quote:

Originally posted by Tirod:
Another aspect of using corn to make alcohol is in states that mandate it.

It's always the mandates and subsidies that piss me off.

I don't care whether it's fuel or vaccines, let people decide for themselves whether they want it or not. If there's a demand for it, it will be produced. If not, let it fade away.

When comparing E85 vs Gasoline you have to consider the cost per gallon, not just MPG, typically E85 vehicles see zero mpg to 25% reduction, depending on several factors.

In some areas such as CA, MA, NY, NJ, E85 is over 30% less per gallon, so if you get 10% less fuel economy but pay 30% less per gallon, E85 ends up costing you less to run.

That depends of course on your MPG difference and cost of fuel difference.

There aren't a lot of E85 stations on the routes I typically drive. But the few I have seen (none recently) there wasn't a significant different between E85 & 87 octane E10.

Neither of my cars is compatible, so it's not really something I keep an eye on.

quote:

Originally posted by HRK:
Wings are expensive, used to be $9 for a dozen to look at the gals in Hooter shirts and shorty shorts, Now $20...

One thing about E85, you can make a ton more power in your V8 running that stuff, runs a lot cooler, more power output than even high octane 110 raci'n fuel..

At what 5 times the consumption? I had a Dodge Charger that I bought to flip. It had the 750hp engine in it. The guy who owned it had it programmed to run straight E85 making almost (claimed)1,000hp. About 5mpg was doing good.

quote:

Originally posted by HRK:
In some areas such as CA, MA, NY, NJ, E85 is over 30% less per gallon, so if you get 10% less fuel economy but pay 30% less per gallon, E85 ends up costing you less to run.

Idk, the last time I looked E85 was $0.30-0.50 more per gallon.

About 60% of the corn grown in Iowa goes to ethanol plants. Some studies say native weeds like switchgrass would be several times better for producing ethanol and wouldn't require fertilizer or herbicide. Then again, the local universities are already using grant money to research ethanol production with corn and that's just the start. There are subsidies for pretty much every step of production.

It will be interesting to see what happens as vehicles transition to electric and ethanol isn't needed for fuel. That 60% less corn needed will be significant.

The simple explanation, it was a payoff to ADM and the corn lobby and sold to the environmentalists as green. The they got together with paid for politicians and crammed it down our throats as saving the planet.
Comes from nature they said. How can you possibly not be for it?

Even the leftist get it. This was from 2011.
https://www.rollingstone.com/p...ethanol-scam-172037/

Corn is a terrible feedstock for ethanol fuel. There are much better ones. Thinking specifically of sugar beets and sugar cane. I don't know why they don't use those.

quote:

Originally posted by BBMW:
Corn is a terrible feedstock for ethanol fuel. There are much better ones. Thinking specifically of sugar beets and sugar cane. I don't know why they don't use those.

As they say about a lot of things, follow the money.
Corn ethanol met the goals for several influential groups. Midwest political goals in key states, powerful lobbyists (ADM and others), the envirowackos, that sugar didn’t have.
Also, I’m not sure sugar products could have produced the volume needed.

Or switchgrass.

https://news.mongabay.com/2008...el-source-than-corn/

I don’t know whether ethanol is worse for the environment, but it’s undoubtedly worse for my old carbureted vehicles.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: arfmel,

Switchgrass is a perennial that the parent rooting can live for 10 or more years. It requires far less fertilizer. It can thrive in poor soil. It needs almost no water it doesn’t get from the environment. It actually controls soil erosion and outcompetes weeds and needs no pesticides. It can grow from Mexico to Canada. It has a much higher fuel yield per acre than corn. It is far less labor intensive. It is a prairie grass native to North America. There is no reason not to make the jump to it if we are looking at biofuels for the long haul. Except for $$$.

Looking for alternative sources of renewable energy is good. There are many options for biofuels, which do in fact stretch our fuel supplies. Especially important since the nitwits killed the pipeline. The alternative is to buy all our fuel stock from Russia and the Middle East. I would much rather pay the American farmer for duel than the apparatchiks and Muslim countries who hate us.

Get ready for another train load of government money to be sent too the poor thread barren Ag industry down trodden .

Oh and
A hand full of tax incentives for same.

quote:

Originally posted by HRK:
When comparing E85 vs Gasoline you have to consider the cost per gallon, not just MPG, typically E85 vehicles see zero mpg to 25% reduction, depending on several factors.

In some areas such as CA, MA, NY, NJ, E85 is over 30% less per gallon, so if you get 10% less fuel economy but pay 30% less per gallon, E85 ends up costing you less to run.

That depends of course on your MPG difference and cost of fuel difference.

When I ran the numbers for my Fusion with similar fuel prices to today, the break even point with E85 is nearly one dollar per gallon cheaper than regular E10, while actual E85 price locally hovers within a few cents of E10 87 octane.

