Filed under: Hybrids/Alternative
Ethanol vs Gasoline
One of the neat advantages of the Internet is the ability to send
short high quality videos. If pictures speak louder than words, then video must be really loud. Anyway, we talk about
alternative fuels a bit here on Autoblog, but Motortrend has produced a short video segment about ethanol with some
specific comments from GM and from a petroleum company who is selling E85 (85% ethanol fuel blend) in Arizona. Take a
look at the video, but it does require Quicktime.
Other Ethanol related posts:
Ethanol Fuel Study Provides Unexpected
Results
USDA developing barley-based
ethanol
Ethanol powered Saab 9-5
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Dusty 10:45PM (12/18/2005)
Might as well get this topic running. So it's cheaper, does less harm to the environment, allows us to not be dependant on Mid-East oil, nothing drastic has to be done like having to buy a new car to run it, and creates a better market for farmers! Looks pretty good to me. Is there any negative effects of ethanol?
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Dark Leth 10:45PM (12/18/2005)
Um... Ethanol isn't that great, however, biodiesel is a much better renewable choice.
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badd 10:45PM (12/18/2005)
why does this site have such a horrible writing style?
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Brian W 10:45PM (12/18/2005)
Why does E85 go up a $1 the same time gas goes up a $1?
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7jb7 10:45PM (12/18/2005)
I used E85 in our flex fuel minivan once, NEVER again. E85 is $2.10/gal now and got 16 mpg highway. Reg is $2.51 now and usually get 23 mpg on highway. In the end I spent $5.56 to go the same 250 miles using the E85....WHERE IS THE SAVINGS when you get much lower MPG??????
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Kent 10:45PM (12/18/2005)
Ethanol is nothing but a farm subsidy and a subsidy for Archer Daniels Midland. It does nothing to lessen our dependence on foreign oil. In fact, since it takes 25 % more energy to produce ethanol that you get from consuming the ethanol it actually increases our energy dependence. If it were not for the huge government subsidy ethanol receives not a drop would be consumed. I am sure there will be hosts of misinformed people saying I am wrong but I am not. Study after study has shown a negative energy balance for ethanol including a recent study done at the University of California at Berkley.
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A5tdi 10:45PM (12/18/2005)
All you have to do is go to fueleconomy.gov and download the 2005 Fuel Economy Guide, then look through it and you will see the mpgs highlighted for flex fuel vehicles. Holy cow! talk about a hit in mpg using E85.
Car salesmen are touting E85 vehicles saying how much cheaper E85 is, while true, they don't tell you your mpg will decrease significantly - enough that it is cheaper to use regular unleaded to get the better mpg.
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Michael Piotter 10:45PM (12/18/2005)
I live downwind from one these 'awesome' ethanol plants. A great benefit that I look forward to later in life is finding out said health effects from the pollution these plants cause. The State of Minnesota found this particular ethanol plant to be in violation of numerous pollution ordinances. So what does the plant have to do to clean up it's act? Build a taller smoke stack and spread the pollution around to more people. Sounds like a win-win-lose to me. The plant wins, gov't wins and my family's health loses.
And don't get me started about this ethanol plants' intentions to double in size and tap deeper into the local aquafier. Ethanol be damned.
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Evan 10:45PM (12/18/2005)
#5 $5.56 over a 250 mile trip to stop sending to shady people in the mideast, and support American farmers(the more profit they make the less likely our tax dollars go to hand-outs because farms are failing) oh and helping the environment!!!,is a small price to pay in my mind, and if your that concerned about your money you could properly inflate your tires and use cruise control at 5 MPH less and save it back in better economy. not to mention once gas hits $3, which could be in only a couple months E85 will be the same price per mile based on your stats. So if your only motivation is $$$ #5 then wait till Gas goes over $3 then start filling up on E85 and the homegrown and environmental savings will be a no cost bonus !
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James Hancock 10:45PM (12/18/2005)
It's great... except for one problem. This is a net-loss fuel. I.e. it takes more energy to produce than it creates.
Translation, it takes 110 litres of GAS (i.e. oil production) to produce 100 litres of Ethanol.
I.e. Ethanol is a pointless waste of time that hastens the exhustion of oil reserves, not slows them. I.e. Ethanol is nothing more than a government project for farm states.
If you watch The West Wing you would have heard them talking about this last year. Do a search on google and you'll find thousands of links to this simple fact.
If you analyse fuel cells while you're at it, you're realize that 99% of them require platnum as the catalyst. The problem is, that to replace even half of the world's cars with fuel cells containing platnum, we would exhust the entire earth's supply of Platnum. And no, I'm not talking about easy supply, I'm talking about every gram on the earth. Hence, yet another pointless waste of time that boggles my mind as to why they continue to research platnum based fuel cells...
Oh, and those hybreds you're driving? Lead-Acid batteries. That will last roughly 200,000 KMs and need replacing. Guess what happens to the lead-acid battery? Garbage dump!!! End result? A worse environmental disaster in the long run than burning Oil.
