This is a very well done article by Patrick Bedard on E85 in the July 2006 issue of Car and Driver.

Ethanol Promises


Farm-raising our own energy independence: Could it happen?

You will be hosing ethanol into your gas tank. You will. It’s the law.

The 551-page Energy Policy Act of 2005, signed last August, includes many sops to a blur of special interests, but one single provision rang the bell for automakers, greenies, and farmers, and for a broad coalition of ordinary motorists who were hoping for something, anything, to bring down gasoline prices; starting in 2006, the average gallon of “gas” will contain 2.78-percent ethanol.

Congress has made to the petroleum industry an offer it can’t refuse. It’s called a mandate.

And it’s a mandate that keeps on giving, at least to the farm states, as it ratchets up the ethanol quota, nearly doubling it over the next six years — from 4.0-billion gallons in 2006 to 7.5-billion in 2012.

The idea is simple: Use ethanol as the gasoline equivalent of Hamburger Helper. The nation will stretch more miles out of every barrel we import from, as the President says, “unstable parts of the world.” It’s hardly the “energy independence” we’ve been promised for 30 years, but it’s a baby step in that direction.

Or is it? We’ll measure ethanol’s benefits against the promises made for it down the page, but first, a few basics.

Unlike other alternative fuels, no vehicle modifications will be needed for the mandated ethanol content, which increases to about five percent by 2012. It should burn just fine in all the gasoline burners already on the road. Gasohol, a mixture of up to 10-percent ethanol with gasoline, has been in wide use in farm states for 30 years, and all new cars are engineered for this fuel.

Before we go further, one clarification: There’s no requirement for every gallon of gas to contain ethanol. Instead, an annual ethanol quota must be met. So gasohol and E85 (85-percent ethanol, 15-percent gasoline) will still be sold where there’s availability and demand, which reduces the amount of ethanol that must be mixed in elsewhere.

The intent here is to guarantee a market for ethanol. Now producers can invest in factories with confidence of a payback.

With a bare-faced mandate for ethanol in place, the previous sham, the oxygenate requirement, is hereby deleted. This was a scheme dating back to the carburetor era that mandated gasoline contain two-percent oxygen by weight, so as to trick the fuel system into serving up leaner mixtures. It applied in localities with air-quality problems according to the Environmental Protection Agency — parts of 14 states and the District of Columbia. MTBE (methyl tertiary butyl ether) was the first choice of oxygenates, but since it contributed to ground-water contamination, ethanol became the fallback. However, feedback-fuel-metering systems, which self-adjust to operate at a fixed mixture regardless of fuel composition, became the norm roughly 20 years ago. As a result, the benefits of the oxygenate rule have decreased as newer vehicles’ fuel systems have replaced the older, more primitive ones. Today, as any engine engineer will testify, the rule has virtually no pollution benefit and has become nothing more than a backdoor mandate for the ethanol industry and corn farmers.

Now, with gasoline prices high and more people concerned about global warming, Congress has gotten brave enough to bring ethanol in the front door, in broad daylight, with mandates. Farm-raising our own energy independence is a seductive idea, better yet if it comes with a clean-burning fuel. But will it work? Let’s examine the various promises for ethanol one by one, to see if it can deliver.


Promise: Ethanol will reduce our dependence on fossil fuel.

Not in our lifetimes. In 2004, the U.S. consumed 100 “quads” (quadrillion BTUs) of energy. Of that, 86 quads were from fossil fuels. And of that, 40 quads were petroleum. About 18 of those petroleum quads were refined into gasoline. If we continue to use gasoline at no more than the 2004 rate — a fair assumption if prices stay high — the ethanol mandate by 2012 will stretch those 18 quads of gasoline with five percent by volume of ethanol, or 0.6 quad, give or take due to rounding. Remembering that we use 86 quads of fossil fuels, ethanol would displace a mere 0.7 percent of that.



