Turns Out Ethanol in Gas is a Bad Idea
 

The Great Ethanol Scam: Not only is ethanol proving to be a dud as a fuel substitute but there is increasing evidence that it is destroying engines in large numbers. Even Al Gore has jumped off that bandwagon. So what is Congress doing? Increasing the allowable amount.

I have never bought gas with ethanol in it, though -- I never thought it was a good idea to substitute food for fuel, nor did I trust any of the advertising. Ethanol has a higher heating value of about half that of hydrocarbons -- ever notice that the formula (C2H5OH) already contains some oxygen? Gasoline is a mixture of hydrocarbons, but on average its formula would be something like C8H18. All that is oxidizable.

Do you have the option for your gas? It seems every station I visit has the "Contains Ethanol" sticker on the pumps. Or do you not need the fuel?

Ethanol is not added to Canadian fuel and in New England where I travel frequently, I always seem to be able to find brands that don't contain any.

In fact, ethanol is added to Canadian fuel, at least here in Ontario up to about 10%.

It seems that only some of the fuel here is ethanolized.

I'll tell my dad. We're far away from home and need some gas.

By the way. Did any Canadians notice the gas price spike (5¢) on Christmas Day? Horrible gouging.

This today in Canada's National Post: Lorne Gunter: The futility, expense and enviro-damage of biofuels.

Interesting reading.

My main question is, whether hybrids or "electric" cars are really better.

I suspect that they're not, Renault. I suspect that a lot of energy goes into manufacturing the battery and, of course, electric cars still need to be charged, so instead of burning fuel yourself, you're letting the power company do it for you.

When it comes to electric vehicles I thought the theory there was that it's easier to clean up the fuels if they are used in a centralized location. Well, either that or we could use nuclear or wind energy.

Not so much, Jay. A modern internal combustion engine is about 33% efficient (1/3 of the energy in the fuel propels the car, 1/3 heats the exhaust stream, 1/3 heats the radiator). A modern power plant is about 40% efficient (at the plant) with the rest heating the stack plume and heating the condenser water about equally. In addition there is an small transmission loss (mostly heating transformers). Modern cars don't emit much pollution -- just carbon dioxide and water. Modern power plants do the same. Charging a battery, however, heats it, so there's a loss in that, and, of course, electric motors get hot too.

What is the ethanol made from? In every country it's something different. Corn in the US, cane in Brazil. Sugar beets and maybe wheat in France. What all these ingredients have in common is a powerful industry with influence over the national government.

Electric cars shift money and pollution from one large industry to another large industry. Often, they also shift pollution from urban areas to rural areas where coal fired power plants are located.

Maybe electric cars, hybrid cars, and ethanol are good for the environment. But clearly there are other reasons why these solutions are being tried. I suggest that there may be other solutions out there that work better but do not have the support of already established industries.

The shifting of pollution and energy can be subtle. With a cell phone phone, it may take more electricity to build it than it does to run it for several years. As far as total energy costs go, a new phone may primarily be coal powered even if you use solar electricity to charge it. The coal power has already been put into the phone when it was manufactured in China.

Interesting to say that. Manufacturing really uses more energy than running the device, sometimes.

Ethanol uses food to power it. Gas uses octane. The latter is more efficient.

My dad told me that octane had (if I remember correctly) 5 carbon atoms linked together. Ethanol had 2 carbon atoms. Hence, ethanol dissolves the power of octane. No wonder it does not do good stuff to your car.

I'm sick of all the additives they, erm, add to gas. It reminds me of LITE versions of software that have ads all over and just drive you - UGH! I'd rather pay for premium sometimes than get all those cleaning destroying additives.

Yes, ethanol is shifting the resource use around.

Let's use less oil to power our cars - Ok, that seems like a good idea.

Let's use up more topsoil and more fresh water to power our cars - Uhh, that seems like not such a good idea.

If cars run on food now, why can't they run on *used* food?

in other words, methane gas, you guessed it.

Ever heard of methanol? Some cars run on that. Some cars also run on natural gas.

Of course the reason that drag racers and formula cars burn methanol is because of its knock resistance at high compression ratios. Since the hp developed by and efficiency of an engine both depend on compression ratio directly, and because they can be refueled regularly, racing engines often use methanol or for very short runs (dragster) nitromethane.

