Mileage on Ethanol

[Hoss]

quote:Originally posted by OUGrad05

quote:Originally posted by waterboy

quote:Originally posted by Hoss

quote:Originally posted by OUGrad05

quote:Originally posted by waterboy

I understand now. I was using octane as a measure of energy when it is really a measure of one aspect of performance. What I don't understand is how come my little Corolla is doing so well running on this low btu fuel. Its mpg rating was 38/28 and I'm driving it pretty hard stop/go and still getting 30 consistently. Ethanol doesn't seem to bother this car much where it does seem to affect the detroit v-8's & v-6's.

Did you read my post from earlier?  If you're using gasoline with 10% ethanol that represents a 3% decrease in available BTU's which in theory would translate into a 3% decrease in mileage or roughly .9mpg in your case.  It is very difficult to find a .9 mpg change from tank to tank.

That isn't happening to more than two-thirds of the people I talk to.  It's closer to 8 to 15 percent change for the worse.

No, no, no. You must read his posts and accept his theory. All other experience is folly.

Sorry, OUgrad, the whole purpose of this thread was to provide real life experience with ethanol, not theory. If it only amounts to .9 mpg change then all the pissing and moaning about it is nonsense. But that's just my theory.

There's tons of real life experience and studies done on ethanol.  E10 doesn't cause a substantial difference in mileage which is why one of the posters has seen little difference in their MPG.  

I think using ethanol as a fuel is retarded, its expensive, less efficient, dirtier than gasoline and we're burning our food so we can drive.  I'm not defending ethanol but the fact is 10% ethanol should pose no major isseus with MPG.  If it does you might consider a tune because of the way ethanol burns in the combustion chamber you could see a difference if you have one or more fouled injectors or plugs.  

Ethanol also tends to make a bigger mileage difference on larger, bigger bore motors that are very knock sensitive.  Ethanol has a higher resistence to knock and in some cases on board computers can get a little more aggressive with the timing resulting in a slight mileage decrease under acceleration.  At a constant speed the mileage drop off should be roughly the equivelent of the energy difference in a properly running vehicle.

As I've stated though, my auto is set to run on it, knows when it's in the tank, the computer adjusts for it.  It's a FlexFuel vehicle.

Doesn't mean it gets the same mileage as gasoline.  My difference based on a test was around 21 MPG using E10, about 25 MPG using gasoline.

[OUGrad05]

quote:Originally posted by Hoss

quote:Originally posted by OUGrad05

quote:Originally posted by waterboy

quote:Originally posted by Hoss

quote:Originally posted by OUGrad05

quote:Originally posted by waterboy

I understand now. I was using octane as a measure of energy when it is really a measure of one aspect of performance. What I don't understand is how come my little Corolla is doing so well running on this low btu fuel. Its mpg rating was 38/28 and I'm driving it pretty hard stop/go and still getting 30 consistently. Ethanol doesn't seem to bother this car much where it does seem to affect the detroit v-8's & v-6's.

Did you read my post from earlier?  If you're using gasoline with 10% ethanol that represents a 3% decrease in available BTU's which in theory would translate into a 3% decrease in mileage or roughly .9mpg in your case.  It is very difficult to find a .9 mpg change from tank to tank.

That isn't happening to more than two-thirds of the people I talk to.  It's closer to 8 to 15 percent change for the worse.

No, no, no. You must read his posts and accept his theory. All other experience is folly.

Sorry, OUgrad, the whole purpose of this thread was to provide real life experience with ethanol, not theory. If it only amounts to .9 mpg change then all the pissing and moaning about it is nonsense. But that's just my theory.

There's tons of real life experience and studies done on ethanol.  E10 doesn't cause a substantial difference in mileage which is why one of the posters has seen little difference in their MPG.  

I think using ethanol as a fuel is retarded, its expensive, less efficient, dirtier than gasoline and we're burning our food so we can drive.  I'm not defending ethanol but the fact is 10% ethanol should pose no major isseus with MPG.  If it does you might consider a tune because of the way ethanol burns in the combustion chamber you could see a difference if you have one or more fouled injectors or plugs.  

Ethanol also tends to make a bigger mileage difference on larger, bigger bore motors that are very knock sensitive.  Ethanol has a higher resistence to knock and in some cases on board computers can get a little more aggressive with the timing resulting in a slight mileage decrease under acceleration.  At a constant speed the mileage drop off should be roughly the equivelent of the energy difference in a properly running vehicle.

