Top scientists warn against rush to biofuel......

[BraggSurvivor]

Gordon Brown is preparing for a battle with the European Union over biofuels after one of the government's leading scientists warned they could exacerbate climate change rather than combat it.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/mar/25/biofuels.energy1


Until more viable options are thought out, short term coal to diesel is better IMO

[crashdive123]

It's a debate that needs to take place. Some of the stuff that I've read - takes more energy to produce it than it yields, doesn't burn as efficient, cutting down rain forests to plant corn, causing the cost of most foods to rise. This is what happens when well intentioned people have a knee jerk reaction to a potential problem.

[Rick]

I've posted on E85 and E10 before. The bottom line is they are causing us to burn more gasoline, not less. The real culprit are the CAFE rules that need to be changed.

[bulrush]

Well geez, if the MPGs are increased we'll all be driving unsafe vehicles made from tinfoil, like the Kia. I checked out a Kia a few years back and was really unimpressed. I've had pie tins that used thicker metal than the Kia.

[dbldrew]

I've posted on E85 and E10 before. The bottom line is they are causing us to burn more gasoline, not less. The real culprit are the CAFE rules that need to be changed.

Do you mean that we end up burning more fuel, and not more gasoline? Because if you are running e85 to end up burning more gasoline the car running e85 would have to drop the mpg by over 85%, which it doesn't. e85 only has 15% gasoline, so there is no way you would use more gasoline running e85.

Typically a ffv (flex fuel vehicle) will see a drop in mpg anywhere from 10%-25%. So if we do a comparison and give the ffv the worst case scenario of a 25% drop in mpg. Lets say the ffv running on 100% gasoline gets 30mpg, so a 25% drop would make it getting 22.5mpg running e85. So if we do a comparison for a 500 mile trip running 1 with 100% gasoline and the other e85 we get..

100% gas would use 16.6 gallons of gasoline
e85 would use 22.2 gallons of e85 but would only use 3.33 gallons of gasoline

[Rick]

If it were that easy, your numbers would be correct. This from my web site:

As yet, we have not bought in to all the hype about E-85 fuels. There are several for reasons for that. Alcohol as a fuel additive has been around for a long time. As we said, it was used in the 1920s to prevent engine knock. But the truth about ethyl alcohol or ethanol is it generates less horsepower than gasoline. Less horsepower means less fuel economy or fewer miles per gallon. The result is you have to burn more fuel to go the same distance. That means you have to fill up more often and that means an increase in gasoline consumption, not a decrease. That doesn't make a lot of sense to us. Here's how it really works.

CAFE Numbers:
Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards, which are set by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), establish the average fuel economy for an automaker's full fleet of vehicles. Currently, the minimum miles-per-gallon is 27.5 for cars and 21.6 for light trucks (2006 numbers). That means that an automaker must average 27.5 mpg for their entire fleet of cars from the worst gas guzzler to their most miserly model. But wait! Not so fast. It isn't that simple. Auto manufacturers are also granted fuel economy "credits" for every flexible fuel vehicle (called FFVs) they make. In short, the government rates FFVs at about 1 1/2 times the fuel economy they actually get. For example, a vehicle that is normally rated at 19 mpg would be rated at 28.5 mpg if it were equipped with a flexible fuel engine. That artificially inflates the CAFE numbers for the auto manufacturers.

The result has been that auto makers have equipped their larger vehicles, typically SUVs, with flexible fuel engines because they are popular and the credits artifically boost the MPG rating for those vehicles. Instead of actually saving gasoline, the move has increased consumption of gasoline by about 1 percent, or 1.2 billion gallons, according to a 2005 study by the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Our second concern is that E-85 cannot be used on all engines unlike E-10 or 10% ethanol fuels. It's also very difficult to find a service station that sells E-85. Those limitations mean E-85 may be a stronger competitor as more FFVs are manufactured but limits its practicality today.

E-85 is more environmentally friendly than gasoline but it still emits acetaldehyde, a probable carcinogen and ethanol, even E-10, is in short supply. In fact, we imported about 7,200 barrels per day (bbl/d) of ethanol from Brazil in 2005.

Finally, studies are underway on cellulosic ethanol, a product that can be made from other sources such as wood pulp, corn stalks sugarcane or switch grass. This appears to be a more promising solution than ethanol generated from corn. Brazil has been utilizing sugarcane based ethanol for nearly thirty years.

For the foreseeable future, we believe biodiesel, diesel, electric, hydrogen, natural-gas, and more efficient gasoline cars are the solution to the complex problem of energy efficiency.

