E85 ethanol more commonplace? yeah - look for it everywhere
Anyways: its neigh unto impossible to get through 24 hours without the word ethanol tickling our ears. Now I don’t have anything against the stuff, but I won’t throw caution to the wind and swallow everything the ‘experts’ say either. As for global warming, well let’s just say this; a lot of folks have made boocoo bucks off the hoax, and continue to do so. In my opinion, global warming is just another snake oil deception. Uuuuh-huh, it's all about green alright, green $$$ backs.
By the way; I'm sure you've noticed; it’s no longer called global warming. After all, wasn’t global warming the epitome of needless alarmism? Yikes - now its climate change. Sigh! In any case, bio ethanol is great stuff but it has a down side too. So, I’m gonna give you both sides. And by the way, green house gas is water vapor and remember the earth’s flora thrives on CO2.
Now if you can stop the sun from evaporating all that ocean water, I might pay attention. Anyway bio-ethanol is the subject not solar evaporation or polar bear relocation. Blending, ethyl alcohol with gasoline may make sense until one begins to look at a few simple facts. Did you know, bio ethanol is not used to reproduce itself, gasoline is, why? because a gallon of that fossil stuff costs 94¢ against $1.74 to produce the biofuel. As I said, I’m not against bio-ethanol, it has an important place in our arsenal of energy alternatives.
It is said that bio-ethanol yields 25 percent more energy than it takes to produce it, and that’s grand. But even here, the fact’s don’t support the glee when you consider that the government subsidizes bio-ethanols production costs by 51¢ a gallon. One expert put it like this, "If it weren't for the subsidies, we wouldn't be producing a gallon of ethanol in the U.S. today," Henry Groppe¹. The government - hey that’s our money. You should know; bio-ethanol will yield from 20-30% less MPG when compared to a gallon of gasoline. And sufficient corn production necessary to meet ethanol fuel production simply isn't sustainable. See this site for info about crop sustainability for bio-ethanol.
Moreover, wood chips and switchgrass are not currently commercially viable. Using corn to produce the stuff requires 29% more fossil energy than the fuel it produces. Using switchgrass requires 50% more. Using wood biomass requires 57% more. Regardless of this, it looks like we’re headed into an E85-ethanol future. We haven't arrived, but we're getting close. Up to this point, I’ve generally provided generally unsupportive information. However the comparative energy table gives more validating data.
Okay, take a look at the table. I've included Pure bio-Ethanol, Pure Methanol, Pump Gasoline, E-30 and E-85. The 30 in E-30 indicates thirty parts of ethanol to 70 parts of gasoline. E-85 works the same way. The fuel's listed cite racing parameters to show ethanol's versatility. Pay particular attention to the octane ratings. The pump gasoline is what you get at the average pump.
The antiknock property of automotive fuel is called octane. Sometimes known by a (MON) number. This is the Motor Octane Number concerning high RPM, for high performance engines. MON is used by racing engine manufactures to help determine high compression ratios and advanced ignition timing to eliminate detonation. A fuels burn rate is a constant, however at high RPM’s, it has less time to burn completely. Therefore a faster burning fuel is used to compensate for the higher RPM. Latent heat of vaporization is simply the potential of a fuel to remove heat from the intake gas. This characteristic makes it possible to fine tune the engines performance using different fuels. The energy index of a given fuel, expressed in BTU’s/lb is the total heat energy available. This depends on the net energy of the fuel. By taking the raw energy value of a fuel then multiplying that by the fuel burned. The ideal fuel/air ratio is called its stoichiometric. A high stoichiometric equals less power, low stoichiometric = more power. Now we come to horsepower, a term that almost everyone is familiar with. In any case, ethanol contains a lot of oxygen. As a result, it has a low 6.5 stoichiometric. Compared to gasoline at 12.5, it is essential that bio-ethanol runs at a richer mixture than gasoline. Of course this more than makes up for the lower energy per unit volume. Consequently more energy is released per cycle, hence more horsepower. This is all a result of latent heat, vaporization, octane and burn rate in just the right proportion. Another benefit is longer engine life and reduced emissions. For more details, see methanol. Now before you get all excited about bio-ethanol, just remember the table and the great benefits bio-ethanol presents are calculated on a high performance engine. Running E-85 in a stock vehicle may result in a small increase horsepower. That is if the engine is well tuned. A do it yourself bio-ethanol refiner can make sufficient quantities of ethanol for the average family fuel needs.
¹ Henry Groppe Links:  Custom Search
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