Gas question

OPEC shmoopec. You have to get down to the REAl basic reason about ethanol.

My home state is Wisconsin. When ethanol came all the farmers swapped ALL of their fields to corn to get rich quick.

Ethanol plants were cropping up all over like 7/11's.:(

The price of hay skyrocketed because of the lack of planted fields which in turn cattle prices and corn prices skyrocketed. And of course with the surplus of corn the farmers turned to subsidies to be paid NOT to plant corn. :R

Then Local Property owners started rallying to stop the construction of ethanol plants in their towns.

All I can say is the farmers went back to putting up hay again can't have the cattlemen industry ticked off at high prices of hay and there are many partially built ethanol plants sitting vacant and decaying.

They have proven and tested time and time again that switch grass can produce ethanol more economically and with less environmental impact.

Hmmm, Gee, I wonder if the reason switch grass is not used is because it is not driven by the all mighty stock market?

Empty Nest, Soon wrote:

I don’t believe it does one thing to help “energy independence.” But as I recall, that was the basis on which they sold us this bill of goods. Google “ethanol energy independence” and you will still find plenty of sources touting its benefits for energy independence. Baloney!

If the US cared about energy independence, or the environment, we would be moving toward wind, solar, hydro, and maybe even nuclear for those uses where oil can be replaced by other energy sources. We would stop exporting oil and gas. We would leave ours in the ground for now – we’re going to need it later.

Wayne

X2 on all of this.

JaxDad wrote:

Empty Nest, Soon wrote:
As I recall, at the time it was enacted this incentive to add ethanol was more about American “energy independence” from OPEC than from any environmental concern. It was an easy sell to Congress because it had the backing of the very powerful farm lobby.

Wayne

But that's the problem, it does NOTHING to reduce the importation of foriegn crude since it does nothing to reduce the consumption of gasoline.

If a particular vehicle (in this case a M/H) loses only 10% in mileage on ethanol enriched fuel and drops from about 9 mpg to 8.1 mpg then on a 1,000 miles trip it will burn 123.46 gallons of fuel, of which 90% or 111.11 gallons of that is gasoline. If however the M/H was getting 9 mpg on straight gasoline it would burn 111.11 gallons of gasoline.

However, in the first case, burning E10, the vehicle also burned an additional 12.35 gallons for nothing, well, not nothing, it used up food stock, created extra pollution and wasted money.

I agree.

I don’t believe it does one thing to help “energy independence.” But as I recall, that was the basis on which they sold us this bill of goods. Google “ethanol energy independence” and you will still find plenty of sources touting its benefits for energy independence. Baloney!

If the US cared about energy independence, or the environment, we would be moving toward wind, solar, hydro, and maybe even nuclear for those uses where oil can be replaced by other energy sources. We would stop exporting oil and gas. We would leave ours in the ground for now – we’re going to need it later.

Wayne

Empty Nest, Soon wrote:
As I recall, at the time it was enacted this incentive to add ethanol was more about American “energy independence” from OPEC than from any environmental concern. It was an easy sell to Congress because it had the backing of the very powerful farm lobby.

Wayne

But that's the problem, it does NOTHING to reduce the importation of foriegn crude since it does nothing to reduce the consumption of gasoline.

If a particular vehicle (in this case a M/H) loses only 10% in mileage on ethanol enriched fuel and drops from about 9 mpg to 8.1 mpg then on a 1,000 miles trip it will burn 123.46 gallons of fuel, of which 90% or 111.11 gallons of that is gasoline. If however the M/H was getting 9 mpg on straight gasoline it would burn 111.11 gallons of gasoline.

However, in the first case, burning E10, the vehicle also burned an additional 12.35 gallons for nothing, well, not nothing, it used up food stock, created extra pollution and wasted money.

JaxDad wrote:

wa8yxm wrote:
And there is a fact that alcohol contains less energy per gallon that gasoline so your MPG suffers with Alcohol. Without double checking the research (Which I do not feel like doing just now) I believe EtOH is about 10 percent less powerful, so E-10 should cost you 1% in MPG. That said I have seen much greater claims.

I think your math is a little off there friend.

Even the US Dept. of Energy website says; "Since ethanol contains about two-thirds as much energy as gasoline, vehicles will typically go 3% to 4% fewer miles per gallon on E10 and 4% to 5% fewer on E15 than on 100% gasoline." and you have to believe they're being very optimistic and using mathematical calculations and not real world figures.

In a study done by Edmunds they tested a 2007 Chevy Tahoe, an E85 Flex-fuel ready vehicle, in a 'real world' controlled mileage test. The results? Mileage dropped 26% while burning E85 fuel.

