Started burning E85

[Eyeshade]

You are making my point. The "inflation" you talk about is actually dollar devaluation disguised as "inflation". As your gold graph shows, in June 2002 gold was at $321.18 per ounce. In Jan 2012 gold was $1652 per ounce. That is a 5.14 times increase. So what did oil do? You said there was no way it doubled? Oil in June 2002 was at $24.49 per barrel. In Jan 2012 it was $107 per barrel. That is an increase of 4.4 times. This means in 2002 we got 13.11 barrels for an ounce of gold, now in Jan 2012 we get 15.43 barrels per ounce. This means oil is cheaper now than in 2002 in "real" money. Why are we so quick to accept the US dollar as a fixed point (we know it is being devalued) but we will look at the price of gold and say it is a bubble. Then we look at the price of oil and say it is inflation? Maybe oil is a bubble too? Maybe the US is printing trillions more dollars each year than it can support causing the currency to be devalued. Now that last statement makes sense to me because I know that it is true.

 

[varmint]

Eyeshade- you're right... I got off my butt and looked up crude oil prices. No more assumptions from me, considering how easy it is to fact check. Good arguement.

 

[valley]

Greetings, RE: Alcohol as fuel. One hundred years ago, in California, on the farms, my mother's brothers[10 of them], my uncles distilled and ,among other things, burned alcohol in the tractors. I still have a picture of one, and old International, Tractor. There was no special washer. Many washers/gaskets were leather from the factory. The fuel for distillation was vine cuttings.
The use of food grain and oil/gas for distillation today is a waste, like we can't stoke a furnas today with junk clippings.


They also sold Brandy during prohibition,but that's another story.

 

[Timber]

The truck seems to run great on E85 so far

 

[timswi]

The truck seems to run great on E85 so far

They built the truck for it, so it should...Glad it's working for you...The big thing is the MPG over something like E10/15?

 

[piller]

It was asked why the difference in mileage between fuels? Let me put this in the simplest form.

Energy cannot be created or destroyed only changed.

BTU content of each fuel is a known value. If we disregard for a moment efficiencies of engines wind resistance rolling resistance of tires and just measure the energy entering the engine in the form of fuel we can easily see where the differences come from.

Fuel Energy Content BTU/Gallon

Diesel 138,700
Bio Diesel 126,200 -10%
Vegetable Oil 123,143 -12%

Gasoline 125,000
E85 90,660 -28%
Ethanol 84,600 -33%

Engines optimized for each fuel can squeeze out better efficiencies, however, multi fuel engines compromise efficiency in order to use a broader range of BTU inputs.

Figure your mileage in BTU per gallon then adjust for the different fuels and you can see how each fuel is likely to work in your vehicle.

I have been playing in this arena since 1989 converting vehicles to run on alternative fuels for a large fleet. As yet there is no one fuel that will replace gasoline or Diesel.

:thumbsup::thumbsup:

Also, follow the money. Ethanol blends contain less energy per gallon and will result in decreased fuel economy. Fuel is taxed on a per gallon basis, so consumers will pay more fuel taxes per mile driven.

Also, what about pollution from fertilizer runoff and diesel tractors and the herbicides and such used to grow the corn which is used to make the ethanol? How does that fit into the big picture? It's quite possible that 100% gasoline or diesel is more "green" than the ethanol blends.

 

[Timber]

Fuzzy math

 

[Diamondpilot]

I dont think its fuzzy at all. I live where the crap is made. I have more than a dozen ethanol plants within 55 miles and have a bio-diesel plant 3.5 miles from my house.

Like the man said, nothing yet has replaced Gas or Diesel.

I will be curious what you get in your 2500? I ran ethanol for about a half a year in my 2007 F-150 Super Crew 4x4 with the 5.4L V8 and it would never get above 11mpg average. On 87 it would do 15.5mpg average.

My co-pilot saw the same results with a GMC Yukon XL 4x4 with the 5.3L. We did the test simultaneously back in the summer of 2007 just to see how they did.

Chris

 

[rambler]

Correction, Rambler didn't say E20 got better mileage than straight gas. My apologies Rambler.

Thanks.

Ethanol hs less BTU's than gasoline, and it often has less miles per gallon that gas.

I believe some of the studies have shown that an E20 to E30 blend often gives the best bang for the buck, giving more mpg than an E10 blend, but of course less than a straight gasoline.

If we could build an engine from the ground up to use thre positive parts of ethanol, which is a very high octane, one could go with a much higher compression ratio. As well ethanol burns more efficiently in an engine designed for it, so it would have less waste heat. One would get pretty much the same mpg as straight gasolinne.

But, who is going to buy a specialty car that only runs on straight ethanol? Just wouldn't sell. Would be as popular as a Chevy Volt - a non-seller.

So, we have to try to be compatable with the current engines and fuel out there. Which makes ethanol less efficient than it could be.

Still has a positive energy increase, but like I've said, it it's the greatest thing ever.

Corn ethanol has been helping reduce oil dependency and pollution for a couple decades now; what else has been that effective? Anything?

--->Paul

 

[timster2]

Fuzzy math indeed. Alternative fuels will require alternate forms of taxation. Roads are not free and need to be built and maintained. The challenge is to develop a method of taxation that works across state lines and fuel types. There shouldn't be a thirty or forty cent difference in price just by crossing a state line. Methods need to be developed to tax electric and natural gas vehicles as well, after all they use the roads just like other fuels. Just think of how much tax is lost when someone uses an electric car. Natural gas vehicles also evade the tax man.

Ever wonder why E85 and not E100? Alcohol does not vaporize very well in cold weather and you need a little gasoline to help with starting. And another major concern is that Alcohol flames are invisible in sunlight. Ever light a propane torch outdoors, can't see the flame very well can you. Well its the same with Alcohol. Drivers of M100 (100% methanol) vehicles were issued boxes of salt to throw in front of them in the event of an accident, the sodium would indicate where the fire was. 15% Gasoline makes the flames visible. There are many things to consider other than mileage when developing alternative fuel vehicles.