Ethanol E85

[vaultipod]

breathe. drink.
nearly unlimited supply of it in both.



Really? you sure?

California already runs mass transit buses on Hydrogen Fuel Cells. Honda has already taken orders for the new FCX Clarity fuel cell vehicle that goes on sale this summer, it will be for sale in California only (currently the only region with fuel cell refilling stations) at this time.
In addition, Honda has already developed similar, but larger, fuel cells for home use, as well as home filling stations for the vehicular fuel cells that it plans to start making available to consumers soon.

Of course, people said we'd never use nuclear energy for anything other than blowing other people up too.

[D!d0]

Oxygen atoms are like 10 times bigger than carbon atoms, are they not? So, if I sell you a sack of atoms as fuel, and one particular non-fuelo atom contaminates the bag . . . and it's 10X bigger than the other atoms . . . did you not get screwed if you look at it from a pure energy balance viewpoint?

[Jester4584]

I agree with most of what you said, but I believe that you are getting hung up on the less energy fuel = less energy output. It's not so much that ethanol has less energy than 87 octane gasoline but that the gasoline engine designed for 87 octane is not going to burn the 110+(?) octane rated E85 effectively.

The thing is, the gasoline engine is extremely inefficient and requires the correct conditions to produce maximum (albeit little) efficiency. In the engine, efficiency doesn't so much depend on which fuel has more energy capacity but whether it is burning when it should.

Higher octane fuels burn slower than lower octane fuels. If the fuel burns too fast, (I'm sure most of you know) you get knocking (explosions), which is bad for the engine, and its efficiency. To remedy knocking, you can either retard the timing, put in a higher octane fuel, or reduce the compression ratio (which reduces the possibility of the fuel exploding and also reduces the horsepower).

To get better engine horsepower (I was going to say efficiency, but now that I think of it, that might not be true), one of the things that can be done is to increase the compression ratio, which requires a higher octane fuel that is less likely to explode when compressed. So, to explain why the Ford FFV gets better horsepower with E85 is because the engine is tuned to work better (and I assume more efficiently) on E85, but it can still run on 87 octane gas because it can automatically adjust timing, etc. to run on 87 without major engine damage.

Anyway, my point to Easy Rider was that the energy out (horsepower to the wheels) of a gasoline engine has less to do with the total energy available in the fuel than it does with how that energy is used. Putting acetone in your gas tank will increase your fuel efficiency and horsepower not because you put that much more energy in your tank but because it changes the burning characteristics of the fuel (i.e. aids in vaporization).

If you modified your motorcycle engine by adjusting compression, gear ratios, etc. (I know Easy Rider's comment was qualified with "WITHOUT ANY CHANGES IN ENGINE OPERATING PARAMETERS"), you with probably be able to get better horsepower and comparable gas mileage with E85. Of course, you'll get worse, if not damaging, performance from 87 octane, and your fuel lines, etc. will probably not last as long. Also, I think ethanol is more corrosive than gasoline.

[KPizzle]

Donny beat me to to it.
Another thing to think about with Hydrogen is the infrastructure to distribute it just isn't there. We're used to seeing a gas station on every corner, but that industry has been in development for more than a century. The cars and refill stations are already in California because the companies have to test the equipment somewhere, it's still nowhere near ready for mass production.
One of the coolest ideas I think are coming out right now are what OmegaJim was talking about. The renewable sources being used to create hydrogen either for energy storage or consumer use. Also what is the source for all the water that will be needed to make the hydrogen and how will it's removal affect the local environment?

[Lire~Sama]

Ahem.....Yes I am "hung up" on that because it is true. :shock:

While it IS true that an electronically controlled engine can be tweaked to get better performance out of the fuel with less energy density, you have to make a choice: Tweak it for better power...getting even WORSE economy OR tweak it for better MPG, in which case the power will suffer.

There is only so much energy there. You can not create more by tuning the engine.

If you really want to find out more about this, do some searching for some combination of "energy density ethanol".

[KDHaynes]

:???:
Car or motorcycle...plane or a boat or scooter or generator or or or or???? It's internal combustion!

You want a yes or no answer then you should be posting your question in an E85/Alternative fuel forum. The end result here? Can you do it? Sure! Should you do it? NO!

There, it's black and white

....aaaand breath

[ANAL ASSAULT]

+1 for the previous explanation.

[JRY]

If you run two identical engines, one on E85 and one on regular gas, assuming both fuels have the same energy density the one that burns better or more readily will provide more power (i.e. torque). Think about a slow burning fuel and a fast one. Both can release the same amount of total energy but the fast fuel will be much more effective and transferring that energy to an engine... thereby producing more power. Tuning just assists in getting the right conditions for one of the fuels to burn more readily then the other.

[SYG12]

AAAARRRRRGGGGHHHH :fight2:

What the hell are you talking about ???

You can NOT assume the same energy density. That IS what the arguement is all about.

Ethanol (E85) does NOT have the same energy content (density) as gasoline.
It just DOES NOT. That's not debatable; it is a scientific fact.