Actually, the picture is not this bright, because fossil fuels are used in the production of ethanol. In fact, some studies have concluded that making ethanol from agricultural crops requires more energy than is contained in the finished product. There is no academic agreement on this point, and small differences in assumptions can profoundly alter the conclusions. For example, will the corn yield be 125 bushels per acre, or 127, or 140? Will you get 2.5 gallons of ethanol per bushel, or 2.68, or 2.80?

A recent study published by the University of California Berkeley looks at six different ethanol studies, brings the assumptions up to date, and makes other adjustments the authors think are appropriate. It concludes that only 5 to 26 percent of the energy in today’s corn-based ethanol is “new.” The other 74-to-95 percent represents the recycling of fossil-fuel energy to produce ethanol. Compared with historical assessments, this study represents a relatively optimistic outlook for ethanol.

Even if we accept the most favorable assumption, that 26 percent of its energy is new, that represents only about 0.16 quad. Of the 18 original petroleum quads that went into gasoline, that means ethanol would comprise less than one percent. And compared with the total of 86 quads of fossil-fuel energy used in America, ethanol would replace less than two-tenths of one percent.

On the other hand, if the true energy gain of ethanol is at the low side of the confidence limits — only five percent — all those results are divided by five and ethanol looks like a make-work program that only a politician could love.

Promise: Ethanol will cut our dependence on foreign oil.



Not that anyone will notice. We import about 65 percent of our petroleum. If we assume that the ethanol in gasoline in 2012 is used entirely to displace imports, and we again make the most favorable assumption that 26 percent of the energy is renewable, it would reduce imports by about 1.4 percent. If all the ethanol production were used to reduce Persian Gulf imports, the reduction would amount to 7.4 percent.

Ethanol proponents might argue here that energy required to manufacture ethanol comes primarily from coal and natural gas, and relatively little from crude oil, so, in effect, it provides a way of running cars on coal and natural gas instead of oil. There’s some truth here. But the numbers are small. Moreover, natural-gas supplies are at least as tight as petroleum supplies.



Promise: Ethanol will protect us from gas-price shocks.

This is certainly the hope of the Detroit automakers who lobbied for the ethanol provision; they have big bets on SUVs that sell poorly in times of gas-price shocks. But ethanol is a weak insurance policy. The mandate of 7.5 billion gallons by 2012 is based on volume. Ethanol contains about 70 percent of the energy in an equal volume of gasoline. So it really displaces only about 3.5 percent of gasoline by energy content, which is the only measure the engine cares about. A 3.5-percent cut in demand for gasoline is not nothing, but remember that ethanol is not free. Last year ethanol’s wholesale price was between $1.25 and $2.75 a gallon, and it pretty much tracked gasoline’s. Substituting a few percent of ethanol for gasoline won’t help at all when the next price shock comes.

Promise: Ethanol will clean up the air.

Burning ethanol has a mixed effect on vehicle emissions. According to the Department of Energy, E85 in place of gasoline reduces carbon monoxide by four percent and NOx by 59 percent, but it raises total hydrocarbon by 43 percent.

Ethanol is free of certain toxic chemicals — benzine and xylene — that are associated with gasoline, but exposures to those substances are so small that no one is worrying about them today. On the other hand, ethanol exhaust emissions do contain acetaldehydes not found in gasoline exhaust.

(continued in next post (article is much too long for one post))

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Promise: Ethanol will save us from global warming.

When fossil fuels are burned, they release carbon that was removed from the atmosphere billions of years ago by plants and stored in fossils ever since. This release, in the form of carbon dioxide, builds up greenhouse gases that are widely believed to be causing climate change. Ethanol releases carbon dioxide, too, but some of it was removed from the air recently by the plants grown as feedstock for ethanol production. So ethanol recycles a share of its carbon, and the size of that recycled share determines its greenhouse appeal.

Ideally, ethanol would be efficient enough as a fuel to power ethanol-production factories. But it’s nowhere close. With today’s technology, the carbon dioxide released by the fossil fuel used to produce ethanol towers over the amount recycled.

Switching from gasoline to ethanol would have an “ambiguous effect” on greenhouse gases, according to the Berkeley study, with reported values ranging from a 32-percent decrease to a 20-percent increase. It concluded that a 13-percent reduction was likely per BTU.

