Ethanol...how brazil gave the stink eye to OPEC

Funny, I was just thinking, "what do we need to do to get a corn man in the White House?"

 

What he said!

 

Well, does the current "corn hole" count?

I'm sorry I registered as a Republican back when I was 18 now...

Jay

 

Brazil has a large population of people who will work chopping sugar cane for starvation wages. This makes ethanol relatively cheap to produce. Who wants to live like that for cheap fuel? Gasoline is still cheaper that a lot of bottled water I've seen. And no, I don't own any oil company stock and my opinion of the "middle east" is unprintable but reality is reality. Rusty.

 

E85 - 85% illusion/15% reality

Please consider visiting these sites before passing judgement on my opinion of E85

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2005/07/new_study_ethan.html

Note page 10 at this site, note what happens to power when you put E85 in a Prius with an Atkinson engine http://www.creedproject.org/stream_v7n2.pdf
Note what happens to fuel economy as power increases.

Now do a search on bi fuel atkinson engine i-vtec

Am I anti E85? Is this the only E85 powered Rod in America? http://cleverlever99.blogspot.com

The big problem is E85 desires high compression and gasoline desires low compression. To burn both in one engine without compromising efficiency on one fuel requires altering the compression ratio or altering the burn rate of the air fuel ratio on the fly. Please observe patent 4,961,406 which is the first patent ever issued which uses detonation sensing to control any aspect of valve timing and the first patent that utilizes valve timing to alter the burn rate of the air fuel mixture in relation to engine load.

The bottom line is alcohol derived from corn grown in Minnesota will be 4 times more expensive than alcohol derived from biomass from Brazil and we have to find more efficient ways to use alcohol in flex fuel engines.

E85 in its present state is nothing more than agricultural welfare. Pull the Federal Subsidy and E85 would disappear tomorrow

 

No argument, but we still are the PEONS and we will pay more and more for petrolium products They have us by the balls, until we find an altenate ,reliable source of fuel, we will be at the mercy of the oil cartel. Sooner or later oil will run out and then what? The bastards are rich enough what more do they want?? end of rave.

 

fur biscuit, thanks for the heads up on this subject. this the first i'm hearing about any of it. i think it's a very viable alternative to gasoline, but, my wife is a federal grain inspector. so i hear alot about farming stuff. the problem is, that the farmers have enough trouble getting enough product out of the field the way it is. it rains too much, it dosen't rain enough, it rains and the wind blows it over and they can't pick it up, things like that. and thats before we start making fuel out of it.

i can see 4 or 5 tornados touching down over night through the mid-west and the next day fuel prices are through the roof. but, with all that said it's still a very interesting alternative. it would be nice to be free of opec. i bet president oil man and vice president haliburton will get right on this.

 

Cane based Ethanol is easier to produce than Corn based ethanol as it requires one less process, but due the fact that the US is capable of engineering the required machinery to handle this process (and already has), in the long run it will not be of any major concern.

Also the US produces so much god damn feed grade corn, it would be no problem for the US to "grow" enough supplies...shit we got enough flat states in the union with nothing to do...

The beauty about the US is that we are some seriously creative motherfuckers, much to the dispair of the rest of the world, but we are also short sighted and have crappy memories (we live in 30 minute sound bites, with intermingled commercials.) If we could have a clear and concise plan to get off of oil, or reduce it signifacantly can you imagine the impact it would have on the world economy? As well as on our own economy (Iowa might actually generate some revenue for once...rather than just be a recipient of federal aid)

I have noticed that many of the people posting responses here that say that they have access to either Bio or E-85 do not live in CA, yet Cali has some of the worst regs around. But does nothing to make alternative sources of fuel available.

I would gladly run my T on Ethanol given the opportunity.

(my oil stocks have done freakin awesome this year! and my upstream research mutual funds kicked some ass!)