As I've stated though, my auto is set to run on it, knows when it's in the tank, the computer adjusts for it.  It's a FlexFuel vehicle.

Doesn't mean it gets the same mileage as gasoline.  My difference based on a test was around 21 MPG using E10, about 25 MPG using gasoline.

Flexfuel means it can run on E85 in addition to Gasoline and any E rating inbetween.  If you're getting 21mpg on E10 vs 25 mpg on regular gas I'd want to know whats up.  I dont know what type of vehicle you drive but my buddy has a chevy silverado with a 6.2L, it is also a flex fuel.  On E10 he's noticed basically no mileage difference that he could tell (though he's not quit as anal as I am) but when he runs E85 he does notice a significant difference.  In fact he told me when he drove from OKC to pryor he got a whopping 15mpg on the highway with E85.  He was pissed...He normally gets 20 to 21 on the highway.  

4mpg is a LOT for E10.

[waterboy]

FWIW, I agree with you OUgrad. Plain stupid to use food as fuel. When I told a farmer from Iowa that, he said that particular type of corn was feed for stock and never intended for human consumption. So any increase in the cost of corn and its derivatives should only show up in beef prices but for some reason is affecting the prices of anything using corn syrup.

[YoungTulsan]

In theory, using any sort of alternative to petroleum we can come up with, would be a good idea.

Theoretically:  Replace 10% of the automobile fuel supply with ethanol, and we use 10% less imported oil to produce said fuel.

In reality:  It takes energy to create the ethanol from corn, and we get THAT energy from Petroleum.  Various sources claim that it actually takes more than is being saved just to produce it.  I'm sure these claims take it to a complicated extreme of adding up the petroleum used at the ethanol plants, petroleum used to transport the ethanol (as it corrodes pipelines and thus is not commonly delivered that way), petroleum in the fertilizer and other farming equipment, etc.  So this eats up at very least PART of the pie-in-the-sky petroleum savings, if not ALL or MORE.

So, at most, the petroleum savings are very small, argueably non-existant.  That would not be enough to justify burning up our food supply.  The "free market" that people like to badmouth over price spikes, is not really free, it is manipulated by the government.  It is when you throw in subsidies, and encourage the use of corn ethanol for fuel under the guise of "alternative energy" with the feel-good fuzzies people are trained by the media to have in association - These subsidies and market manipulations make the otherwise illogical use for something turn into the most profitable one.  So we are burning corn, and it is a bonanza in profits for everyone involved except the consumer and taxpayer.  The manipulated market has financial incentive to grow corn instead of other food items.  More farmland is used growing corn, much of which is not going into the food supply.  What little farmland is left, produces food with sharp price increases due to the the increased scarcity.  Why grow grain when you can grow corn which is now like having an oil-field on your farm?  And no one will want to grow grain unless the price for grain skyrockets to a price point that grain farmers can be close in income to the other farmers growing fuel.  This isn't the free market failing, it is the free market reacting to illogical manipulation thanks to corrupt leadership in a way too powerful federal government.

We are lucky enough right now that our monetary system still dominates and moves the world economy.  We can still get food even if we are not producing it, because we can print more dollars.  If the tables ever turn, the world loses confidence in the dollar, we will be in a bad spot if we let our own food supply slip away from what it was, and still for the time being, is.  There may come a day when we cannot be so foolish in our use of resources.  A simple version of what I said is, it may not always be as easy to import whatever shortfalls we have in our food supply.

Just as our manufacturing base left the country over the past few decades, what we are seeing now with Ethanol, NAFTA, CAFTA, etc. is our breadbasket starting to leave, as we import more and more food, and we burn more and more of what we still grow at home.  After being the world's largest exporter of food, we turned into a net food importer in 2005.  There is no reason for this with the abundance of resources our nation is blessed with.

I don't care if the ethanol performance is negligible, I simply want NO PART in anything to do with supporting this corrupt government/corporate profit bonanza and the destruction of our food supply.

Corn Ethanol, a pipe-dream that corrodes pipes.

[YoungTulsan]

quote:Originally posted by waterboy

FWIW, I agree with you OUgrad. Plain stupid to use food as fuel. When I told a farmer from Iowa that, he said that particular type of corn was feed for stock and never intended for human consumption. So any increase in the cost of corn and its derivatives should only show up in beef prices but for some reason is affecting the prices of anything using corn syrup.