The U.S. Department of Energy was less optimistic, concluding that E85 produces only a four-percent reduction in carbon dioxide. In the near term, ethanol has no chance of mitigating global warming.



What’s Ahead?

Ethanol needs a mandate to find its way into our gas tanks for one simple reason. Made from corn as it is now, it costs more than gasoline.

Its true cost today is hidden by a broad blanket of agricultural subsidies, but we know the federal government puts up 51 cents per gallon. That alone will cost taxpayers more than $4.1 billion in 2012. And some states kick in an extra 10 cents, or 20, or more with credits, tax reductions, and other incentives.

On a scale of technical progress, today’s ethanol factories are about where the internal-combustion engine was in the early 1900s. Ethanol has been taken seriously as a modern fuel for only about 30 years. In that time, output has increased from 2.5 gallons per bushel of corn (56 pounds) to 2.8. The thermal and electrical energy needed has dropped about 70 percent. In recent dry-mill plants, the process inputs about 30,000 BTUs and less than one kilowatt hour of electricity (equals 3414 BTUs) for each 76,000-BTU gallon of ethanol output. This doesn’t include the energy costs of farming and transport, of course.

But despite this impressive rate of improvement, corn-based ethanol is still an extremely expensive vehicle fuel and always will be. The ethanol of the future, say government and industry sources, will come from cellulose, the “wood chips and stalks, or switch grass” the President cited in his State of the Union speech this year.

If cellulosic ethanol were easy, it would already be on the road, because the government has been seriously funding research for about 30 years. Instead of using just the high-value seed kernels of corn as is done now, the part that’s food, the whole structure of the plant — stalks, leaves, and all — which is not food, would go into the pot, along with any other plant material, including forest thinnings and fast-growing foliage such as switch grass.

The plant structures are composed of cells, and the cells have walls of lignin and hemicellulose surrounding the cellulose core. The hemicellulose and the cellulose are long-chain sugars that can be fermented once the structures are broken down with heat and enzymes.

The idea here is to convert the sugars to ethanol and burn the lignin as fuel for the ethanol plant. Breakthroughs have been made. One company, Novozymes, has announced a 97-percent reduction, since 2001, in the cost of a critical enzyme, from $5 per gallon to 10 to 18 cents. Several pilot plants are operating to further refine the cellulose-to-ethanol process. This is all very encouraging. Still, even politicians trying to paint a bright picture — the State of the Union, for example — don’t promise any significant volume sooner than six years.

The reality is that the federal mandate to increase ethanol use to 7.5-billion gallons by 2012 is eminently doable. But it won’t make much difference to the price of fuel, foreign oil dependency, air pollution, or global warming. That’s because the primary fuel in six years will still be gasoline, and if consumption increases at historical rates, the extra ethanol will be lucky to offset the growth in gasoline consumption expected by then, let alone reduce it. But if the ethanol mandate jump-starts the processes for making ethanol from the various forms of cellulose, reducing the cost and improving the energy efficiency of the process, ethanol could become a more significant fuel in the decades to come.

(continued in next post)

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What Is Ethanol? Can We Get More?

Ethanol, or grain alcohol, is this country’s most widely used biofuel. About 3.9-billion gallons were produced in the U.S. last year, mostly from corn, which is trivial compared with the 140-billion gallons of gas the U.S. consumed. A small amount was imported.

Methanol, or wood alcohol, famous for powering Indy cars, is much less common as a transportation fuel. Most of it today comes from natural gas, although it could also be made from coal or “biomass” (an all-encompassing term for vegetation).

Both alcohols suffer from low energy density: It takes 1.48 gallons of ethanol to equal the energy in a gallon of gasoline, and 1.87 gallons of methanol. This means tanks and transportation capacity must be upsized if these alcohols are to replace gasoline. There are other problems as well. The alcohols have different solvent properties than gasoline (ethanol is different from methanol, too). So running them through tanks and pipes that formerly carried gasoline will dissolve accumulated solids, which then contaminate the new fuel. The alcohols, particularly methanol, are also corrosive in ways that gasoline is not.



