Ethanol

They are building ethanol plants like mad here in SE Michigan. The farmers are thrilled because they think they'll make tons on their old corn but like zman said, if they go in half assed, how do you think it will work? They are stocking up on the enzyme to put it into the ground so they can continue to plant corn every year. Sounds like a winner there to me! I liked crop rotation, nice to see something different each year.

I'm no tree hugger but I do care about the environment. I want it here when I leave, I've got kids to think about, not just cars. I disagree with the ethanol solely because it is a net loss. Ours is going to use natural gas to heat the corn to ferment it. Brazil is self sufficient because they don't need to add much if any to the sugar cane so it ferments on its own. The other thing I don't like is the fact that they are telling us that they'll see 480 trucks per day to haul corn in and eth out. We are a rural community of 3500 folks and the first thing they did at this election is ask for road improvements because the eth plant says the place THEY chose has crappy roads so WE should pay to fix them! They got a 15 year tax break because they are an 'agricultural' company. Hey, I got a farm, give me a tax break. I'll give you all the poop you need for your garden!

If they could just make them run on poop...

 

Do you mean they are using ethanol (alcohol) to dilute methanol (alcohol) so it is less volatile? I don't know what the difference between the two is... maybe octane? Can you enlighten us? Thanks!

Ben

 

Saw that on the television once. They raced human vs cow. I still think this is a technology that could be developed further. As stated, farmers are being paid not to grow crops in many places. The net loss/gain, well I've seen stats that say it goes either way. Such stats need to be examined a bit, ya know, see who funded said study. Wasn't the initial study that stated the net loss funded by some group with ties to oil companies. Honestly, I could be very wrong, it's been a while since I've read anything on this. Reduced mileage? Sure you have to up the jets to give it more fuel, but bump up your compression too. That wouldn't level the playing field a bit? As with any technology it needs time and FUNDING to progress. Put up a prize and people will build a space ship (SpaceShipOne)! Why can't we do that in a field like this? Cash and ambition/ingenuity seem to go hand in hand nowadays.

 

Strictly speaking in terms of ethanol even if an engine is completely optimized for its use the fact remains that the energy content of a gallon of it is significantly less than a gallon of gasoline---30% at least. It will make the same or even better power because of its better cooling and higher octane but there's no getting around the fact that you have to get much more mixture in the cylinder to accomplish this. It's a perfect fuel for heavily blown motors like drag engines and champ car turbo mills but who cares about mileage in a drag car and champ car teams consider themselves lucky to get a couple of miles per gallon. It's also good for high compression regular engines because of the high natural octane rating and everyone knows pure alky racing engines are in a class by themselves.

Back here in the more or less real world it may be possible to narrow the gap in fuel consumption with big dollops of high-tech trickery but the laws of physics simply cannot be completely defeated. If we go forward with moving the U.S. fleet more towards alky consumption the mileage penalty is just something we'll have to live with. I can certainly see building engines with 10-1 or higher compression ratios that will run great on E85 but heaven help you if you get stuck out of range of an E85 station. Having a can of octane improver in the vehicle won't really be optional. Outside the corn belt it may be a while before a car with an alky optimized motor will be a candidate for more than local cruising.

 

Corn is a mean crop and takes a lot of energy to make Ethanol from because it takes more to process it into a raw sugar. Sugar cane is the best but does not take to our climates well.

A crop that would work well for this in the US is Sorghum. When used for Ethanol production its slurry waste can be processed into packaging I have heard folks talk about it for insulation also. My grandparents used to plant it and make it into the sorghum syrup which is damn good stuff.

It is true on a normal engine you will see worse mileage and it can strip old lines and tanks bigtime. However with a power adder or high compression it works really good and gets good mileage at least on four poppers. I have seen a 2.3 turbo getting 40 mpg on E85 and a few other mods.

I agree with having a contest to see who can make a alternative powered car. I have seen a poop powered car it actually worked!!!!! Ran on pig poop.