If they are feeding livestock with it, taking it away from the market and burning it for fuel still has the same net effect on the food supply.  Food for our food is still our food supply.  The other type for human consumption would also be effected in any scenario where farmers grow less of it, and more of the ethanol friendly kind due to them selling the latter for much higher prices.  As a result, the market increases the price for the former to keep it feasible for enough to still be grown.

[YoungTulsan]

One more thing that piqued my interest was when I saw that QuikTrip now has stores in Iowa.   (Guessing) They must be doing direct business with Ethanol producers, and have some resulting goodwill with Iowans.

[OUGrad05]

quote:Originally posted by waterboy

FWIW, I agree with you OUgrad. Plain stupid to use food as fuel. When I told a farmer from Iowa that, he said that particular type of corn was feed for stock and never intended for human consumption. So any increase in the cost of corn and its derivatives should only show up in beef prices but for some reason is affecting the prices of anything using corn syrup.

The farmer is correct it is feed stock.  The problem is the amount of acreage that has been converted from wheat, corn, soybeans etc to grow this feedstock.  The US for the first time ever had to import wheat this year.  We normally export wheat...however the government subsidies for ethanol and record corn prices mean that farmers are growing corn or lower quality feedstock corn whenever they can so we can "lessen" our dependance on foreign oil.  It's another perfect example of government intervention gone bad.  Now we pay substantially more for almost everything in the grocery store so some politicians can feel good about "ethanol".

[daniellezm]

I am writing a story on this subject for Urban Tulsa Weekly. If anyone would be willing to be quoted concerning their experiences with ethanol blended gasoline in the Tulsa area, please contact me at daniellezm at sbcglobal dot net or call me at the UTW office at 592-5550. I will be in the office until 5 today and from 8-12 tomorrow.

[sauerkraut]

I understand in new late model cars if the car requires top grade gasoline and you put in lower cheap cut-rate gasoline, your fuel mileage will drop. The reason is the computer retards the timing when you use cheap fuels to prevent "spark knock" thus gas mileage drops too. When you use the good expensive gasoline the computer is able to advance the timing so you get better performace and gas mileage increases. The cheap gasoline will not hurt the engine or do anything bad, the engine will just not run as well and mileage will drop a bit. With older cars it has no effect,- with the old distributor bolt timing adjustment. The gas mileage will be the same on any fuels from what I understand.[B)]

[Conan71]

quote:Originally posted by waterboy

FWIW, I agree with you OUgrad. Plain stupid to use food as fuel. When I told a farmer from Iowa that, he said that particular type of corn was feed for stock and never intended for human consumption. So any increase in the cost of corn and its derivatives should only show up in beef prices but for some reason is affecting the prices of anything using corn syrup.

I probably should know this since we had a family farm in northern Nebraska till about 16 years ago, but, I was always told there's sweet corn that people eat and feed corn which was used for feed, milling, corn sweeteners, etc.  IOW- I've always been under the impression there were two general varieties with many sub-varieties or species grouped either in "field" or "sweet".

At any rate, YT had mentioned the amount of petroleum it requires to make methanol.  In reality, none.  Every existing or planned ethanol plant I'm aware of burns natural gas or biomass.  Most plants in existence or being built have great access to natural gas.  Fuel oil is incredibly expensive, anyone who has dual capability and plenty of gas is burning it right now in every industry.  Fuel oil's (#2 grade) net cost per million Btu is about 2 to 2.5 times or so that of NG right now.

There is an exception of a plant we are working with on the east coast which is being built next to a landfill to take advantage of methane gas produced under the landfill.  This plant is going to use other cellulose structures than corn- thank God.

[buzz words]

The gas station in Jenks on Main & Elm/Peoria has a sign that says no ethanol.

[OUGrad05]

quote:Originally posted by Conan71

quote:Originally posted by waterboy

FWIW, I agree with you OUgrad. Plain stupid to use food as fuel. When I told a farmer from Iowa that, he said that particular type of corn was feed for stock and never intended for human consumption. So any increase in the cost of corn and its derivatives should only show up in beef prices but for some reason is affecting the prices of anything using corn syrup.

I probably should know this since we had a family farm in northern Nebraska till about 16 years ago, but, I was always told there's sweet corn that people eat and feed corn which was used for feed, milling, corn sweeteners, etc.  IOW- I've always been under the impression there were two general varieties with many sub-varieties or species grouped either in "field" or "sweet".

