E15 will replace E10! EPA deadline for comments =5/21/2009.

[theclencher]

Jay have you bothered to read anything about people's fe with ethanol?

[Jay2TheRescue]

In all my vehicles the FE goes down with higher ethanol concentrations. I even added about 20 ounces of methanol to my tank a while ago to see what would happen, and I got an abysmal 10 MPG on that tank.

[theclencher]

Wow, 20 oz into what- 15 gallons? = 1% strength- dropped your fe 10%??? That's some powerful weak stuff!

Oh, must be a YMMV thing. I've not had fe go down until I used mixtures over 50/50 E85/regular. I've posted a university study to that effect as well here once.

[theholycow]

Methanol != ethanol.

Anyway, the average effect doesn't seem to be that the ethanol merely dilutes the gasoline. If you put in 10 gallons of E10, you get more miles than you'd get from just the 9 gallons of gasoline sans ethanol...at least in most cars, for most people.

[Jay2TheRescue]

Actually, a 10% drop in mileage at the time would only be a loss of about 1.5 MPG. The methanol dropped my mileage by about 3 to 4 MPG, which is over 20%. There is an Exxon station on the way to my parent's house in the middle of nowhere that for some reason, when I fillup there my mileage on that tank jumps up by about 20%. I suspect that station is not selling E10, but I haven't gotten around to testing their alcohol content in their fuel yet.

[trollbait]

Originally Posted by thisisntjared

the harvesting of ethanol has a long way to go.

when using ethanol no longer interfers with food markets (and i get bigger injectors and a tune for it) then i will be ok with the use of ethanol. why arent we being given an unsubsidized choice??

From what I've read, butanol is superior to ethanol in every way as a fuel.
Haven't heard much of anything about lately though.

[dkjones96]

E10 results in a 4% reduction of energy content. E15 is a 6% reduction.

Butanol you probably haven't heard of lately because it isn't made by renewable means. The point of ethanol is that it is made from stuff we grow and butanol comes from Propene which comes from petroleum and natural gas.

It also looks like Propene is used in plastics. Imagine if plastic got more expensive!?

[theholycow]

How about some numbers?

BTUs in 10 gallons of plain gasoline: 1,190,000

BTUs in 10 gallons of E10: 1,151,000

BTUs in 9 gallons of plain gasoline: 1,071,000
BTUs in 1 gallon of ethanol: 80,000

So, each gallon and a half of ethanol is one less gallon of gasoline burned.

[dkjones96]

I just looked up the number for gasoline vs ethanol energy content and my numbers above were wrong(calculated for 74000btu/gal instead of the correct 84600btu/gal). It's actually 3.2% for E10 and 4.8% for E15.

[thisisntjared]

Originally Posted by theclencher

Saves money, displaces petrol use.

Food? I don't know about you but the stores and restaurants here are packed with food.

how is it saving money?? wait, you know corn is subsidized on both ends right? so maybe if your not paying taxes, it is saving you money.

there is your problem, you are thinking about yourself. what about the global economy?? what happens when the price of basic foods like corn go up just a little because the demand for the pigs in the states goes up?

people starve. look at the cost of corn syrup. many brands are switching to sugar cane because of the decreased price margins. so sugar cane goes up too. of course we barely notice it, but it effects a lot beyond our little sand boxes. the cost of basic grains like wheat and rice are also up. its marginal to us, but what about to the people that can only eat bread or rice cakes?

also last time i checked a 4.8% decrease in energy/mass still sucks a lot and the stoichiometric air fuel ratio for ethanol is significantly higher.

so what is ethanol really gaining us? mild independence from oil? its not helping the environment. we are still burning fuel. until it is harvested in an efficient manner, it is just a bandaid.

the reason this post is so emotionally charged is because we am not given a choice to run e10 e15 or e85. there are talks of switching up to e15 because people made the jump into the ethanol industry and are looking to make a killing by forcing everyone to use it. this is a product of the love of money.