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Eeyore
Guest
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 Posted: Mon Jun 16, 2008 11:35 pm Post subject: Re: Experimental data on ethanol fuel efficiency |
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Ernieman wrote:
| Quote: |
"Sevenhundred Elves" < wrote
Eeyore wrote:
DG wrote:
20 years ago one of the smartest people I ever met was building
ceramic engines. Their time may have come...
Big cooling problems AIUI.
I don't know of any better conductor for heat than diamond. I suppose
diamond whiskers might also contribute to the strength of the ceramic.
Pity, that synthetic diamond is still somewhat expensive.
Presumably, there is an easy solution to the cooling problem: inject water
into the cylinders; see
|
Limitations on quantity vs charge cooling and combustion.
Not THAT simple.
Graham |
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Eeyore
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| Posted: Mon Jun 16, 2008 11:41 pm Post subject: Re: Experimental data on ethanol fuel efficiency |
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Lloyd wrote:
| Quote: |
On Jun 15, 2:48 pm, Eeyore <rabbitsfriendsandrelati...@hotmail.com
wrote:
Uncle Ben wrote:
Bret Cahill <BretCah...@aol.com> wrote:
If people are going to go to ethanol it might be easier to agree on
some one percentage ethanol and then use the right [high] compression
ratio engine.
For the future, sure. I think 85% is good. For the present (since I
already have a usable car), I switched for the 18% savings I get
already; and then I discovered the extra pep that my car gets as a
bonus.
You'll get a hell of a lot more pep with a turbo ! That's why Saab's the
world leader in this technology.
They were they first to add turbos to ordinary everyday road cars,
The first production turbocharged automobile engines came from General
Motors in 1962.
|
Not in quantity as standard models.
Saab OWN turbocharging more or less these days. Plus the Best 32 bit ECU to
control it called Trionic. Ear dirt stupid 'mercuns.
Graham |
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Eeyore
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| Posted: Mon Jun 16, 2008 11:42 pm Post subject: Re: Experimental data on ethanol fuel efficiency |
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Ernieman wrote:
| Quote: |
http://peswiki.com/index.php/Directory:Crower's_Six-Stroke_Engine
|
Hahahahahahhahahhaha,
He quoted 'peswiki'.
How much dumber is it possible to get ?
Graham |
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Sevenhundred Elves
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| Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2008 5:03 am Post subject: Re: Experimental data on ethanol fuel efficiency |
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|
On Mon, 16 Jun 2008 18:03:02 GMT, "Ernieman"
<ernieman7REMOVECAPS@verizon.net> wrote:
| Quote: |
"Sevenhundred Elves" <sevenhundred@elves.invalid> wrote in message
news:q8qb54htvl1pa2vnv7l9h7qa417e2k9b5m@4ax.com...
On Sun, 15 Jun 2008 19:59:44 +0100, Eeyore
rabbitsfriendsandrelations@hotmail.com> wrote:
DG wrote:
20 years ago one of the smartest people I ever met was building
ceramic engines. Their time may have come...
Big cooling problems AIUI.
Graham
I don't know of any better conductor for heat than diamond. I suppose
diamond whiskers might also contribute to the strength of the ceramic.
Pity, that synthetic diamond is still somewhat expensive.
S.
Presumably, there is an easy solution to the cooling problem: inject water
into the cylinders; see
http://peswiki.com/index.php/Directory:Crower's_Six-Stroke_Engine
Hopefully, the ceramic engine will not have the corrosion issues of metal
parts.
Ernie
|
I visited the site and read the following description of that
"Six-Stroke Engine":
| The first four strokes are the same as an internal combustion engine.
|
| In Crower's design, after the exhaust cycles out of the chamber,
| rather than squirting more fuel and air into the chamber, his design
| injects ordinary water. Inside the extremely hot chamber, the water
| immediately turns to steam, expanding to 1600 times its volume, which
| forces the piston down for a second power stroke. Another exhaust
| cycle pushes the steam out of the chamber, and then the six-stroke
| cycle begins again.
