I wish people would stop touting E85 as the fuel of the future. Does anybody realize how low the energy return on investment (ROI) is on ethanol?

from a KSU research on Ethanol:

Current energy ROI on crude oil is still around 25:1, ethanol is 1.24:1. Even the tar sands in Alberta have an ROI of at least 2:1 -- and there's around a trillion barrels of synthetic crude to be processed there, and would net enough go-juice for another 40 years of North American demand.

When you're using corn as a feedstock for ethanol, it's about 1/3 as efficient as sugar cane (like Brazil uses.) In addition, we would need to use just about every bit of arable land in this country to grow the corn to feed our current fuel demand, and guess what: nobody rotates crops anymore (not that crop rotation could support our current ag demand anyway), so everything is grown using chemical fertilizer made from natural gas and mined phosphates - which would continue dependence on fossil resources. With all our crop production going to ethanol fuels, what in the hell would we eat?

cliffs notes: ethanol is as much of a pipe dream as hydrogen.

 

who says we have to use corn or even sugarcane. Has anybody read up on cellulose ethanol?

Cellulosic ethanol can be produced from a wide variety of cellulosic biomass feedstocks including agricultural plant wastes (corn stover, cereal straws, sugarcane bagasse), plant wastes from industrial processes (sawdust, paper pulp) and energy crops grown specifically for fuel production, such as switchgrass. Cellulosic biomass is composed of cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin, with smaller amounts of proteins, lipids (fats, waxes and oils) and ash. Roughly, two-thirds of the dry mass of cellulosic materials are present as cellulose and hemicellulose. Lignin makes up the bulk of the remaining dry mass.

As with grains, processing cellulosic biomass aims to extract fermentable sugars from the feedstock. But the sugars in cellulose and hemicellulose are locked in complex carbohydrates called polysaccharides (long chains of monosaccharides or simple sugars). Separating these complex polymeric structures into fermentable sugars is essential to the efficient and economic production of cellulosic ethanol.

Two processing options are employed to produce fermentable sugars from cellulosic biomass. One approach utilizes acid hydrolysis to break down the complex carbohydrates into simple sugars. An alternative method, enzymatic hydrolysis, utilizes pretreatment processes to first reduce the size of the material to make it more accessible to hydrolysis. Once pretreated, enzymes are employed to convert the cellulosic biomass to fermentable sugars. The final step involves microbial fermentation yielding ethanol and carbon dioxide.

Grain based ethanol utilizes fossil fuels to produce heat during the conversion process, generating substantial greenhouse gas emissions. Cellulosic ethanol production substitutes biomass for fossil fuels, changing the emissions calculations, according to Michael Wang of Argonne National Laboratories. Wang has created a "Well to Wheel" (WTW) life cycle analysis model to calculate greenhouse gas emissions produced by fuels in internal combustion engines. Life cycle analyses look at the environmental impact of a product from its inception to the end of its useful life.

"The WTW model for cellulosic ethanol showed greenhouse gas emission reductions of about 80% [over gasoline]," said Wang. "Corn ethanol showed 20 to 30% reductions." Cellulosic ethanol's favorable profile stems from using lignin, a biomass by-product of the conversion operation, to fuel the process. "Lignin is a renewable fuel with no net greenhouse gas emissions," explains Wang. "Greenhouse gases produced by the combustion of biomass are offset by the CO2 absorbed by the biomass as it grows."

 

Buying a more fuel efficient car is a much more realistic alternative than trying to find a "new" fuel.

 

that wasnt the point. buying a more fuel efficient car still means using oil from another country.

eh...you know what, nevermind.

lets stick to what works and is not broken.

im pretty sure that well see gas prices come down to a good ole buck again. just wait and see

 

id try it.

my ranger is flex fuel vehicle, but gas milage drops 4-5 mpg... that could be fixed with a little boost.

 

it may come along someday, but people need to get over all the hype first. This isn't going to be something that changes over night, more like in the nest 5-20 years....

 

i've read that you produce achol and ethanol from most plants including grass! so the you offset the price of the corn fields with that. as long as oil is the easyest way make gas you won't see e85 around to much it just to easy for car and oil comanys to say o well gas is high so deal! but that the way the world is going now adays greed and money rule any better ideas get killed early

 

E85 doesn't sell for more than regular gasoline - if it did there wouldn't be any reason to produce it. I just moved out of Illinois (damn I miss Tampa!). Regular gasoline (87 octane) was around $2.84/gallon, whereas E85 was only about $2.40/gallon - that's a $0.44 difference!

Most normal cars cannot run E85 effeciently due to E85's different optimal A/F ratio. Most newer forced-induction cars can run a certain percent E85 safely, however.

I recently conducted a small test on my GTI and father's WRX. I've read that a 50% mix of E85 shouldn't do any harm. I've even read where a WRX owner is running 95% E85 with larger fuel injectors and has lowered his 1/4 miles significantly. I wasn't willing to go quite that far, yet...

Anyway, my GTI was running pretty low on fuel so I decided to give her a test of this corny new stuff (pun intended). I put in $10 of 93 octane from Shell and $5 of E85 - worked out to ~27% E85, which put my tank at ~25% ethanol. No ill effects, car was definitely a little peppier. With only 25% ethanol, the difference wasn't much though.

Shortly thereafter I took a trip to Oklahoma (don't ask) where E85 isn't available - neither is 93 octane! This new GTI hates 91 octane

Anyway, this past Saturday I get down around 1/2 tank with 91 octane in there. Decide to get half a tank of E85...unfortunately I wasn't able to drive the car with E85 in there (I was actually driving a rental truck as we were moving at the time). Over the drive (all highway) my roommated commented a couple times that the car was definitely quicker, but stumbled a bit between 3000 and 4000 rpm. Maybe I had a bit too much E85 for the ECU to compensate for... Fuel mileage went WAY down! The GTI averages around 32mpg highway...with 50% E85 she was getting around 24mpg!

On the other hand, my father's WRX was also filled up with 1/2 tank of E85 (BP or something 93 octane consisted of the other half). The WRX most definitely gained a little oomph, nothing to worship though. Fuel mileage didn't stray too far from normal. Both cars are back to Oklahoma's shtty 91 octane

It really depends on the vehicle...Subaru's ECUs tend to be able to compensate moreso than other manufacturers (like VW, lol!).

BTW, E85 is around 105 octane.

 

THE best website for E85: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E85

 

Does it really bother you that much? In light of the murderous activities of the middle east I'm for any alternative fuel or drilling in the Gulf, ANWR or anywhere.