e85 85% ethanol fuel

351CJ · May 4, 2006

The question you have to ask yourself GustinCA is:

"Are you willing to pay $4+ / gallon for ethanol that will give you 20% lower fuel mileage making it's effective cost something like $5 / gallon?"

Because if you took away the government subsidies and adjusted the price for energy content, $5 / gal may be what it really costs to produce ethanol and get it in your tank.

I know what my answer to that question is. What's your answer?

GusinCA · May 5, 2006

You have a good point.
What I'm hoping for is someday E85 being a little less than gasoline, and most of that money going back into this economy, and freeing us from dependence on other countries.
But I guess it's just a dream.
Are there any economies of scale down the road? That is to say, if everyone started using E85 would that make it cheaper as it became more widely available?

DarkFireGT · May 5, 2006

I don't see why we're not trying more with sugarcane. Sugarcane actually burns 4x better than corn. So you'd actually get improved gas mileage. But nothing smells better than gas burning with no cats

351CJ · May 5, 2006

DarkFireGT said:
I don't see why we're not trying more with sugarcane. Sugarcane actually burns 4x better than corn. So you'd actually get improved gas mileage. But nothing smells better than gas burning with no cats

Because the US is too far north in latitude to have any sizeable areas where sugar cane can be efficiently grown.

Brazil has apparently done a geat job with it's ethanol from sugar cane program. But Brazil is located around the equator so Brazil has a huge advantage over the US in how much more energy positive their agri-ethanol farming is. Hawaii should be looking into this.

351CJ · May 5, 2006

GusinCA said:
You have a good point.
Are there any economies of scale down the road? That is to say, if everyone started using E85 would that make it cheaper as it became more widely available?

From what I've read there is not much hope. The core problem as I state in my prior post is that the US is located too far from the euqator to be able to grown much of anything that can be turned into ethanol in a substantially energy positive way.

That is given the energy needed to grow the crop (fertilizer, irrigation, etc.), the distillation process and distribution.

Unless there is some incredible genetic engineering breathrough on the horizon about the biggest bump to energy positiveness will be if and when pipelines are built to distribute ethanol. Right now ethanol is being shipped by railroad and trucks which is horribly energy inefficient compared to a pipeline.

But ethanonal is harder to distibute than gasoline because it absorbs water. Water absorbtion by ethanonl is another can of worms.

ramjetlx · May 5, 2006

351CJ said:
Because the US is too far north in latitude to have any sizeable areas where sugar cane can be efficiently grown.

Brazil has apparently done a geat job with it's ethanol from sugar cane program. But Brazil is located around the equator so Brazil has a huge advantage over the US in how much more energy positive their agri-ethanol farming is. Hawaii should be looking into this.

Dont expect Hawaii to do this. I know, I live here. We are slow to do anything over here, its ridicolous.

billfisher · May 6, 2006

hybrid diesels are a good solution until we get on the ball. the hydrogen ball that is. A 1.0l turbo diesel is a good size in my opinion.

DarkFireGT · May 6, 2006

351CJ said:
Because the US is too far north in latitude to have any sizeable areas where sugar cane can be efficiently grown.

Brazil has apparently done a geat job with it's ethanol from sugar cane program. But Brazil is located around the equator so Brazil has a huge advantage over the US in how much more energy positive their agri-ethanol farming is. Hawaii should be looking into this.

While this is true, we import oil. We obviously import sugarcane for food, why not for gasoline?

351CJ · May 6, 2006

DarkFireGT said:
While this is true, we import oil. We obviously import sugarcane for food, why not for gasoline?

As I said before, the US has a 53 cent / gallon tax on imported ethanol.

And as I said before, the US's ethanol policy is little more than very expensive welfare to the farm belt for the purpose of buying votes.

callmedrlove · Apr 23, 2007

351CJ said:
You're missing an even more important point.

Ethanol from corn grown in the mid latitudes is only marginally energy positive if at all. If it were not for massive government subsidies and a 53 cent a gallon tax on imported ethanol we would not be making any ethanol from corn in the US. The present US government ethanol policy is little more than a very expensive means to buy farm belt votes.

