E85

What is E85? What is FFV? I know where Washington is.

 

Yeah, in Brazil FFVs outnumber the non FFV sales these days. I know that Minnesota wants to go to E20 standard by 2010 or 2012 and that they're working with auto manufacturers to make that happen. Currently the major auto corps don't support blends higher than E10 I think (unless the vehicle is designated an FFV). Not sure what goes into making the vehicle FFV but I'd be interested to know. Of course, your MPG will definitely take a hit but your emissions will be improved.

 

Bob,

Here's a gov site about FFV's. Hopefully it can provide the answers to your questions:

http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/flextech.shtml

From a quick scan it looks like you need specialized equipment for FFV to work. Ford was the pioneer in this area it looks like.

 

Ouch! E85 really hammers the MPG. Site showed a comparison between Petro and E85 for many cars. For the Dodge Stratus it was 20/28 for gas and 15/20 for E85. Carbon emissions are down which is good but the costs go up because of the reduced MPG and the cost of E85. Then again, E85 prices are probaby a lot more stable over the long haul and more likely to go down unless demand really jumps.

 

According to the following article ( http://www.detnews.com/2005/autosinsider/0.../D01-372817.htm ), it involves bigger fuel injectors, metal gas tank and software to make a car capable of handling E85. As usual, the American auto companies are really gung ho about this idea but, as I pointed out to the author of the article, you can't produce ethanol without oil and until you can, it's not really oil-free as the ethanol people are so often proclaiming. (Corn growers need petroleum for pesticides, fertilizer, the machinery that plants and harvests the corn, the trucks that have to cart the corn to the processing plants, the power that is needed in the processing plant to process the corn in to ethanol, the trucks that haul the ethanol to the refilling stations). Ethanol may sound great to the average joe out there in the heartland but it's not really getting us off of oil any more than hybrids are. E85 vehicles don't have an advantage over hybrids, in other words.

 

BTW just to refresh my memory I checked my owners manual and it says 10% ethanol is OK, I guess that would be E90? It also says 15% MTBE but no MMT whatever that is. But in any case octane must be at least 87.

I would not be afraid try E85 but I would wait untill the tank was almost empty and only put in 5 gallons or so to start with, then if there were any problems I could just put in gasoline and make it E something higher than 85. But if it costs the same as gasoline and gets worse mileage why bother.

 

^^ no E90 would be 90% ethanol and 10% petro.

You would want E10.

 

Tumbleweed,

MTBE and Ethanol are used to oxidize gasoline to lower the ozone pollution potential of combusted fuel. It does this by reducing the amount of Carbon Monoxide (CO) and Nitrogen Oxide compounds (NOx) produced during combustion. Ozone is a bit nasty in the lower atmosphere since it does things like scar lung tissue. CO and NOx react with O2 to produce ozone (O3) in the lower atmosphere. In the upper atmosphere NOx actually destroys ozone (just where we really need it. A'int chemistry grand!). MTBE is made from Natural gas I believe and is being fazed out in favor of Ethanol because it's nasty stuff and has been linked to health issues in some areas.

 

Same reason that you might buy a Prius, lower Carbon diOxide emissions and it's not (foreign)oil. Biofuels aren't the complete solution to energy issues but they are probably PART of the solution.

 

Thanks for the corrections/information. Do you mean that CO2 emissions would be less per mile or just less per gallon of fuel burned? Also seems that we would need a better way to make the ethanol than burning oil, such as wind, nuclear, etc.

 

Actually, there's a company called Panda Energy that has built 3 new 100 million gal/yr plants in Colorado, Texas, and Oklahomo (I think) that are fueled by methane generated from cow manure from the surrounding areas. The resulting biomass is a high quality fertilizer that I'm sure they're selling back to local farmers. As with all ethanol plants another byproduct of their operations is distillers grains, which are used as cattle feed.

With ethanol it's a real mix. In Illinois there's a proposal to build two new Coal powered facilities... not so good. The issue of how the stuff is harvested is still an issue, but for every BTU of fossil fuel inputs there are about 6 BTU of output (BTU stands for British Thermal Unit) according to recent studies by the Department of Energy.

The real potential for ethanol is in something called cellulose ethanol. The feedstock for that kind of ethanol (the end product is the same) is "agricultural residue". That's things like corn stalks, cobs, etc. This is ideal because you're turning waste into energy!

As far as the emission I think that it's g/mi but the site I was looking at had it listed as tonnes per yer so I think that they're assuming a constant driving distance.

 

like the Simpsons dream sequence...

"mmmmmm... alcohol powered cars..."

"One for you..." *glug glug*

"one for me!" *glug glug*

 

Between that and taking baths in malt liquor I think we're on to something here. :lol:

 

but the possiblity of hybrid vehicles running on e85 is better than just a hybrid which is why I think this post exists in the first place?? and sure you need petrol for ethanol production, but you also need petrol for the production of gasoline as well... My point being that these are our alternatives, take it or leave it, support it or knock it, or dont say anything about it at all *edit* or come up with another feasable solution that we can all use right now. We all want ev vehicles powered by the sun and wind but thats not going to happen soon, unless that one prius guy comes out with a more efficient panel-on-top-of-the-prius-plan that regenerates its batteries from wind power as you drive!!

 

Carbon dioxide emissions would increase, but carbon monoxide would decrease.

 

Actually Carbon Dioxide emmissions decrease because Ethanol has a higher Hydrogen to Carbon ratio than gasoline, so you get more water and less CO2.

E85 gets worse mileage and needs bigger injectors because Ethanol has less energy per gallon than gasoline. If we measured mileage in miles per btu it would not be that different. BTW, one reason Diesels get better mileage is because Diesel fuel has about 15% more energy per gallon than gasoline.

I have heard of people mixing E85 and gasoline to get about E20 with no effects. I have not had the guts to try it with my own car however.

Regards,
Steve T

 

You're right, thecan, it's great that they're coming up with E85 but what I was pointing out is something that the ethanol boosters neglect to. That is, that ethanol isn't independent of oil. I wish that it was, I really do. Of course, I would really like to get some statistics that tell us just how many acres of corn we'd need to supply just the U.S. with enough ethanol to run all of our cars and trucks, et al. Do we have enough acreage to do that without sacrificing the needs for corn as food?

 

Right now the amount of corn used as a human food source is surprisingly low. It depends on which state you're talking about though. In the future I think that more and more ethanol will be produced from cellulosic feed stocks like corn stalks. roots, cobs, etc. Various grasses can also be utilized this way. In that case a waste product will be used to produce the fuel as well as the more traditional methods. Yes, ethanol relise on fossil fuels at the moment, but that's due to cost/ecomonics not physics. Over time that will likely change.