Is it still progress?
 

I had this thought today;

Suppose I have a car that gets 15 miles per gallon of gasoline.

I trade that in for one that gets 30 miles per gallon of gasoline.

But then I switch from using gasoline, to using E85 ethanol.

I lose 10-15% mileage, yet I'm still getting higher mileage per gallon of fuel that I was with the old car.


The question: Is this still considered progress?

yes. First, it's way better than 15. 2nd, it's an alternative to gasoline. There are multiple sources of ethanol. Not just corn.

Meaning you have halved your fuel use - given you'd drive it the same distance.

If the 15 mpg is 100%, the 30mpg car is at 50% , but by using E85 you'd then get back up to 55% - 57.5% fuel wise.

With ethanol from renewable sources, it surely is.

There's only 15% gas in E85, so you've reduced your gas-use to 8.25 to 8.6 % of what you used with the 15mpg guzzler.

If I have a truck that gets 17, mod it so it gets 7, then mod it again so it gets 9, is that progress?

I'd say so. Your are certainly using a ton less gas. You may or may not be more energy (and CO2 footprint) efficient overall, depending upon how the ethanol is made. This is where the GREET tables come into play.

Argonne GREET Model

Going from using 1 gallon of petro for 15 miles, to using (assume 30 mpg E85 so math is easier) .075 of a gallon of petro for the same 15 miles, winter blend of E70 would use 0.15 gallons of petrol.

Check out the Buick Regal Turbo, one claim of 5-8% MPG drop using E85. I saw somewhere a claim of equal MPG on it yesterday, never heard of it till yesterday. Too pricey for me, but I think the techonology will work down to the Cruze. (EPA rating are the nomal 1/3 third off).

2011 Buick Regal Turbo features flex-fuel capability

If you consider it progress to switch to a more costly fuel that delivers less performance, then you have answered your own question.

My definition of progress includes concepts such as lower cost, higher performance, and with respect to the environment, benefits which are proven and highly predictable.

Ethanol will not be fueling our vehicles 30 years from now. It is not the fuel of the future. It will be fueling people for many years though, and I'm saddened that I cannot purchase it so cheap for bodily consumption.

My thoughts on ethanol;

~The cost of E85 could be $1 less if the special tax was removed from it. Locally it was 50¢ cheaper per gallon (than 93 gasoline) a few years ago.

~I'd rather have switchgrass- or sugarcane-based fuel than corn. Brazil's been using it for years.

~Alibaba and Habib don't control it.

~I could make it myself if I needed to. (same with biodiesel)

~It's renewable, sustainable, a multipurpose fuel.

~Imagine keeping the US fuel production AND consumption on this side of the planet. CA/US/MX all sharing energy independence. A meteorite can crash down on an oil pipeline in Iprakistania and no one here would have to take a bus to work because of fuel prices jumping $2 overnight. lol


Personally, I think Hydrogen would be considered my "perfect" future fuel, but until that technology catches up with the small space in my car, I need to make what adjustments I can to remove 'oil' out of my equations. I just was wondering if taking a step backwards (efficiency) for three steps forward for oil dependency / environmental awareness / renewable options, was accepted by those here who may think the same way as myself. :)

People always get so hung up that Ethanol reduces MPG, but the fuel has less energy in it so who cares if you use more volume, you are still using approximately the same energy content..

And part of that energy content can be grown right next door by farmer Joe.
There's the real benefit of E85.
Unfortunately, Joe and Uncle Sam decided to produce ethanol from corn.

Here's the real problem.
http://imgs.sfgate.com/c/pictures/20...mn_biofuel.jpg

Nice. Now show us the cost of gasoline in a nice biased graphic like the one above.

All the SOLID info I've seen indicates Patzek is waaaay off the mark.

Ditto Frank,
When looking at these Ethanol studies you have to look at the results of a bunch of them, not cherry pick one that may have a bias towards either the pro OR con side.

Definitely! He shows 5.8 million kilowatt hours of sunlight input, which appears to be the only way he can come up with his 6:1 guess. That sunlight will fall on the hectare of land regardless of whether corn is growing on it: it is crazy to consider that an energy cost.

He shows CO2 thrown off from distillation but does not show the CO2 absorbed by the corn.

tjts has been here for years and has had to have participated in ethanol discussions before. So others refuting nonsense like that posted above is not a new thing. His agenda is preventing him from considering all the data. :(

Better yet you show us.