Now, why don't you drive over to the Introduction section and tells us a bit about yourself.

[dbldrew]

If it were that easy, your numbers would be correct. This from my web site:

As yet, we have not bought in to all the hype about E-85 fuels. There are several for reasons for that. Alcohol as a fuel additive has been around for a long time. As we said, it was used in the 1920s to prevent engine knock. But the truth about ethyl alcohol or ethanol is it generates less horsepower than gasoline. Less horsepower means less fuel economy or fewer miles per gallon.

That’s actually not true, e85 makes way more horsepower then gasoline, but gasoline has more heat energy (BTU) then ethanol.

So one would think that a fuel that’s has more energy you would make more power, well it’s not that simple. In a internal combustion engine, the leaner your air/fuel ratio the more heat energy you get out of the gas, the problem comes in when you lean out your air/fuel ratio you start pinging (detonation) then comes cracked rings, burned valves, melted pistons, etc. So just going my the total BTU of a fuel is a little misleading, to set the perfect air fuel ratio to get the highest BTU out of gasoline your engine would run for about 5 min or so…

Back to e85 having more HP, e85 is rated at 106 octane, so the potential hp of a fuel that has 106 octane is much higher, in fact there are cars that are running over 1000hp running e85, 106 octane is basically a racing fuel. You have to look at it this way, you could easily run 12:1 compression ratio running e85, so when comparing efficiencies it’s a little unfair comparing both fuels in a car that has a compression ration around 9:1. The 9:1 compression ratio is about the threshold that your typical 87octane can safely operate at. But considering we are nowhere close to the threshold with the e85 it’s hurting it’s efficiency. Think about it this way how efficient would a gas engine be, running 6:1 compression? It would be horrible, but does that mean that the fuel is bad? No it means the engine is not designed to optimize the potential of the fuel. That is what is happening when comparing e85.




CAFE Numbers:
Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards, which are set by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), establish the average fuel economy for an automaker's full fleet of vehicles. Currently, the minimum miles-per-gallon is 27.5 for cars and 21.6 for light trucks (2006 numbers). That means that an automaker must average 27.5 mpg for their entire fleet of cars from the worst gas guzzler to their most miserly model. But wait! Not so fast. It isn't that simple. Auto manufacturers are also granted fuel economy "credits" for every flexible fuel vehicle (called FFVs) they make. In short, the government rates FFVs at about 1 1/2 times the fuel economy they actually get. For example, a vehicle that is normally rated at 19 mpg would be rated at 28.5 mpg if it were equipped with a flexible fuel engine. That artificially inflates the CAFE numbers for the auto manufacturers.

The result has been that auto makers have equipped their larger vehicles, typically SUVs, with flexible fuel engines because they are popular and the credits artifically boost the MPG rating for those vehicles. Instead of actually saving gasoline, the move has increased consumption of gasoline by about 1 percent, or 1.2 billion gallons, according to a 2005 study by the Union of Concerned Scientists.

I don’t see this as a problem, your concern would be well founded if everybody that purchased a ffv only ran reg gasoline, but most people who go out and get a ffv do so to run e85, now obviously e85 is not at every pump so there are a lot of ffv cars out there just running reg gas, but that is offset by the ffv that are actually running e85. Furthermore if the push is to go with ethanol-powered cars, then this is a good way to help the market produce a demand.



Our second concern is that E-85 cannot be used on all engines unlike E-10 or 10% ethanol fuels. It's also very difficult to find a service station that sells E-85. Those limitations mean E-85 may be a stronger competitor as more FFVs are manufactured but limits its practicality today.

Not true all non diesel cars can be converted to run e85, it would take new injectors, computer, etc. But that is much more feasible then other renewable fuel options, which basically means you need to buy a new car…



Finally, studies are underway on cellulosic ethanol, a product that can be made from other sources such as wood pulp, corn stalks sugarcane or switch grass. This appears to be a more promising solution than ethanol generated from corn. Brazil has been utilizing sugarcane based ethanol for nearly thirty years.

I agree making ethanol out of corn is not the best option, in fact there is a new plant that makes cellulosic ethanol for $1.00 a gal, they can also recycle old tires to make ethanol…

http://www.coskata.com/




Now, why don't you drive over to the Introduction section and tells us a bit about yourself.

Will do…

[Excalibur]

The Problem with using "Food Staple" crops for fuel is higher prices at the market. There is some interesting research using algea to produce bio-diesel and a few entrepeneurs using fry grease.