You've also missed a 2nd point. Massive use of US farmlands to grow corn for ethanol will reduce the amount of farmland used to grow food. This will in turn drive up food prices.

A better use of all those tax subsidies would be to invest in oil from shale and synthetic gasoline from coal. Both of which are far more energy positive than ethanol from corn.

I know this is an extremely old post but I was reading up on ethanol and noticed this and I just had to comment. Do you have any idea how small of an amount of US land is used for food production? The use of corn for ethanol production would have zero impact on food prices, or maybe even lower food prices due to more people becoming farmers to capitalize on the new cash crop of corn. And I believe that you are in turn missing the biggest point of all. Using tax money to invest in oil from shale and synthetic gasoline would do nothing to solve the greater problem of pollution. If anything it would worsen the situation. Now I own a Cobra and I love my v8 but in the future gasoline is going to disappear. Like it or not, gas is over a century old and it is on its way out.

As an interesting side note I think that the biggest draw of using ethanol is that it's relatively easy to make yourself. You can actually even make money from selling the by products left over. Imagine, making your own fuel and making money off of it.

GusinCA · Apr 23, 2007

I want US farmers driving Lamborghini's, dangit!
That is the dream. I want to drive through Kansas and see mansions out in the middle of the fields, with huge AMERICAN MADE tractors growing anything and everything (switchgrass, corn, whatever) that can be turned into Ethanol.

I was just reading an article somehwere that mentioned there was a new engine type being developed which took advantage of Ethanol's incredibly high ignition resistance to boost compression in tiny engines to huge levels, along with direct injection and turbochargers, which increased power by 300%. So my Expedition could have a tiny 2.4 liter engine, create the same power (I don't need more than it has) and get much better mileage. I would love to open the hood and have this tiny little motor in there.

Shale oil and such mostly comes from Canada, if I'm not mistaken, and is VERY dirty to make. I want the MONEY to stay HERE and be relatively CLEAN. Right now, with the technology we have RIGHT NOW, Ethanol seems to be the answer. I'm sure Hydrogen will be IT in the years to come, but not NOW.

My 2010 Mustang had better be at least E85 compatible, if not powered by one of those 2.0 liter hypercharged 20:1 compression ratio engines making 400 horsepower, the E85 I buy for it going into the pocketbooks of Farmer Joe...

GalaxieWarrior · Apr 23, 2007

$5 a gallon?

ummm 351cj how would you figure it could cost 5 bucks a gallon for ethanol? I used to know a man who could make a gallon of ethanol with more octane than premium for about 80 cents a gallon. Now you figure on mass production of a company being able to get that cost down more. SERIOUSLY 5 BUCKS? I'd like to hear more.

mustangmike6996 · Apr 23, 2007

call me crazy....

ethanol is very mileading to many people... ethanol (to mass produce) actually has many downfalls.. on top of not being nearly as efficient as gasoline, i learned that (to the best of my memory0 for every ten gallons of ethanol produced there is at least one gallon of sewage that has to be recycled and cleaned before it can be expelled to where ever it goes... so this bs about it burning cleaner is actually not as clean as you think. the govenment in washington is actually for the most part highly against and skeptical of ethanol based fuels... you can thank to EPA for eliminating Methyl tert-btyl ether, MTBE, due to ground water contamination from gasoline which also drove prices up. not to mention that if there was corn famine/ drought catastrophic corn dying the E85 prices would skyrocket... lets face it everyone is mone hungry and they have all of us who depend on fuels in a financial choke hold... no matter what happens price goes up

SlideWRX · Apr 24, 2007

callmedrlove said:
I know this is an extremely old post but I was reading up on ethanol and noticed this and I just had to comment. Do you have any idea how small of an amount of US land is used for food production? The use of corn for ethanol production would have zero impact on food prices, or maybe even lower food prices due to more people becoming farmers to capitalize on the new cash crop of corn.

Long term, yes. but currently corn prices are very high due to ethanol demand:
http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/food/2006-12-14-ethanol_x.htm?csp=34

On some other comments in the is thread, E85 may eventually eat through some componenets, but all fuel system components currently have to handle minimum E10, as that's what some Sunoco stations are runnign currently. When Brazil went to Ethanol in the 70's, they started with E20 or E30 because that's what the fuel systems could handle.

