A New Twist for the Moonshiner: Ethanol

any engine that uses a variable mixture of the two is not optimized.

Turbocharger and variable pressure wastegate. Viola variable compression ratios. (Granted those wastegates are'nt cheap, about $500 for my burner, but weeeee it sure makes avgas fun.)

"The American Petroleum Institute, which represents the oil industry, is all for putting ethanol into gasoline but questions the wisdom of doing it yourself."

The ATF people might also question the wisdom... and legality.

Go to the Tennessean.com and you'll find pictures

I expect to see production costs go down as new technologies are introduced. Big companies are now getting in on the game and they'll figure out how to reduce costs. I just read that Chevron invested in a big ethanol plant that's being built. I think we'll see ethanol production costs going down while gasoline prices continue to rise.

I don't know just how much the ethanol industry is subsidized, but any need for subsidy should decrease as the price of oil climbs. I don't think we'll ever see really cheap oil prices again. Reserves are depleting and what is left is harder and more costly to get and refine. Also, demand for oil is increasing as countries like China and India become more industrialized and the people their want to live more like we live. The cost of producing ethanol relative to the cost of producing gasoline kept ethanol from being a viable option before. Now production costs for producing ethanol are going down while the cost of oil is rising so ethanol is looking a lot more promising.

In Brazil now from what I understand more than 40% of all fuel burned in passenger vehicles on their roads is ethanol. They no longer have to purchase foreign oil. From what I understand their ethanol industry is not subsidized, but taxes are lower on ethanol and cars capable of running on ethanol. They do have the advantage of having dirt cheap labor and huge amounts of sugar cane (much better than corn for ethanol production). I am confident that good old American ingenuity can level the playing field though.

One thing they have in Brazil that we should have here are cars capable of burning 100% ethanol, 100% gasoline, or any combination of the two. I think most of those cars are actually produced in the U.S., but they are not marketed here. An awful lot of our new cars are capable of burning E85 though. It costs very little extra to build cars that handle E85 and manufacturers get tax breaks for doing it, so apparently an awful lot of the new vehicles on the road will run on E85 (5 or 6 million to date) even though manufacturers weren't making a point of telling people about that. These tax breaks are a subsidy of sorts, but if it ends up reducing our dependence on foreign oil it's worth it. That's a matter of national security. And besides, it keeps some of the money we are giving to the Arabs here at home. I'd rather see American farmers and other American businesses rake in that money rather than some jerk offs who fund terrorists. Even our oil companies benefit to a degree because they get tax breaks for mixing ethanol with gasoline. They could benefit more if like Chevron they would get into producing ethanol.

"The ATF people might also question the wisdom... and legality."

It is perfectly legal as long as you have a permit. The permit for small scale production (up to 10,000 gallons per year) is not that hard to get. A lot of people have them.

While I am "suspicious" of subsidies -- I'm not opposed for them for a well-defined purpose. Given the geopolitics today, energy self sufficiency is probably worth a subsidy.

Anything that helps out rural communities is "a good thing" in my opinion. If large-scale ethanol production helps farming areas, and draws some people from large cities back to the small towns, that will be a huge spin-off benefit.

Its not that simple.

First you apply to ATF. They tell you what you can have and what the capacity is.

They tell you they can show up at your place, any hour of the day OR NIGHT and check on you and your equipment, for compliance.

Gets pretty raggedy here, if you don't like the ATF, you have a problem.

Two, its a LOT OF WORK. Making the mash is a ten day ordeal that is time consuming and dirty.

Bakers yeast gives such a low yield, its practically worthless. Higher yield yeasts are expensive. Unless you culture your own, which takes even more time and is more labb intensive.

Try it if you like, but in short order, you will probably let every thing collect dust in the closet and your permit expire because you "just can't find the time".

Have fun though!

Ps. DO NOT GET CAUGHT DISTILLING DRINKABLE ETHANOL.

Bad move.

Here's a link to the form you use to apply for a permit: http://www.ethanolstill.com/alcoholpermit.pdf

I didn't know that. Thanks.

"Try it if you like, but in short order, you will probably let every thing collect dust in the closet and your permit expire because you "just can't find the time"."

That's no doubt true. It would end up in the closet with my beer making equipment, my metal detector, and all of the other hobby things I've purchased over the years and used very little before putting them away and forgetting about them. My wife just loves it when I do that. I would not be surprised at all though to see a lot more people getting into this, especially farmers and small business owners who want to save on fuel costs and take advantage of the tax savings. As time goes on I suspect we'll see a lot more ethanol available for purchase as well.

Homebrewers PING

On or off the Homebrewers Ping list, let me know.

Cheers,

knewshound

Brew Your Own

Thanks for the ping...I had no idea, yet this is FR.

[The distillate must be chemically treated to remove the remainder of the water before it can be used for fuel in an engine that is not specifically built for the task]

Alcohol mixes readily with water and will combust even at a 50/50 ratio with only a comparable reduction in efficiency. You can burn a shot of booze right out of the bottle, but be careful if you try it because the flame is difficult to see.

[An engine built to operate most efficiently with ethanol would need a higher compression ratio than one built for gasoline.]

A regular gasoline engine can switch to ethanol using the same compression ratio with only a few minor modifications to the fuel system. If it's a carburated engine then the jets need to be changed to deliver more fuel. Similarly, if the engine is fuel injected, then the injectors must be upgraded and the computer recalibrated to deliver more fuel.

While a significant performance increase will be seen by increasing the compression ratio from the 9:1 typical of gas to 13:1 for ethanol, it isn't strictly necessary.

http://running_on_alcohol.tripod.com/id32.html

I'm currently modifying my '78 M-Benz with a user programmable aftermarket fuel injection system (Megasquirt)in order to increase fuel economy as well as performance and toyed with the idea of converting to alcohol at the same time, but I decided it wasn't economical at all getting an estimated 10 MPG. The money incentive won't be there until you can buy ethanol for less than HALF what gasoline costs.

http://www.bgsoflex.com/megasquirt.html

Too funny! Well, I guess our good ol boys always knew what was going on...maybe they were a little ahead of the curve, though.

What I think are interesting are th cars being sold in Brazil now that will run on 100% ethanol, 100% gasoline, or any combination of the two. These are being manufactured by the big auto manufacturers and I don't think they cost that much more than regular cars. They don't cost any more in Brazil because they get a tax break for buying them so better than 70% of the new cars being sold there are of this type. Cars with that capability make sense in this day and age. Ethanol production is on the rise, as are gasoline prices. If you could burn either, you leave your options open so you could just buy whatever fuel is cheaper, gas or ethanol. Right now ethanol is cheaper, but it's a lot harder to find. I bet we see E85 pumps at gas stations most everywhere in the next few years though, and we might even start seeing pure denatured ethanol being sold. Ethanol is already cheaper than gasoline. When gas prices get up there a buck or two higher than they are today ethanol is going to be a good bit less than half the price of gasoline. It would make sense to buy cars now that in addition to straight gasoline will at least take E85, if not pure ethanol. When we start seeing $5 a gallon gasoline, as many are predicting we'll see sooner rather than later, ethanol is going to start looking like a heck of a deal.