transmaster

Exactly I have a problem with turning food, either for human consumption or animal feed to fuel. When we have all the untapped oil resources to use and the damn tree huggers and their pet politicians will not let us use them. So instead we have yet another farm welfare payment which these same politician use to suck up to the farm vote, note I said the farm vote, otherwise it is screw those nasty ranchers, and every other producer of meat that has to use grain to feed their stock. Have you looked at the price of bacon lately. On the human side there are the house wives in Mexico looking at the cost of Maize flour used for tortillas soar in price because the corn is being used to make ethanol for sale in the States. There is yet another little thing you don't know about look up the Government E85 project, this is a program that mandates E85 fuel stations at all government agencies with fleets of vehicles. It is too late to do anything about it unfortunately so we will be forced in ever greater numbers to use corn squeez'n in our cars and trucks. Oh well if push comes to shove there is always Soylent Green.

transmaster

The biggest problem you face in some areas of the country is bootleg ethanol being added to gasoline you think you are getting E10 but the local operator add extra ethanol to it because it is cheaper so you wonder why your vehicle runs like crap you might be suffering from moonshine fuel. In to days world you are almost forced to get an E85 engine so it will run all of the crap fuel being sold.

ranken

I believe it states in your manual that if you use e-85 you should make every third tank regular unleaded. The good stuff, not e85

deerhunter42

"From an environmental standpoint E85 is better. From a cost standpoint it could go either way, but most likely gas will be cheaper"

Where do you get that idea Pickup Man.

By the time you raise the corn, distill it, mix it and deliver it you have used far more energy then what the ethanol produces. It is great for the corn farmers, I have many friends that farm and I am glad for them. But if it wasn't for the government subsidies on ethanol, it would be far more expensive then gasoline.

zap

E85 is subsidized by the government. That is the only reason it is cheaper. You go through more of it to get the same place as normal gas. Environmentally, the emissions margin is the same when you consider the extra fuel you burn puts the trip emissions to the same as that of burning gas. In the long run, its about the same. Ethanol has been around for more than as century as a fuel for gas engines, even then gas was cheaper than ethanol and that is why it prevailed as a fuel. Similar story with diesel. Rudolf Diesel's first engine in 1893 ran on peanut oil...but the byproduct of gasoline refining was cheap and the engines ran nearly identically on the stuff. That fuel he switched to is now called diesel.

gone postal

Herr Diesel's original engine patents were for an engine running on coal dust, which Germany had plenty of.

Vegetable oil was another fuel he was looking at, but not sure where you'd get peanut oil in Germany prior to WW1, and not sure why the German govt. would be interested in the development of an engine which would run on yet another fuel they would have had to import.

bubbabud

Yes and it atracts water to. Bubbabud Oh and it costs more to make so the govt bone heads subsidise it with my money Oh and you will never get the price differance back due to lower mpg. oh and if your truck wont start on a cold morning go figure.

bubbabud

Transmaster I ran my truck on Soylyant Green its agreat fuel untill I ran out of neibors.freinds and famly im looking into a canine and felighne sub. for future useBubba

gone postal

Use baby seal blubber. You have to do something with the rest of the carcass after you get the nice soft white fur, otherwise it just makes the ice look too bloody.

pickupman2007

Where do I get that idea, from research I did. Here is some of what I found. If you don't believe me or what I found do your own research and don't just believe whatever your are told by the media, especially if that info is years old. If you still believe ethanol is bad that's fine with me I'm not going to argue, just stating what I found. Ever since I first learned about fossil files I've believed we needed to change to something else. We're all used to gas and in all fairness it works very well but it's not perfect and has a limited supply. Ethanol isn't perfect either but at lease we can grow what's needed to make it.

Ethanol does not require more energy to make than it yields.
Argonne National Laboratory research has shown that corn ethanol delivers a positive energy balance of 8.8 megajoules per liter. The energy balance from second-generation biofuels using cellulosic sources is up to six times better, according to a study published in Biomass and Bioenergy Journal.

Ethanol does not take food away from humans.
Only 1 percent of all corn grown in this country is eaten by humans. The rest is No. 2 yellow field corn, which is indigestible to humans and used in animal feed, food supplements and ethanol. Also animals eat distillers grains, guess how you get that, by distilling it which gives you ethanol.

Ethanol does not emit more greenhouse gases than gasoline.
A 1996 EPA study analyzing sources of air pollution confirmed that gasoline vehicles and non-road equipment are the largest contributors to vehicular gaseous hazardous air pollutants. However, another study showed ethanol reduces tailpipe carbon monoxide as much as 30 percent and tailpipe particulate matter emissions by 50 percent. Also, the Journal of Industrial Ecology at Yale University published a study in 2009 that found that greenhouse gas emissions are reduced by up to 38-59% when using ethanol as a transportation fuel.

Ethanol can be made from waste.
Cellulosic ethanol can be made from agricultural waste and biomass such as corn cobs and stover, wheat straw, wood, energy crops & even municipal waste.

Ethanol is cleaner burning.
Compared to gasoline, ethanol reduces every single tailpipe emission (CO; CO₂; smog; particulates; NOx and SOx) because ethanol contains 35% oxygen and results in a higher temperature burn.

Ethanol creates jobs and is good for the economy.
A major study by the Windmill Group identifies 645,000 jobs created by ethanol in the USA and $92 billion.