Removing Ethanol from Gasoline

[123]

What is wrong with you people? Don't remove ethanol its good stuff.
Yes corn ethanol is not so great but its not as bad as most people think. First off making corn ethanol does not use corn that could be food. Most corn grown in the US is not even for human consumption and making ethanol from corn takes the starch out which makes it better for animals if used as feed. Now there are better things to grow then corn to make ethanol like cattails that many people don't like because they grow and spread like crazy. Cattails yield like 3 or 4 times more ethanol per acre then corn and grow well in sewage water and even help clean the sewage.

A good thing about ethanol is how clean it burns I have friends that have brought their vehicles in for emissions testing and the people doing the testing thought their equipment was faulty because it was giving a reading so much lower then you get with gasoline.

Also where I live I can buy ethanol that is made from food waste how is that a bad thing?

As for fuel economy yes you will see a slight decrease in fuel economy why is this its because our vehicles are designed to run on gasoline and not ethanol does not burn the same as gasoline. If more people used and demanded ethanol we would see lots of vehicles built and tuned to run on just ethanol and this would get you as good of fuel economy if not better then gasoline.

I am someone that makes ethanol so I know what I am talking about and no I don't work for a company that makes ethanol or makes money from anything related to ethanol.

Now my only problem with ethanol is I am not using enough of it.

[Chuck.]

This really sounds like good stuff? The cartoon attached does not address the marine and lawn equipment ruined. Also unaddressed is the Jersey-sized dead zone south of Louisiana, fish and shrimp can't live because of the extra fertilizer dumped in the Mississippi from the fuel crops. Oh, and trucking ethanol is lot's less efficient than using pipelines (it will corrode them - guess what it does to cars? )

The solution is simple: make E0 legal again.

[Nerys]

Originally Posted by 123

What is wrong with you people? Don't remove ethanol its good stuff.
Yes corn ethanol is not so great but its not as bad as most people think. First off making corn ethanol does not use corn that could be food. Most corn grown in the US is not even for human consumption and making ethanol from corn takes the starch out which makes it better for animals if used as feed. Now there are better things to grow then corn to make ethanol like cattails that many people don't like because they grow and spread like crazy. Cattails yield like 3 or 4 times more ethanol per acre then corn and grow well in sewage water and even help clean the sewage.

A good thing about ethanol is how clean it burns I have friends that have brought their vehicles in for emissions testing and the people doing the testing thought their equipment was faulty because it was giving a reading so much lower then you get with gasoline.

Also where I live I can buy ethanol that is made from food waste how is that a bad thing?

As for fuel economy yes you will see a slight decrease in fuel economy why is this its because our vehicles are designed to run on gasoline and not ethanol does not burn the same as gasoline. If more people used and demanded ethanol we would see lots of vehicles built and tuned to run on just ethanol and this would get you as good of fuel economy if not better then gasoline.

I am someone that makes ethanol so I know what I am talking about and no I don't work for a company that makes ethanol or makes money from anything related to ethanol.

Now my only problem with ethanol is I am not using enough of it.

10 gallons of E10 = 460 miles

remove the gallonf of ethanol from that 10 gallons place the resulting

9 gallons of E0 into the car go 495 miles

Do the math. this can NOT be cleaner. This can NOT be greener. This INCREASES our demand for foreign oil. This can NOT be cheaper.

It effects food prices because farmers want to use more land for ethanol corn instead of food corn which increases the costs since now they see themselves LOSING revenue by having to plant food corn.

and if you make ethanol please - enlighten us as to the place of "fresh water" in the production of ethanol and HOW MUCH fresh water is used to make it.

[ShadeTreeMech]

I'm a firm believer in the law of thermodynamics.

To create ethanol requires sunlight to grow the crop. Then the ethanol is distilled from the sour mash which requires more heat; about 183* I think? Can't remember. Then the ethanol has a stoich of about 9:1 compared to 14:1 for gas (or as low as 50:1 for diesel.......) Then there is the heat put out by the burning of the fuel, which will equal less than the heat put out by the sun some 12-20 months ago when the fuel was a plant growing in Kansas.

With gas production, they pump the stuff from the ground, where it's been sitting for ages. They use such a large amount of heat that the liquid moving through the steel lines can be seen through the red hot metal. An acquaintance of mine described a former job he had repairing the pipelines in a refinery where he saw this phenomenon, and mentioned the repairs had to be made while production was ongoing. The pipes were so hot he wore a fire suit with freezing cold gases pumped in constantly to keep him cool and there was someone to change out his fireproof gloves once every 20 minutes. This info begs the question, how much energy is wasted by the heat from those pipes escaping to the atmosphere?

Now, remember the rate of an object cooling down is related to the density of the surrounding enviroment and the difference of temperature. IE an object at 1500 degrees dipped into 50 degree water will cool off nearly instantly compared to the 180 degree object being cooled by the low density air at 100*.

In the production of ethanol, how much energy is wasted in comparison to the heat of rotting dinosaurs who ate plants ages ago and by burning those dino fuels we are releasing that heat back into the atmosphere?

Yes, you may get better mpgs from using a fuel that has its eyes set on making the most profit for the gallon compared to a fuel distillery who requires welfare from the gov't to survive. But which one releases more heat into the atmosphere to warm up our planet? If alcohol refineries are able to best a century of development by the oil companies in cost per mile per gallon, would ethanol seem less the devil and more the transfer of energy from one source to another with a shorter turnover than gas that it is?

