The Great Ethanol Scam

[Warped]

go to Ed Wallace's Inside Automotive and click on the link to the Business Week article near the top of the page right below the link titled Japan's Economy in Record Fall.

 

[faster]

go to Ed Wallace's Inside Automotive and click on the link to the Business Week article near the top of the page right below the link titled Japan's Economy in Record Fall.

First off there is nothing wrong with ethanol as a fuel.

There is no food shortage to produce ethanol to drive up the price of foodstuffs. We waste more foodstuffs in this country than we eat. Take a ride through the small towns in the midwest after harvest and you will see corn and soybeans piled higher than a stadium left to rot because we dismantled all the railroads and have no way to get it to production.

Ethanol is cheaper than gas to manufacture and delivers far more power and better mileage in heavy vehicles 4000# or more.

Ethanol requires less energy to produce 1 gallon than gas does. It requires 1/3 the energy of the total btu yield of a gallon of alky to produce that gallon.

The reports the media is using to come to their conclusions about the inefficiency of alky is from the 1970's. They are using no data from the late 90's or later.

The problem comes from trying to run a low compression (under 12-13+/1) gas engine on alky! That is were you lose the mileage and reliability.

All of this has been proven and public knowledge for the last 7-8 years by many of the top engineering schools around the country. Hell the University of Florida right here in G'ville came up with an extremely fast growing grass that produced more alky per bushel than any other source.

Where has all this technology and engineering data gone? I wonder.

Start here and go through some of the links on this site:

Make your own Fuel

Mikey

 

[UNGN]

Ethanol is cheaper than gas to manufacture and delivers far more power and better mileage in heavy vehicles 4000# or more.

Not even close. Ethanol is about 2X more expensive to produce than Diesel and a Diesel Truck will haul as much as any ethanol powered truck while getting TWICE the mileage hauling the same load.

Ethanol requires less energy to produce 1 gallon than gas does. It requires 1/3 the energy of the total btu yield of a gallon of alky to produce that gallon.

Bzzt... wrong. Gasoline uses only a fraction of the energy to produce it that gasoline does.

To produce a Barrel of ethanol (42 gallons), you need the equivalent of 20 to 30 gallons of oil. Coal or natural gas is used for much of this but harvesting and transportation costs use actual oil.

To produce a barrel of Gasoline, you need to use about 3 gallons of oil in refining and transportation.

The reports the media is using to come to their conclusions about the inefficiency of alky is from the 1970's. They are using no data from the late 90's or later.

If this is true, why are we still spending BILLIONS of tax dollars in ethanol subsidies and yet Ethanol still pays no road taxes?

If ethanol was Cheaper to make and yielded better mileage, why are we still subsidizing it? oh, because it isn't and doesn't.


As for getting ethanol from switchgrass and other cellulostic pipe dreams, I'll believe them when I see them. Its great if a bunch of kids can do something in a college lab with millions in government grant money, but when they graduate and they can't make money doing it in real life, its not so great anymore.

 

[GNVYUS 1]

That article was definitely written by an alarmist and one who's not very current on the Ethanol evolution. They find 18% ethanol in the gas tank and that's what caused the pump to die?? Ya ok, oh no, it's going to kill pumps everywhere with only an 8% increase in Ethanol.

Or that E85 loses 30 to 40% in fuel economy. Ask Volvo how their doing with E85 or what Eric Marshall saw on his personal GN. Are car companies not going keep improving their efficiency with E85 as time moves on? How much gas mileage did EFI cars get in the late 80's, exactly.

How long has gasoline been in the market, now how long has Ethanol? If you think 15 years from now Ethanol will be produced and utilized the same way as it is today than you have little faith in the worlds engineering, biochemistry and agricultural community's.

Ya, what a scam.

 

[salvageV6]

I'd prefer 15 years of govt. subsidized drilling of our own vast oil reserves and govt. subsidizing alternative use of our coal, oil shale and other proven technology.

Not ethanol subsidies.

Guaranteed results in 10 years and that's from the naysaying idiots in power now.

