Study says ethanol not worth the energy
 

http://wcco.com/nationalwire/Ethanol...rces_news_html

Discuss.

Now knowing this I feel it's time to move ahead and forget about using ethanol on a wide scale like they're pushing us to do. This renewable resource is obviously not all it's cracked up to be.

Re: Study says ethanol not worth the energy
 

Hopefully WCCO blows that wide open and spreads it all over the 10 pm news making the MN legislature reverse the new recent law! I'm sick of ethanol and the worse gas mileage and less power output per gallon associated with it.

Re: Study says ethanol not worth the energy
 

Maybe you will all learn someday....
At present is isn't all the economical, this will change soon.But as far as your car goes, you can safely run higher boost and/or higher timing adv to more than account for you loss in mileage/performance.Is short, ethanol is good, an someday you misiformed people will believe so.

Re: Study says ethanol not worth the energy
 

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Re: Study says ethanol not worth the energy
 

At least for GM vehicles, is/should/will be a reflash available which will make you not even notice you have ethanol fuel.If you have have any source of tuning in your vehicle, regardless of what the misiformed say, you should be able the boost mileage AND power with ethanol fuel

Re: Study says ethanol not worth the energy
 

I disagree. If they mixed the same 92 octane gas that we used to get with ethanol, then yes it would bump up the octane level. Notice it still says 92 octane though? Well, they are taking the old 90 octane, mixing it with 10% ethanol and you have 92 octane. So we aren't getting any gains from it, we use more fuel because of less energy stored in the ethanol.

Re: Study says ethanol not worth the energy
 

I didn't post this so it could become another "ethanol sucks for performance use" bitch-fest. The study has proven that simply creating ethanol isn't efficient. Negative energy, if you will. Like extracting oil from the sand in Canada.

Re: Study says ethanol not worth the energy
 

with modern technology you are correct.

at one time, normal gasoline was the same way vs coal and other hard fuels.

Re: Study says ethanol not worth the energy
 

You all know that I'm a huge ethanol supporter, have always used ethanol, and will continue to use ethanol. Cornell University has (to my recollection) never had anything pro-ethanol ever be published and David Pimentel (again to my recolletion) has been one to continually preach against ethanol. However, I have read reviews of his work before and have learned that many are cautious about his publications because he loves to use agricultural production figures and facts that are beyond outdated versus modern information. By using the outdated information, he is 100% correct as ethanol used to be a complete waste of energy due to the drastic loss ration in terms of production versus output. However, this has been improved exponentially in recent years. I just got back from an American Society of Agricultural & Biological Engineers conference in Tampa Bay, FL. I'll do some digging through the most updated technical papers and publications and see what I can find for facts to post up.

Re: Study says ethanol not worth the energy
 

The simple fact is we will run out of fosil fuels someday. I dont see a problem in mixing ethonal in with gas. But I do not have a vehical that "needs" pump gas hp. I am going to run my car off methonal, but that is not really a street driving fuel.

~John

Re: Study says ethanol not worth the energy
 

to my knowledge the ethanol based fuel E85 is 105 octane which means more boost more power but lower gas mileage. The E85 gas is also much cheaper to buy than say 100 octane race gas. So it might not be worth it for the companies that make it but until they stop making it it is almost like a cheap race gas. If of course you have the right fuel sytem to handel ethanol based fuels.

Re: Study says ethanol not worth the energy
 

New studies are also showing that oil is not actually a fossil fuel.

E85 is actually more expensive to run even though the price per gallons is cheaper since it is far less efficient.

Re: Study says ethanol not worth the energy
 

If you have a standalone, you might be be able to run it lean enough and with a bunch of added timing to get a lot of the gas mileage back. It wouldn't work so well with a stock ECU and a non-lambda O2 sensor though.

Re: Study says ethanol not worth the energy
 

Just as a sidenote for everyone, all my E85-based posts are talking about as if it were to be run in a FFV vehicle.

Re: Study says ethanol not worth the energy
 

Ok ladies, take a look at this: http://www.cleanairchoice.org/outdoo...%20Balance.PDF


...and other good stuff: http://www.cleanairchoice.org/outdoor/index.asp

Re: Study says ethanol not worth the energy
 

I clicked on it but it is 6 pages so I didn't look at it.

