Ethanol Ramblings

[SubaruNation]

i know that the governor here in MT gives gas stations a 10% discount on their taxes for infusing their fuels w/ ethanol when they are not required to, from may to october.

it's seriously BS.

[Legacy777]

I'm pretty sure MTBE is totally phased out as a fuel oxygenate. Ethanol has been used since the 90's as an oxygenate. I remember in Seattle during the winter time they'd change the winter blend to include ethanol and it would pick up all the crud/water in the service station tanks and everyone would have to change their fuel filters.

[evolutionmovement]

CA didn't completely rid themselves of MTBE until 2003. I don't know about the rest of the states. Apparently, there was a push by the government in 1992 to add more MTBE as an (insignificant) help for emissions.

[entirelyturbo]

I did some more research on this... and the more I researched, the more appalled I became.

Enough so that I decided to use my column to speak out about it:

Ethanol

If you've been reading my column and have thought of spreading the word to others, but haven't yet, then please send at least this article to them, if none of the others. This article contains a message that needs to be spread for the benefit of the country first and foremost, not my own.

This nonsense needs to end now.

[evolutionmovement]

The answer to "why" is the Federal subsidy to the farmers through the DoA. It's a big reason I want the Northeast to secede—I don't like my tax dollars propping up an industry to ill-effect in the major part of the country that hates us librul elitists anyway. It's bad enough the coasts built their infrastructure and we get to deal with their poor political choices in return. Granted, we put up that snore-inducing dipshit, Kerry, that keeps getting elected to senate here somehow (I always pick the Libertarian candidate. Hm, yeah, my vote goes far), but it was against Bush for crying out loud! There was always Kennedy. Alright, way off track. What was it ethanol? Can't drink it. It sucks.

[Legacy777]

I haven't read it yet Michael, but yeah I can definitely tell you it's backwards logic.

[Legacy777]

Just read it. It was good. What you touched on was just one part of a much larger issue with ethanol.

The ironic thing now that oil has dropped so much is that gasoline is cheaper then ethanol....or at least on the wholesale market. At our terminals, we blend ethanol with gasoline. At the end of the truck's load there is a flush sequence. It used to be setup to flush with ethanol...because it was cheaper. That is no longer the case.

[entirelyturbo]

Interesting.

The article has definitely gotten more response than any of my others, so I guess I've hit something of a nerve. I've gotten a few who tried to tell me about Brazil (which, yes, runs virtually exclusively on ethanol, but, in 2007, for an example, bought one-eighth of the cars we did), about sugarcane as opposed to corn (which has a higher yield, but we don't have near as much of it), etc.

I also left out how we're not accounting for the fact that our farmland keeps dwindling because of more and more people mowing it over for a "piece of the American dream," thus cutting back on our ability to even produce the stuff. Couple that with the steady increase in our population and, thus, number of cars on the road, and it becomes a double-edged sword.

[entirelyturbo]

Aha! An article supporting my argument about Brazil:

http://www.energybulletin.net/node/21064

And furthermore, we've neglected to mention something else... what about the other uses of oil?

http://www.tampabay.com/news/perspectiv ... 902562.ece

Okay, fine. The horse can be buried now

[kimokalihi]

Ethanol is a lie. That's all it is. I read in popular mechanics that if we were to convert every last cornfield into ethanol we'd produce around 10% of what we consume! Meanwhile the price of food is skyrocketing from it.

And it's not a solution to a problem! It's a stupid bandaid and it still pollutes. If it were up to me I'd shut anyone down who's trying to build hybrids and stupid alternative fuels that still pollute. Hybrids? That's the best we can do? What about electric? When will a car manufacturer have the balls to actually start making electric cars? We know it's the best answer and we know it works because it's been done before. GM had an electric car for a year. Then they took them all back and destroyed them all!

The reason you see all these bullshit hybrids and ethanol cars is because the car manufacturers don't want to make them because they lose money making them. The dealerships don't want to sell them because they don't make any money off them because they don't require any maintanence and rarely need repairs. And the oil companies will do whatever they have to do to make sure electric cars do not get mass produced because they know it'll kill the oil industry.