Actually quite the opposite, if you had done any SOLID research on the matter. But if you have better data for us to analyse by all means post it here.

I hope this can give you some idea of what I'm seeing.

Oil Spills and Disasters - Infoplease.com
The Real Cost of Oil: How much are we paying for a gallon of gas?
HUMAN RIGHTS AND ENVIRONMENT IN TABASCO

http://tribalenergies.com.au/wp-cont...oil-spill1.jpg
http://www.oilism.com/oil/wp-content.../oilspill2.jpg
http://blog.weblayers.com/Portals/70...-oil-spill.jpg
http://cdn.radionetherlands.nl/data/...il-Nigeria.jpg
http://watercentral.files.wordpress....il-nigeria.jpg

Kenya gasoline explosion kills more than 60 in Nairobi slum - Los Angeles Times
Gas explosion: Brooklyn Park man has life-threatening burns - Baltimore Sun

How's that?

Look over this page. These GREET figures are widely accepted, and are the result of years of research from many sources.

The GREET figures offer no support at all for the contention that producing a gallon of ethanol consumes 6 times the energy that it contains.

...yes, it's still progress, but only if the definition of 'still' is assumed to be 'stagnant' (wink,wink)!

There are more & better ways to make ethanol than starting from corn.
Just like what happened with biodiesel starting out with rapeseed oil, better crops have been found to produce ethanol.

It'd be better if that graphic was large enough to be completely legible, but even as it is I can pick up some howlers.

On the farming side, most of that 1300 lbs of fertilizer is NOT necessary to grow corn. The 5300 gallons of water is rain, and is going to fall on the fields anyway, and be used by whatever plants are growing there.

On the production side, all that water is NOT waste, it's just water which can be re-used, or put to other purposes. For the heat, any sensible producer would build their ethanol distillery next to a power plant, and use the waste heat from it to do most of the distillation. And of course, the mash that's left is a protein-rich animal food.

And of course the whole thing about the CO2 given off in fermentation & burning of ethanol is worthy of being accepted as denialist propaganda. Since it's part of the ongoing carbon cycle, it does not increase atmospheric CO2.

I think any reduction in petroleum use is good, IMHO, it's worse than ethanol from fermentation. I'd like to see ethanol production from cellulose, then I would be more supportive of it.

But hydrogen? That is the fuel of the present, contained in petroleum, vegetable oils and alcohols. That is ICE fuel, and is the root of all the current problems - renewable is good, but electrical or mechanical transportation energy gives us the reduced/zero emissions, control of pollution and greater efficiencies we need to move forward in a positive way.

What you may be referring to with "hydrogen" is gaseous, and it flat sucks as a medium for energy storage. It leaks, it explodes, it has horrible energy density and requires stout heavy hardware (high pressure and cryo) to use effectively. It's a costly boondoggle, supported only by petroleum interests because it's cheap to make hydrogen from coal and natural gas. The best way to use hydrogen is bound with carbon in renewable liquid fuels.

I'm going to put this into some numbers that are useful for comparison.

15MPG on Petrol = 2254 Wh/mile

30MPG on Petrol = 1127 Wh/mile

E85(assuming 85% Ethanol/15% Petrol) has 82,294 BTU/Gallon while Petrol has 116,090 BTU/Gallon. So E85 has 71% of the energy content of regular Petrol. Source: AFDC Energy

Convert BTU to watts.
E85= 24,102 Wh
Petrol = 34,000 Wh

If you lose 15% range(I've heard this is typical on non-FFVs and older FFVs alike) than that is 25.5MPG. So your energy consumption per mile would be 945 Wh/Mile. That is a reduction of 57.7% of your original consumption.

I believe it's progress simply because that is a huge reduction in overall Fossil fuel consumption and it significantly reduces energy consumption. The only problem is how much does it cost you per mile? Prices are still too high here, but lately Ethanol prices have gone down while Gasoline is going up.

Tjts, that chart is only useful for purely scientific purposes. A more practical comparison is how much Corn Ethanol costs per unit of energy compared to regular Petrol. Corn Ethanol was cheaper in the near past, before the Biofuel mandate, and more recently the market price of Ethanol has dropped but it's not sustainable.

redpoint5, Ethanol is infact a more efficient fuel than Gasoline, it is simply not as energy dense. Strangely, Octane for blends from E50-E85 is about the same, 95 1/2 octane AKI, still better than pump gas at 93 but not what you'd expect. Plenty of the hotrodders, tuners, and engine builders swear by it. I've heard E85 is just shy of C16 leaded fuel but either way it is vastly underutilized in a FFV.

