Mileage on Ethanol

[sauerkraut]

The sad thing is we have plenty of oil in the world, the "crisis" is a political, man-made thing. Alaska is floating on a sea of oil. We have oil shale rock that can last 100 years. If they find a replacement for oil that new thing (what ever it turns out to be) will likely be used the same way as oil is today, it will be used political, and people will "adjust" the mfg. of it and control the price and we will be in the same boat as with oil. They know that people will need it and they will jack up the price of it and we'll have to pay it.

[waterboy]

quote:Originally posted by 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.

^Ya know, this would be a good post to end on. Explains somewhat why my fleet hasn't noticed a difference in performance while others have shown tremendous losses. The downsides outweigh the positives on corn ethanol. Sawgrass or other throwaway biomass would be a better option.

As a side note, this year my tomatoes didn't do well, my cucumbers got the blight and my peppers didn't set blooms. What happens when nature does that on a huge scale? Makes another crisis. But when the wind stops and the sun goes away, its all over anyway!

[Jeepguy]

quote:
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.

And did you not read my eariler post?? Theory is great in the lab, but real world results are what matter. I went from high 13's to low 15's by not using 10% crapenol. That is a far cry from your theory. Changing the brand of gas was the only change I made.