 

[V6 Beast]

That article was definitely written by an alarmist and one who's not very current on the Ethanol evolution. They find 18% ethanol in the gas tank and that's what caused the pump to die?? Ya ok, oh no, it's going to kill pumps everywhere with only an 8% increase in Ethanol.

Or that E85 loses 30 to 40% in fuel economy. Ask Volvo how their doing with E85 or what Eric Marshall saw on his personal GN. Are car companies not going keep improving their efficiency with E85 as time moves on? How much gas mileage did EFI cars get in the late 80's, exactly.

How long has gasoline been in the market, now how long has Ethanol? If you think 15 years from now Ethanol will be produced and utilized the same way as it is today than you have little faith in the worlds engineering, biochemistry and agricultural community's.

Ya, what a scam.

My truck takes both type of fuel and when i use E-85 my mileage drops 2 MPG which is just over 20%.

 

[UNGN]

My truck takes both type of fuel and when i use E-85 my mileage drops 2 MPG which is just over 20%.

Ethanol has a little more than 50% of the BTU's per gallon of Diesel and 3/4's of Gasoline so even in a perfectly optimized, high compression motor, it can only be expected to deliver the same ratio of fuel mileage.

Ethanol is a great additive to boost octane when a motor needs it (like an alchy injection system) but when a motor doesn't need the octane, it sucks as a motor fuel.

 

[Warped]

Farmers need to grow food, not fuel. It's a scam subsidized by tax dollars, yours. You are welcome to call Ed's show and debate the issue with him. You'll lose because his articles are based on well researched and readily available facts. Here's a quote from the government's own web site, Fuel Economy, regarding the cost of operating a vehicle on E85 - "the costs of E85 are slightly higher, due to the energy content of the fuel (E85 has about 27% less energy per gallon than gasoline)". They used to show the gasoline vs E85 mileage side by side for every vehicle. I guess that was a little to incriminating. So at the same time they are demanding auto manufacturers increase gas mileage they want to increase the use of Ethanol which lowers gas mileage. At the same time they are demanding the auto manufacturers decrease emissions they want to increase the use of Ethanol which increases emissions. In addition to the fact that ethanol pollutes more, you have the problem of increased use of pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizer. Ethanol - brought to you by the same people that said MTBE was a good idea.

 

[GNVYUS 1]

If E85 has 27% the energy how is it getting 40% worse gas mileage yet others are seeing around that same 27% and lower? I think he's an alarmist and needs to get Volvo on the phone. Volvo is not seeing this in gas mileage and we shouldn't dump the fuel before giving it time.

To UNGN's point, Volvo wasn't using stock compressions to utilize the fuel which is why we need to give car engineers MORE TIME and not kill it in it's infancy. I don't see MLB scouts at T Ball games do you??

Ethanol is cleaner burning, if you want to get into the other aspects that create pollution than throw in how oil spills happen everyday it's drilled out of the earth. It might not be a tanker bursting open, but it's happening in some manor.

I saw something on Microbiologists using some extract to produce Ethanol that has more BTU's than gas and is WAY cleaner. Give it time.

 

[Warped]

Give it time?

How about making it work BEFORE you force it on the tax payers? And you're saying a 27% reduction in gas mileage is ok because it's not 40%. What planet are you from? That's the same quote from the judges when the EPA admitted in court that ethanol pollutes more than gasoline. This crap is created in the farm belt. If it's so great let them use it there instead of shipping it all over the country. But they don't want it either. Iowa has a total of 106 stations selling E85. Must be great stuff. Wake up.

 

[TurboDave]

And ethenol production facilities are shutting down faster than they setup.

 

[faster]

Not even close. Ethanol is about 2X more expensive to produce than Diesel and a Diesel Truck will haul as much as any ethanol powered truck while getting TWICE the mileage hauling the same load.



Bzzt... wrong. Gasoline uses only a fraction of the energy to produce it that gasoline does.

To produce a Barrel of ethanol (42 gallons), you need the equivalent of 20 to 30 gallons of oil. Coal or natural gas is used for much of this but harvesting and transportation costs use actual oil.

To produce a barrel of Gasoline, you need to use about 3 gallons of oil in refining and transportation.