Welcome to the realities of fuel consumption. The only "clean" energy source (other than wind, solar and water, all of which have their negative effects on the environment...) that we have currently (until fusion becomes a reality) is Nuclear power created by a Cando (Canadian) Nuclear reactor that does not produce enriched plutonium as a by-product unlike American, Russian, French, and British nuclear reactors. And even then it takes some serious doing to deal with the waste, although it can be done, and the waste can be recycled back into the reactor cores. Combine that with direct beta energy from nuclear reactors becoming a reality instead of using the waste heat to boil water as we do now (barberic) and nuclear becomes even more interesting.
The question is how do you drive a car that consumes power from nuclear energy without batteries that kill the environment? Here's hoping the new litium based batteries that can produce as much amperage as Lead-Acid come about very soon... but then of course we have the problem of a completely inadiquate power grid that couldn't possibly handle the power requirements to charge everyone's cars at night....
This is a very big problem that hasn't even begun to be dealt with, and if you adjust the oil availability projections based on the increased consumption of India and China we only have about 15-25 (at the most) years left. Just ask Saudi Arabia who can't produce any more oil than they currently are without dumping crap oil onto the market that can't be used for actual gas production... (SlashDot reported this as a report of a NY Times article which was a report of an AP article which was based on a wallstreet journal article... So lots of proof)
Anyhow, now that you're all really depressed I'll go back to my regularily scheduled program :)
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Osvaldo Coelho 10:45PM (12/18/2005)
IT is simple: up, no new refineries being built, existing refineries crumbling.
When the munipalities discover police cars, ambulances trash collection trucks fuel costs are eating into their budgets they will go for it.
Ethanol will have a field day.
Cheers
Ossy
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RUBICONTRAIL.NET 10:45PM (12/18/2005)
James Hancock, I am curious what the negative effect solar has on the environment?
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jon bensel 10:45PM (12/18/2005)
Seems to me that most studies say ethanol is a net gain in energy. I have read the 3 negative studies and they were all done by the same guys 1 at cornell and one at berkly. THese guys don'e want us to drive cars or grow corn. The numbers they use are unreal i know i don't use 300 gallons of diesel fuel on an acre of corn that woudl be foolish. and the government subsidies they talk about are not as big as they talk about.
THe way i see it ethanol comes form america and does not suport people that kill americans like oil does
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Adam 10:45PM (12/18/2005)
Re: James Hancock
"Translation, it takes 110 litres of GAS (i.e. oil production) to produce 100 litres of Ethanol."
My understanding is that it takes 110 units of energy to create 100 units of ethanol energy. Who says that it has to be energy from oil that drives ethanol production? As a disclaimer, I have not read the Berkely study closely. But even if we are upside down on energy production it still seems that we are transferring nukular and coal energy, along with oil, into energy that our cars can use. Sounds like good strategerie to me if gets us off of the Mid-East teat.
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Miko 10:45PM (12/18/2005)
#10...Mr Hancock
How many gallons of oil does it take to get 100 gallons of gas? You have to spend energy getting the oil...energy shipping the oil... energy refining the oil. No matter what the form of energy..more is spent getting it then u have left.
And what are the negative side effect of solar energy?
Best bet is to turn the veggies into a veggie oil you can run a diesel engine on...which gets better MPG then a regular gas engine.
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Autoguy 10:45PM (12/18/2005)
Does the study take into account tractors and transport equipment running on ethanol? If it doesn't, then it's a pretty stupid study. If it does, then ethanol is terrible. Does anyone know?
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sk 10:45PM (12/18/2005)
Miko, I think James is pointing out the production of solar cells. They need also more energy to produce than they will ever produce in its life span.
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JimC 10:45PM (12/18/2005)
According to an associate the process of making solar cells has been improved so that they don't take more energy to make than they will ever produce, he claims the payback is 18 months. Of course that's not to say they're yet economically or practially viable.
But anyway, according to practially everyone not collecting pork from ethanol, ethanol is a farce.
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bill 10:45PM (12/18/2005)
Here's an interesting tidbit on why GM and others are pushing "flexible fuel" vehicles - they get 90% credit against fuel efficiency standards for creating the vehicles as if they were actually getting more milage per gallon of gas. In other words, an SUV that is flexible fuel ready but gets 9mpg counts as 90mpg against federal fuel efficiency standards.
http://www.environmentaldefense.org/pressrelease.cfm?ContentID=3535
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Evan 10:45PM (12/18/2005)
#17 so i am getting pork eh?
James Hancock, way to be supportive, with a vested interest it seems, Cando reactor cleaner than solar/wind/wave and in the future fusion? yea, right. While the efficiency of ethanol production may be debatable, in a large scale biofuel economy better production and distribution techniques can make it work much more efficiently, much easier than making a hydrigen economy practical. The future ideal for cars as i see it has LIon electric cars for city driving, and short trip drivers, powered by fusion or enviro-electricity, compressed natural gass in the interim for small cars until electric cars become possable both in technology and clean electric generation. ethanol for larger sedans and longer range cars. and biodiesel for trucks and heavy duty, and maybe even more cars if the USA can learn from europe and adopt diesel passenger cars.
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