Re: Study says ethanol not worth the energy
 

That's what the abstract is for at the beginning of the paper. ;)

Re: Study says ethanol not worth the energy
 

GM is surely pushing ethanol, check out their homepage.
http://www.gm.com/

Re: Study says ethanol not worth the energy
 

GM is doing everything they can to NOT lose money. Selling their current cars is obviously not the key.

Re: Study says ethanol not worth the energy
 

There's always another motive behind anything big business does. I've been in dealerships and around major car manufacturers for over 20 years. They don't do anything they aren't made to do by the EPA or the gooberment.

Remember when airbags, door support cross-bars, 3rd brake lamps, etc were added to cars? The car manufacturers were putting out all these commercials about how they were trying to save lives, make cars safer, etc. But behind the scenes, they were raising holy hell that the gooberment was forcing them to put more parts on cars that cost more money to make that took away some of their profit margin.

Ethanol has some good points, but for every good thing it does, there is a negative side.

Re: Study says ethanol not worth the energy
 

I'm curious about when they will have these Hydrogen powered cars.

Re: Study says ethanol not worth the energy
 

When they can figure out how to sell you water at $10 gallon and keep it in short supply. :cool:

Re: Study says ethanol not worth the energy
 

Mainstream? Depends on who can profit from it.

Re: Study says ethanol not worth the energy
 

nice!

this is quite the old thread, but at least a new one wasn't started w/out a search.

Re: Study says ethanol not worth the energy
 

I realize ethanol has some downfalls but just curious Mike, anything in particular that you're referring to here?

Re: Study says ethanol not worth the energy
 

I'll chime is and state its costing taxpayers a fortune, provides less power/gallon, and harms engines (small engines especially).

Re: Study says ethanol not worth the energy
 

How so?

Re: Study says ethanol not worth the energy
 

Subsidies to farmers and increased cost of gasoline.

Re: Study says ethanol not worth the energy
 

well, in reality, today, it requires slightly less energy to produce a gallon than the energy coming out of it, so it's better these days.

but the method for extracting the ethenol uses petroleum, IIRC. double edged sword.

Re: Study says ethanol not worth the energy
 

What do subsidies based on commodity prices have to do with the ethanol industry costing taxpayers money? How has the ethanol industry caused an increase in the cost of gasoline?

Re: Study says ethanol not worth the energy
 

True. However, the major players in the agricultural diesel engine market (Deere, Cummins, CAT, Iveco, Sisu, Deutz, Perkins, etc.) have made major strides in terms of their ability to run high concentrations of bio-diesel.

Re: Study says ethanol not worth the energy
 

DEATH!

Re: Study says ethanol not worth the energy
 

Why? Come on Hughes, you're not doing a very good job of arguing. :p

Re: Study says ethanol not worth the energy
 

Bio Diesel is one of the best things to come out of soybeans ever. I run E-85 in my minivan all-day everyday, no problems, better gas mileage in town, and I save a shit load of money.

Re: Study says ethanol not worth the energy
 

Corrosion/oxidation to metal parts, deteriorates rubber seals & fuel lines. Requires a richer fuel mixture to burn, so you may save a liitle money in the cost per gallon, but with less fuel economy it may cost you the same or more.

As far as the car companies go, they are probably getting kick-backs, tax breaks or something out of the deal.

Re: Study says ethanol not worth the energy
 

E85 equates to lower MPG, not higher.

Biodiesel is not a good thing, it clogs fuel filters in the cold and is costing the shipping and trucking companies a fortune.

Re: Study says ethanol not worth the energy
 

yeah, but e85 costs around 1.79 right now. i think there would probably be some overall savings there. low grade gas is like 2.09.

Re: Study says ethanol not worth the energy
 

I heard that was due to a bad batch of biodiesel made locally, if we are talking about the same thing.

Also, how is it possible that some people have run biodiesel with no problems, then some truckers get fucked by it?? Methinks there needs to be more refinement and higher standards, but the base for a great fuel supply is definately there.

Edit: plus when you "crack" grease to break it down to biodiesel, you also get glycerin, so cheap soap will be a possibility too. :D

Re: Study says ethanol not worth the energy
 

I have never seen any documentation which proves that. All the trouble that truckers in Minnesota were having recently was from refining issues.

Re: Study says ethanol not worth the energy
 

I have never heard of this before.


On older vehicles, yes. On newer vehicles, I have never heard of such.


http://autorepair.about.com/cs/gener.../aa102100a.htm