If this is true, why are we still spending BILLIONS of tax dollars in ethanol subsidies and yet Ethanol still pays no road taxes?

If ethanol was Cheaper to make and yielded better mileage, why are we still subsidizing it? oh, because it isn't and doesn't.


As for getting ethanol from switchgrass and other cellulostic pipe dreams, I'll believe them when I see them. Its great if a bunch of kids can do something in a college lab with millions in government grant money, but when they graduate and they can't make money doing it in real life, its not so great anymore.

I wasn't comparing alky to diesel trucks, diesels win hand down. I assumed we were talking personal vehicles. Comparable personal vehicles over 4000# with engines made to run on alky produce more power are faster and get better fuel mileage (up to 30%) than their gasoline counterparts. Alky in an engine designed to run on gas gets horrible fuel mileage.

You are correct that gasoline uses less energy to procuce itself. About 4-5% of the energy in a barrel of oil is used to produce all the products of that barrel. Where in alky it takes about 30% of the energy in a gallon of alky to produce that gallon. But the refinery costs many, many times over more to build than the distillary. Given no one's really publicized the cost to get the oil from the ground to the refinery and compared it to the cost of getting the crop planted harvested and to the distillery. There are soooooooo many conflicting arguments it's hard to figure who's telling the truth. Your cost estimate figures are just one report of many conflicting arguments. Again who's telling the truth?



As for subsidies:
This report by the International Center for Technology Assessment (CTA) identifies and quantifies the many external costs of using motor vehicles and the internal combustion engine that are not directly reflected in the retail price Americans pay for gasoline. These are costs that consumers pay indirectly by way of increased taxes, insurance costs, and retail prices in other sectors.
The report divides the external costs of gasoline usage into five primary areas: (1) Tax Subsidization of the Oil Industry; (2) Government Program Subsidies; (3) Protection Costs Involved in Oil Shipment and Motor Vehicle Services; (4) Environmental, Health, and Social Costs of Gasoline Usage; and (5) Other Important Externalities of Motor Vehicle Use. Together, these external costs total $558.7 billion to $1.69 trillion per year. If oil was not subsidized the added cost to the retail price of gasoline, result in a per gallon price of up to $15 according to the above report.

What about the government subsidy of oil? Or didn't you think it was?



Gasoline actually costs the oil companies $.11-.15 a gallon to make once the oil is at the refinery.

Alky costs about $.30-.50 a gallon to make commercially once the product is at the refinery. You can make about 3-4 gallons a day easily for about $1.25/gallon in your garage.

But as stated previously no one actually knows what it costs to get crude oil out of the ground, refined and back in the ground as gasoline in a tank at your local service station. That information is not being made public so we can just speculate.

As for what makes the most alky per bushel home brewers say pears do.
I was just parroting a report from the U of F on the grass published after their findings were made public. Did they fudge the reports maybe. But the actual experiments and testing by all the major technical institutes across the country for the last 10-12 years proves alky wins in more power, better mileage, less pollutants and is less dangerous.

As for college kids doing it in the lab but not on the street? No auto manufacturer will make an alky vehicle. The technology is there, the production isn't. Someone is standing in the way!

I'm not trying to argue with you it is just no one can get to the truth of what oil really costs.

Personally I believe we are getting hosed by world government's interference with the oil companies more so than by the oil companies themselves.

My $.02.

Mikey

 

[Chevota]

"The great ethanol scam" is HORRIBLE! Not only will I soon be making 1000+ hp, but I'll be doing it for only $2.xx a gallon.:tongue: YOUR tax dollars at work.

 

[UNGN]

I wasn't comparing alky to diesel trucks, diesels win hand down. I assumed we were talking personal vehicles. Comparable personal vehicles over 4000# with engines made to run on alky produce more power are faster and get better fuel mileage (up to 30%) than their gasoline counterparts. Alky in an engine designed to run on gas gets horrible fuel mileage.

Huh? an E85 powered vehicle with an engine optimized for E85 WILL NEVER get better gas mileage than the same displacement engine optimized for gasoline. It's simple physics.

