write your congress-critter - increased ethanol in gasoline
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From: jim beam on 20 Jun 2010 19:40 On 06/20/2010 04:30 PM, jim wrote: > > > Don Stauffer wrote: >> >> jim wrote: >> >>> >>>> 2. ethanol reduces mpg's. it has a lower calorie content, thus you need >>>> more volume for a given distance driven. since we buy gasoline by >>>> volume, not energy content like natural gas, this is a rip-off. >>> >>> >>> Not true. >>> >>> >> I believe this IS true. Ethanol, according to the handbooks I used, has >> about 60% of the energy content by weight compared to gasoline. The >> densities are quite similar, so energy content by volume (harder to >> find) would be less. >> >> I object to much of the original post, but I believe this is true. > > No it is not true. E10 has 3% less energy than E0. But with 75% of the > energy content of E0 gasoline being wasted and good reason to believe > that ethanol blended gasoline can be burned more efficiently than > gasoline alone it is not a given that ethanol blends will reduce gas > mileage. In fact several studies have shown some engines get better > mileage with ethanol blends. For instance, MIT has a prototype > ethanol+gasoline engine that is 30% more efficient than a equivalent > gasoline engine alone. That is special engine deigned to take > advantage of certain properties that ethanol has that gasoline doesn't. > Now that the vast majority of spark engines are being fueled with > ethanol blended gasoline in the continental US you can expect to see > engines designed for the US market to be more efficient on ethanol blend > than straight gasoline. > > -jim efficiency and calorie content are two completely different things. but you knew that and were trying to muddy the water because you just wanted a fight. idiot. -- nomina rutrum rutrum
From: chuckcar on 20 Jun 2010 20:13 "hls" <hls(a)nospam.nix> wrote in news:mJGdndXyAJhvCIPRnZ2dnUVZ_j6dnZ2d(a)giganews.com: > > "jim beam" <me(a)privacy.net> wrote in message >>> >>> I have never been positive on fuel alcohol from corn. Corn requires >>> too much ammonia, >> > > > Doesnt make any difference. Alcohol recycles carbon. Petroleum and > coal puts new carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. It is hard science > that CO2 is a greenhouse gas. Our CO2 levels in the atmosphere are > higher than they have been in the last 600,000 years, give or take > (from Antarctica ice cores). > How much can we take? Who really knows. > > Wildly OT for this group, but I saw something interesting on a doc about the arctic today. There are places where methane is chemically bonded with the ice. They call them methyl hydrates (naturally). You can set fire to the ice and it will burn until you cover it with normal ice. Real strange to see. -- (setq (chuck nil) car(chuck) )
From: jim on 20 Jun 2010 20:49 hls wrote: > > "jim beam" <me(a)privacy.net> wrote in message > news:UuGdnU-VYbfwgIDRnZ2dnUVZ_q2dnZ2d(a)speakeasy.net... > > http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100618/ap_on_bi_ge/us_epa_ethanol > > > > increasing ethanol content in gasoline is bullshit. > > > > 1. ethanol is made from corn. burning food for fuel is wrong. period. > > I have never been positive on fuel alcohol from corn. Corn requires too > much ammonia, which comes from petroleum. Other crops should be a > better choice than corn. Better choice in your opinion, but what crops farmers grow isn't based on your opinion. Farmers planted 40% more acres to corn in 1940 than they do today. Farmers have been planting large amounts of corn long before ethanol became popular as a gasoline additive. > > > 2. ethanol reduces mpg's. it has a lower calorie content, thus you need > > more volume for a given distance driven. since we buy gasoline by volume, > > not energy content like natural gas, this is a rip-off. > > Ethanol has less energy content than gasoline. If it is economical to make > and avoids foreign oil, it is still a possible future fuel. > > > 3. ethanol rots the rubbers in your car's fuel system. i recently had to > > replace the injector o-ring seals on my honda. rotted o-rings means > > SIGNIFICANTLY increased gas consumption as the fuel was no longer sealed > > and dumping down the throttle body. > > Not true, IMO. Properly chosen elastomers stand up to ethanol well. MTBE was the first replacement for tetra ethyl lead in gasoline starting in the 70's. MTBE is a lot harder on rubber products than ethanol. MTBE is a lot more toxic and it has been shown to be extremely dangerous for the nations drinking water, Yet the EPA never place a limit on how much MTBE could be used in gasoline. It never required labeling at the pump for MTBE content. Ethanol is now being used because MTBE was showing up everywhere in the nations drinking water. If ethanol were banned the cost of refining gasoline in the US would increase dramatically. Most of the gasoline consumed in the US is 82-83 octane fuel that