There are some guys on the WRX boards that have been running E85 mixtures & straight E85 for a couple years now. It's 'Just' a matter of bigger injectors, maybe a fuel pump & a tune to handle it. They've torn open a couple of thier fuel hoses to check for degredation & found none (at least visually).

Tom

soontobefastfox · Apr 24, 2007

QCStang said:
Couple of popular misconceptions here.

Ethanol is made from heavily subsidized corn. Actually it costs far more to grow corn than the selling price on the free market (Agricultural subsidies are huge in the U.S. and Europe) thereby adding to the US national debt.

15% of all crude oil (and the percentage is increasing daily) comes from Canada.

However, most oil companies in Canada are US owned.

Exactly. Gusin, Canada and Mexico is where the US gets most of its oil.

Secondly E85 for a non-E85 vehicle it will not run correctly. You know those Flex-Fuel cars? They have different computers and fuel systems to handle the E85. The reason is the computers dected the amount of gas and E85 in the fuel system to correct parameters like A/F ratios.

But you can convert cars to E85, I have seen that Holley makes a E85 Carb, I am not sure about converting a EFI car. Another point is for E85 to be more efficient it needs a high compression ratio, but it still will not be able to run as efficeintly as gasoline.

Hoboattacker · Apr 24, 2007

351CJ said:
Because the US is too far north in latitude to have any sizeable areas where sugar cane can be efficiently grown.

Brazil has apparently done a geat job with it's ethanol from sugar cane program. But Brazil is located around the equator so Brazil has a huge advantage over the US in how much more energy positive their agri-ethanol farming is. Hawaii should be looking into this.

Louisiana has plenty of land that is basically worthless for residential/commercial use and could be used for farmland. Texas has quite a bit of land too and I know both states grow sugar cane.

mustangmike6996 · Apr 24, 2007

well just to get it to run correct you are looking at a ton of work (with a newer car anyway) the pcm has to obtain two sets of parameters to run.. no i have no idea as far as to how the computer wiould react to a half tank of gasoline and a half tank e85 i do know you do have to adjust your A/F ratio again tho... and i also know that there are many different materials used to make these durable to resist corrosion as well as an aray of different sensors like the one that chrysler uses.. an infrared sensor with a mirror to reflect the light back to tell the density of what is in the tank and it will adjust mixture accordingly...

E85 conducts electricity... think about it you will come up with some reasons to ponder...

Kepfordj · Apr 24, 2007

SlideWRX said:
Long term, yes. but currently corn prices are very high due to ethanol demand:
http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/food/2006-12-14-ethanol_x.htm?csp=34

On some other comments in the is thread, E85 may eventually eat through some componenets, but all fuel system components currently have to handle minimum E10, as that's what some Sunoco stations are runnign currently. When Brazil went to Ethanol in the 70's, they started with E20 or E30 because that's what the fuel systems could handle.

There are some guys on the WRX boards that have been running E85 mixtures & straight E85 for a couple years now. It's 'Just' a matter of bigger injectors, maybe a fuel pump & a tune to handle it. They've torn open a couple of thier fuel hoses to check for degredation & found none (at least visually).

Tom

The WRX boards had a lot of good info, I used it to help rewrite the fuel maps for my and a buddys motorcycles to run E85. All we did was increase the fuel across the board by 27%. Since then I've been playing with the advance curves to optimize it. The bikes love it. The bikes are 2 excelsior Henderson V-twins. Doing this to my mustang would be a bit harder as I do not have access to the software I would need to do it, but a boosted mustang would love this.

wotfr · Apr 25, 2007

Funny thing is Ford brought out the SuperStallion concept 'Stang about 11 years ago and it was supposed to be flex fuel up to E85, why they haven't brought this tech to something other than fleet cars is beyond me.

metroplex · Apr 25, 2007

The SCT software allows you to change the stoichiometric AFR setting (9:1 for E85/E100, 14.64:1 for gas).

e85 85% ethanol fuel

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