 

Allmost all car manufacturers have a prototype hydrogen powered vehichle.
If you want to talk about cheap transport and virtual no emmissions this is the vehichle you need. Hydrogen is more efficient as well. A electric motor powered by hydrogen uses 60% of it power. A gasoline engine only uses 30%
Also hydrogen is one of the most abundent elements we have. All you need is water and electricty to harness it.

I would definately drive a hydrogen powered vehichle in the future.

A gasoline engine should be like having a record player.
It is kind of old and out dated but still fun to use.

 

No matter how much they work for Rusty, American combine harvesters work for less!!!
Ed

 

Electricity isn't abundant where I live!!!! Or have you got a secret supply of lightening bolts? Where you going to get your electricity from?

 

Well to piss on your parade, how do you produce the Hydrogen? by cracking the bond with electricity, produced via plants powered hydrocarbons. (coal, or diesel)

Hydrogen is a good idea, but it is to big a jump for society to take, it needs to be a long term plan (just as brazil did with ethanol). But the US needs to take a series of small steps to get to the Hydrogen economy. Why should we stand still and be handcuffed to OPEC and basically support the terrorists who hate us so much.

The infastructure is in place to make the jump to ethanol/ a higher percentage of ethanol based fuel and bio-based diesel. The changes are minimal (there are exceptions in various states). The Hydrogen economy is the equivalant of a heart transplant, but an ethanol/ bio system is more like a boob job (easy, with minimal scaring...and looks great when done)

Lets move towards the future, plan for the Hydrogen economy, but enact the available alternatives today.

 

And the bad news for Bio-diesel is that it's incompatible with modern partical filters so that'll likely have a short life. In Europe all new cars and trucks (even the 40 Ton Trucks) are getting partical filters now. Virtually zero soot emissions which is good news for urban people. Both my '05 cars are diesels with partical filters so no more bio-diesel for me!
Ed

 

the catalyst designs are amazing, not only do they provide PM 2.5 emmision reductions, they also have been proven to provide reductions in NOx also. and it all fits in something the same size as a standard muffler.

they can be tailored to suit almost any diesel application. (basically the exhaust temperature range and operating patterns of that engine.)

Eventually they will be on the diesel engines over here, then diesels will be a force to reckon with in terms of emmission signatures, as the CO emmissions are already low. Basically if they can come up with a cost efficient way of reducing NOx, with out cutting power (which is tied to combustion temperature)

 

My car runs on my own sense of self-worth.

Actually, by the time I get my pile running, everybody will be buzzing around in flying cars.

Anybody know if the CAFE standards make exceptions for flex fuels? I'm guessing that might be a big hurdle for automakers since the mileage is lower.

 

Your opinion 100% not even counted. If you did an intro and we had any idea who you were maybe we'd car, or maybe not. If you looked into it by the way ethanol can be made with just about any natural substance that will ferment (i.e. just about any crop), no one said that it had to be corn, it just so happens that corn is the crop that is being used. Sugar, wheat, soybean, you name it it can be used, as well as a lot of waste product as well. Maybe you need a lesson or two....

 

even if the cost and performance of e85 is close to petro, or even if it were slightley lesss i think it would be very beneficial to the economy. the fact that we would be buying a product made in the U.S over spending the money to import oil from middle-east, (i dont know about you but i am really tired of hearing about how rich we are making those bastards.) i would much rather spend a few more cents at the pump on e85 if i knew it was going to go back into our economy insted of theirs. also it is a cleaner fuel and i know the old car crowd always gets hit hard with criticism for polluting more than other cars (not true, epecially when you take into consideration the number of old cars vs. the number of new ones) most of us actually are very enviro-concious, altho maybe not so much in the noise-polluting sense

the fact of the matter is we need to stop our dependence on outside sources for fuel, we are all tired of the middle-east holding a dagger over our heads waiting to strike with insane oil prices.

this is just a first step to better fuel, unfortunatley for me i have never seen e85 at any gas station in california and im starting to wonder why, we dont have to really worry about our cars starting in cold weather. hydrogen
and other fuels are still alittle ways away from being efficently produced, and until that happens we should start to rely on e85 more. just a thought.

