Energy volume: E85 has somewhat less “energy volume” than gasoline… which is to say a gallon of ethanol doesn’t take your car as far… I’ve heard 10-15% less.
Corrosion: E85 is more chemically corrosive than gasoline… Cars rated for E85 are designed to deal with this.
Environment: Machines, animals, and fires put carbon (CO2) into the air; plants take it out and use it to grow. That’s called the “carbon cycle”. It’s pretty well established that global warming is caused by carbon being added to the atmosphere. Most feel that’s from adding new carbon by burning fossil fuels. Some feel that bio-fuels like ethanol aren’t bad because it uses carbon already in the cycle rather than adding new carbon. I’m not so sure about that myself. Certainly if the popuariity of bio-fuels cause more plants to be planted, that’s good.
Energy volume and blending: When you first buy E85, you end up with a blend of E85 and what was in your tank before. If you can’t find an E85 gas station you might put E5 or E0 in there, and again you have a blend. The fuel injection system has to be smart enough to deal with whatever E0-E85 blend you might have. It’s not that hard, but it does require different software in the engine computer. There’d be no way to tune old carburetors to deal with an unpredictable blend.
Corrosion and transport: Ethanol can’t be moved by pipeline. Almost all of it moves by rail, which is very safe, but still there have been toxic spills and fires. Ethanol isn’t toxic, but liquor laws require it be “denatured” with gasoline, and that’s toxic, so it’s a toxic spill.
A related fuel is biodiesel, or diesel fuel made from vegetable oil. Dr. Rudolf Diesel designed his engine to run on vegetable oil, and indeed diesel engines can run vegetable oil directly with some minor modifications. With biodiesel, the vegetable oil is chemically modified so the engine needs no modification at all. Biodiesel can even be made from used fry oil from restaurants. Your car smells like french fries!
Biodiesel vs. ethanol: Biodiesel takes much less energy to make. It needs to be heated to 150 degrees or so, whereas ethanol requires distillation (boiling). Biodiesel can work on every diesel, E85 can only work on gasoline cars designed for it.
kavekarst June 23, 2009
12:39 am
Ford Motor Company has produced vehicles that can rely on the E85 distribution network slowly expanding from corn-belt states.
Their engines are all designed for maximum pull and drive train power but are also the thirsty fuel hogs the design management
team previously delivered for conventional petrol fueled trim lines.
E85 Fords are proving to be slow sellers due to the expense, no widespread distribution of fuel, and inability to furnish American
customers the fuel efficiency found in other Asian Products.
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it has 85% less fossil fuel and 85% more distilled grain alchohol or ethenol
Several differences.
Energy volume: E85 has somewhat less “energy volume” than gasoline… which is to say a gallon of ethanol doesn’t take your car as far… I’ve heard 10-15% less.
Corrosion: E85 is more chemically corrosive than gasoline… Cars rated for E85 are designed to deal with this.
Environment: Machines, animals, and fires put carbon (CO2) into the air; plants take it out and use it to grow. That’s called the “carbon cycle”. It’s pretty well established that global warming is caused by carbon being added to the atmosphere. Most feel that’s from adding new carbon by burning fossil fuels. Some feel that bio-fuels like ethanol aren’t bad because it uses carbon already in the cycle rather than adding new carbon. I’m not so sure about that myself. Certainly if the popuariity of bio-fuels cause more plants to be planted, that’s good.
Energy volume and blending: When you first buy E85, you end up with a blend of E85 and what was in your tank before. If you can’t find an E85 gas station you might put E5 or E0 in there, and again you have a blend. The fuel injection system has to be smart enough to deal with whatever E0-E85 blend you might have. It’s not that hard, but it does require different software in the engine computer. There’d be no way to tune old carburetors to deal with an unpredictable blend.
Corrosion and transport: Ethanol can’t be moved by pipeline. Almost all of it moves by rail, which is very safe, but still there have been toxic spills and fires. Ethanol isn’t toxic, but liquor laws require it be “denatured” with gasoline, and that’s toxic, so it’s a toxic spill.
A related fuel is biodiesel, or diesel fuel made from vegetable oil. Dr. Rudolf Diesel designed his engine to run on vegetable oil, and indeed diesel engines can run vegetable oil directly with some minor modifications. With biodiesel, the vegetable oil is chemically modified so the engine needs no modification at all. Biodiesel can even be made from used fry oil from restaurants. Your car smells like french fries!
Biodiesel vs. ethanol: Biodiesel takes much less energy to make. It needs to be heated to 150 degrees or so, whereas ethanol requires distillation (boiling). Biodiesel can work on every diesel, E85 can only work on gasoline cars designed for it.
Ford Motor Company has produced vehicles that can rely on the E85 distribution network slowly expanding from corn-belt states.
Their engines are all designed for maximum pull and drive train power but are also the thirsty fuel hogs the design management
team previously delivered for conventional petrol fueled trim lines.
E85 Fords are proving to be slow sellers due to the expense, no widespread distribution of fuel, and inability to furnish American
customers the fuel efficiency found in other Asian Products.