Why would GM want to keep making the electric car that was so great when they could close down the assembly lines on the electric car and start pumping out POS hummers that are bound to break down and need lots of maintanence to keep them on the road and all they have to do is market it and tell the consumers they're not safe in small cars and they need a large SUV.

And we ate that shit up.

Electric is the answer. It's only of matter of when.

[kimokalihi]

I thought I also read one time that Ehtanol may be cheaper than gas but you lose around 25% efficiency with ethanol over gasoline. Therefore it's not so much of a savings are you thought it would be.

It shouldn't even be considered since it doesn't solve the problem. Pollution and Dependency on Foreigh Oil. It only helps decrease these things. Which is not good enough. We need to cut these things out completely.

[kimokalihi]

Nice article.

It completely flabbergasts me that our country, comprised of one of the strongest governments, and one of the most intelligent group of engineers, agriculturalists, and statisticians in the world, have failed to recognize these ridiculously obvious problems with the use of ethanol as an alternative to gasoline for fuel

I don't think the people behind all this are really interested in solving our oil dependency/pollution problem. They just want it to seem like they're doing something about it but in reality they're not helping a thing.

[James614]

GM had an electric car for a year. Then they took them all back and destroyed them all!

More than a year, bud. And GM wasn't the only one. Honda had the EV+ and Ford had an EV based on the European Ka, and I think there were others too. They were only available in California, because California actually mandated that any company selling x amount of cars had to sell x amount of electrics. The mandate was fought fiercely by the car and oil companies, and when it came up for renewal it was nixed. Since all the EVs were on leases, they were all taken and crushed, and offers to buy back GM's EV1s for $25,000 each were wholeheartedly middle-fingered. When's the last time thousands of people were beating down GM's door offering to pay full value for truckloads of inventory? Certainly not in my lifetime, at least not without the help of a sports car that still rides on transverse leaf springs (ironically the Corvette has class-leading fuel economy and betters most of GM's own sedans).

But like you said, back then the profit was in Hummers and not EV1s, and that's all they cared about. They wanted the electrics gone and forgotten (which they largely succeeded in doing).

And now GM/Ford/Chrysler, after spending billions over the years to strike down any attempt to make them build more efficient vehicles, is begging and pleading for $25 billion in government money to help them retool and build more efficient cars. I think a stipulation of the aid package should be that the executive board of all 3 companies be arrested and jailed for fleecing the entire tax paying population.

I could go on for pages, but I wont. [/rant]

[evolutionmovement]

I've never been one to shy away from a rant. Could have something to with why I spend so much time alone.

They should get rid of those Wall Street assholes as well. Epic failure requiring tax payer bailout=walked out the door with no severance, no options, and comps and salary cut off. See how quickly they kill themselves when they have to sell their possessions and live only a little better than the rest of us.

The GM EV had a speed and range almost none of you would accept in a daily driver and certainly not me, though I loved the thinking beyond the technological limits of its batteries. I would've liked to have gotten a hold of one of those shells and put a small gas engine in it. A 1.6 Honda or something.

I can't wait for EVs, and wish I could build one with my Cessna car, but I won't because a good drivetrain is disgustingly expensive (around 30k for a top of the line A/C motor and controller that is efficient and has balls) and battery technology is still young. Decent batteries are either expensive and delicate (see Tesla) or the range sucks balls. Sure any crackpot can convert an old Ranger to D/C electric (which I wouldn't do on principle alone—fuck that cocksucking thief, Edison) and get a whole 60 miles (driving slowly) before having to recharge for 8 hours and having to deal with the expensive replacement of multiple, heavy lead-acid batteries once a year or more. Lead-acids, the only available option to someone on a budget, do not like the deep discharge cycles (see about any thread about battery problems) EVs put them through, the NiMH pack from a crashed Prius would not run a car on its own (nor would several and NiMH has other issues), and the Lithium-ion like the Tesla are not only expensive as hell, but require very careful temperature controls (they have a tendency to self-combust). Lithium Phosphate shows some great promise, but is not ready for market. It will be nice when we can extract the lithium from sea water, but not yet either and present supplies are much more finite. If the garage-built lead-acid kind of EV works for you as an only vehicle, you probably don't really need a car. I have never driven less than 25k miles in a year since I started driving and have often gone well over 30k. Present EVs would not work for me or many other people and would require a complete change in habits and expectations (like emergencies) for normal people who do decide to use them. The EV hardware needs little maintenance, has amazing torque capability, great packaging possibilities, and excellent efficiencies, but the batteries are a different story. For me, an old EJ22 getting over 60 mpg will be far more cost effective and practical than installing a more expensive EV drivetrain.

