ethanol

babock wrote:

JaxDad wrote:


I have a neighbour who’s a real ‘salt of the earth’ kinda guy, well into his 80’s. He smokes 1.5’ish packs of smokes a day, says he has since was 15. He’s in great shape, lives on his own, still farms part-time even.

By your logic the argument could be made that cigarettes are not bad for you let alone kill you.

LOL..yet all we have is anecdotal stories of how bad E10 is when it is in fact fine other than a 3.3% mileage loss.

BTW..former GM engineer here working with engine ECUs. My best friend who is a chemical engineer at Chevron laughs at these threads. So much BS as he says.

Huh, you’d think a chemical engineer would understand basic chemistry.

Even the EPA acknowledges that water entrainment is an issue with ethanol enriched fuel.

Using the extremely conservative EPA figures of 0.5% water by volume in E10 fuel my 75 gallon would then contain 3.75 gallons of water.

Do you want to guess how miles per gallon a V10 gets on water?

Of course, speaking of chemistry, a gallon of water when blended with gasoline and flashed into steam in a hot engine becomes 1,235 gallons of hydrogen and 622 gallons of oxygen. Since a standard ICE isn’t set up to burn hydrogen it does effectively nothing in the process, the oxygen does though, it throws off the mixture of the exhaust. When the O2 sensor picks it up it perceives the excess O2 as meaning the engine is running to lean and tells the ECM to riches up the mixture.

If all of the fuel, and all of the vehicles sat on a laboratory test bench, 3.3% MIGHT be an accurate figure, maybe.

As the old saying goes .......... “It looked good on paper.”.

drsteve wrote:


My neighbor's farm tractors all use diesel. Maybe that's why.

Of course, if all the agricultural and processing equipment were engineered to run on ethanol, there would be nothing left to dump on the unsuspecting consumers.

Always follow the money.

Brazil is heavy on 'flex fuel' options
The use sugar cane to produce alcohol, much higher yeild per ton than corn sugar
Different plant, more sugar

Lynnmor wrote:

westend wrote:

We should have listened to Henry Ford back in 1925. "There's enough alcohol in one year's yield of an acre of potatoes to drive the machinery necessary to cultivate the fields for a hundred years."

He was a big advocate of alcohol as a primary fuel.

Which begs the question; Why don't the farmers and ethanol producers use the stuff they produce? It seems to me that those making the money should set the example before pushing a product on the masses.

My neighbor's farm tractors all use diesel. Maybe that's why.

Turtle n Peeps wrote:

Lynnmor wrote:

westend wrote:

We should have listened to Henry Ford back in 1925. "There's enough alcohol in one year's yield of an acre of potatoes to drive the machinery necessary to cultivate the fields for a hundred years."

He was a big advocate of alcohol as a primary fuel.

Which begs the question; Why don't the farmers and ethanol producers use the stuff they produce? It seems to me that those making the money should set the example before pushing a product on the masses.

I wish RV.net had a thumbs up! I would put about 5 of them on your reply! :B

Always consider the framing of the comments, such as that of Henry Ford. He was basing his ideas on a 20hp, top speed of 45mph, Model T. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Model_T_engine

Farmer (commercial) use larger and larger equipment to stay competitive in production costs. Consider how much $$ is siphoned off at every step as taxes, income tax, sales tax, property tax, regulation agencies, etc for every part of production to consumption- including equipment needed.

Now also consider what portion of that parasitic cost is simply burnt up within the policing and processing of those same funds. Something like 80%?

So...

Reducing the burdens and unnecessary inflation of costs on production would permit more smaller scale farming, lower cost production while farmers thrive.

Allowing smaller equipment that uses less energy, which is more likely to benefit from lower energy sources like CNG, ethanol, woodgas, etc. Equipment that can be feasibly powered by small scale self-production systems on farms and other privately owned endeavors.

Maybe not quite Henry Ford's 20hp version, but quite a bit closer is definitely in reach once the artificial burdens ("loading" in accounting parlance) are relaxed to a more reasonable level.

THAT is where I see alcohol's better role where it can provide more benefit than pollutant. :C

Lynnmor wrote:

westend wrote:

We should have listened to Henry Ford back in 1925. "There's enough alcohol in one year's yield of an acre of potatoes to drive the machinery necessary to cultivate the fields for a hundred years."

He was a big advocate of alcohol as a primary fuel.

Which begs the question; Why don't the farmers and ethanol producers use the stuff they produce? It seems to me that those making the money should set the example before pushing a product on the masses.

I wish RV.net had a thumbs up! I would put about 5 of them on your reply! :B

westend wrote:

We should have listened to Henry Ford back in 1925. "There's enough alcohol in one year's yield of an acre of potatoes to drive the machinery necessary to cultivate the fields for a hundred years."

He was a big advocate of alcohol as a primary fuel.

Which begs the question; Why don't the farmers and ethanol producers use the stuff they produce? It seems to me that those making the money should set the example before pushing a product on the masses.

westend wrote:

Diskdktr wrote:
Want a STABLE and SUSTAINABLE fuel supply? First rule is ensuring your supplies can survive and meet the needs during interrupted or unfavorable supply.

We should have listened to Henry Ford back in 1925. "There's enough alcohol in one year's yield of an acre of potatoes to drive the machinery necessary to cultivate the fields for a hundred years."

He was a big advocate of alcohol as a primary fuel.

Henry was a little off on his figures. ;)

Doesn't Brazil rely heavily on ethanol for its fuel?

Diskdktr wrote:
Want a STABLE and SUSTAINABLE fuel supply? First rule is ensuring your supplies can survive and meet the needs during interrupted or unfavorable supply.

We should have listened to Henry Ford back in 1925. "There's enough alcohol in one year's yield of an acre of potatoes to drive the machinery necessary to cultivate the fields for a hundred years."

He was a big advocate of alcohol as a primary fuel.