E85 - Ethanol in general... (heaters, biodiesel, oil, climate)

[thecoalman]

Originally Posted by Turboblocke

I've been using it and have actually noticed a very slight improvement in mileage from 20km/l to 21. It's probably likely due to the seasons rather than the fuel.

Ethanol can only decrease your mileage as it has considerably less BTU value than gasoline. About 2/3 the power.

[DCforever]

Originally Posted by thecoalman

Ethanol can only decrease your mileage as it has considerably less BTU value than gasoline. About 2/3 the power.

Not to be overly picky, but that would be 2/3 the energy density. Alcohol fueled engines do not suffer a loss in power.

[Philip T]

Originally Posted by SVTRay

First hand experience, this was years ago but I tried the stuff out on our Tahoe designed to use E85. At the same time, some of my friends tried it out. Anyhow, I generally got 360-400 miles to a tank of gasoline over the road. I only got 180-200 miles on a tank of E85. My friends had similar results. I haven't played with it much more.

Those are some vicious numbers. Would not want to consider dealing with that, either. The guys I play with tend to do custom tuning and go all the way over to E100.

Be interesting to see which production E85 vehicles drop the harshest and which do best, and I imagine that some pattern would emerge by manufacturer, type or car and engine, location, on and on.

This is some what two parted reply, one being the drought and two being vehicles not optimized to union E85.

You only need a drought in key states to hurt fuel production. The current drought for example is causing the US to import food from South America and Mexico as well as cotton form over seas. I just don't see a total move to E85 thus using engines designed to run on both E85 and Gasoline which in turn is ineffienet.

.

Sure. I do not think (or at least hope) Any One figures everybody, everywhere in the US would be on E85. Longer term would be better to dump the Gasoline portion altogether, run some remote areas on various Bio-Fuels and put most of US on Grid Power electric.

[Turboblocke]

Originally Posted by Turboblocke

I'm in France where we have 85 E10, which is 85 octane with 10% ethanol. Since 2000 all new petrol/gasoline cars can use it. However it only became generally available in the last year.

Just a correction: it's 95% octane.

[Turboblocke]

Originally Posted by thecoalman

Ethanol can only decrease your mileage as it has considerably less BTU value than gasoline. About 2/3 the power.

tc is right about the relative energy density per litre, but the situation is slightly more complicated than that. To enable cars to use it unmodified, the composition of the petrol that makes up the other 90% is adjusted. Then of course there are the potential benefits of running a cleaner burning fuel.

As I said about my observation of slightly improved mileage: it's probably due to the change in seasons, as currently the engine, when starting from cold, is 30-40°C warmer than in Winter, so reaches optimum operating temperature quicker.

[thecoalman]

Originally Posted by Turboblocke

Then of course there are the potential benefits of running a cleaner burning fuel.

In an urban environment this is certainly a benefit because you have less pollution going into a heavily populated area but the overall benefit is dubious. I haven't researched it enough to draw a firm conclusion but there is tremendous amount of fossil flues that are used for the production of ethanol. Some studies suggest more energy going into it than we get out of it, using corn is one of the big issues because it's not the ideal feedstock. Probably the most optimistic study I read was a net gain of 50% but that was from a pro ethanol source. It's backwards to use all that energy just to produce something that is more expensive.

[BuffaloTransplant]

Originally Posted by DCforever

That's not true. Current ethanol plant are energy positive.

Not unless they buy something like carbon credits to offset the fossil fuel used to make the ethanol. That does not qualify for energy positive

[BuffaloTransplant]

Originally Posted by SVTRay

First hand experience, this was years ago but I tried the stuff out on our Tahoe designed to use E85. At the same time, some of my friends tried it out. Anyhow, I generally got 360-400 miles to a tank of gasoline over the road. I only got 180-200 miles on a tank of E85. My friends had similar results. I haven't played with it much more.

Our new van is rated to use E85. (first vehicle we have had that was) We just went on a long road trip and decided to compare the two: same route, both ways. Took 2 tanks of E85 to go one way and only 1 1/4 tank of gas the other. [Our odometer also has a function telling you how many MPG you are getting... E85 was substantially lower and the need to fill up proved it.] Add that to the cost to manufacture? I will take gas any day. We try for the gas which has the lowest ethanol (it is mandated in NY) -- wonder what mpg we could get if we could get 100% gas?

[DCforever]

Originally Posted by BuffaloTransplant

Not unless they buy something like carbon credits to offset the fossil fuel used to make the ethanol. That does not qualify for energy positive

It has nothing to do with carbon. It's an energy balance.

[Philip T]

Originally Posted by DCforever

It has nothing to do with carbon. It's an energy balance.

Lotta folks are still running on the dis-information from Pimentel.

An (now older) update >>>

Food and Fuel America.com: Pimentel Pumps Up Ethanol