BTW, according to federal law it is ILLEGAL for manufacturer's to test MPG on anything but test grade Gasoline. The EPA MPG numbers are based solely on energy content, not on real world driving with E70-E85. EPA FAQ

...and that "...test grade Gasoline..." is 91-octane (mid-grade), not the typical 87-octane often recommended for most engines! Talk about "gaming" the EPA fuel-economy test system!!!

Actually..when the manufacturers does the EPA MPG testing they are required to use the octane they recommend in the owner's manual. If there are enough reports of less than expected MPG they can get audited and they would be fined for such an action. That is why some companies will infact underrate their MPG.

The thing is they only ever use 100% Gasoline. So even 10% Ethanol you can expect up to 3% less MPG than whatever they tell you. And that is the federal law...:rolleyes:

...go to the EPA website, they state the mandated use of 91-octane gasoline (unless higher is required)...note that 91 is basically 'midway' between 87(minimum) and 93 octane.

The mandate octane depends on the vehicle. Where did you see that?

Edit:
I looked around and they didn't* mention such a thing anywhere that I looked. Infact they made a point to emphasize not to use more octane than is recommended. The Low Down on High Octane.

...from slide 11 of this presentation:

http://www.arb.ca.gov/msprog/levprog...1/alliance.pdf

...it shows, in the right column, the current Federal (EPA) "test fuel" requirements. Note that AKI is always slightly less than the RON number, hence AKI = 91 octane, from RON = 93 octane.

Also, as a point of order: 91 octane (AKI rating) is the highest that is available in many areas--including all of California--without getting "race gas" which is technically not legal for use on the street.

EDIT: And AKI rating is always less than RON, AKI is the average of RON and MON; the MON rating of a given batch of gasoline is from 8-10 points lower than the RON rating of that same gasoline. So the AKI rating will be about 4-5 points lower than RON for most gasoline.

-soD

...back to my 'original' point, which is:

1) EPA tests with 100% gasoline, not E10 <--- stated by others.

...and...

2) EPA tests with 91 octane fuel, not 87 octane which MOST engines are specified to use by their manufacturers.


...and, because most current engines can "adjust" operating conditions (ala' knock sensor) to achieve "optimum" results with varying fuel charactoristics (and thus performance)...the EPA tests are using higher-milage 'capability' 91 octane, not the lower 'capability' 87 octane that most people follow.

That's a proposal for one standardized test fuel between the CARB and EPA. They are suggesting only testing with Premium grades and use 10% Ethanol.

I don't see how that means they only test with premium. :confused:

...directly from the title of chart #11:
Current ARB and EPA Certification Fuels

Good info; it helps to show how the math works out.

What I meant by less performance is less energy content, as you pointed out. People are primarily concerned with how much a tank of fuel costs and how far it will get them. In this way, petroleum is more efficient, otherwise we would all be driving E100 cars with high compression ratios and turbo chargers.

Maybe one day ethanol will be relevant, but this is not that day.

If you'll note, left is the California ARB which uses 91 octane. Right is the Federal certification which uses regular and premium grades.

Slide 10 you can see they are proposing the use of 91 octane for both.

That's confusing because to me, performance is power, octane, efficiency. MPG is a function of fuel economy.

Which one is more economic depends on the market and how efficient your vehicle is. For example, in the Midwest, Ethanol rack prices have dropped to <$2.50 a gallon while Gasoline is well above $3. Here I can buy E70 for $3.09 while Regular Gasoline is $3.59. If Ethanol drops 10 cents or Gasoline rises 10 cents then E70 make economic sense since I will only lose 15%-20% tops. Spring through fall has more Ethanol than winter so prices can actually drop leading up into summer. :D

But in places like Minnesota, Iowa, the Dakotas, etc they can get E70 for <$3 and Gasoline is the same.

Strangely enough, I never use anything but regular 87 octane, yet am able to get well over EPA estimated mpg, despite living in a mountainous area which is not favorable to getting high mpg. So who exactly is "gaming" the system?

Specific example: operating a turbocharged engine on both higher octane & higher energy content fuel produces better FE because the computer and sensors allow the engine parameters to be "optimized" upward to exploit ALL the benefits of the higher energy (mpg) and octane (advanced idnition timing)...that's "gaming" the system.

Also, notice that ALL tests are done with NO electrical loads, save those during A/C tests only...but, YOU and I do drive at night, don't we?