Thinking a bit about this, I began to wonder where the water got its
expansion energy from. Well, the heat seems to come from the cylinder,
of course, but how did it get there? It got there from the combustion
of the fuel, of course. But this means that some of the energy of the
combustion is delegated to re-heat the walls of the cylinder, and
since this energy can't then be used to push the piston, the four
strokes on fuel will not be as efficient as they could be. The
expanding gas will be cooler, and this means lesser Carnot efficiency.
It seems to me that the two strokes on water will take their energy
from the four strokes on fuel, making those 4 strokes less efficient.
But, admittedly, I don't know enough about car engines to say anything
definite about the efficiency of a system like the one described.
Perhaps the water injection cooling really is a method of harnessing
heat energy that would otherwise just be wasted. Probably only testing
can tell.
S. |
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Bill Ward
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| Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2008 6:29 am Post subject: Re: Experimental data on ethanol fuel efficiency |
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|
On Tue, 17 Jun 2008 02:03:18 +0200, Sevenhundred Elves wrote:
| Quote: |
On Mon, 16 Jun 2008 18:03:02 GMT, "Ernieman"
ernieman7REMOVECAPS@verizon.net> wrote:
"Sevenhundred Elves" <sevenhundred@elves.invalid> wrote in message
news:q8qb54htvl1pa2vnv7l9h7qa417e2k9b5m@4ax.com...
On Sun, 15 Jun 2008 19:59:44 +0100, Eeyore
rabbitsfriendsandrelations@hotmail.com> wrote:
DG wrote:
20 years ago one of the smartest people I ever met was building
ceramic engines. Their time may have come...
Big cooling problems AIUI.
Graham
I don't know of any better conductor for heat than diamond. I suppose
diamond whiskers might also contribute to the strength of the ceramic.
Pity, that synthetic diamond is still somewhat expensive.
S.
Presumably, there is an easy solution to the cooling problem: inject
water into the cylinders; see
http://peswiki.com/index.php/Directory:Crower's_Six-Stroke_Engine
Hopefully, the ceramic engine will not have the corrosion issues of metal
parts.
Ernie
I visited the site and read the following description of that "Six-Stroke
Engine":
| The first four strokes are the same as an internal combustion engine.
|
| In Crower's design, after the exhaust cycles out of the chamber, rather
| than squirting more fuel and air into the chamber, his design injects
| ordinary water. Inside the extremely hot chamber, the water immediately
| turns to steam, expanding to 1600 times its volume, which forces the
| piston down for a second power stroke. Another exhaust cycle pushes the
| steam out of the chamber, and then the six-stroke cycle begins again.
Thinking a bit about this, I began to wonder where the water got its
expansion energy from. Well, the heat seems to come from the cylinder, of
course, but how did it get there? It got there from the combustion of the
fuel, of course. But this means that some of the energy of the combustion
is delegated to re-heat the walls of the cylinder, and since this energy
can't then be used to push the piston, the four strokes on fuel will not
be as efficient as they could be. The expanding gas will be cooler, and
this means lesser Carnot efficiency.
It seems to me that the two strokes on water will take their energy from
the four strokes on fuel, making those 4 strokes less efficient.
|
One way to look at it is that any energy captured by the extra cycles
would have otherwise been lost to the cooling system.
| Quote: |
But, admittedly, I don't know enough about car engines to say anything
definite about the efficiency of a system like the one described. Perhaps
the water injection cooling really is a method of harnessing heat energy
that would otherwise just be wasted. Probably only testing can tell.
