70% of the BTU content of Gasoline and should return at least that much mileage" and "they have see reports of better MPG" but always less than 100% of Gasoline MPG. The dry vs wet ethanol argument is simple moot. You cannot mix "wet" ethanol with gasoline. Brazil mixes "dry" ethanol with their gasoline which is a 25% Ethanol, 75% Gasoline Mixture and they sell ethanol in it's maximum wet form of 95% Ethanol 5% water. It's been said that taking Ethanol to 95% alcohol content takes half of the energy and the other half is spent getting to to 98-99% alcohol content. But there's no other way around mixing it with gasoline. I wish we could have "wet" ethanol(denatured of course) here instead of E85, it'd be a lot cheaper and better albeit with more corrosion so changing fuel system components would be a bigger factor than they already are. But with our climate and the required components to make a Flex Fuel car run on "wet" ethanol and regular gasoline would be a major problem for regulators. Corn Ethanol has been shown to be essentially just be a transient fuel and a is a First Generation Biofuel so it gives a small energy surplus from modern production which uses mostly Coal and Natural Gas instead of Petroleum. The next point is how much more efficient Ethanol is than Gasoline but that's another topic eh? __________________ -Allch Chcar