Yes E85 is not worth it when you check mileage but you also have to go out of your way to get it,I tried it once in my 6.2 pulling the trailer and will never use it agian. I use E10 98% of the time but I have used regular gas and I can say with real world experience pulling the trailer makes no difference in the mileage between the two. I have a aux tank so I get a large quantity of gas when we fuel up so I would have noticed the difference, with the instant mpg feature on our Ford it's easy to check the differences between tanks.

Denny

It costs more to distill a gallon of ethanol than to produce a gallon of gasoline. Some sources say that it takes more energy to produce a gallon of ethanol than you recover when you burn it. It makes no economic sense for the oil companies to put it in gasoline.

Except, if the oil companies add a little bit of expensive ethanol to their gasoline, they avoid a big chunk of the gas tax they would otherwise pay to the federal government. Adding a little ethanol saves more in taxes than the cost of the ethanol. NOW, it makes economic sense for the oil companies to add it.

As I recall, at the time it was enacted this incentive to add ethanol was more about American “energy independence” from OPEC than from any environmental concern. It was an easy sell to Congress because it had the backing of the very powerful farm lobby.

Wayne

There was ethanol in gas around here back when gas was under a dollar. It's not going away any time soon. The farm lobby has some power, and besides, in any modern engine ethanol blends burn nicely.

I've never gotten bad gas. My sister got it once, my mom got it a couple times in her life. All three of those were gas that contained water due to some fault at the gas station.

wa8yxm wrote:
And there is a fact that alcohol contains less energy per gallon that gasoline so your MPG suffers with Alcohol. Without double checking the research (Which I do not feel like doing just now) I believe EtOH is about 10 percent less powerful, so E-10 should cost you 1% in MPG. That said I have seen much greater claims.

I think your math is a little off there friend.

Even the US Dept. of Energy website says; "Since ethanol contains about two-thirds as much energy as gasoline, vehicles will typically go 3% to 4% fewer miles per gallon on E10 and 4% to 5% fewer on E15 than on 100% gasoline." and you have to believe they're being very optimistic and using mathematical calculations and not real world figures.

In a study done by Edmunds they tested a 2007 Chevy Tahoe, an E85 Flex-fuel ready vehicle, in a 'real world' controlled mileage test. The results? Mileage dropped 26% while burning E85 fuel.

KD4UPL wrote:
I've never gotten "bad gas" either. I always buy the cheapest stuff for the automobiles. I always by ethanol free for the boat and small engines.
Ethanol isn't about economics, It's about the strength of the corn lobby in Washington. I don't see it going away anytime soon even though it makes absolutely no sense to be using it.
Gas is not cheap because the oil companies want it that way. It's called supply and demand, it's a basic economic principle.

Ditto.

wa8yxm wrote:
Well.... I have seen the lab test reports, And the warnings from the engine makers, and have checked out the chemistry. There is evidence to suggest that higher concentrations of alcohol may damage engines NOT designed for it (Mercury Outboard Motor's test) Of course if the engine IS designed for it,, Then that test would not apply.

And there is a fact that alcohol contains less energy per gallon that gasoline so your MPG suffers with Alcohol. Without double checking the research (Which I do not feel like doing just now) I believe EtOH is about 10 percent less powerful, so E-10 should cost you 1% in MPG. That said I have seen much greater claims.

This I do know.. I ran low level alcohol (1-2% in my cars in the winter for many years (Standard/Amoco gasoline) before they were bought by BP.

They added HEET gas line antifreeze to the mix (At least when the driver was adding it, If they added at the plant I doubt they used that brand).. This is basically shellac thinner or Wood Alcohol, Works much like the grain alcohol they use today but a bit more expensive.

This worked as a gas line antifreeze because it dissolves water and carries it along into the combustion chamber where it is turned into steam and exhausted out the tail pipe.

Works very well in fact as I and a few others have proven.

I'm not sure what that water is doing to the engine either.

One of MANY byproducts of burning regular non Ethanol gasoline is WATER.. So, really any extra water which may be in suspension via Ethanol is not going to cause any harm to your engine..

The real concern is what happens when the fuel has been sitting and the accumulated water drop out of the Ethanol.. It creates pockets of water in the bottom of your tank..

In small engines which have carb and fuel tank integrated this leads to clogging of the dip tube screen..

Many other small engines which have tank above the carb will have a valve with screen that goes into the bottom of the tank.. Water will surround the screen and eventually block the fuel..

In carb bowls you will end up with an accumulation of water in the bowl if the fuel sits to long.. This can cause corrosion to the bowl and even jet tube.. Pretty simple fix for this type is turn off the fuel from the tank and pull the drain plug on the carb duel bowl and drain out any leftover fuel..

For those who are chicken littles.. For your information pretty much every state in the US HAS been getting Ethanol laced gas since the 1970s.. The only difference from then to now is the concentration was boosted from a few percent up to a max now days of 10%..

Remember "Gasahol" from the early 1970s? It didn't sell well so Ethanol was creatively hidden in regular gasoline to stretch out the supplies..