Posted on 02/15/2022 5:20:45 PM PST by george76
Corn alcohol. Still a stupid idea either way.
It is food. For cattle. That eat it. Then we eat them.
It does not burn hotter. That is a myth.
Ethanol has a much lower heat of combustion than the blend of hydrocarbons that is called Octane.
That is why E85 has such poor gas mileage.
“Corn ethanol is not a climate-friendly fuel,”
But a lot of greenies got to feel real good about it for awhile.
Once these fools manage to outlaw gasoline, those of us who “cling” to our internal combustion engines will be making our own alcohol, just a bringin’ on the global warming.
It’s a Fool’s Errand by any other name.
Haven’t we already expired a couple of “there will be no more oil after” dates?
Yeah you can make good power on alky but you need a high compression ratio to take advantage of the octane rating.
Sprint cars on alky run 16:1 compression.
Sure would be, but I nosed around the site for 15mins, and found zip.
DUH. This was known 20 years ago. It takes more energy to produce a gallon of ethanol than a gallon of gasoline. But good luck getting ADM and the corn farmers to give up their massive welfare.
Ethanol was never about emissions ... it was all about votes (and money as usual).
This makes no sense to me. I'd appreciate it if you could explain or provide a source for this claim. The other remarks you cited are fine, I agree.
The only time I have been able to measurably experience greater mpg from pure gas in any of my vehicles was with the 2006 Lincoln LS I had back in the day. V8, ECU, drivetrain and suspension by Jaguar (S-Type). BMW killer in the marketplace. It took two tanks for the ECU computer to fully adjust from ethanol laced premium octane to equivalent octane pure gas but once things kicked in, highway mpg increased maybe 10%.
Driving a truck like I normally do, trucks are an aerodynamic brick and the mpg improvement strictly from pure gas is too trivial to be noticeable, at least by my experience. A high performance Raptor or TRX pickup on the open highway could have different mpg results than mine, wouldn't surprise me.
Thanks…
pollution is worse from ethanol gas than straight gas
its been known for decades.
Yup!
Been “an agribusiness political scam” right FRom the Get-Go!
The blend of hydrocarbons that compose gasoline is called BTEX This stands for benzine, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylene. No octane.
Octane is a different hydrocarbon, an 8 carbon alkane meaning a straight chain of carbon single bond atoms fully populated with hydrogen atoms, C8H18. Octane is not a desirable component in the BTEX blend.
The octane number on the gas pump is an index number representing the pressure at which the BTEX spontaneously combusts with respect to octane as measured in a reference engine. This characteristic means that a greater octane number fuel can run at a greater compression ratio without undesirable preignition. Preignition is also called “knocking”. Excessive knocking can damage or even destroy an engine
Trivia related to high octane gasoline…. In the late 1930s, the US developed catalytic processes used by a small number of oil refineries to produce mass quantities of high octane aviation gas, about 105 octane IIRC. This gave US and British aircraft with supercharged engines the ability to fly faster and at higher altitudes than their German and Japanese counterparts. Many of the tanker ships sunk in the Gulf of Mexico in the early part of the war were carrying avegas to England or beyond to Murmansk.
This was brought up decades ago. No one paid any attention… or were paid not to by lobbyists.
As you pointed out, ethanol is a typical component of the tail gas, which I was not aware of.
The paper discusses some examples of negative effects of ethanol re. groundwater but this is in the context of gross soil and groundwater by an event such as a gasoline spill or leaking underground storage tank. Tailgas emissions are not in these two categories and this is where I had the question on your comment.
The paper does describe a negative effect in the case of a gasoline spill by which the ethanol reduces gasoline viscosity, which can increase soil transport of gasoline thus increasing the possibility of ground water contamination.
Now I go into opinion and not fact. I don't think that tailgas emissions are significant with respect to ground water contamination. Tailgas significance on groundwater effect was not mentioned in the paper and I believe that the concentration and mass load in tailgas are just to low to be of significance.
Anyway…. I started this with a baseline of facts assumed from the paper and I’ve drifted into opinion. I’ve got my opinions and I respect yours. We’re all good.
Cheers….
On some topics, facts don’t matter much less nuance. Emotions are of primary importance!
Boy you’ve REALLY gotta read this:
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/4038712/posts
Research results point to a strong possibility that organic elements — carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen — exist in a sort of liquified, but uncombined, free state as part of the Earth’s core.
That introduces the possibility of organics migrating upward through the strata due to the immense pressure, to where they could ultimately, at areas of far lower pressure and temperature much nearer the surface, reform into organic hydrocarbons.
The finding is a shot in the arm for the hypothesis that crude oil may be a geological — not a “fossil” — product.
Heresy! ;-)
Well, it doesn’t take a rocket surgeon to deduce that turning a carb into ethanol, which, as a fuel, has about 30% less BTU than gasoline before you su tract the BTUs required to cook it....
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