Parallel Hybrids are an over-engineering dead end, but Serial Hybrids are very efficient. It's how trains operate and how the Aptera hybrid will work. It's basically an EV with a generator. You need less batteries than an EV, have a better, more efficient heater, and get a useable range.

Why don't the mainstream automakers build more electrics? Partly it's corporate culture, stress on short-term profits, and laziness, but at least as much of the reason is because of the consumers. Because their sue-happy nature has made everyone afraid to pull the trigger on anything different. Because the mainstream morons have difficulty accepting anything different than their established (dinosaur) ideas and a practical EV will require extensive changes in appearance to meet intelligent aerodynamic design parameters. Look at how many ignorant yahoos shit all over the Aptera any time there's an article on it that allows commentary. I'm sure people think my idea of building a 3-wheeler along similar lines using an old Cessna fuselage is stupid, too, though people tend to lack the balls to say it to my face when I tell them about it or show pictures of the scale model. Shit, people still get excited about some ignorant monkeys at Chrysler dropping a Viper V10 into the Challenger. Autoweek has an article about it like the designers were friggin' geniuses when I shit more brain cells than it takes to come up with that idea. I'm glad there's a credit crunch because I'd bet there'd be a run on SUVs again now that gas is back to $2 because the average shit-breather consumer is too stupid to tie their shoes, much less understand that gas will go back up and that SUVs are incredibly stupid vehicles even among all the other dinosaurs anyway.

But how many battery advances could the money spent on the war Bush threw for his contractor friends have paid for? What about our collapsing educational system—how many kids (who can't even get student loans now thanks to the credit crunch caused by religious faith in this mythical "Capitalist" system to be self-regulated by the lowest, greediest of humans in possession of no real-world skills or value that I will enjoy killing and eating if, hopefully, the system completely collapses) could have been sent to school where they could learn the skills, thought processes, and intellectual curiosity that would allow them to make the next big discovery?

So who's to blame? Almost all of us to some extent or another. The time is over for blame, the time has come to develop a solution that works. The engineers and designers are ready, but they need the public to support them and stick by them. The transportation revolution is just part of a total change in how we use energy and what we use for it. There is no magician that's going to wave a wand and solve it like many seem to believe—we all must do our part.

[93forestpearl]

Steve, its great having you on this forum. I may only agree with you on 90% of it, but you put it down so well that it is hard to argue.







Anyways, I have a debate on ethanol on Tuesday in my Perspectives of Environmental Science 101 class on tuesday. I'm on the good side (against ethanol) and plan on decimating the competition.


I'm looking for input on my main points, or other ideas for main points. At this point, all I've really done is amassed a bunch of research supporting my end of it, and not using stuff that is obviously biased and shortsighted.


So some main points are:

Land needed to support ethanol
The 4.2 gallons of groundwater per gallon of ethanol needed in production
The 25% reduction in fuel economy when using E85
How there is not a production car that utilities ethanol's properties with high compression or positive manifold pressure
The large amount of carbon dioxide released in ethanol's production
.
.
.
.
.
.




Those were not in any particular order. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated, as would credible sources.

[AWD_addict]

The EV1 wasn't super slow http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nENO9aCU8I4

Parallel Hybrids are an over-engineering dead end, but Serial Hybrids are very efficient. It's how trains operate and how the Aptera hybrid will work. It's basically an EV with a generator. You need less batteries than an EV, have a better, more efficient heater, and get a useable range.