Nitro has the advantage of containing oxygen so it needs less for complete combustion. To quote Wikipedia:

Nitro is made from propane and nitric acid. Methanol also contains oxygen, but it is bound to hydrogen (which it prefers to carbon) rather than nitrogen to which it's loosely bound.

Forgive the burst of engineering. I was involved (eons ago) in the development of a very high-performance engine using a supercharger on a Chrysler hemi engine. We were able to nearly triple its horsepower (on methane), but only got about 40 minutes of full power life out of it.

Wow. Maybe I should stick to the bicycle. The human is omnivorous. :)

My grandpa's Cressida has just a tinge of water in the gas, and the Cressida doesn't feel very comfortable combusting. Thanks, Petro-Canada.

That's actually very common everywhere. Gas stations store their gasoline in underground tanks which are very prone to leaks, especially as they age. Most older underground gasoline tanks are made of unprotected steel, and of course that will corrode over time, especially in any climate with regular rainfall.

You should be able to buy an additive at your nearest car parts store, costing about $1 a bottle, that will "dry out" your gasoline.

Trevor

The noise is gone, so I don't need to worry. Thanks for the idea, Trevor.

Oddly enough, gasoline dryers are usually either isopropyl alcohol or methyl alcohol. Given a choice, use the isopropyl -- it's not damaging to plastics.

Will do.

Reminds me of the time when my friend loaded diesel fuel into his gasoline-powered snowmobile. Thank goodness he didn't start it. They drained the thing and I forget what else they had to do. 'Twas not a pleasant experience!

They wouldn't have to do too much since he hadn't started it (it wouldn't have started). They just drain out the diesel and fill the tank with gas. The small amount of diesel left would have dissolved in the gas so it might have run a bit smokey for a few minutes, but it would run. I used to winterize a 50 hp outboard by squirting fogging oil in each of its cylinders so when I started it in the spring there was a great cloud of smoke, but it started.

Interesting. As I said, you can't beat nature for fuel compatibility. We should've stuck with the horse, like the Amish. On the other hand, the Amish towns…

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5161/...8ae569079d.jpg

10% Ethanol spiked fuel has been available here for a few years probably because of a sugar glut in Queensland*. My Impreza loves it because otherwise I have to pay extra for Premium ULP. However, I think it may have something to do with two fuel pumps failing in two years. That kills the economy argument.

*Not sure how much sugar plantation is under water just now or the long-term effects of immersion.

According to some of the reports I read Warragul, the Ethanol IS the cause of those fuel pump failures -- some of the plastic and rubber parts don't like alcohol.

A company that sells Subaru fuel pump parts says:

Thanks for that; no more ethanol for me.
The original pump ran for 15 years but the replacement failed within 2 years. Mind you, I didn't start the ethanol until about 5 years ago.

Seems the proposal now is to go with E15, but only for vehicles manufactured after 2007. One more pump at the station, and one more chance to ruin your engine if you're not paying attention. Both my vehicles are pre 2007, and both are low mileage.

Sounds like a really bad idea with no reason I can see to go forward with this.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110104/...us_epa_ethanol

Both my vehicles are 2003 (it was a very good year); a Honda Pilot and a Honda Accord; the Pilot at 105,000 km (65,000 mi) and the Accord much less. I've carefully avoided ethanol for all that time -- the cars simply weren't built for it. They can handle MCMT as an anti-knock agent (most Canadian fuels use it) without screwing up their catalytic convertors.

We have a huge choice of auto fuels here in Thailand. Petrol comes in plain 91 or 95 octane. You can also get 5% ethanol, called gasohol, in 91 and 95 octane versions. 15% ethanol is also becoming widely available. You can have your car converted to run on either natural gas or LPG, both of which are widely available. Generally, gasohol is cheaper than petrol.

I believe that the ethanol produced here is made from oil palm, coconut palm and sugar cane. The increased planting of oil palm for the production of automotive ethanol is blamed on the increasing destruction of rain forest throughout southeast Asia.

Interesting article in today's Bangkok Post about a 30% increase in the price palm oil for cooking: "Your car is eating my food and merchants are hoarding it."