Alcohol And Cars DO Go Together

[Mulboyne]

[DrP]

Jeezus - what a bunch of crap. producing ethanol actually is a negative-sum in terms of 'carbon footprint' , energy and resource utilization. Besides, burning ethanols in engines produces far nastier toxic gasses than petro ... yum yum i love to breath formeldehyde!! What did they do? Flunk organic chem 101?? Again, idiots.

[DrP]

I'd like to add in on this. Back in the 80's I was involved in a project that presented technology for reducing pollutants in diesel (mainly) engines. We tried in vain to sell this to the 'Big 3' even though we were SCAQMB approved, EPA approved and installed on more than 500 test vehicles in US and Europe we could not get past the stonewall. In the end SECOM bought out our patent and I asked them what they'd do with it. The answer -- "nothing, until we need to". There you go. Anytime I see a bus, train, car, ship and even airplane go by belching soot, CO, NOX and SOx, I cringe. Some of us do know the truth --- and the answer is definitely not ethanol.

[Charles]

Jeezus - what a bunch of crap. producing ethanol actually is a negative-sum in terms of 'carbon footprint' , energy and resource utilization. Besides, burning ethanols in engines produces far nastier toxic gasses than petro ... yum yum i love to breath formeldehyde!! What did they do? Flunk organic chem 101?? Again, idiots.

You ought to see what the social and ecological impact of ethanol production is like, here in the land of corn, ethanol central. The largest ethanol producing factories are just a few miles from where I live, they're all run by corporate agriculture like Archer Daniels Midland. There's a huge rail system feeding ag products into the local cereal factories, the trains run day and night bringing corn in and ethanol out. Apparently they are switching over to ethanol, as making breakfast cereal isn't as profitable (and besides, there's more corporate power from making gasohol than from making cereal).
The thing that kills me is that ethanol can't be put through pipelines, so it's all hauled by rail and truck tankers. You have to disperse ethanol production facilities all over the country because it's too expensive to transport. This means it takes more facilities and more energy input to run all those facilities, you can't get an economy of scale like the big oil refineries. The local ethanol refineries here in Iowa are as big as they get, and they are only supplying this region (where gasohol is very popular).

[DrP]

I could go on for days about this. Like lets start from the basics. Ethanol has less than 2x the heat of reaction of petro -- therefore takes nearly 2x the volume to create equivelant power output. So - you gotta carry around 2x the weight of fuel. That's not only in your tanks, folks, but in the tankers, pipelines , pumps and everywhere else. While I'm not a particularly big fan of internal combustion engines -- making a move (and publicizing it as positive) towards ethanol is just plain idiocy by any stretch of the imagination. Especially in Japan where the country can't seem to grow enough rice to feed its population let alone surplus grains for manufacturing fuel... As Charles aptly notes - this isn't about fuel, but about monetizing grain against a declining futures market heavily propped by government subsidies and focus on 'LOHAS'. LOHAS my ass.

[Samurai_Jerk]

I'd like to add in on this. Back in the 80's I was involved in a project that presented technology for reducing pollutants in diesel (mainly) engines. We tried in vain to sell this to the 'Big 3' even though we were SCAQMB approved, EPA approved and installed on more than 500 test vehicles in US and Europe we could not get past the stonewall. In the end SECOM bought out our patent and I asked them what they'd do with it. The answer -- "nothing, until we need to".

Bullshit

[CrankyBastard]

When I was working for a Japanese boat building firm some years ago, we did a study on the use of ethanol fuel and came to the conclusion that it was not worth the effort.
Because of the hydroscopic property of ethanol, meaning it absorbs water. The more ethanol in the fuel, the more water there will be in the fuel tank. Water not only causes the tank to corrode, it also causes the corrosion particles to clog fuel filters, fuel systems, and damage engine components.
I won't be putting it in my tank anytime soon.

[Charles]

Because of the hydroscopic property of ethanol, meaning it absorbs water. The more ethanol in the fuel, the more water there will be in the fuel tank. Water not only causes the tank to corrode, it also causes the corrosion particles to clog fuel filters, fuel systems, and damage engine components.

Oh don't even get me started. I remember the first year gasohol came out. I heard about engine problems with the new fuel mix, so I consciously avoided using it in my newly-restored '65 Mustang GT Convertible. It wasn't up to spec anyway, the owner's manual recommended 112 octane Premium gas, gasohol was only 83 octane. But one winter day, I accidentally pushed the wrong button on the pump, while filling up in the middle of a cross-country trip, and I got a full tank of gasohol. I got about 20 miles when I heard a huge bang, I blew a gasket and cracked the engine block. My beautiful newly-rebuilt Hi-Compression 289 engine was ruined. I had to have the car towed back home. My mechanic told me he was starting to see a lot of these problems in cars running gasohol in the winter, he said that water vapor condensed inside your car's gas tank, causing the ethanol and gas to separate. So one minute you're burning gas, then the next second you're burning pure ethanol, BOOM.
The car was a total loss. You just can't get replacement Hi-Compression 289 engines, that's what makes it a GT. Regular 289s are a dime a dozen, but not the GT engines. I sold it for parts. Dammit, I just spent years collecting all those parts to make THIS car.
To this day, I have never used another drop of gasohol. I never will.