People still buy this crap for some reason though. I could see if you need high octane fuel for a very high compression or forced induction performance engine, sure, but people with normal vehicles seem to be buying this for some inexplicable reason, maybe they like having to stop for fuel more frequently, can't do basic math, or have money to burn.

quote:

Originally posted by HayesGreener:
Looking for alternative sources of renewable energy is good. There are many options for biofuels, which do in fact stretch our fuel supplies. Especially important since the nitwits killed the pipeline. The alternative is to buy all our fuel stock from Russia and the Middle East. I would much rather pay the American farmer for duel than the apparatchiks and Muslim countries who hate us.

Saw just last week that Porsche is developing road legal biogas & was testing it, in Austria IIRC, on a couple Cayman GT4 RS.

https://carbuzz.com/news/porsc...th-none-of-the-guilt

In other news, the 2 stations I usually use for fuel, both were >$3/gal for 87 this morning. $3.059 & $3.099 respectively.

quote:

At what 5 times the consumption? I had a Dodge Charger that I bought to flip. It had the 750hp engine in it. The guy who owned it had it programmed to run straight E85 making almost (claimed)1,000hp. About 5mpg was doing good.

That's the cool part, flip a switch, run E85 and pick up 250 HP, very cool stuff, and yeah I'd give up some MPG to run 1000 hp, AND, it's a personal decision, 1000 hp, 5mpg, 750 hp, 10 mpg. Nobody buys a Hemi Challenger for the fuel economy number anyway. But it makes the point you can make some serious power gains with E85,

quote:

Originally posted by the_sandman_454:

When I ran the numbers for my Fusion with similar fuel prices to today, the break even point with E85 is nearly one dollar per gallon cheaper than regular E10, while actual E85 price locally hovers within a few cents of E10 87 octane.

People still buy this crap for some reason though. I could see if you need high octane fuel for a very high compression or forced induction performance engine, sure, but people with normal vehicles seem to be buying this for some inexplicable reason, maybe they like having to stop for fuel more frequently, can't do basic math, or have money to burn.

Which is as was stated, you have to calculate the difference in MPG to Cost per Gallon to see if it makes sense. Some places it might, it also depends on the timing, cost of fuel, cost per barrel of oil, all kinds of things factor into the equation.

Neat part is, nobody is making anyone have to run it, you can always buy non ethanol based fuels, at least here we can, older boats, motorcycles, small engines etc depend on it.

Probably convert those coal fired plants to ethanol fired power plants to run the EV market LOL.

I'm not proposing we switch the world to E85, just that there was a lot of "it has no value" comments, and thats not the full story, if you are a gear head with a 750 HP Hemi and want more power, it's a great option, if the spread between high taxed gas and E85 is enough you can run it economically over unleaded.

It is worth the money we subsidize it with, maybe, rather my tax money help US Farmers
grow biofuel corn than many of the crazy ways politicians dole out funds to groups, companies and other countries.

quote:

Originally posted by HRK:
Neat part is, nobody is making anyone have to run it, you can always buy non ethanol based fuels, at least here we can, older boats, motorcycles, small engines etc depend on it.

We can't here. At least nowhere that I've found in this state. The closest gas station that has ethanol free is in Maine on the NH border not far off of NH-16. But about an hour and a half drive at least.

Well it's Mass right? Actually MA doesn't have a mandatory ethanol fuel requirement, only a few states do, mostly corn growing states.

The product requires a separate storage tank so that could eliminate a lot of older gas stations from spending the money to put in a separate system for the non ethanol, so it's more economics.

From what I read it's mostly shore based fuel stations, and some in high snowmobile traffic areas of the state that are more likely to have non ethanol, boats, snowmobiles.

Link

Pure-Gas lists 31 stations, much of it looks like low volume racing gas locations, you'd be better off to buy Star-Tron Ethanol fuel additives, Sta-Bil or check with the small engine places, even Home Depot/Lowes they sell products to work in your Ethanol fuel.


Pure Gas in Mass

quote:

Originally posted by gearhounds:
Switchgrass is a perennial that the parent rooting can live for 10 or more years. It requires far less fertilizer. It can thrive in poor soil. It needs almost no water it doesn’t get from the environment. It actually controls soil erosion and outcompetes weeds and needs no pesticides. It can grow from Mexico to Canada. It has a much higher fuel yield per acre than corn. It is far less labor intensive. It is a prairie grass native to North America. There is no reason not to make the jump to it if we are looking at biofuels for the long haul. Except for $$$.

Exactly. The goal of producing ethanol wasn't to help the environment or find a replacement for oil. It was to set up a distribution of wealth to specific people and companies. Many 'save the environment' initiatives look like they're using a similar playbook.