At any rate, YT had mentioned the amount of petroleum it requires to make methanol.  In reality, none.  Every existing or planned ethanol plant I'm aware of burns natural gas or biomass.  Most plants in existence or being built have great access to natural gas.  Fuel oil is incredibly expensive, anyone who has dual capability and plenty of gas is burning it right now in every industry.  Fuel oil's (#2 grade) net cost per million Btu is about 2 to 2.5 times or so that of NG right now.

There is an exception of a plant we are working with on the east coast which is being built next to a landfill to take advantage of methane gas produced under the landfill.  This plant is going to use other cellulose structures than corn- thank God.

You're right it doesn't necessarily take petroleum to make ethanol when people refer to it takes x amount of oil to make ethanol they're typically referring to an equivelant energy amount rated in BTU's.  Not all ethanol is a waste, and corn based ethanol is far more efficient than it used to be but I believe for every 100,000 BTU's you get out, you have to sink in 75,000 BTU's netting you a mere 25,000 BTU's.  If someone has more up to date numbers on that i"d like to see them as I"m not quite sure what it is anymore.

[YoungTulsan]

Well, that is one instance where I would feel good to be wrong.  So at least hopefully, by using ethanol as a "filler", we reduce foreign petroleum imports by a certain level.

I mentioned before though, that they probably took their theory on petroleum's involvement in the production of ethanol in all aspects from the fertilizing of the farmlands, to transport, etc.  Probably taking it a little too far.

I still can't look past the whole burning up the food supply problem it poses though.

[Conan71]

quote:Originally posted by YoungTulsan

Well, that is one instance where I would feel good to be wrong.  So at least hopefully, by using ethanol as a "filler", we reduce foreign petroleum imports by a certain level.

I mentioned before though, that they probably took their theory on petroleum's involvement in the production of ethanol in all aspects from the fertilizing of the farmlands, to transport, etc.  Probably taking it a little too far.

I still can't look past the whole burning up the food supply problem it poses though.

I agree YT.

My boss is a proponent for rebuilding the sugar industry along the Gulf Coast which has gone largely overseas and use that for ethanol production as they are doing in Brazil.  It wouldn't be robbing food stocks and might bring some agricultural prosperity to the region.

Of course, if you note where many ethanol plants are set up, they are in the corn belt.  Transportation of corn to the plants is not terribly far since there are so many now.

Biggest thing we need to do is get away from the politics of alt fuels.  Corn ethanol, we all seem to agree, is a farm subsidy.  Algore has made a killing off of becoming a global warming expert while not possessing a degree in science.  Hysteria takes us nowhere, it drives many people away with skepticism and cynicism.

We need to de-politicize and get real about this.  Quit trying to buy votes from the heartland and do what is best for the entire country.  Help incubate more practical crops and technology for alt fuels.

[cannon_fodder]

I follow the ethanol debates fairly closely.  I have used ethanol my driving whole life (from Iowa, most stations there have had ethanol on the pump for 15+ years).  It wasn't until the last 5 or 6 years that I started hearing the OTHER side.  It does collect water, it has less energy, it may not be a net energy GAIN in production, and it's is heavily subsidized or not economical.  Also, looking at MILES PER POLLUTION the argument is that ethanol increases pollution (via production costs plus lost efficiency).

In the long run, corn based ethanol is a loser.

Also, per the mileage, I am too lazy and my mileage to sporadic (I pull various boats, camp with my boy on long highway treks, and drive city most of the week) to track it accurately.  So like and good sloth I found real world data on the net.  In spite of the 3% theory, it appears reality is worse than that as combustion engines lose efficiency to ethanol in addition to the energy loss.

Most of these numbers are from "hypermilers,"  those annoying little balls of road rage finally come in handy!

15.9% (6 months of data)
http://www.cleanmpg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=11342

12.8%
http://www.gassavers.org/showthread.php?s=6db248b0a6bd8b7f496f4e42eb46fad7&t=4155


HOWEVER, newer small displacement engines see the 3% range because of gained efficiency with ethanol (run hotter or some damn thing):
http://www.gassavers.org/showthread.php?t=1863

Also, E85 vehicles will get less gas mileage on E10 but may see improved mileage on E85 because their engine (o2 censor, injectors, etc.) are able to adjust for it.

I'm surprised, but I was unable to find a definitive study on this by the NTSB, EPA, AAA, or some other official sounding acronym.