S.
|
One way to look at it is that any energy captured by the extra cycle
would have otherwise been lost to the cooling system. |
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Yevgen Barsukov
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| Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2008 3:53 pm Post subject: Re: Experimental data on ethanol fuel efficiency |
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|
On Jun 15, 1:26 pm, Eeyore <rabbitsfriendsandrelati...@hotmail.com>
wrote:
| Quote: |
Uncle Ben wrote:
It is often claimed on the basis of chemical energy in fuels that the
driving efficiency of cars using those fuels must be proportional to
their energy content.
Complete nonsense.
Ethanol for example has such a high equivalent octane rating that it can
be used at much higher compression ratios, under which conditions ICEs are
more efficient and therefore can recover most of the loss in pure
calorimetric energy content.
A practical way to do this is already in the market in europe by Saab,
where the turbo boost pressure varies with the gasoline/ethanol mix in the
tank, anywhere in the range from range from E85 to E0.
It actually performs FASTER (higher bhp and higher torque) on E85 than
pure gasoline.
See 'Saab bio-power'. Maybe coming to the USA one day. It's taken it's
home Swedish market by storm.
Graham
|
Mleage is still lower on E85 than on gasoline
even on Saab optimized system.
According to their own web-site:
| Quote: |
15,000 km per year on 1,350 litres of petrol. Over the same >distance, a typical BioPower driver would use 1,755 litres of E85
|
So the maileage per volume (saab data!) is 0.8 of gasoline.
How about energy content ratio (give same temperature)?
Gasoline: 34.8 MJ/L
Ethanol: 23.5 MJ/L
E85: 25.2
Energy ratio E85/gasoline = 0.72
So Saab data conforms that their engine can get better
mileage (80% of gasoline) then could be expected from energy ratio
(72%) but mind you, even than it is still noticeable less than
gasoline.
Unfortunately people are getting confused by octan
rating of 100, expecting that it reflects energy or mileage...
Regards,
Yevgen |
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Guest
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| Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2008 4:28 pm Post subject: Re: Experimental data on ethanol fuel efficiency |
|
|
Uncle Ben wrote:
| Quote: |
It is often claimed on the basis of chemical energy in fuels that the
driving efficiency of cars using those fuels must be proportional to
their energy content. Anecdotale evidence has disagreed with this
assumption.
|
.....
Using two data sources (2006 Chevy Silverado, 2007 Chevrolet Tahoe) it
appeared to me that E-85 required fewer btu/mile than gasoline did.
Literature Search:
Gasoline: 114,100 btu/gal [1]
E-85: 81,800 btu/gal [1]
2006 Chevy Silverado:
Gasoline: 28 miles per gallon [2]
E-85: 25 miles per gallon [2]
2007 Chevrolet Tahoe
Gasoline: 18.3 miles per gallon [3]
E-85: 13.5 miles per gallon [3]
Fuel Efficiency:
2006 Chevy Silverado:
Gasoline: 4075 btu/mile
E-85: 3272 btu/mile (lower is better)
2007 Chevrolet Tahoe:
Gasoline: 6235 btu/mile
E-85: 6059 btu/mile (lower is better)
Economics:
breakeven E-85 price per gallon <= [gasoline price per gallon] x [E-85
miles per gallon] / [gasoline miles per gallon]
At $3.80/gallon for regular gasoline, 18.3 miles per gallon [gasoline]
and 13.5 miles per gallon [E-85], breakeven price for ethanol is $2.80
per gallon or less
Observations:
1. E-85 vehicles appear to consume less energy per mile than gasoline
vehicles
2. This may or may not translate to economic savings; this depends on
the cost of gasoline and the cost of E-85
[1]: http://www.nafa.org/Content/NavigationMenu/Resource_Center/Alternative_Fuels/Energy_Equivalents/Energy_Equivalents.htm
[2]: http://www.wqad.com/Global/story.asp?S=3972760
[3]: http://www.edmunds.com/advice/alternativefuels/articles/120863/article.html
Unfortunately, at least in the US, it appears that farm subsidies
cause farmers to "forget" to plant food for eating. (That's how one
economist explained rising food prices.)
