I want to get to the bottom of this ethanol killing my mpg

[Frank Lee]

Can't get "She Blinded Me With Science" outta my head for some reason...

[Nerys]

I don't want my cars ethanol compatible though shovel. WHY WOULD I? the solution is NOT making cars ethanol compatible. The solution is stop using wasteful dirty expensive ethanol. I am not going to spend a DIME of my money modifying my cars to run on this ILK.

If taking literally 10 minutes out of my day twice a week nets me the 55+ mpg I should be getting with this car you can BET YOUR BUTT I will do this long term. If it works its really not hard. dump a cup of water in a tank of gasoline shake it up. Come back in a few hours drain out water/alcohol dump into gas tank.

at most I would end up with 1.1gallons of ethanol/water to dispose of. Hmm makes me wonder if I can make an alcohol stove that will run on it?? now sure how the water will affect the capacity to burn it. Might cause me to end up with a great camping stove fuel source. Most likely I will just dump it down the toilet if I do not find a use for it. That should be safe as I see no warnings on alcohol bottles (medical or drinking) that say you should not flush down the drain. I will find out of course.

OF COURSE if this actually does work (I am not saying it does yet) then the next thing to do will be to ramp up production and try on the thirstier cars in the family. If I get similar results next step would be the neighbors.

IF THAT WORKS the next step is Washington DC and a lawsuit. But thats a long way off and a lot of "if's"

the REAL solution is ELECTRIC cars but they want to try anything and everything to avoid going that route since its all "good for the consumer" and "bad for the gov/corporations" to go all electric and they know it.

Moving is not an option. The "cost" of moving would exceed the cost of all the gasoline I will use in my entire lifetime. Yes when I have a second job close enough I DO take my bicycle to work. I rather enjoy doing that.

If your renting moving is a one day hassle. week at most. When you OWN a home (you can not actually own a home in this country but you get the idea) it is almost NEVER EVER sensible to move in order to save fuel. you will never ever in multiple lifetimes save more money in fuel than the cost of the move. Lets not even get into the MASSIVE downsides to living in NJ in cost of living and many other factors. No thanks.

A mortage is currently sitting at 138% interest. IF YOU COULD FIND a $100,000 home thats $138,000 in interest over the next 30 years.

If I reduced my fuel usage to ZERO it would take 62 years to break even on the move. I have NO intention of using any gasoline in 10 years. Come hell or high water I WILL be driving an electric car within 10 years time.

[Christ]

If there is 10% ethanol in your fuel, and you remove it, isn't that the same thing as paying 10% more for your fuel? *You're getting 10% less burnable material for the same price...*

So lets say gas is $3.00 per gallon right now, and you have a 10 gallon tank... you need approx 11 gallons to make a full tank if you "wash" it, so you have to spend $33 as opposed to $30, a difference of $3, or one full gallon of gasoline with 10% ethanol added.

So you spend $33, and you get 10 gallons out of it (assuming you flush your byproduct), so you're now spending 10% more for your fuel than everyone else... If your mileage doesn't increase by at least 10%, it's not worth it to continue.

Of course, this doesn't take into account whether or not you pay for water (the negligible amount to wash the fuel, and the gallon or so to flush down the toilet), and sewer (because you flushed the toilet.. some people get charged for water in and water out.), either.

Ethanol boils at 173degF, so it's quite possible to separate the fuel in either a flask or a vacuum chamber into vapor, then condense it into another container, leaving separated water and ethanol, but the BTU required to separate the fuel from the water is probably going to end up being more than the fuel would return.

Sulfur dissolves into ethanol, creating a solid fuel pellet which can then be stored and separated or burned directly. Sulfur does not mix with water at any temperature, so it could be used to cleanly separate ethanol from water.

[Nerys]

well lets do some math. gas is $2.54 a gallon I currently get max 47mpg so one gallon will take me 47 miles or roughly 5.4 cents per mile

if I can get the factory 58mpg on gas without ethanol (a big if mind you but theses XFI's are KNOWN to tickle 60mpg without trying very hard)

now I am paying $2.54 for .93 gallons (wawa gas is 6-8% ethanol) at 58mpg thats 54 miles on .93 gallons. I think you can already see I am ahead on this or roughly 4.7 cents per mile.

so IF I get the full mpg I should on the ethanol free gas THROWING AWAY 8% of the fuel will actually SAVE ME 7 cents every mile. per tank that means I will gain 74 MILES in range per tank.

