10% Ethanol Fuel ?

[Mr. Wyndham]

Originally Posted by Diabel1969

I'm actually one of the lucky one's, I have a station just down from my house which sells the non eth fuel. BUT, when i'm riding my bike, or driving one of my older cars (carburated) out of town, it poses an interesting problem. The cars will survive on a tank of it here or there, but the bike is my main concern..

You should be able to replace your hoses on the bike and be fine. The fuel doesn't burn or atomize much differently, if at all, from straight gasoline. So the carburetor isn't as big a worry as the rubber hoses and seals.

[SSE 4 2SS]

Originally Posted by Diabel1969

wreaks havoc on anything carburated, especially small engines/Harley's.. had to do alot of work to my bike's carb and ignition to even run this crap gas.. Anything with injection especially today's cars should run it with no problem. Basically it's what us up north have referred to as our "winter mix" for years... won't freeze, but your performance and mileage sure do suffer... also, don't store your car with alot of this gas in the tank.. for some reason if it sits alot as in months it causes alot of damage/moisture/corrosion issues...

Part of the reason I love my injected Harley....

Keep the rubber side down...

[Markal]

Alcohol fuel has been around as long as the combustion engine. Henry Ford's original engines were designed to run on an alcohol blend...no not Mustangs . Studies were done in the 30's and 40's on alcohol based fuels. I think oil and petroleum products were more available, caught on faster and after all alcohol is for drinking....right?
I'm not a tree hugger/leftist but, oil is finite....it will run out. Even if there are billions and billions of barrels they will get used up...and soon. Corn and sugar cane used to make ethanol are renewable, the plants use CO2 and emit oxygen...oil is NOT renewable...it takes millions of years and quite a bit of pressure to make oil. What do we do when its gone? We move on, thats what.....I'm not a "no-it-all" but an Oil Executive shoud know bio-fuels have been around alot longer than 2006. I pumped gas for a Mobil station in the 1970's....if you got $5.00 or more gas, I washed the winshield too. Most people just got $2.00 dollars worth at 25 cents a gallon, thats 8 gallons. Remember those days??? Oil Executive my eye.....maybe an out of touch oil executive.....sorry....just venting again!

[Mr. Wyndham]

Originally Posted by Markal

I think oil and petroleum products were more available, caught on faster and after all alcohol is for drinking....right?

That's exactly the reason. In fact, many attribute the prohibition movement as the reason alcohol-as-fuel was killed and gasoline was used as a substitute.

[fielderLS3]

Originally Posted by Markal

Alcohol fuel has been around as long as the combustion engine. Henry Ford's original engines were designed to run on an alcohol blend...no not Mustangs . Studies were done in the 30's and 40's on alcohol based fuels. I think oil and petroleum products were more available, caught on faster and after all alcohol is for drinking....right?
I'm not a tree hugger/leftist but, oil is finite....it will run out. Even if there are billions and billions of barrels they will get used up...and soon. Corn and sugar cane used to make ethanol are renewable, the plants use CO2 and emit oxygen...oil is NOT renewable...it takes millions of years and quite a bit of pressure to make oil. What do we do when its gone? We move on, thats what.....I'm not a "no-it-all" but an Oil Executive shoud know bio-fuels have been around alot longer than 2006. I pumped gas for a Mobil station in the 1970's....if you got $5.00 or more gas, I washed the winshield too. Most people just got $2.00 dollars worth at 25 cents a gallon, thats 8 gallons. Remember those days??? Oil Executive my eye.....maybe an out of touch oil executive.....sorry....just venting again!

Problem is, several studies have shown that the amount of energy it takes to make a gallon of ethanol (plant, water, grow, harvest, and transport the feedstock, produce the ethanol, and ship the ethanol by truck or train) takes more energy per gallon than there is energy in the ethanol. So from an efficiency/energy independence stand point, we better off with oil, or just using the natural gas the "stills" use to power our cars directly.

The 10% blend is actually a waste of gas too. The fuel mileage of my car drops 10-15% on the E10 blend. My car consistently gets 37-38 mpg on gas, but only 33-35 on E10. I think the extra oxygen must confuse my car's computer into running rich (you can smell raw gas coming out the exhaust pipe when I run on E10, but not when it runs on pure gas.

[Mr. Wyndham]

Originally Posted by fielderLS3

Problem is, several studies have shown that the amount of energy it takes to make a gallon of ethanol (plant, water, grow, harvest, and transport the feedstock, produce the ethanol, and ship the ethanol by truck or train) takes more energy per gallon than there is energy in the ethanol. So from an efficiency/energy independence stand point, we better off with oil, or just using the natural gas the "stills" use to power our cars directly.