Michael |
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Uncle Ben
Guest
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| Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2008 4:37 pm Post subject: Re: Experimental data on ethanol fuel efficiency |
|
|
On Jun 17, 11:53 am, Yevgen Barsukov <evgen...@gmail.com> wrote:
| Quote: |
Mleage is still lower on E85 than on gasoline
even on Saab optimized system.
According to their own web-site:
15,000 km per year on 1,350 litres of petrol. Over the same >distance, a typical BioPower driver would use 1,755 litres of E85
So the mileage per volume (saab data!) is 0.8 of gasoline.
|
In my neighborhood the price of E85 is 0.75 that of gasoline.
In my car, the mileage per volume is 0.85 that of gasoline.
Therefore, I go farther per dollar on E85.
Who cares about miles/gallon; its miles/money that counts.
Uncle Ben |
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zzbunker@netscape.net
Guest
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| Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2008 4:38 pm Post subject: Re: Experimental data on ethanol fuel efficiency |
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|
On Jun 15, 6:23 am, Uncle Ben <b...@greenba.com> wrote:
| Quote: |
It is often claimed on the basis of chemical energy in fuels that the
driving efficiency of cars using those fuels must be proportional to
their energy content. Anecdotale evidence has disagreed with this
assumption.
|
Well, that is very well known, Since one of the very first things
people with brains
did after they invented assembly lines was start working on
aluminum block engines,
fuel injectors, turbochargers, car phones, plastics, tubeless
tires, solid rims, rack and pinion steering,
automatic transmission, electro-plating, robot welders, and air
conditioning.
| Quote: |
In 2005, the American Coalition on Ethanol commissioned a study of
this question. Their report can be found at
http://www.ethanol.org/pdf/contentmgmt/ACEFuelEconomyStudy_001.pdf
Features of the report are that they actually drove three different
test vehicles several hundred miles under conditions designed to
eliminate accidental differences between wind speed, vehicle speed,
and others.
Excepts from the report appear below. Titles have been added to
explain what part of the report is represented by each quotation.
E85 is not covered in this report, but the trend of the data with
increasing ethanol concentration shows that ethanol performs much
better in miles/gallon than one would expect from the energy content
of the fuel.
In fact, using a novel denaturing mixture, the miles/gallon of
gasoline mixed with ethanol outperformed pure gasoline even on a
strictly gallon for gallon basis.
One can hope that a similar careful study will appear using E85 in the
near future to combat the arrogant assertion that chemical energy
density predicts fuel performance in internal combustion engines.
------------------------------------------
[Title]
FUEL ECONOMY STUDY
Comparing Performance and Cost of Various
Ethanol Blends and Standard Unleaded
Gasoline
[p.3 Study design]
At their January 18, 2005 meeting, the ACE board of directors approved
a motion meeting
to fund a small-scale study that would test the efficiency of five
fuel blends in three
different unmodified vehicles. The five fuel blends were:
• Unleaded gasoline (NL)
• Unleaded with 10% standard ethanol (E10)
• Unleaded with 20% standard ethanol (E20)
• Unleaded with 30% standard ethanol (E30)
• Unleaded with 10% ethanol denatured with iso-pentane and bio-diesel
(E10AK)
Three late-model vehicles were to be used in the test, one each from:
• General Motors
• Ford
• Toyota or Honda
Allen Kasperson, a Fuel Research Specialist with over 30 years of
training automobile and
truck technicians as an instructor at Lake Area Vocational Technical
School in Watertown,
South Dakota, was selected to conduct the study.
Care was taken to eliminate any of the variations or .....
[p.8 Conclusions]]
While vehicles using concentrations of ethanol higher than 10%
operated normally during this test, the
American Coalition for Ethanol cannot recommend using ethanol blends
with higher concentrations of
ethanol than those recommended by the vehicle’s manufacturer. It
should be noted that each vehicle
in this test ran only 600 of its 1500 miles on E20 or E30, and while
the short-term results were good,
more study is needed to determine if there are any long-term
consequences.
