EPA increases ethanol to 15%

[Hobbes]

Interesting article in BusinessWeek:

End the Ethanol Insanity


Among the quotes:

"Ethanol is not an ideal transportation fuel. The future of transportation fuels shouldn't involve ethanol." —Energy Secretary Steven Chu, Nov. 29, 2010

Having been fervidly pro-ethanol in the last decade of his political career, former Vice-President Al Gore reversed course and apologized for supporting ethanol. Of course, Gore's reason for taking his original position was perfectly understandable—to a politician. As he told energy conference attendees in Athens, Greece, "One of the reasons I made that mistake is that I paid particular attention to the farmers in my home state of Tennessee, and I had a certain fondness for the farmers of Iowa because I was about to run for President."

Translated from politics-speak into English: Pandering to farmers gets votes.

 

[Street Rat]

I have had to use ethanol only on a few occasions, while there wasn't much of difference if any in mileage, it just doesn't make sense to use a food source as fuel, just more gov stupidity (tax dollars) at work.

 

[BluRaySS]

And it's not just cars

Electricity generation from bagasse
See also: Bioenergy
Neat ethanol car fueling E100 at a Piracicaba gas station, São Paulo.

Since the early days bagasse was burnt in the plant to provide the energy required for the industrial part of the process. Today, the Brazilian best practice uses high-pressure boilers that increases energy recovery, allowing most sugar-ethanol plants to be energetically self-sufficient and even sell surplus electricity to utilities.[60] By 2000, the total amount of sugarcane bagasse produced per year was 50 million tons/dry basis out of more than 300 million tons of harvested sugarcane. Several authors estimated a potential power generation from the use of sugarcane bagasse ranging from 1,000 to 9,000 MW, depending on the technology used and the use of harvest trash. One utility in São Paulo is buying more than 1% of its electricity from sugar mills, with a production capacity of 600 MW for self-use and 100 MW for sale.[76] According to analysis from Frost & Sullivan, Brazil's sugarcane bagasse used for power generation has reached 3.0 GW in 2007, and it is expected to reach 12.2 GW in 2014. The analysis also found that sugarcane bagasse cogeneration accounts for 3% of the total Brazilian energy matrix.[77] The energy is especially valuable to utilities because it is produced mainly in the dry season when hydroelectric dams are running low.

According to a study commissioned by the Dutch government in 2006 to evaluate the sustainability of Brazilian bioethanol "...there are also substantial gains possible in the efficiency of electricity use and generation: The electricity used for distillery operations has been estimated at 12.9 kWh/tonne cane, with a best available technology rate of 9.6 kWh/tonne cane . For electricity generation the efficiency could be increased from 18 kWh/tonne cane presently, to 29.1 kWh/tonne cane maximum. The production of surplus electricity could in theory be increased from 5.3 kWh/tonne cane to 19 kWh/tonne cane."[

 

[Dale00]

Your "betters" in Washington D.C. have decided what is best for you. If they say it is protecting the environment then it is, even if it isn't.

Now hush up and get in line for your e-15 fuel.

 

[n423]

I avoid any ethanol if possible. Sometimes it is hard to find non-ethanol stations when traveling.

 

[OKgunfan]

I've been told that ethanol acts as an oxigenator and therefore increases horsepower. Lots of local racers go for it.

 

[Glocktogo]

I've been told that ethanol acts as an oxigenator and therefore increases horsepower. Lots of local racers go for it.

Which means it should be sold at racetracks, not gas stations. I think you can tune an engine to get higher horsepower with ethanol, but real world usage in passenger cars indicates that it's less fuel efficient, more horsepower or not.

 

[andrsnsm]

The only benefit of ethanol is to the corn producing states like Kansas and Nebraska. Other than that, ethanol sucks. Oh wait, it still sucks.

 

[redmax51]

I've been told that ethanol acts as an oxigenator and therefore increases horsepower. Lots of local racers go for it.

It does, but the engines are usually dedicated alcohol engines and fuel systems and after racing the entire fuel system is drained.Not very practical for a day to day driver.Then there's the consumption issue.We used to go up 10 jet sizes,a huge increase,on carb equiped cars,motorcycles and atv's.There's also a problem with maintaining engine heat,alcohol is "self cooling".That's why top alcohol funny cars and dragsters make long burnouts to build engine heat,not just to heat the tires.Maybe some day they will figure a way but right now it has too many problems.

 

[Shadowrider]

It does, but the engines are usually dedicated alcohol engines and fuel systems and after racing the entire fuel system is drained.Not very practical for a day to day driver.Then there's the consumption issue.We used to go up 10 jet sizes,a huge increase,on carb equiped cars,motorcycles and atv's.There's also a problem with maintaining engine heat,alcohol is "self cooling".That's why top alcohol funny cars and dragsters make long burnouts to build engine heat,not just to heat the tires.Maybe some day they will figure a way but right now it has too many problems.

About the only redeeming value I can think of on non-race engines is alcohol injection on supercharged engines. It works pretty good at cooling the intake charge. Beyond that it's useless in a gasoline engine on the street IMO.