Ethynol... (1 Viewer)

[todd s]

I just caught the end of Modern Marvels. The show was about sugar. But, it showed how in Brazil. Ethynol is used as the major source of gas for cars. They were able to cut their oil imports from 80% to around 10-15%. I do know we do use it here occasionally. How come it isn't used more?? They did mention that it has a higher combustion rate. Which is why they need a small regular gas tank to use when its cold.

 

[andrew markworthy]

You guys got cars that run on vegetable oil yet? They are very slowly becoming established in the UK.

 

[Chu Gai]

There's only so much veggie oil to scrounge isn't there?

 

[ThomasC]

I drove behind a "Veggie Machine" this past summer, which powered itself on waste vegetable oil. The car itself was a shit-brown Mercedes. It sure smelled like it. I'll go for it when odorless vegetable oil is on the market.

 

[Holadem]

When I lived in Cote d'Ivoire 10 years ago, my uncle had his beater modded to run on some kind of gas. Lots of people were doing the same, it was supposedly more affordable than gazoline. In any case, the car stunk of butane (I don't know what the actual gas was) and I used to freak out thinking one day the whole thing would just conflagrate (with me inside of course).

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H

 

[Jacinto]

My '03 Yukon has a flex-fuel engine that allows for unleaded or E-85 Ethanol. There are only six or seven gas stations in the Denver metro area that have E-85 available, and fortunately, one is about ten minutes from where I live. I avoided it originally due to the reputation of a drastic drop in fuel efficiency and power, but from my calculations, I only suffer a drop in fuel performance of less than 10% when running on Ethanol. I used to fill up with it now and again, but I have been using it exclusively for the past month since E-85 is only $2.49 a gallon.

 

[BrianW]

According to Popular Science:

According to the article, ethanol requires 30% more energy to produce than it creates when we burn it.

 

[Todd Hochard]

That doesn't take into account the "what the heck are we going to do with all this corn" factor.

 

[BrianW]

Todd, I hadn't thought of that. That's actually a very good point.

 

[Ray Chuang]

Actually, given the large amount of sugar beets grown in the USA, they could easily use that as a primary source for ethanol for a 70% gasoline/30% ethanol mix.

 

[Mike Wladyka]

http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/jul2...5-07-01-02.asp

sugar is cane much more efficient for making ethanol, that is why brazil has done it already.