So I assume you're really excited to buy a Volt? We're probably all going to make a down payment of some sort, since the price will probably be offset with government funds. I wonder how GM will screw that one up.

I agree that corn ethanol is a huge political circlejerk. Shall we guess how many years go by until the funding for corn ethanol is shifted to batteries/something actually sustainable?

[James614]

The GM EV had a speed and range almost none of you would accept in a daily driver

Huh? 60 miles per day is more than twice what I've ever used for normal driving since gas first rose over $2.40 a few years back. I could theoretically use a bike, but then I'd have to leave the house an hour earlier for work, and I'd turn into one of those pussies that complains about unplowed/unsalted roads.

A lot of people have long commutes accross large cities, or even to different cities, but there's a lot of us who enjoy a local lifestyle, too (I specifically wont take a job that's more than 15 miles away as long as I'm driving a vehicle who's ownership cost is dependent on what the middle east think's oil is worth).

And the speed isn't bad at all, the EV1 will completely ruin an Echo or Accent.


The Volt is exciting, the General is actually gonna take a short-term loss attempting to do something good for the industry. Too bad it's coming at a time when they've run out of money to loose.

[evolutionmovement]

James, you're the kind of guy the EV1 would apparently have worked for. But that 60 mile range wasn't at 80 mph either and wasn't over the whole life of the batteries as they lose capacity as they age. Maybe you drive much slower than I do (or just never as far), but driving under 60 on the highway (which I have to take to get anywhere unless I want to live like a pauper trying to live on a local job) would get me run over by tractor trailers if it didn't put me to sleep first and cause me to drive off the road. The acceleration off the line of the EV1 was probably awesome around town, definitely, and that's the kind of thing that has me excited about future EVs. I think I won't even miss the lack of a manual transmission much. Until the Tesla, EV1 was absolutely the closest thing to a viable long-range EV because it would work for many people, though certainly not all, but still requires a difference in performance expectations in regards to range and relatively high-speed driving. The car may work for many people in theory, but the consumer isn't ready to accept the unusual (intelligence-led, not marketing-led) looks and having to change their driving habits (no more jack-rabbit starts, high speeds, wasting energy by not consolidating trips for errands, and planning around charging). The EV1 would have been amazing with some decent batteries and crushing nearly all of them really was a shame (a few were kept for museums, but I think were made into non-runners anyway). Sure people could have another car as back up, but the idea is to replace a gas car altogether. I'm really hoping for Lithium Phosphate to do as well as they're saying when it goes to market. Unlike the Lithium-ion, it doesn't have a problem with combustion. Much of it breaks down in the environment or is recyclable at the end of life as well. Another great thing about EVs would be relatively simple upgrades as technology progresses. Hence the even more importance I place on aerodynamic efficiency if the car is to have a potentially much longer life span.

I commend you for being able to maintain a local lifestyle, I'm working on that myself (as much as possible, my job, with its constantly changing destinations, still requires much driving). I try to support what's left of local businesses whenever possible (very easy around here with restaurants—I'm lucky in living in an area with so many alternatives choices to chains). This year, I'm going to be flipping the bird to grocery stores and joining a local CSA farm. I'm sick of supporting Big Agriculture, who I put at the same level as Big Oil, and am excited to finally find a way around it. I don't look forward to eating more vegetables and dealing with more toilet clogs, but that's part of the sacrifice. There goes my plan to not live much beyond 50.

I am looking forward to the Volt being out, but not buying one. Still not aerodynamic enough for me design-wise and I don't need the 4 seats that justifies the antiquated shape. I don't blame GM for keeping a mainstream appearance for marketing reasons (once again, a handicap imposed by the consumer), but I wouldn't spend that much on something still so visually stuck in the past (but at least it beats the dumb mini-muscle car look of the show car, despite the many people who were greatly disappointed when they changed it to be more aerodynamic for production. See what I'm saying about the average consumer not being ready?). If they ever become available up here and I don't build my Cessna car first, I'll buy an Aptera hybrid for cheaper.