[ShadeTreeMech]

P.S. Is it possible to manufacture ethanol without any petroleum input? Sure it is. Assuming no petroleum is used to produce ethanol, how much of a game changer is this?

[Nerys]

None - because its still an insanely inefficient liquid fuel controlled by people OTHER than us and our cars are STILL not designed to run on it and I am NOT buying a new car. (talk about a waste of money)

Ethanol is not relevant ecologically in the LONG RUN because we physically can not make enough to even DENT our total usage. Not even close.

The solution is electric. This free's us from those that control the "fuel" at the "pump" and free's us to generate power by ANY MEANS WE CAN DISCOVER

a gas engine can only run on gas but an electric engine runs on electricity and you can make electricity from damned near anything.

owe and the 89% efficiency is pretty bad ass too.

[UFO]

Ethanol from corn is wasteful and a give-away to the corn lobby which is dominating the market unfairly. But it can be good fuel if we can make it from cellulose.

[123]

Chuck as for the cartoon If you read what I said was corn ethanol is not so great. The better ethanol crops are better at converting sun into energy. Do not need the pesticides and chemical fertilizers corn does also they can grow on land not suitable for food crops. As for the water used if sewage water is used you are using water that's not drinkable and takes a lot of energy to process. Plants will help clean the sewage water and grow better because of it. AS for how much land would be needed studies have been done that proves that it is possible to produce all the ethanol we need and it would not use all our farm land.

Ethanol can be made from food waste that's stuff that would go to land fill if not made into ethanol, more then one company does this.

Anyone can make ethanol this changes who has control of the fuel supply and where the money is going.

I worked with a group that was not a big aggro or oil company just a bunch of people that make ethanol on their day off. They make their fuel from bad wine, most of the wine is made locally. In the county they are located LOTS of wine its produced and its estimated that 1% of the wine produced is bad/waste that would make about 1 million gallons of ethanol. Their source for wine wants to give them more and faster then they can process.

Yes you can make ethanol without any petroleum input Brazil does.

Nerys You do not need to buy a new car just to be able to use ethanol I ran my old Subaru on 50% ethanol no changes and it even ran better. The only problem I had with using ethanol is I had to change my fuel filter because it cleaned all the gum out my fuel system. To be able to run a vehicle on high blends of ethanol or 100% you plug a little box into the fuel injectors that changes the signal going to the injectors I have done it.

The reason you cant run a gas engine on high % of ethanol with out tuning is it needs more fuel or it runs to lean why is this its because their is oxygen molecules in the fuel this also makes it burn more complete and in turn cleaner. If an engine's compression ratio is increased the engine will run more efficient on ethanol. Ethanol can handle 15-1 compression ratio. I ran a 5hp Briggs and Stratton engine on ethanol all I did was close down the choke so the engine was not getting as much air, you could not tell it was not running on gasoline other then it smelled better. The other advantage of ethanol is it burns cooler so your engine will last longer.


Also Nerys you said a gasoline engine can only run on gas that's no true ethanol, methanol, propane, methane and wood gas will run on gas engines granted not all will work with out a few mods.

As for electric cars I like them and have worked on building/converting EVs but they have their own problems. Most electricity produced is not clean or green and very inefficient to produce. Another problem with EVs is batteries, what about all the energy to mine refine and ship from other parts of the world. What do we do with all the dead batteries?

UFO as for cellulose ethanol I am not buying into that just yet. Millions of dollars have been spent on research over many years and still no tried and true method for making it. Also the one who patents the organism/process to make cellulose ethanol has all the control.

[Nerys]

"As for electric cars I like them and have worked on building/converting EVs but they have their own problems. Most electricity produced is not clean or green and very inefficient to produce. Another problem with EVs is batteries, what about all the energy to mine refine and ship from other parts of the world. What do we do with all the dead batteries?"

The battery is $4500 and will last for 25+ years for the average user ie over 300,000 miles. (this is for NIMH batteries)

this is longer than your engine in your typical car will last before going to the crusher and then add in all the "extra" stuff your gas engine needs and your gasoline tank oil tank antifreeze tank etc.. will use in that 300k lifetime.

are you seriously saying this is a problem to be concerned with? (and they are 100% recyclable)

Gasoline currently uses MORE electricity per 100 miles than an electric car does !! AND only 54% of our power comes from coal.

again where is the problem here?

[Nerys]

Originally Posted by UFO

Ethanol from corn is wasteful and a give-away to the corn lobby which is dominating the market unfairly. But it can be good fuel if we can make it from cellulose.

as long as you don't FORCE ME TO BUY IT like they are doing with E10 I could really care less. if you can make a car run good on it great. just don't expect me to go buy one or try and FORCE me to go buy one.

"Nerys You do not need to buy a new car just to be able to use ethanol"

Did you miss my entire point?

10 gallons E10 460 miles
9 gallons of E0 495 miles (35 miles FURTHER)

so if I take 10 gallons of gas from the gas station. Mix it with water to REMOVE the gallon of ethanol from it and then put the resulting 9 gallons into my car (essentially THROWING AWAY the ethanol) I can go FURTHER.

This is now about CAN I its about I do not WANT TO because for our cars its a SUCKY fuel that is dirtier wasteful more expensive and INCREASES out demand for foreign oil the exact OPPOSITE of its intended purpose.