Lets not forget the maintenance savings. No more dying fuel pumps. I have already replaced the fuel pump in every single vehicle I own except the metro all AFTER the switch to ethanol. Sorry 8 fuel pumps is more than "coincidence"

lets crunch some REAL numbers

40,000 miles per year at 47mpg means I will spend $2161 in fuel this year

if I got 58mpg THROWING AWAY 6-8% of it that comes to an adjusted figure of 54mpg $1881 a year in fuel. I will SAVE $280 a year by removing the ethanol.

IF I could actually BUY non ethanol fuel I would spend $1751 a year or a savings of $409 per year over 10% ethanol.

in my VAN or my JEEP the COST of ethanol is close to $1200 (jeep) and $1800 (van)

NOT counting the increase maintenance requirements invoked by ethanol usage.

[Christ]

So what can you use ethanol for? You can make BD with it, if you've got a decent way to remove it from the water... if not, you'll have to find a way to measure what the content of water and ethanol mixed is, and add in an amount equivalent to 100% of the ethanol that would be required to make the fuel. Later on, the water will wash out after you perform the glycerine exchange.

Ethanol will also run your lawn mower, if you mix in some lubricant, like 3 in 1 oil or even mineral oil. You'll have to retune the carb, though.

Hell, you could even re-brew the ethanol with some lubricant additives and set up a second carb to run the metro on it... you can change a carb in an hour, so when you get a full tank's worth of ethanol/lube mix, swap carbs and burn it up!

At 10%, you get a free tank for every 10 tanks, and it keeps you from throwing away $2.50 worth of usable fuel (plus other costs) for only the cost of retuning another carb and swapping it, plus extracting costs for the fuel.

How many miles to a tank of straight ethanol do you think you'd get if your engine was properly tuned for it?

[Nerys]

Well its fuel injected so that would be a lot harder I imagine (ECU issues) plus ethanol hurts other parts of the fuel system (such as the fuel pump)

Interesting idea though! I am especially intrigued by the run the lawn mower off it though I use electric mowers. Still Its interesting. I wonder if I can make a genny run off it. trick would be how much damage would the "water" do to these things since thats how I would remove it.

They make stuff to "dry" gas when its water penetrated. Would that work on ethanol or is the fuel dryer just alcohol and it works by combining with the water? ie would not work so well in ethanol?

I have an old alcohol stove around here somewhere. I will have to try and find it and see if it will "burn" it. would make good fuel for my sail boat for cooking etc..

if the engine was PROPERLY tuned for running on ethanol I imagine it would get what other E85 etc.. cars get.

I would prefer to find a way to USE IT rather than throw it away. But first things first. To find out IF its the cause of my lower FE :-) hopefully this weekend I will get a chance to try making a batch and "see what happens"

[Christ]

Unless you could mix exactly enough water with the ethanol to separate it without flooding it, there will be too much water for the engine to run smoothly. You could run any gas engine on ethanol, really. You can even run diesel engines on it, but they have to be tuned accordingly (really turn down the pump and much smaller injectors.)

The problem with diesel is the evap point for ethanol... diesel fuel injection pumps can hit 6,000 PSI, and ethanol would evaporate long before that, so you'd need to introduce a fuel system to the intake that was metered by engine speed/load to prevent "runaway".

In a gas engine, you just put in different jets and tune the carb/ignition accordingly until it runs right, but you'll still have to separate the water, I think.

Dry gas is methanol (ISO-HEET blue can) and/or ethanol (other kinds), so that won't work. The sulfur is an easy method, though, if you burn solid fuel for anything. The downside is the creation of SO2 and SO3. If you could recombine it into SO4, then add H2, you could make/sell Sulfuric acid... LOL.

[Nerys]

yeah too much trouble. I will see if the stove burns it and go from their.

[Christ]

You can also use resulting sulfuric acid and iodine to chemically strip hydrogen from water, and it doesn't require hydrocarbon use, and is cyclic... both materials are fully recoverable.

So you could have your own hydrogen plant with just a little chemistry and waste from removing ethanol from fuel. The problem with the sulfur iodine cycle, as I understand it, is that it takes very high temperatures to complete, and sulfuric acid is extremely caustic in vapor form at high temperatures/pressures.

After hashing out some math, it looks like anhydrous sulfuric is worth about 32 cents per gallon, while strongly diluted sulfuric maybe worth about 16 cents per gallon.

The annual production is approx 165 million tons, or about 8 billion dollars, which equates to approx 2 cents per pound. Anhydrous sulfuric weighs about 15 lbs per gallon.

[shovel]

Originally Posted by Nerys

I don't want my cars ethanol compatible though shovel. WHY WOULD I? the solution is NOT making cars ethanol compatible.

um... because that is the fuel you can get around where you live?

dude, i've tried to play along here... but you're just getting silly. i fold. have fun doing all sorts of work to get the results i get by doing nothing whatsoever