[entirelyturbo]

Hey Steve, what about NanoSafe technology?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanosafe

One of my co-workers told me about it, and if it holds up its promises, I'd say it's the battery of choice for an electric car.

Super-fast charging time (~10 minutes), longer battery life, and the cells can't catch fire.

I'd call the Tesla pretty much perfect if it can incorporate this technology.

The Wrightspeed X1 would be 100% perfect with it

+1 on aerodynamics. Poor aerodynamics is the single largest wastebasket that we carelessly throw our energy into. The only more antiquated thing about contemporary cars besides their engines is their aerodynamics.

[evolutionmovement]

And the aerodynamic ones they have tend to be ugly. There's no reason the Prius needs to look so horrible. Hell, the cd isn't even really that impressive. The original Lotus Elite had a cd of .20 or something and that car was gorgeous. That might only have been a 2-seater, but I'd hope that in 50 years a billion-dollar company could've made some progress on a small cottage maker's accomplishments.

The thing that concerns me about nano-tech is the possible environmental or health issues when nano waste makes it into the environment. We don't have any idea what could happen, if anything.

[James614]

From my informal (Wikipedia) sources, the 1957 Lotus Elite had a CD of .29, and the Prius is .26.

I don't think aerodynamics are too bad considering our need for interior space efficiency. There's some extra wiggle room in two-seaters like EVs and small sports cars, but with vehicles intended for carrying more people and stuff, there's gotta be a compromise between a tear drop and a square.

The only more antiquated thing about contemporary cars besides their engines is their aerodynamics.

That's a bold statement. Until we invent some sort of space-altering technology that allows a dresser to fit into the back of an Aptera, I'm sticking with my wagon.

[evolutionmovement]

The wagon body style, like vans and pick ups will always be necessary due to the need for efficient packaging in a small footprint, but other body styles and many design cues are very questionable. Me, I'd rather do something like a guy at the marina did—rent a truck for the twice a year he pulled his boat to and from the marina. The rest of the year, he drove a Mini. I'll look it up when I get home, but I'm sure it's lower than that. I'll trust my books and memory over Wikepedia as many of their sources are unreliable. The Saab Sonnet III was a .27 with unnecessary protrusions. Still not impressed by the hideous Prius. Both cars would beat the Toyota easily factoring in frontal area. Don't know why they didn't cover the wheel wells in the Toyota. Afraid it would look goofy?

Calling out the questionable aerodynamics of modern cars isn't a bold statement in the least. They're designed for style over aero. Why do they still have traces of train design? There's little need for a large grille on cars, a throw back to early automobile radiators which, in turn, were designed to convey power through the evocation of train design cues. All it does is generate drag. Huge, open wheels on anything but a performance car? A throw back to covered wagons. Cluttered undercarriages, body styles themselves (especially the sedan—a dumbest design of all lacking the practicality and space of a wagon with minimal aerodynamic improvement derived from the days when cars had actual trunks strapped to racks over their rear bumpers), tall build, protruding trim, unnecessary scoops, wings, squared edges, etc. are all marketing over function.

OK, I give up. I can't find my source for the Lotus Elite's cd. I said .20, which was an exaggeration, IIRC, it was .22, but since I can't find it without delving into 20 years of car magazines, I'll concede .29 under protest. However, I maintain my low opinion of the Prius.

[93forestpearl]

The nation that destroys it soil destroys itself.

I've found some interesting this while researching for my ethanol debate.

"All green plants in the U.S., including all crops, forest, and grasses, combined collect only about 70
quads (32 x 1015 BTU) of sunlight energy per year. Meanwhile, Americans use slightly more than 3
times that amount as fossil fuels"



We do not physically have the land to grow enough plant material for conversion to ethanol. If the whole country was running on E85, by 2012 every single acre of land that is not a city would have to be planted with corn. This is also given that those acres could produce 150 bushels of corn per acre.

