E85

E85 is not a good idea.

1. It's burning food. We're going to need that food someday and having it committed to be burnt is foolish at best.

2. It's not economical. Without massive subsidies it would not be made or sold. It costs more than regular gas to make, ship and store. You might see a lower price at the pump, but that's only because taxes from other places have paid the portion you are not at the moment.

3. It's not economical. Ethyl alcohol is less energy dense than gasoline. To get the same energy out, you must burn more of it. This means you cannot go as far on a tank of fuel and need to fill up more often. This effect is noticeable with even E15 and E10.

4. There's an illusion of "more pep" because it's got a higher octane rating than normal gas. This allows the timing to be run more advanced. This makes things happen sooner, but unlike most other fuels with higher octane; it has a lower energy content. What you are getting is things happening sooner, but actually slower. Put a clock on it. 0-60 is slower. 1/4 mile is slower.

5. The entire reason it exists is based on an enormous fraud! Global warming; or rather Anthropogenic Global Climate Change. We don't have a large effect on the climate and because of that, burning food will not have a positive effect. See the big glowing ball of fusion in the sky that's there ALL DAMN DAY?? There's your climate change engine.

6. It's not doing what you think it's doing. CO2 emissions are essentially identical to normal gasoline combustion. Remember how it takes more E85 to get the same work done? That means that E85 emits more CO2 for the same work as gas. But wait! It gets better! Gas doesn't have the CO2 emissions from tractors planting, tending and harvesting grain. Gas doesn't have CO2 emissions from the distilling process of turning food into alcohol.

7. It's not sustainable! There is not enough arable land on the planet to keep up with the US demand for vehicle fuel, let alone the world. That includes considering using non-edible plants like sawgrass for the feed stock. No matter how you slice this up you are trading food to eat for food to burn. You are deciding that, someday, people will starve so you can drive. Don't even try to say you aren't.

In short, alcohol based fuels are stupid. Crowing the advantages of them makes you look stupid. If this hurts your feelings, I am sorry. Pointing out stuff like this costs me friends. I can't help but think that people wish to be ignorant of how things work deliberately.

EDIT:
The terms "economical" and "sustainable" are used in rebuttal to claims made by boosters of E85. No source of energy is sustainable if you run the time table out far enough. Economical is used where "cheaper" should be, and E85 is not cheaper. If it truly was, then the developers would just put it out there for the market to buy; and a truly cheaper option would sell.

Burning food is really burning the food that food eats since it is made from field corn for the most part. The prices of beef at the supermarket are 50% higher than before the mandate. If that's not true at your local market, check to see if your state has a beef subsidy (Iowa and Texas reportedly do, but I have not confirmed that).

The lack of arable land will eventually matter. The world population is growing and someday we will have to decide between food or fuel on a field that's growing feedstock for alcohol. It's inevitable. It's just as true that we'll eventually have a large enough population that even growing food any place it's possible, there will be famine. Why rush it for nothing?

"True Cost" is exactly that. It's what something costs with all things considered. Cost at the pump is not the true cost, that the adjusted cost. $2.399 (say) for E85 is less the per gallon subsidy paid to the retailer, less the subsidy paid to the manufacturer, less the subsidy paid to the corn farmer. True cost would be $2.399 PLUS all the subsidies. Which is a lot more than the price of an unsubsidized gallon of gasoline, even premium.


Comments

24th-Aug-2010 03:56 pm (local) ravenclaw_eric
As far as petroleum running short, we keep finding more sources, and the SOTA of extracting the stuff improves every year. Hell's bells, there's a decent oilfield under LA; right at the moment, thanks to inept early attempts to tap it, it's not reachable or usable in an economic way, but if we find new methods, LA could be producing again---what do you think those tar pits in La Brea are made out of?


25th-Aug-2010 12:16 pm (local) weerdbeard
The only time I've done the walk-of-shame with a jerry-can-in-hand was when I first moved to Mass where we have mandatory 10% Ethanol. My truck has a dodgy gas gauge, but runs predictable mileage on a tank. I thought I had at least 10 more miles left in the tank....nope. Thankfully a gas station was around the corner...

Also I don't know enugh about such things, but I've heard people I trust say it rots out engines faster because of the hygroscopic nature of the EtOH.

Yep its all bullshit, and at least with E-10 we pay the SAME money for less milage, and of course the government taxes the shit by the gallon.

HATE Ethanol as fuel!

25th-Aug-2010 12:42 pm (local) mcthag

My 2008 Corvette used to get 32 mph on the highway. Thanks to the 10% mandate, it gets 29 now.

Mileage example: The 2010 Ford Fusion FFV with the 3L 6-banger gets 18 miles per gallon city on gas and 13 miles per gallon on E85. That means it takes 1.38 gallons of E85 to go the same distance as 1 gallon of gasoline. Remember, 15% of E85 is normal gas, so we used 0.208 gallons of gasoline going that 18 miles with E85.

E85 combustion temps are lower than normal gas, so the gas burned with it is not being burned as efficiently as it can be, thus it burns dirtier. This is why measured tailpipe emissions are not dramatically better than normal gas. The entire E85 is better than gas from the emissions point of view is entirely based on the carbon emitted by the alcohol portion being in the carbon cycle, not for being inherently cleaner at the exhaust.