P.S. i have an intake manifold and carb setup for a flattie to make it run on propane, i plan on running it on my next car just for shits and giggles

 

There is more info posted in my blog ,which is in the message, than you have posted in your intro so whats your problem?

DO YOU WANT IT IN BIG PRINT? I HAVE 12 PATENTS IN AUOTOMOTIVE ENGINE DESIGN Read the links before you shoot from the hip

 

You don't need the traditional power plant supply of electricity like everyone thinks. You don't even need that much power to split the bond of water to harness the hydrogen.

You can use what we already have plenty of, solar power, windmills, hyrdoelectric.

The whole idea of using hydrogen power is to have a power system we can manufature with out producing waste. Also you use elements that are abundent like the sun, wind, water.

 

Interesting thread.
My too scents:

Brazil alcohol: their big advantage is two-fold. As mentioned, cheap labor to harvest sugar cane and the residue from the cane can be burned to provide heat for distillation. That's where we lose out -- need more efficent stills.

Hydrogen as fuel: Until we find a way to disassociate water molecules easily it will stay too expensive. Aluminum was the same way -- at one time it was the most expensive metal even though it is extremely abundant. Once the production technology was avaliable it became cheap.

Is alcohol fuel possible? Yes, but there's one big problem (aside from the political mess) and that's the inertia of the American driver.

Too many drivers want a car that all they have to do is turn the key and drive and fill with fuel just like everybody else. They'd rather listen to rumors, etc. than do their own thinking and research.

Yes, there's lots of "biomass" out there (I grew up on a farm in Texas so I'm familar with several types of "biomass" -- some fragrant, some not )

Yes, it would be great if we'd make fuel out of grain.

Be even better if we could make sure the farmers made a decent living raising that grain.

When my family quit raising wheat the farmer was getting less than a nickle for the wheat that went into a $1+ loaf of bread. And our profit was about one cent per bushel -- about a quarter for every acre.

 

Ignorance, you forget farmers ARE currently subsidized to NOT GROW crops. I would rather see them busy farming with the same subsidies that make them set idle. And regardless of your 12 patents, the shit works in my truck.

 

I agree.

Its going to take a combination of technologies and a major, MAJOR change in our culture to ween ourselves off OPEC.

I think the E85 concept is excellent. The technological limitations are easily over come if the auto industry buys into it. However, the logistics, ecomomics and politics of creating enough ethanol manufacturing capacity are not easily over come - especially when big oil is threatened. My opinion? Let the whole damn world feed themselves and we'll use the grains rotting in our ports to make ethanol as fuel. Many countries hate us already anyway....instead of feeding them and filling thier bank accounts we'll just keep the goods to ourselves and give them a good reason to be pissed. Ethanol products like E-85 would be a good stop-gap assist for the gasoline (and diesel - nobody mentioned E-95 they are using in diesels) powered vehicles/equipment while we develop new technologies.

I think the new gas-electric hybrid technologies coming out now (they've had these in they're back pockets for decades) are another excellent stop-gap assist for gasoline and diesel powered vehicles while future technologies are developed. I think using a small diesel powerplant combined with hybrid electric technology should be the next step.....loosely designed like a modern locomotive drive system. I think that system would be very efficient.

Since I work in the hydrogen fuel cell industry I might be little biased toward it and feel it has great potential to free us from oil and natural gas. However, it has a long way to go before you see it in everybodies garage. There are technological limitations and issues that I work on everyday and eventually we'll have the fuel cell itself sorted out. The next problem is going to be a supply of high quality hydrogen. To do that you need a hydrogen infrastructure, something we don't have right now. Then there is the ecomomic and political issues around switching from a petroleum economy to a hydrogen economy and the regulations and specifications around it. It won't happen overnight. Hell, look how long it too the FCC to finalize HDTV specifications and requirements....and thats only frigg'n television. To create a true hydrogen economy will take decades of long uphill battles both on the technological and political fronts.