This pilot study appears to confirm that BTU content is not a direct
indication of the amount of work a
vehicle can do with a given quantity of fuel. Other properties of
ethanol seem to minimize the effects of
lower BTU content. Admittedly, the test used a very small sample, but
the results suggest that a larger
and more detailed study be completed in the near future.
Given the differences found between BTU and mileage in this test, a
study of the differences in fuel
economy between unleaded and E85 in flexible fuel vehicles should also
be investigated. Currently,
mileage is assumed to be almost 30% lower when using E85, while
anecdotal evidence indicates that
actual MPG performance of E85 is much better than that estimate.
------------------------- |
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Lloyd
Guest
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| Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2008 6:11 pm Post subject: Re: Experimental data on ethanol fuel efficiency |
|
|
On Jun 16, 2:41 pm, Eeyore <rabbitsfriendsandrelati...@hotmail.com>
wrote:
| Quote: |
Lloyd wrote:
On Jun 15, 2:48 pm, Eeyore <rabbitsfriendsandrelati...@hotmail.com
wrote:
Uncle Ben wrote:
Bret Cahill <BretCah...@aol.com> wrote:
If people are going to go to ethanol it might be easier to agree on
some one percentage ethanol and then use the right [high] compression
ratio engine.
For the future, sure. I think 85% is good. For the present (since I
already have a usable car), I switched for the 18% savings I get
already; and then I discovered the extra pep that my car gets as a
bonus.
You'll get a hell of a lot more pep with a turbo ! That's why Saab's the
world leader in this technology.
They were they first to add turbos to ordinary everyday road cars,
The first production turbocharged automobile engines came from General
Motors in 1962.
Not in quantity as standard models.
Saab OWN turbocharging more or less these days.
|
Which means GM does.
And maybe if Saab didn't have delusions of competing with BMW and
Mercedes while only using 4 cylinders, they wouldn't NEED turbos so
much.
| Quote: |
Plus the Best 32 bit ECU to
control it called Trionic. Ear dirt stupid 'mercuns.
Graham |
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Yevgen Barsukov
Guest
|
| Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2008 10:05 pm Post subject: Re: Experimental data on ethanol fuel efficiency |
|
|
On Jun 17, 11:37 am, Uncle Ben <b...@greenba.com> wrote:
| Quote: |
On Jun 17, 11:53 am, Yevgen Barsukov <evgen...@gmail.com> wrote:
Mleage is still lower on E85 than on gasoline
even on Saab optimized system.
According to their own web-site:
15,000 km per year on 1,350 litres of petrol. Over the same >distance, a typical BioPower driver would use 1,755 litres of E85
So the mileage per volume (saab data!) is 0.8 of gasoline.
In my neighborhood the price of E85 is 0.75 that of gasoline.
In my car, the mileage per volume is 0.85 that of gasoline.
Therefore, I go farther per dollar on E85.
Who cares about miles/gallon; its miles/money that counts.
Uncle Ben
|
Good point. However your area appears somewhat untypical. The average
difference between E85 and unleaded gasoline price is 17%
http://e85prices.com/
Also low price of E85 reflects subsidies on ethanol rather than
economic fundamentals (e.g. might not be still there last year or a
year
after that when subsidies are canceled). So if your decision to
purchase a car is based on this expectation, figure this uncertainty
in.
Regards,
Yevgen |
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Uncle Ben
Guest
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| Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2008 10:49 pm Post subject: Re: Experimental data on ethanol fuel efficiency |
|
|
On Jun 17, 6:05 pm, Yevgen Barsukov <evgen...@gmail.com> wrote:
| Quote: |
On Jun 17, 11:37 am, Uncle Ben <b...@greenba.com> wrote:
On Jun 17, 11:53 am, Yevgen Barsukov <evgen...@gmail.com> wrote:
Mleage is still lower on E85 than on gasoline
even on Saab optimized system.