has ethanol added to raise the octane to the required minimum legal value. If all the refineries had to produce all of their output as 87 octane or higher fuel the cost of gasoline at the pump would jump upwards significantly. If you want an accurate accounting of the energy costs of ethanol you have to look at how much energy the refineries are saving by not having to produce a higher octane product. And those added refining costs will be increasing in the future as the worlds supply of light crude disappears. > > > 4. ethanol production consumes more agricultural energy to produce than it > > is supposed to save - so it actually /increases/ oil imports. > > Ethanol from corn...see (1) . What you are ignoring is that after the corn has been used for producing ethanol, it still has 80% of the value as a high protein livestock feed. What is left after making alcohol isn't just thrown away - it is a valuable product in its own right. And if you want to make ethanol from cellulose the amount of cellulose in the US corn crop is huge. But ethanol from cellulose just isn't very economical using current technology. If it were economical they would be using corn stalks to make alcohol. > > > > > 5. tax payers are already being rooted for all the tax benefits the oil > > companies enjoy - this just makes it even worse. with ethanol, taxpayers > > subsidize farmers, give tax breaks to oil companies to use it, and just to > > add insult to the injury of getting lower mpg's, so not only > > Yes, there are subsidies for growing corn. There are two sides to this > coin, > maybe. The subsidies for growing corn have been around for almost 80 years. Compare what corn subsidies cost taxpayers 5-10 years ago before ethanol production took off compared to what they cost taxpayers now. If you put ethanol out of business the taxpayers cost for corn subsidies will shoot up again. -jim > > > 6. the "environmental" argument for ethanol in gasoline is bullshit. > > Nope, not quite BS. Ethanol burns a bit cleaner than many components > of gasoline. And, it is not adding to the carbon loading of the atmosphere, > as gasoline does. So there are some ecological arguments for ethanol. > > > all round, this is a "Bad Deal". write your congress-critter about this > > today and tell them this is a disgrace. > > I have a better idea...Let's vote them ALL out and send the grafters home. > Replace them with some new blood, and put term limits on every one of them. > > I will contribute to any campaign to unseat Rep. Joe Barton of Texas. > Surely > the oil companies will hire this undercover agent for them as soon as he is > out of office. They owe him.
From: jim on 20 Jun 2010 20:50 jim beam wrote: > > efficiency and calorie content are two completely different things. yes I knew that. And that was the point -> The efficiency gain can outweigh the reduction in calorie content. And as engine designs change we can expect that will be the norm for ethanol blended fuel. Besides the efficiency of the fuel burned in the engine, your analysis ignores the refinery's cost and energy usage. It takes energy to produce higher octane fuel. As it happens the amount of energy that the refineries save by producing a low octane base fuel to be blended with ethanol is pretty much equal to the difference in energy content of E10 compared to E0. > but you knew that and were trying to muddy the water because you just > wanted a fight. idiot. HA HA HA. Yes an idiot like you would consider looking at the whole truth to be muddying the waters.
From: hls on 21 Jun 2010 09:03
"jim beam" <me(a)privacy.net> wrote in message news:qb6dnbvjf8DpKIPRnZ2dnUVZ_hGdnZ2d(a)speakeasy.net... > > 1. viton is roughly 10x more expensive than buna-n. and kalrez roughly > 10x more than viton. doesn't matter what the "bulk" is - the ratios > remain regardless. Ratios remain, but are not always a significant part of the retail cost of an item. Like my $4.00 steel screws. > >> Not an intrinsic problem. Shux, when I had to buy some >> screws for the door latch on my old van, they were $4.00 each. Does that >> mean that steel is expensive??? > > different issue. No, actually it is part of the same issue. A small O-ring might weigh a couple of grams, a tenth of an ounce... You buy elastomers by weight. If the elastomer cost $45 dollars per pound, such an O-ring would have a raw material value of about $0.10-0.15. Maybe that is ten times higher than Viton, but it is insignificant until the manufacturer marks it up a thousand times. Is is NOT a different issue. > so you're saying acetaldehyde and formaldehyde are not ethanol combustion > emissions? have you a cite? > No cite...observation. When I was there a couple of years ago, the air seemed better than when they were largely diesel fueled for heavy trucks and buses. If you have figures, pop them out. Acetaldehyde is certainly possible from ethanol combustion. I would think that catalytic convertors would remove these partial combustion products |