| Author | Message | ||
     Jaimec |
Let's see, this is what I know so far: 1) Producing ethanol from corn requires more energy than is ultimately released by the fuel. 2) Ethanol reduces the amount of power produced by your engine. 3) You must burn MORE ethanol in relation to oxygen to produce the equivalent power of gasoline, increasing fuel consumption and now this: http://gmy.news.yahoo.com/v/8005145 I don't think it's JUST the Arabs screwing us here... | ||
| Hootowl |
Ethanol enjoys wide support from both parties for various reasons. Unless it starts killing babies, it isn't going away any time soon. | ||
| Interex2050 |
not going to stay expensive for too much longer... http://www.nextenergynews.com/news1/next-energy-ne ws3.13a.html | ||
| Not_purple_s2 |
"Change your oil every 5,000miles." If you're not changing the oil at least every 5K I don't think it's fair to blame the fuel. I use Full synthetic and change every 5K or less. | ||
| Jaimec |
That's for automobiles, which aren't nearly as hard on oil as are motorcycles. Gotta be worse for us. | ||
| Limitedx1 |
ethanol or not, your goverment is screwing you sideways any way you try and get by. | ||
| Froggy |
1, Ethanol can be made from just about anything that grows. Some is made from sugar, some use waste beer, hell they can even make it from bacteria. 2, Ethanol blends, especially higher blends like E85 have higher octane, and can produce more power. In fact some Saab's will gain HP when you put E85 in vs. normal gas. 3, Ethanol blends have a lower BTU, so yea you get lower fuel economy, but they tend to be cheaper to buy, offsetting the difference. (Gas $3.95 national average, E85 $3.20) 4, The issues with those cars are mostly older models that aren’t designed to handle ethanol blends. New cars, especially ones designed for E85 won't have that issue. | ||
| Jaimec |
Higher octane doesn't necessarily mean more power. There's a misconception right there. Higher octane just means it can handle higher compression without preignition. There is still less BTUs from burning ethanol/oxygen than there is gasoline/oxygen and that's what matters. | ||
| Froggy |
I didn't mean that higher octane alone is what caused more power. What Saab does is advances the timing and changes the fuel mapping when on E85 to produce more power. E85 burns significantly cleaner than gasoline. Also, the consumption of E85 doesn’t raise levels of CO2 in the atmosphere. That’s because the emissions from driving are balanced out by the CO2 that is removed from the atmosphere by photosynthesis when plants and crops are grown. E85 has about 27% less BTUs per gallon than gasoline, and E10 has about 3.5% less BTU than gasoline, so that why each of them have a fuel economy hit of about 25% and 3% respectively. If E85 is 25% cheaper, (typically is), you come out ahead in both the wallet and environmentally. E10 on the other hand unfortunately costs more to formulate. My hope is that once all states switch to E10 that it will allow the price to come down as it will reduce the number of blends that the oil companies have to make. | ||
| Birdy |
OK but you have to buy a car that's made to run E85. Putting into a regular old car like my 2 year old Civic will get you a big bill to fix it. Of course now I have the Buell I put maybe 60 miles a month on the car as I ride the bike everywhere I can. | ||
| Ferris_von_bueller |
We are burning our food | ||
| Bbbob |
I saw a story on CNN. It claimed both the higher prices & shortages of many crops are partially caused by increased ethanol production. It claims corn prices are rising because of the demand created by ethanol production. More farmers are switching to corn production because of the higher price leaving shortages & rising prices on other crops. | ||
| Sarodude |
All the talk about miles / gallon is really lame. We need to think in terms of miles / dollar. Maybe also stuff like carcinogens / mile, particulates / mile, etc. For a given amount of benefit (distance traveled) we need to weight the cost (monetary, physiological, environmental...) Just the opinions of a guy with too many jobs and no income to show for it. -Saro | ||
| Toona |
Now if E85 was available in my town....... And I didn't have to buy a new car/truck to be able to burn it........ Oh that's right, I can buy E10, at full price and get 10% less gas mileage. Now that's a bargain...  | ||
| Trac95ker |
I can't wait for a car to be invented that runs on sh!t. That way I can sh!t my way to my destination. If I run out of fuel I can hang a port o potty sign on the side of my car and after a few minutes I'm up and running. Restaurants could have another source of income. Crap the food out, into the toilet then to the fuel tank. The Fuel and Stool The Dump and Pump Wouldn't it be cool to own a car called a Fart and Go | ||
| Just_ziptab |
In my S-10,I get around 25 miles per gallon with straight regular,87 octane fuel. 10% ethanol knocks it down to 20 mpg. What's that, 3 cents cheaper overall to burn regular gas per mile? That 10 cents extra for "No ethanol" at the pump cons you into buying the ethanol......stupid stupid stupid! The $1.70 it cost me extra to fill up with 87 octane gets me over 80 more miles farther.......that's HUGE! I will never buy another gallon of blended ethanol if I don't have too! | ||
| Just_ziptab |
Torpedo fuel was ethanol and the swab's found they could cut the ends off a loaf of bread , pour the torpedo fuel thru it to filter out the "bad shit" to get some drinkable hooch. | ||
| Iamike |
Zip- I'll have to try that and watch closer. I have always used the ethanol in IA due to the $0.10 difference in price. In MN I buy the cheaper which sometimes is regular. I hadn't notice any difference in mileage but maybe just didn't watch close enough. The other reason is the ethanol is 89 octane and regular is 87, my bikes pinged with 87. | ||
| Just_ziptab |
Yeah, my truck gives me a "part throttle ping" with regular...but it's normal, won't hurt a thing(regardless that it sounds like it's getting hurt) and 87 octane IS the recommended fuel for it. The "10 cents a gallon thing" is a mental game. I'm smarter than that and can't believe that I fell for it for so long with out really checking to see the difference. You really have to drive for mileage if you want mileage.........you can't take it with a grain of salt and think that because you are using 87 octane that gets better mileage.........that you can drive carefree to the throttle. You'll lose what you should have gained. I've been driving for mileage for a couple of years and it didn't show a measurable difference......till I switched to "regular". I've sold myself to it as well as a few co-workers and friends...it's all been better. Ten year average for my truck has been 19-20 mpg. Once in a while, 23 on a road trip and probably got regular some where and didn't realize it. I never kept records of the grade, just miles, gallons and price. What else yah going to do while you wait for the pump to go "click"......jot down numbers in a little note book for no real reason. I'm shooting for 27 mpg on the next tank by "driving for momentum"..........great thread for a signature of..........YMMV |