If a Ethanol motor had a smaller displacement and was turbocharged and delivered equivalent HP to the gasoline engine, the fuel mileage could be close to the gasoline engine, but would still be less than the same engine that ran gasoline at Ethanol compression ratios at cruise and Used ethanol injection for acceleration. 30% less BTUs is 30% less BTU's.

You are correct that gasoline uses less energy to procuce itself. About 4-5% of the energy in a barrel of oil is used to produce all the products of that barrel. Where in alky it takes about 30% of the energy in a gallon of alky to produce that gallon. But the refinery costs many, many times over more to build than the distillary. Given no one's really publicized the cost to get the oil from the ground to the refinery and compared it to the cost of getting the crop planted harvested and to the distillery. There are soooooooo many conflicting arguments it's hard to figure who's telling the truth. Your cost estimate figures are just one report of many conflicting arguments. Again who's telling the truth?

Nobody in the oil industry has to tell the truth. Everyone know the price of a barrel of oil. That is what it costs to get it out of the ground to the refinery. If Exxon Mobil can do it for $5 a bbl, the rest is profit to them. That's why they drill for the stuff.

As for subsidies:
This report by the International Center for Technology Assessment (CTA) identifies and quantifies the many external costs of using motor vehicles and the internal combustion engine that are not directly reflected in the retail price Americans pay for gasoline. These are costs that consumers pay indirectly by way of increased taxes, insurance costs, and retail prices in other sectors.
The report divides the external costs of gasoline usage into five primary areas: (1) Tax Subsidization of the Oil Industry; (2) Government Program Subsidies; (3) Protection Costs Involved in Oil Shipment and Motor Vehicle Services; (4) Environmental, Health, and Social Costs of Gasoline Usage; and (5) Other Important Externalities of Motor Vehicle Use. Together, these external costs total $558.7 billion to $1.69 trillion per year. If oil was not subsidized the added cost to the retail price of gasoline, result in a per gallon price of up to $15 according to the above report.

What about the government subsidy of oil? Or didn't you think it was?

"Environmental, Health, and Social Costs of Gasoline Usage"



That isn't science, its crap and if a gasoline powered vehicle has a "hidden" subsidy at a rate of $15/gallon, an ethanol vehicle would be about $14/gallon using a "social cost" model and it still pays no road taxes.

As for what makes the most alky per bushel home brewers say pears do.
I was just parroting a report from the U of F on the grass published after their findings were made public. Did they fudge the reports maybe. But the actual experiments and testing by all the major technical institutes across the country for the last 10-12 years proves alky wins in more power, better mileage, less pollutants and is less dangerous.

Alchy only has "more power" because you can dump twice as much an engine, which also why "better mileage" is from fantasyland.

As for "less pollution"... since corn ethanol is made in the US using Diesel tractors and most use coal fired ethanol distillers, the amount of dirty fossils fuels used to create a gallon of ethanol is greater than a gallon of gasoline, so less pollution is only an illusion. And that's just the real pollution. When Obama's "cap and trade" scheme takes hold, if the ethanol plants don't get some kind of waver, look for more than 1/2 of them to close shop because they are CO2 monsters.

As for college kids doing it in the lab but not on the street? No auto manufacturer will make an alky vehicle. The technology is there, the production isn't. Someone is standing in the way!

Why do we need to have alchy powered vehicles before someone can demonstrate a working, large scale cellusotic ethanol plant?

That's like saying we need to have prime time programming before the television is invented.

If ethanol (or anything) could be manufactured to be cheaper than gasoline, NOBODY could stop people from buying alchy powered vehicles. The problem is the price and even with subsidies, its still too high.

 

[Warped]

Part 2 is up

Ed Wallace's Inside Automotive the link is ed at businessweek, how ethanol can save us all

Also on the main page look for the link to Ed's columns in the Star-Telegram and read the article on Magic Cars.

 

[turbofish38]

I'm working on my own conspiracy theory. While I don't have the luxury......uh convinence of being able to buy E85 locally let alone drive a FlexFuel vehicle I do wonder why Pepsi introduced another line of soft drinks that use real suger as in cane and beet as compared to the old stand by corn syrup? I haven't seen a dramatic increase in the price of corn syrup so I'm wondering if the food people know something that I don't?