Those studies are only valid with corn-based Ethanol. Every energy/yield survey I've seen from things like sugarcane, switchgrass, organic waste, or even algae show a much higher yield than even gasoline.

The thing to keep in mind with ethanol is that it's still very young in development compared to gasoline. There's more work to be done by companies like Coskata and Sapphire in order to bring a viable, inexpensive fuel to our fuel stations.

[Markal]

Ethanol production is improving. How much energy/expense does a barrel of oil cost....hmmm? Cost of rig, drilling, personnel, drillers, managers, crude oil transportation, crude oil refineries, refinery cost, refinery workers, managers....cost of accidents/cleanup? Has anyone done a study on this? Yeah, they have a head start and have a system....refining alcohol blends has been around for a while but major ethanol refineries in the U.S. are still catching up and they will lower costs. Brazil is leading the way with ethanol based fuels and are nearly totaly independant on the middle east for their oil. When you're dependent....you're a slave. High performance engines can easily be designed for alcohol based fuels and should be (Indy cars already are). Embrace the future....oil won't be there.....FACT not fiction!

I wonder if those methanol studies were subsidized by the Oil companies???

As Metallica said: "Sad but true"

Oil took over a million years to make and hundreds of thousands of dollars to refine....what kind of energy yield per gallon does that relate too???

[Mr. Wyndham]

Just keep in mind with Brazil...they're knocking down significant amounts of rainforest to be independant. I'm no tree-hugger...but THAT's not good for the environment. We don't need to resort to that here in the states.

[SSE 4 2SS]

Originally Posted by Markal

Ethanol production is improving. How much energy/expense does a barrel of oil cost....hmmm? Cost of rig, drilling, personnel, drillers, managers, crude oil transportation, crude oil refineries, refinery cost, refinery workers, managers....cost of accidents/cleanup? Has anyone done a study on this? Yeah, they have a head start and have a system....refining alcohol blends has been around for a while but major ethanol refineries in the U.S. are still catching up and they will lower costs. Brazil is leading the way with ethanol based fuels and are nearly totaly independant on the middle east for their oil. When you're dependent....you're a slave. High performance engines can easily be designed for alcohol based fuels and should be (Indy cars already are). Embrace the future....oil won't be there.....FACT not fiction!

I wonder if those methanol studies were subsidized by the Oil companies???

As Metallica said: "Sad but true"

Oil took over a million years to make and hundreds of thousands of dollars to refine....what kind of energy yield per gallon does that relate too???

Brazil is nearly independant of foreign oil 1) because their primary oil/gas provider is a state oil company....Petrobras... and 2.) because we are down there drilling like crazy to extract every drop we can find for them... Why is this a factor... because while drilling with the same regulations and equipment, they have way less overall costs because they don't answer to every redundant government agency there is.... They do not have hurricanes in Brazil... etc....

[Badbubba]

Just curious, what gas is used to have the engine's HP SAE Certified for GM? And for that matter, how about the fuel economy on the sticker, yes I know there are 2, one ideal and the other "real world". Should different values be listed for ethanol blend and no ethanol blend? Our pumps in PA state, "May contain upto 10% ethanol", so it's a toss up when you buy gas. Bought pump gas in TN while riding the Hatfield/McCoy trails, big improvement in my carbed atv. It was 87 octane, no ethanol. If I could tell the difference in a 500cc engine, how do you think it would feel in a 6200cc (6.2L) engine.

[Griffstar]

Embrace the future....oil won't be there.....FACT not fiction!


Personally, I am waiting for a Mr. Fusion! Oh, and World peace.....

[Diabel1969]

Originally Posted by Dragoneye

You should be able to replace your hoses on the bike and be fine. The fuel doesn't burn or atomize much differently, if at all, from straight gasoline. So the carburetor isn't as big a worry as the rubber hoses and seals.

Actually, it wasn't that easy.. The carb was full of strings/strands, and pieces of the fuel hose, etc and it was everywhere. Required a complete rebuild...

[Diabel1969]

Originally Posted by SSE 4 2SS

Part of the reason I love my injected Harley....

Keep the rubber side down...

I've actually thought about trading in for a newer one with injection.. but I love my bike!!

and the shiny side up......

[hot_rod]

for what it's worth....

Gold-Eagle the maker of Sta-bil has a pretty nice web page titled " The 411 on Ethanol Everything you need to know about the Ethanol in your fuel and your equipment!"

http://www.goldeagle.com/engine_care/411onethanol.aspx

I have read most of the links and they seem to deal mostly with the issues & problems created by the E10 blend and what the consumer can do about it.

There is some marketing but, it really didn't seem to heavy handed.