According to their own web-site:
15,000 km per year on 1,350 litres of petrol. Over the same >distance, a typical BioPower driver would use 1,755 litres of E85
So the mileage per volume (saab data!) is 0.8 of gasoline.
In my neighborhood the price of E85 is 0.75 that of gasoline.
In my car, the mileage per volume is 0.85 that of gasoline.
Therefore, I go farther per dollar on E85.
Who cares about miles/gallon; its miles/money that counts.
Uncle Ben
Good point. However your area appears somewhat untypical. The average
difference between E85 and unleaded gasoline price is 17%http://e85prices.com/
Also low price of E85 reflects subsidies on ethanol rather than
economic fundamentals (e.g. might not be still there last year or a
year
after that when subsidies are canceled). So if your decision to
purchase a car is based on this expectation, figure this uncertainty
in.
Regards,
Yevgen
|
You are right about the unpredictability of the price of ethanol.
This year's floods in the mid-west are robbing us of much corn.
But look longer out. If it is true about Peak Oil occurring right
now, the price of oil is going to go up and up for years, while
ethanol will go up much slower. Eventually we all will be begging for
ethanol or another biofuel.
Oil is not going to go back to where it used to be. When oil is $3000
per barrel, we likely will not be burning it to move cars. We might be
making pharmaceuticals out of it.
Ben |
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Spaceman
Guest
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| Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2008 11:16 pm Post subject: Re: Experimental data on ethanol fuel efficiency |
|
|
Lloyd wrote:
| Quote: |
On Jun 16, 2:41 pm, Eeyore <rabbitsfriendsandrelati...@hotmail.com
wrote:
Lloyd wrote:
On Jun 15, 2:48 pm, Eeyore <rabbitsfriendsandrelati...@hotmail.com
wrote:
Uncle Ben wrote:
Bret Cahill <BretCah...@aol.com> wrote:
If people are going to go to ethanol it might be easier to agree
on some one percentage ethanol and then use the right [high]
compression ratio engine.
For the future, sure. I think 85% is good. For the present
(since I already have a usable car), I switched for the 18%
savings I get already; and then I discovered the extra pep that
my car gets as a bonus.
You'll get a hell of a lot more pep with a turbo ! That's why
Saab's the world leader in this technology.
They were they first to add turbos to ordinary everyday road cars,
The first production turbocharged automobile engines came from
General Motors in 1962.
Not in quantity as standard models.
Saab OWN turbocharging more or less these days.
Which means GM does.
|
yup GM and Saab basically trade tech these days.
| Quote: |
And maybe if Saab didn't have delusions of competing with BMW and
Mercedes while only using 4 cylinders, they wouldn't NEED turbos so
much.
|
Ha Ha Ha
even Hyundai is putting them to shame now..
:)
--
James M Driscoll Jr
Spaceman |
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daestrom
Guest
|
| Posted: Wed Jun 18, 2008 1:52 am Post subject: Re: Experimental data on ethanol fuel efficiency |
|
|
Bill Ward wrote:
| Quote: |
On Tue, 17 Jun 2008 02:03:18 +0200, Sevenhundred Elves wrote:
On Mon, 16 Jun 2008 18:03:02 GMT, "Ernieman"
ernieman7REMOVECAPS@verizon.net> wrote:
"Sevenhundred Elves" <sevenhundred@elves.invalid> wrote in message
news:q8qb54htvl1pa2vnv7l9h7qa417e2k9b5m@4ax.com...
On Sun, 15 Jun 2008 19:59:44 +0100, Eeyore
rabbitsfriendsandrelations@hotmail.com> wrote:
DG wrote:
20 years ago one of the smartest people I ever met was building
ceramic engines. Their time may have come...
Big cooling problems AIUI.
