Local gas stations around me just started putting 10% ethanol into their mix. I don't believe in all this ethanol crap for a couple reasons (takes more oil to produce it, we're starting to put feeding our cars over feeding ourselves, etc) and I think I'm paying more for crappier fuel which yields to crappier MPG.
Anyone else think this? Or are my thoughts based in opinion rather than fact?
e10 is ****ing stupid. i don't get it. maybe that's why gas is more expensive....they put in ethanol, like they're going to wean us onto ethanol or something. ****ing stupid.
My brother said it's a government mandate to use it. My question is if switching ethanol were to make sense then why would the government have to mandate its use?
I think this is just one last ditch effort to put cash back into the pockets of poor midwestern farmers.
The gov't does it for the pretty much the same reason they do anything else. SOme special interest groups bought a few congressman and got something mandated to line their own pockets at our expense.
At one time, alcohol in the fule was a good idea. It burned a little cleaner and cooler. It maintained the same octane, but was cheaper to make. The downside is that alcohol carries fewer BTU's. So it made less energy. The car runs fine with it, but it doesn't get the same mileage. That made it more expensive to use. It used to be cheaper to buy, now it costs the same. Probably because it's mandated, so why make it cheaper?
While ethanol actually has a higher octane than gas, it doesn't quite have the energy content so you end up losing a bit of MPG in the process. Because of this it actually costs us more in the long run (25-30%) to use it if they sell it at the same price as regular gasoline. Getting it from corn is dumb too as it was mentioned that it takes more energy to produce than it contains and takes food that could be used to feed us away and puts it towards making gas for our cars.
I did read an article in a recent issue of Motor Trend (April '08 pg. 37) that there is going to be a plant opening up later this year that uses microorganisms to produce ethanol from carbon-based waste. It's a testbed so initial output isn't supposed to be much more than would be needed for a proof-of-concept. Supposedly it would cost about $1/gal to produce ethanol this way but from what I've seen from things like this in the past, I'm going to hold my breath until I see more information/results.
< Message edited by golden_eye -- 4/21/2008 3:14:13 PM >
Ethanol(at least from corn) is TOTALLY retarded to the 34th power. First, the amount of energy from fossil fuels consumed to produce ethanol to combust, rathing than combusting the fossil fuel directly, is only slightly less than the ethanol provides....but the problem is ethanol can't be transmitted via pipeline, so it MUST be shipped by trucks, which burn deisel. In the end more fossil fuels are burned in order to use ethanol because of greater transportation fuel consumption than if we just ran on gasoline. Second, corn based ethanol is a pretty inefficient way to make ethanol. It takes large amounts of corn to make small amounts of fuel, and since corn only grows in certain areas effectively, that means you either have increased transportation costs from shipping corn to an ethanol refinery, or increased transportation costs shipping the ethanol via truck(see problem 1). Third, for those of you who have ever grown corn you already know this, corn is a MAJOR water hog. Corn needs a LOT of water to grow properly, and given that most areas where corn grows are short on water already, you have a huge water dilema of trying to grow enough corn to have ethanol as a viable fuel source. Who gets the water, us or the corn? Make a descision. Fourth, and this is perhaps the most negative impact that we're already seeing, is that corn is used as a feed stock for a LOT of the food industry, beef, poultry, eggs, milk and anything related to those are all influenced by the cost of the corn used as feed stock for the animals that provide it. And corn based ethanol has cost the price of corn to nearly tripple in the last few years, which has had a direct impact on the cost of food that the average American buys(have you noticed how the cost of things like milk, eggs and chicken have gone up considerably in price? Around here the cost of some of those has doubled, or almost trippled in the last few years).
Ethanol from corn is one of the best things we can do....if we want to use energy innefficiently and ruin our economy. Even the stock market has recently started to worry because of ethanol. Investors understand that the inneffectiveness of corn based fuels and the rising cost of corn, has had a direct negative impact on the US economy as a whole and has hurt the average American consumer. The stock market realises that that leads to economic slowdown as Americans have to tighten their pockets to continue to be able to afford the necessities of living.
I'm all for better sources of energy, but we have to be smart about it. Chasing pipe dreams and running after sources of energy that ultimately havea negative impact on us is not the way to do things. The only bright side is that since oil is traded on a futures market, and speculators have priced oil beyond it's value, there's a growing optimism that oil prices may correct in the next year or 2 and could drop by more than half their current value(that's the way the oil market is). Supplies of oil are up and demands are down, and refineries aren't even working at full capacity. We may see a sizable reduction in fuel costs before the end of summer if the oil market begins it's correction.
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Who cares how much horsepower it has, all that matters is how fast it goes!
Best run 13.23 at 106.97mph with a 2.183 60' Times from before tune and driver mod.
The gov't does it for the pretty much the same reason they do anything else. SOme special interest groups bought a few congressman and got something mandated to line their own pockets at our expense.
At one time, alcohol in the fule was a good idea. It burned a little cleaner and cooler. It maintained the same octane, but was cheaper to make. The downside is that alcohol carries fewer BTU's. So it made less energy. The car runs fine with it, but it doesn't get the same mileage. That made it more expensive to use. It used to be cheaper to buy, now it costs the same. Probably because it's mandated, so why make it cheaper?
true story
irks me a bit that not only are we paying so much for fuel now, but it's not even good quality. But thats just beating the dead horsey
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10% ethanol - 
