I have heard that these are the benfits of Ethanol:

Practically no harmful emissions
Cheap (under $1.00 a gallon)
More engine power
Good for our Agriculture (Farmers)
Easy and cheap to produce
Less reliability on foreign oil imports
Any car can use it with minor modification

I have heard that these are the problems with Ethanol:

Less miles per gallon than gasoline (But not much)


So with Ethanol being such a no brainer, why aren't we as a people
not doing more to advocate the change in our economy?

I say F&*$K the oil companies. We need to do what is right for
our people, our economy, and our children.

They say we could easily convert our whole nation to Ethanol
is 6 months with minimal overall costs.

How many of my Fellow Z'sters would complain about cheaper
fuel that gives more horsepower?

I would be very interested in hearing what everyone has to say
about this topic.

 

Not all cars can run on ethanol or E85 as it's called. That includes our Zs. I don't think you can buy ethanol for $1 a gallon unless you are a farmer. It usually costs about 10-20% less than regular gas to help offset the reduction in fuel economy you will observe. Actually it's more expensive right now to make ethanol than regular gas, but the government doesn't tax it as much to help make it more attractive to consumers. There are currently just a handful of cars that can run on E85 or regular gas, and are referred to as flex fuel cars. You can read more about it at www.e85fuel.com.

 

I'm not going to argue one way or the other with what the web site says. I think its more a matter of what you believe to be better for the economy. I'm sure we have the technology available etc.. But you must consider what will happen when the economy starts to move towards Ethanol. All of a sudden our $3 a gallon gas is going to drop rapidly and a bunch or Arabs are going to start freaking out and charging less per barrell. Either way you stack up the deck, Ethanol is the way to go.

 

I didn't say ethanol was not the way to go. I was just saying that it isn't as cheap as $1 a gallon and we can't run our Zs on it. The only Nissan certified to run on ethanol right now is the 5.6L Titan. If I can't run my car on it, it doesn't matter if ethanol is $.10 a gallon.

 

The only reason it's cheap is because of government intervention. Ethanol costs more energy to produce it than to burn it. Do a search, you'll find a couple great studies on it. It has significantly less potential energy than gasoline.

An easy way to think of it is when fuels burn, the bonds in the molecules that make up the fuel break to create energy. Gasoline, to put it simply, is mostly hexane, heptane, and octane with 5, 6, and 7 carbon/carbon bonds to potentially break. Ethanol has only one carbon/carbon bond to break. Obviously there are differences in density, complexity of molecular structures, and whatnot that I have omitted for the sake of argument, but the bottom line is: As it stands right now, ethanol will not be the immediate answer to big oil's question.

Study up on biodiesel. That's a more promising fuel in my opinion.

Sorry... I am a chemical engineer. I had to drop the science like Galileo dropped the orange.

 

What you say is currently true Ender, however the technology hasn't fully matured to use the entire product to create ethanol. A lot of waste is created in the process. When they can figure out how to use all of the corn, including the stalk etc then it will substantially reduce costs to produce ethanol.

 

Anything that would potentially compete with gas will drive the oil prices down and for us that have to have gas, its a big plus.

 

Good point, kpiskin. However even after the tech to create ethanol matures, ethanol still will not have the potential mileage that auto makers are used to with gasoline. They will have to make bigger fuel tanks, or we will have to fuel up more often, or some combination of the two. Since we will be using a greater volume of ethanol than gasoline, I would hope ethanol will be of comparable price per unit of usable energy.

 

Actually that's incorrect Ender, one example of this is the new Saab 9-5 Aero which actually gets better mileage on E85 than gas. It's all in the tuning of the engine. Most FFVs are tuned to perform more economically on gas instead of E85, whereas Saab increased the compression ratio to allow it to get better mileage with E85 instead. E85 is used quite a bit in Sweden and Saab is leading the way with developing cars that use it.

Did you know that the Model T was made to run on ethanol or gas?

 

I am at work and can't put any time into researching the Saab right now. Sounds interesting.

I just want to stress the point that a liter of ethanol has less potential energy than a liter of gasoline. So burning a liter of ethanol will put out less energy than burning a liter of gasoline.

There are many advantages to ethanol over gasoline though. The biggest of which is it is a extremely easier to burn ethanol more completely than gasoline. Unburned fuel equals black smoke and when was the last time you've seen black smoke coming from that flaming shot you put down at the bar last weekend (you crazy kook, you!). But as many who run test pipes can attest to, gasoline makes black smoke like CRAZY. So, because it is easier to burn and is essentially a homogeneous substance unlike gas, I'd like to see a car that runs ethanol economically.

I did know the Model T could run on ethanol. Did you know that the first diesel engine could run on pulverized coal? Not sure about long term effects on the engine, but how crazy is that? No wonder you can run vegetable oil and used grease through those things.

I was working at Spirit AeroSystems in Wichita, KS in March and I kept on smelling fried food cooking as I was walking around their facility. Apparently their onsite diesel trucks run on a biodiesel/diesel mix, and I was smelling their exhaust. How awesome would that be if everyone's exhaust from their cars smelled like french fries or popcorn? Flippin' sweet.

 

I would just like to state for the record that kpiskin is a damn ninja for posting intelligently in this thread. Glad to see some educated discussion happening alongside of the "Girls and Zs" threads.

 

Hey I love the pointless posts too, just check some of mine out besides these:-)

That's the thing I love about my350z.com. It's not just about 350Zs. My wife asked me how I can spend so much time talking about cars, but as I've shown her it isn't just about cars, and can be intellectually stimulating, entertaining and fun.

 

are you sure it creates more engine power? because Ive heard the exact opposite from several people... i dont really give a **** to be quite honest. whatever they put in it to make it cheaper and gives it more power is the way i would want it to go but hey thats just me

 

E85 is 110 octane, so yes it creates more power. However it's currently less efficient to run on most cars today. If you look at specs for FFV cars, you can compare their fuel consumption and their 0-60 specs as well. Typically the 0-60 will lower by about 10% or so but fuel economy will also drop by 20 or so percent. I will try to find a link where I saw some FFV specific vehicle specifications.

If you ever watch the Top Gear video where Clarkson test drives the Keonigsegg CCX, he mentions that on 93 octane the car produces 806HP, but when tuned for E85 it produces 905HP. That's about a 12% increase in HP just by switching to ethanol. Of course, I'm sure gas mileage decreases, but who cares in a Koenigsegg.

 

thats badass im all for ethanol now...

 

just had my car boosted, I noticed that exxon here now has E10 and thinking that it would run stronger i was all excited.. but after 2-3 days it feels alot weaker.. i don't feel as much pull anymore.. but it could be the rain<humidity> or the ecu finally adjusting. i guess i will know in a day or two.