Why is Ethanol such a polarizing topic?

[order99]

Originally Posted by cRiPpLe_rOoStEr

Sure, but in a 4-stroke Diesel running on ethanol it's just a supplementary lube for the injection pump. If you would try to run it without the regular oil in the crank you'd ruin the engine.

Regarding 2-stroke spark-ignited engines, I like them too. They're also great to use with ethanol because it decreases the carbon build-up arond the spark plug electrode comparing to gasoline.

Regarding the two-stroke...all the research i'm doing lately (rebuilding an antique chainsaw motor with hand tools for the experience) indicates that Ethanol blends can damage the motor. Since your personal experiences suggest otherwise, i'd be interested in all the details, gory and otherwise...any issues with proper mixing of gas/oil/ethanol, maximum safe and most efficient dosages,effects on power, possibility of timing/detonation issues, effect on emissions etc etc.

The subject of my inexperienced (and therefore possibly gruesome) experiment is a late 1950-something Rolan 'Heavy Hauling' chainsaw made in Sweden, probably 40cc to 50cc with a broken starting spring and the chain installed backwards-quite possibly the reason I snagged it for $2.00! If I don't turn this lovely antique into twisted metal through my own incompetence I intend to ditch the blade and create a small, potent portable plant that I can bolt to a generator, lightweight recumbent trike platform and/or tiny personal watercraft...or just watch it spin...

I'll be cracking the case for more details next week and would most enjoy picking your brain if willing.

If you think too much detail on two-stroke engines and Ethanol will derail the thread, feel free to PM me instead-also, if you're pressed for time PM me with that too and i'll place the brain-vacuuming on hold.

Back to the general Ethanol discussion-I have used 100% gasoline, 10% Ethanol and 15% Ethanol blends in my trust '93 Festiva, and noticed some minor losses in FE. I have noticed no real difference in power and performance otherwise, but since i'm not known for my jackrabbit starts and wild passing on the highway, how would I tell? I haven't noticed any more frequent downshifting for power on blended gasoline than pure, for what it's worth.

I wouldn't mind trading a little power density for less dependence on non-renewables as long as:

A) my car won't be damaged by the blend and
B) we can produce it cheaply and efficiently enough to remain competitive with gasoline production and not deprive anyone of needed food in the process.

[cRiPpLe_rOoStEr]

Originally Posted by order99

Regarding the two-stroke...all the research i'm doing lately (rebuilding an antique chainsaw motor with hand tools for the experience) indicates that Ethanol blends can damage the motor. Since your personal experiences suggest otherwise, i'd be interested in all the details, gory and otherwise...any issues with proper mixing of gas/oil/ethanol, maximum safe and most efficient dosages,effects on power, possibility of timing/detonation issues, effect on emissions etc etc.

The subject of my inexperienced (and therefore possibly gruesome) experiment is a late 1950-something Rolan 'Heavy Hauling' chainsaw made in Sweden, probably 40cc to 50cc with a broken starting spring and the chain installed backwards-quite possibly the reason I snagged it for $2.00! If I don't turn this lovely antique into twisted metal through my own incompetence I intend to ditch the blade and create a small, potent portable plant that I can bolt to a generator, lightweight recumbent trike platform and/or tiny personal watercraft...or just watch it spin...

When pure ethanol started to be used in Brazilian cars, the most usual caution was to coat the internal parts of the carburettor with 2 lays of chrome to prevent them to rust, and even in 4-stroke engines some folks started to add 2% of oil in the gasoline (due to the locally-mandated ethanol blend) to protect the carburettor's needle. And 4-stroke engines were a different animal, since due to the absence of either leadtetraethyl or lately MTBE, valve seat inserts had to be hardened, while this issue didn't affect 2-stroke since there is no valvetrain at all. And even before ethanol became mainstream for cars back here, it was already widely used for kart-racing.

The oil blends in ethanol and gasoline are usually different, with more oil added to the gasoline than to the ethanol due to the consumption in volume for each fuel, higher on ethanol, thus using basically the same amount of oil regardless the fuel in use. 5 to 7% in volume is the most efficient blend of oil, altough some newer synthetic oils allow a lower blend, around 2 to 3%. Castor-based oils mix more homogeneously with the ethanol than petroleum-based ones.

When you quote timing and detonation issues, I presume you're talking about ignition timing. It's usually advanced a few degrees due to the lower flame spreading speed in the ethanol than in gasoline. But depending on how much the compression is raised, in an engine with individual displacements below 250cc for each cylinder, it's not much an issue.

[order99]

Just what I needed to know !

(grabs wrenches)

[roosterk0031]

38 mpg with E35 blend in last tank and I didn't drive as well as normal that tank. E45 blend today was over 39 indicated when I got home. Yes I'm losing some MPG, but fewer penny's/mile too. Debating a jonnyenergy E85 conversion kit. Numbers today point to less than 1 year payback.