Even worse, they absorb water. Pipelines contain water. So ethanol, or gasoline mixed with ethanol, can’t be transported through pipelines that have been used for years for petroleum products. Ethanol must move by truck or rail and be mixed with gasoline just before distribution to retailers.

Although these problems are not impossible to solve, they raise costs. And there’s another issue best illustrated by a test done by the DOE in 1999 on a Ford Taurus FFV (flex-fuel vehicle). On E85 it wouldn’t start at two test points, minus-15- and minus-20-degrees Fahrenheit; the same car on gasoline started promptly.

So the alcohols aren’t perfect substitutes for gasoline. But ethanol has proven to be a useful stretcher for pump gas. Which brings up the obvious question—how much of this gasoline stretcher can be produced?

Right now ethanol is a fast-growing business, with 96 production plants operating at full capacity, plus 33 more under construction and eight major plant expansions.

A bushel of corn yields 2.8 gallons of ethanol. An acre of corn yields 144 bushels on average, or 403 gallons. At that rate, satisfying the mandate for 7.5-billion gallons by 2012 will require about 1.25-billion-more bushels of corn, which will require 8.7-million acres to grow. All to get a mere five-percent ethanol into U.S. gasoline.

Increasing the mixture to 10 percent, the amount all cars could burn with no engineering changes, would require an additional 2.7-billion bushels of corn, a one-fourth increase over 2005’s crop. That suggests cultivating 18.6-million-more acres of corn beyond the 73.6-million acres harvested in 2004. The actual situation is less severe because each 56-pound bushel of corn, when it’s processed into ethanol, also produces about 17 pounds of high-protein distillers grain that can substitute for corn and soybean meal in animal feed. So the feed supply can be maintained with a less drastic increase in acreage. Some acres would be redeployed from soybeans to corn as demand increases. Experts also say that five to six million acres now idle in the Conservation Reserve Program could be used for corn production. Moreover, the recent trend in corn yield has improved one-to-two percent per acre each year.

Still, producing enough ethanol for a 10-percent stretch of our gasoline supply would likely end most corn exports, about two-billion bushels now, cause planting on marginal acres not used now, and lead to high corn prices that would disrupt the economics of meat and dairy production.

Clearly, corn-based ethanol is unlikely to ever replace more than 10 percent of the gasoline supply. — PB

Ethanol Economics



But not always. And not exactly. Early in 2005 a number of new ethanol plants had come on stream. With supply strong, the wholesale price of ethanol dropped to about $1.30 a gallon in Los Angeles, after the 51-cent-per-gallon tax credit. At the same time gas wholesaled for about $1.85 per gallon.

Then, starting in October, with post-Katrina fuel shortages, ethanol went up to match gasoline, and in early 2006, it moved above. The reason? MTBE had become a liability because of its pollution of ground water, so it was being phased out. Yet the rule requiring the addition of an oxygenate to reformulated gasoline was in place till May 2006, raising ethanol demand. In mid-March, the price of ethanol was 10 to 20 cents above that of gasoline, with an average wholesale price after tax credit in California of about $2.

The point here is that, surprise, fuel prices are determined by supply and demand. What it costs to make a gallon of ethanol has little to do with what you’ll pay in the retail market.

To retail customers, the price of ethanol has largely been irrelevant. Almost always it has been a minor component of gasoline, 10 percent or less, so the price of the gasoline dominated at retail.

The one exception is E85, where ethanol makes up 85 percent of the mix. With only 592 stations across the country serving up that concoction, it has been easy to ignore E85 up to now. But GM’s Live Green, Go Yellow ad campaign, which touts the ability of nine GM models to reliably burn that fuel, prompts a serious look at the economics of it.

What GM’s Go Yellow ads don’t tell is that your fuel economy will drop by about 25 percent when you use E85 instead of gasoline. For example, a four-wheel-drive Chevrolet Tahoe 1500 with a 5.3 V-8 and automatic has an EPA rating of 15 mpg city and 21 mpg highway on gasoline but only 11 and 15 on E85. This info is not on the window sticker; indeed, we could not find it through any GM sources.