The people who own/run the oil companies in the US (and the world) have typically always been the richest and most powerful/influential people. Don't you think for one minute that they're going down without a fight. ANY businesman worth an ounce of shit would fight to the end to keep his business alive and profitable. Big oil will find a way to maintain its presence one way or another for a long time to come.

The real answer for John Q. Public is to use less oil for transportation. We'll all have to step up to the plate to support alternative fuel technologies, most likely pay more (initially) for our alternative energy now and maybe even sacrifice more later. This, for the good of this country over the long haul.

-Bigchief.

 

i actually just like to fart up wind from people and see there reaction

My main reason, and per the wall street journal article that i posted, is that it is important to see that alternative fuels are viable in a free market economy.

There is no bones about the fact the US is in the middle east to protect its oil source. Everytime a terrorist blows up a pipeline gas prices jump at the rack and then at the pump. (I worked for ChevronTexaco in thier fuel oil trading house FAMM, but i don't want to give a lesson on oil trading) If the US was able to cut thier dependence on Foreign supplied crude, and product the impact on the economy would be a decrease in the volatility of it.

I do not know the actually numbers, but our trade deficit has sky rocketed over the past 3 years do the fact that we are spending more and more money on imported crude oil. Ethanol can be effeciently produced right here in the Union, and could be quickly and effeciently implemented into the fuel stream.

If the US reduced thier foreign "fuel" dependence by 5% over the course of 1 year, the economic impact would be immense (probably in the Billions), and the impact on the volatility of the yearly fuel fluctuations would probably be quite significant.

btw, senor cleverlever: welcome aboard! i will go and read your stuff...

 

Excellent point Tman.

I would like to see Ethanol replace gasolene for 2 simple reasons.

First, I think that the production of ethanol would be WAY less damaging to the environment than oil production (think Exxon Valdez).

And second, the idea of the oil giants and arab sheiks hurting for money just makes me smile.

110 octane fuel sounds pretty nice too.

I would tend to believe that our current administration would pretty much do anything to block the progress of anything that would hurt the oil industry.

Watching Bush on television walking around holding hands with Prince Abdullah just made me want to puke. Supposedly the Bush's and the Saudi royal family are very close, and the Saudi ambassador "Bandar" has easier access to the president than our own congressmen. Call me crazy but I think that may have something to do with oil.

 

waaaahhhh waaaahhh waaaahhhh... maybe you should learn to read. And I could care less about your bullshit pieces of paper. Ethanol is a great alternative to petroleum based fuels. It's the easiest way to get us off of oil. Your lack of intro is a lack of respect for the board. Your boasting makes you look like an ass. There are plenty of farmers that could rotate crops and make money off of ethanol when they're not able to grow more profitable crops, like when they have to let a field sit empty due to poor soil, it gets them off of government faem welfare. So now shit the f#ck up and go away.

 

Thanks zman, speaking of alcohol, hows the club going?

 

Almost open... the beer will flow soon...

and I've got Nailhead here I want to build specifically to run on E85 when we get it here...

 

OK, OK , fill me in on these partical filters. We recently switched to B-20 at my work( 600 vehicle Municipal Fleet) and had no problems until we bought 05 John Deere loaders. These things can't make 20 yrs. without clogging the primary filters. Is it some new emission reg that makes them B-20 unfriendly? That will sure shoot Bio-Diesel in the foot if so.

 

So, how about a nice street blower engine that you could swap pulleys out to alter boost(thus effective compression ratio)? One set of pulleys for gas and another for E-85. Hell, if you were good, maybe work it so just flipping the top and bottom pulleys would give the proper over/underdrive.