[James614]

I agree with you largely on the styling cues of modern cars. But I don't foresee the basic sedan and wagon body forms going anywhere...... We definitely need new designs, but I'm sure people don't buy sedans because they're retro (btw, I don't agree with you at all on sedans, but I'll leave that at that).

Although I'm pretty sure grills are useful for providing ample low-speed cooling radiators on cars with all but the smallest engines. Correct me if I'm wrong on that.

[evolutionmovement]

You're mostly wrong. Upper grilles are superfluous. They're there to satisfy marketing junk like "brand identity" or to impart aggression (all the cars today are so angry, is it because so many of their owners are compensating for their fears?), or just plain old familiarity to people. The original Ford Taurus is considered a landmark design partly for trying to ditch the grille. Aerodynamically better lower grilles generally provide more cooling than needed, or they could, (they're designed to exceed cooling needs for worst case scenarios, like Death Valley), but an even better method would be to channel air from underneath (like the Corvette, and that's a big engine to cool) via an air dam through ducting. The air should then be channeled out to a low pressure zone (preferably at the rear, but not practically doable) something like you see rally cars do with hood extraction vents might work and be pretty easy to fit. Mazda is working on this problem on the next 3—eliminating the ugly upper grille and putting in a thermally activated flap behind the lower opening that blocks it off when not needed. My Cessna car will use a similar device, but will employ ducting to exit the air via vents in the area behind the front wheels when the opening is not blocked off. I imagine with the low weight and superior aerodynamics, that the engine will be pretty unstressed and not need to open the air vents often.

Side view mirrors and exposed wipers (we've made some steps backward from the '80's) are another big one, but the former is legislated at the moment. The automakers seem keen to eliminate them by all the show cars substituting cameras over the last decade or so. I'm sure disappearing wipers will stage a bigger come back in the next few years, but I'd like to see side views go away if the cameras are an effective substitute (most people never seem to use the friggin' things anyway).

I don't know how you can disagree with me on the origins of the sedan, unless you just mean my opinion on the inferiority of the bodystyle over a 2-box design such as a wagon/hatchback. The sedan, in theory could offer far better aero efficiency than a wagon shape, but they don't presently where the similarly-profiled coupe body style tends to (but mainly only because what people think looks better is actually more efficient). The problem is not wanting to chop rear head room in the sedan, where the rear seats are intended to be used more often than the coupe, by more gently profiling the rear. Head room is not a problem with the 2-box shape, which also offers better storage than a trunk (same footprint, taller space, easier expansion through collapsing rear seats) and with a minimal mileage penalty. Next to the van, it's the best use of space/footprint there is, but probably generally beats the van if rating space/footprint/aero efficiency. If you like the sedan, all power to you. People like exotic cars, too, but there's little arguing their inferiority as practical people movers versus other vehicle types. There are all compromises, and of course emotion comes into play whenever automobiles are thought of—they're not simple good or bad, everyone has their opinion on what the best compromise is, in many cases style trumps usefulness and not everyone uses their vehicle the same way. I suppose the minimally better mileage of the average sedan versus its 2-box counterpart would be worth it to someone who seldom used their trunk, so while I still don't generally like the bodystyle myself, it's not the people who buy them that I think are stupid (unlike Hummer owners). If I gave that impression, I apologize.

As far as the history goes, the back storage area of a sedan is called a trunk for a reason. Like many automotive terms, it dates to a type of horse-drawn carriage. Early cars sometimes had luggage trunks that were strapped over the rear bumper for travel that could be used like soft luggage is today. Before the advent of fast air travel, this type of large, hard luggage was rugged enough to take the abuses of travel. Later, cars began to incorporate a closed storage area into the bodystyle itself (I imagine for theft and weather protection), though the vehicle was still basically a 2-box, resembling something more like an SUV with a small, lower-opening tailgate and fixed rear window. This style evolved to make the trunk larger and further behind the passenger compartment, perhaps partly for better storage, but mainly because cars were getting lower and the storage needed to go somewhere. Since it couldn't go underneath the seats, it expanded behind them very much like how the trunk used to hang over the (extended) rear bumper. That's the history of it, but I imagine that's not what you're disagreeing with.