This mileage drop is inescapable and directly proportional to the E85’s reduced energy content.

Although E85 prices have usually been less per gallon than gasoline’s, in March they were equal, plus or minus 10 cents a gallon, at most locations. Paying the gasoline price for 25-percent-fewer miles makes going yellow very expensive.

Since flex-fuel vehicles will burn either fuel, here’s how to tell which is the better financial deal. Divide the gasoline price by 1.33. If E85 is priced above the result, don’t buy it. Example: If gasoline is $2.50 per gallon, don’t pay more than $1.88 for E85. Unless you especially enjoy going yellow. — PB



(continued next post)

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No Surprise: E85 Is a Bummer in Fuel Economy

We did a comparison test of two fuels, regular gasoline (87 octane) and E85 (100 to 105 octane). Our test vehicle was a flex-fuel 2007 Chevrolet Tahoe 4WD LT powered by a 5.3-liter V-8 hooked to a four-speed automatic transmission.



We tested acceleration using both fuels and our standard procedures, then we measured fuel economy at steady speeds of 30, 50, and 70 mph around a 2.5-mile oval test track, three runs at each speed that were averaged to produce the numbers you see in the accompanying charts. The fuel-economy results were calculated using the vehicle’s onboard computer.

We began the test with the Tahoe running on E85 fuel and later drove the SUV until its tank was as empty as we dared, and in that way we were able to flush the tank of almost all the ethanol. Then we refilled the tank with regular gasoline and repeated our procedures. All testing was done in two-wheel-drive mode. The results are shown here.

Differences in acceleration times were insignificant (although GM says E85 improves horsepower by as much as three percent). On the downside, the fuel economy on E85 was diminished more than 30 percent in two of the three tests, about what we expected. The EPA’s numbers suggest that fuel economy worsens by 28 percent on E85 compared with regular gas. On any Tahoe equipped with a 5.3-liter V-8, the E85 flex-fuel feature is a no-cost option, but running E85 reduces the driving range from roughly 390 miles a tank to about 290.

Flex Fuel’s Big Pay-off

With fewer than 600 stations selling E85 fuel in 37 states, why have GM, Ford, and DaimlerChrysler been cranking out these flex-fuel vehicles by the millions?

The answer is the mandatory Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards. Federal law requires that the cars an automaker offers for sale average 27.5 mpg; light trucks must achieve 22.2 mpg. Failure to do so can result in substantial fines. However, relief is available to manufacturers that build E85 vehicles to encourage their production.

The irony here is that although E85 in fact gets poorer fuel economy than gasoline, for CAFE purposes, the government counts only the 15-percent gasoline content of E85. Not counting the ethanol, which is the other 85 percent, produces a seven-fold increase in E85 mpg. The official CAFE number for an E85 vehicle results from averaging the gas and the inflated E85 fuel-economy stats.

Calculating backward from our test Tahoe’s window-sticker figures (which are lower than but derived from the unpublished CAFE numbers), we figure the E85 Tahoe’s CAFE rating jumped from 20.1 mpg to 33.3 mpg, blowing through the 22.2-mpg mandate and raising GM’s average. What’s that worth? Well, spread over the roughly 4.5-million vehicles GM sold in 2005, the maximum 0.9-mpg benefit allowed by the E85 loophole could have saved GM more than $200 million in fines. That’s not chump change, even for the auto giant. — Dave VanderWerp"

link: http://www.caranddriver.com/features...-promises.html

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I have noticed a decrease in ALL our vehicles fuel economy. I know its not just me and my truck, because our Honda Accord Hybrid has dropped off the same 2-3 mpg as my truck! it also runs more poorly. WTF! BS!