[radioranger]

I look at the whole issue a bit differently, taking a negative view here, if the price of fuel goes up the poor stay closer to the cities and dont move to the outlying suburrbs, some people want that, if you make the percent of alcohol high enough you can remove a whole population of older cheaper cars off the road, leaving more room on the highways ,, but taking away mobility from the poor , already many people dont take joyrides anymore, I remember just going out for a ice cream etc , course it was wasteful but who is to say that , if you only did what was absolutly neccesary we,d all just be serfs, which of course is what some people want, the closer you get to socialism the closer you get to big government the stricter things become. not at all like the 60,s hippie promise. ethanol may play a role in removing older cars, especially since the advent of fuel injection seems to have doubled their lifespan,

[bryn]

my understanding is that since animal feed is less regulated 90ish percent of corn goes to feed livestock. since they do not digest carbs well. they grow faster and healthier on distillers waste, than they would on raw grain. because it is cooked, and the carbs are removed, and the protein and fiber are concentrated. the same acre of corn will give you more milk/beef but also the booze to bring it to market

[cRiPpLe_rOoStEr]

Originally Posted by bryn

my understanding is that since animal feed is less regulated 90ish percent of corn goes to feed livestock. since they do not digest carbs well. they grow faster and healthier on distillers waste, than they would on raw grain. because it is cooked, and the carbs are removed, and the protein and fiber are concentrated. the same acre of corn will give you more milk/beef but also the booze to bring it to market

Isn't brewery waste already included in livestock feeding?

[freebeard]

I'm late to the thread, so this may seem scattershot --

Why? Divide and conquer? Pages of answers, none better than this:

Originally Posted by Grant-53

There is a good deal of debate because of the technical complexities, economics, and the tensions between the political ideologies of top-down versus bottom-up thinking. On the macro scale we can follow the money to see if a policy is justified. At the micro level the energy efficiency is key. The work of the agricultural economists and chemical engineers is to find the optimum allocation of resources.

Isn't that the way it always is?

I learned how to test the alcohol content of gasoline in any container given an accurate means of titration.

I burn E0, not so much to protect the original 1971 components as to push my fuel costs (x miles) higher than my insurance costs (x time). Neat gasoline? Neat!

[copy]cRiPpLe_rOoStEr[paste] -- Your discussion of tuning for multi-fuels is interesting. What I tell teenagers operating gas pumps is that drag racers proved in the 1950s that pure alcohol is a great fuel, as is gasoline; but blending the two isn't efficient unless the carb jetting (shows my age) and compression ratio can vary on the fly. What do you think of en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marvel_Mystery_Oil‎? Generically it is a 'top-end oil'. Would that make the corn blend more palatable in a magnesium-cased flat four?

As to the general question raised: Petroleum is a renewable resource. The source is deep, hot and abiotic. It seeps upward 'geologically' slowly, but we can tap the upper pools much faster than they replenish. The age of relatively 'free' energy will continue, but we will need to pace ourselves. ...so fewer engines sitting idling at stop light while people wait to go to jobs they hate so they can have a big truck (snicker) to drive to the work they hate, in a nasty regressive spiral.

What to do?
Cool Planet's Carbon Negative Fuel Cycle (really a virtuous topsoil spiral, but whatevs)
Thermal Depolymerization Plastic recycling - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

With that I'm going to point to Frank Lee's post at #48 with the one hand and at this with the other.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TC5DQGGUkKU

[cRiPpLe_rOoStEr]

Originally Posted by freebeard

Your discussion of tuning for multi-fuels is interesting. What I tell teenagers operating gas pumps is that drag racers proved in the 1950s that pure alcohol is a great fuel, as is gasoline; but blending the two isn't efficient unless the carb jetting (shows my age) and compression ratio can vary on the fly. What do you think of en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marvel_Mystery_Oil‎? Generically it is a 'top-end oil'. Would that make the corn blend more palatable in a magnesium-cased flat four?

Compression varying on-the fly wouldn't be bad, altough not really essential. With direct injection available in newer engines, the knockings while running on gasoline at higher compression ratios can be suppressed more efficiently.

Regarding the Beetle engine, I've never used that Marvel Mystery Oil, but the engine itself can handle the ethanol blends easily. But if you would consider pure ethanol, a dual-carburettor setup with shorter intake manifolds for each cylinder bank is better since it's less prone to freeze, and idling stability is enhanced. Unless you would get an MPFI setup for it

[Frank Lee]

As to the general question raised: Petroleum is a renewable resource. The source is deep, hot and abiotic. It seeps upward 'geologically' slowly, but we can tap the upper pools much faster than they replenish. The age of relatively 'free' energy will continue, but we will need to pace ourselves. ...so fewer engines sitting idling at stop light while people wait to go to jobs they hate so they can have a big truck (snicker) to drive to the work they hate, in a nasty regressive spiral.

Ironic; was just having a related discussion: Serf drives 60 miles one way to stupid job that pays $12/hr in a SUV/PU that gets 15mpg. 120 miles/day @ 15 mpg = 8 gallons/day, x $3.50/g = $28/day fuel. $12/hr - 30% for the various paycheck withholdings = $8.40/hr net, x 8 hrs/day = $67.20/day net. 28/67.2 = 42% of paycheck goes directly into gas tank. 8 x .42 = 3.36 hrs (3 hrs 22 minutes)/workday just for fuel and for fuel alone. 8:00 a.m. start + 3h 22m = 11:22, or 11:37 including the morning break- lunchtime! Half the work day all into the gas tank. Oh- 2 hours commute time on top of 8 hour work day = 10 hrs long effective work day; 31,200 miles and 520 hours/year commuting.

Gets even worse if serf has typical Uhmerican new SUV. AAA sez in '12 SUV with above parameters cost $15,770. Serf netting $8.40/hr = $17,472. Yeah. $1,702 left over for the year. No wonder the household needs several incomes.

What to do?
Cool Planet's Carbon Negative Fuel Cycle (really a virtuous topsoil spiral, but whatevs)
Thermal Depolymerization Plastic recycling - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Here's a hint: What Limits Population Growth in a Finite World?