Graham
I don't know of any better conductor for heat than diamond. I
suppose diamond whiskers might also contribute to the strength of
the ceramic. Pity, that synthetic diamond is still somewhat
expensive.
S.
Presumably, there is an easy solution to the cooling problem:
inject water into the cylinders; see
http://peswiki.com/index.php/Directory:Crower's_Six-Stroke_Engine
Hopefully, the ceramic engine will not have the corrosion issues of
metal parts.
Ernie
I visited the site and read the following description of that
"Six-Stroke Engine":
The first four strokes are the same as an internal combustion
engine.
In Crower's design, after the exhaust cycles out of the chamber,
rather than squirting more fuel and air into the chamber, his
design injects ordinary water. Inside the extremely hot chamber,
the water immediately turns to steam, expanding to 1600 times its
volume, which forces the piston down for a second power stroke.
Another exhaust cycle pushes the steam out of the chamber, and then
the six-stroke cycle begins again.
Thinking a bit about this, I began to wonder where the water got its
expansion energy from. Well, the heat seems to come from the
cylinder, of course, but how did it get there? It got there from the
combustion of the fuel, of course. But this means that some of the
energy of the combustion is delegated to re-heat the walls of the
cylinder, and since this energy can't then be used to push the
piston, the four strokes on fuel will not be as efficient as they
could be. The expanding gas will be cooler, and this means lesser
Carnot efficiency.
It seems to me that the two strokes on water will take their energy
from the four strokes on fuel, making those 4 strokes less efficient.
One way to look at it is that any energy captured by the extra cycles
would have otherwise been lost to the cooling system.
|
But if the cooling system normally runs about 220F, the cylinder wall can't
be a whole heck of a lot hotter than that. So how much steam can you
generate from a 250F cylinder wall?
My bet is that you have more trouble with water blowing by into the
crankcase and see very little power increase if at all.
daestrom |
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zzbunker@netscape.net
Guest
|
| Posted: Wed Jun 18, 2008 2:08 am Post subject: Re: Experimental data on ethanol fuel efficiency |
|
|
On Jun 17, 6:49 pm, Uncle Ben <b...@greenba.com> wrote:
| Quote: |
On Jun 17, 6:05 pm, Yevgen Barsukov <evgen...@gmail.com> wrote:
On Jun 17, 11:37 am, Uncle Ben <b...@greenba.com> wrote:
On Jun 17, 11:53 am, Yevgen Barsukov <evgen...@gmail.com> wrote:
Mleage is still lower on E85 than on gasoline
even on Saab optimized system.
According to their own web-site:
15,000 km per year on 1,350 litres of petrol. Over the same >distance, a typical BioPower driver would use 1,755 litres of E85
So the mileage per volume (saab data!) is 0.8 of gasoline.
In my neighborhood the price of E85 is 0.75 that of gasoline.
In my car, the mileage per volume is 0.85 that of gasoline.
Therefore, I go farther per dollar on E85.
Who cares about miles/gallon; its miles/money that counts.
Uncle Ben
Good point. However your area appears somewhat untypical. The average
difference between E85 and unleaded gasoline price is 17%http://e85prices.com/
Also low price of E85 reflects subsidies on ethanol rather than
economic fundamentals (e.g. might not be still there last year or a
year
after that when subsidies are canceled). So if your decision to
purchase a car is based on this expectation, figure this uncertainty
in.
Regards,
Yevgen
You are right about the unpredictability of the price of ethanol.
This year's floods in the mid-west are robbing us of much corn.
But look longer out. If it is true about Peak Oil occurring right
now, the price of oil is going to go up and up for years, while
ethanol will go up much slower. Eventually we all will be begging for
ethanol or another biofuel.
Oil is not going to go back to where it used to be. When oil is $3000
per barrel, we likely will not be burning it to move cars. We might be
making pharmaceuticals out of it.
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The way GM is going, they might be fortunate if they''re still
making Boeing Condo's in twenty years.
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