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2006 Nissan Titan LE 4x4 Crew Cab (LOADED) Navi, Rear DVD, Fosgate Stereo Tow/OffRoad Package, Back Up Sensors, MoonRoof ADDED OPTIONS: A.R.E. Bed Cover, Westin OVAL Step Bars, Westin Chrome Brush Grille/Guard, 35% Tint Front Window, Oil Filter Magnet, OEM SIRIUS Radio, Banks Exhaust, TrueFlow Air/Intake PRO COMP 6 Inch Lift w/MX6 Adj Shocks w/Reservoirs, RADFLO 2.5 Coil-Overs CST Sway Bar Links Moto Metal Chrome 951's 18x9 w/Nitto Terra Grapplers 325-60x18 Tires[/FONT]

http://www.virtuagirl2.com/index.php?s=24638 oooyeah:

While it is all well and good that we are attempting to cut down on fossil fuel usage and be greeen in the process, I think that the thrust should really be on increasing the CAFE requirements first. Then, once you've made more efficient cars, put some frosting on the cake with E85 or the like.

Next up on the Green Scale, would be to make all vehicle radiators into a catalytic converter and do more to clean up the air. This technology has already been demonstrated.

Red

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2005 Titan KC SE, Helwig, True-Track, ARE MX Canopy

Here's more ethanol/corn news:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061130/..._scene_ethanol

Ethanol demand boosting corn prices
Told you so!!

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3-29-05 Born ...4/09/05 Adopted... SEKC...
4 x 4 Off Road with Big Tow and no E-loc... Blizzard...Graphite/Titanium Interior, Popular Package, Bench Seat.

Bilstein front/rear shocks, Deaver Mini-Pak Springs, Total Chaos Shackles, Hellwig Anti-Sway Bar, TrueTrac, Mag-Hytec "Honeypot", HK Axle Vent Mod, Frozen Rotors-Hawk Pads.
ARE Z shell, OEM bug/rock/gut deflector, Lund AVS Ventvisors, Bushwhacker- notched-Fender Flares, Burtman Stainless Steel Titan Door Sills, Black Vinyl Door Edge Molding on front doors and vertical sides of Tailgate, Spoiler Direct Chrome Tailgate Trim, Utilitrac System, OEM Dual Lower Sliding Trays, OEM under-seat-storganiser, Silver Star Low Beams, White Night Backup Lights, CT Windshield Sun Reflector, Drawtite Activator II trailer-e-brake control, Super-Z-Winter Traction Cables, Dueler AT REVO Tires-3rd set, Nitrogen in tires, NISSAN I-POD adapter, Bosch Icon blades, Optima Red Top Battery.

Amsoil: SEVERE GEAR 75-140W Synthetic In Rear and Front Differential, ATF Synthetic in Transfer Case,
Signature Series 0-30W synthetic engine oil, EAO13 oil filter, EaA104 Nano-fiber engine air filter
6 x 10' low bed/rails trailer with E-brakes, 100 year old rebuilt 4,000 lb. road roller/packer

JFK on Climate Change/Energy Revolution http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8dLHZ6jKFc
JFK JR. "We Have the Capability and Technology to Eliminate 100% of our Needs for Persian Gulf OIl" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Heku9oTLysg
"PEACE TO THE PEOPLE OF ALL NATIONS" The TRUTH is still EVERYWHERE...I said this ~!!!~

Ok, I'm going to make some time to read all of this tonight.... I'm very interested in alternative fuels; even though I work for a very large O&G company :-). Thanks for posting this...

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Jeremy



JBA Evol Cat-Back's * New Generation Volant Cold Air Intake (thx for the great deal SCMS John) * Airaid TBS Spacer * 2 Degree Timing Advance (thx:RB'sTitan) * AlTezza Custom tinted tail lights * 9006 True Views - Front Low Beams * Foglight modifcation (thx:wakeboarder) * Custom Painted Engine Cover (thx:scottsbro23) * CNC 2.5"Leveling T-6 Kit * 33x12.50x20 Nitto Terra Grapplers * 20x9.5 Axis Titan Rims (thx:vshortt) * Rockford Fosgate System w/subs * (2) 10" Memphis M Series Subs * Custom built 'Firedown' Sub Box * Sirius Satellite System * Viper 560XV Alarm w/ Automatic Engine Starter *

'UpRev - Osiris/Cipher' & Headers coming soon

The link I posted at the end of the article no longer works b/c C&D now wants you to have an e-subscription to view stuff like this.

David

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