EPA might 'slash' Ethanol in gas

[36654]

If that were true I would lose about 1 mpg worst case in my FJ Cruiser vs regular ole gas when in fact I typically lose 4-5 mpg. I know this is a limited sample but I see it to some degree with every vehicle I have ever had.

With an EPA rating of 16/20, your FJ should see a worst case (-4%) impact of 0.64 to 0.8mpg. To lose 5mpg, you would have to be burning nearly pure ethanol.

[169nlulaforest]

Welcome. Nice to make your first post a troll alert.

Glad I could help.

[169nlulaforest]

I am participating in several motorcycle forums and it seems that here, it is the most difficult to adhere to the "posting guidelines".
Maybe it would help, to point out exactly how a thread got "off track" and violated the posting guidelines when such is being determined by the Admin.
I keep reading the posts and all I see is a discussion about E10 and E15 and the different opinions about it. Was this not supposed to happen?

Some people just can't handle it, so they turn you in to the Internet police, who is actually the Troll here.

[TeKnophile]

With an EPA rating of 16/20, your FJ should see a worst case (-4%) impact of 0.64 to 0.8mpg. To lose 5mpg, you would have to be burning nearly pure ethanol.

I am tracking you on the chemistry and math but I can only relay my actual results. We also used to own a Scion XB for the business my wife and I owned and we saw a similar 4-6 MPG loss. Who knows could be a Toyota computer issue.

Either way I am not a fan of ethanol and see it as a political handout to some already very wealthy people (in control of the industry) with thankfully some trickle down to the American farmer.

[lkchris]

Indy cars been running pure Ethanol every since I can remember haven't seen any problems there.

You have a VERY short memory, as Indycars have only been running ethanol for a couple years.

Before that it was methanol, which is not the same thing and is not available at your local gas station.

[der verge]

With an EPA rating of 16/20, your FJ should see a worst case (-4%) impact of 0.64 to 0.8mpg. To lose 5mpg, you would have to be burning nearly pure ethanol.

Math it up all you want. I loose an average of nearly 3 mpg going from straight unleaded to E 15, and another 3 to 4 going down to E 85.
Straight premium 18.5 mpg avg
E15 premium 15.8 mpg avg
E 85 12.5 avg mpg

I have been watching these trends very carefully over the last 13K miles ( New to now). The fuel economy just is not there with the alcohol. The only way to get all of the energy out of the alcohol would be to raise the compression of our engines a bit more. Although the manufacturers have done things like direct injection, drastic timing advance, variable cam timing, etc, to help with the burning of alcohol, our current engines are still based at the core for gasoline consumption. A much better place to be for alcohol as far as compression ratio is concerned, would be about 15:1. This is much higher than ideal for gasoline. Though there have been some cars (mostly very hi-po factory racing stuff in the mid/late 60's), in the 13.5:1 and as far as 14:1, perfromance was great, but other drivability charactoristics suffered. I am going to quit there with compression ratio. I am sure you will look in to it more if you wish to know more.
Lastly, you can not base a fuel mileage comparison on the amount of BTUs in each fuel. Because of a number of differences between gasoline and alcohol, you need to look at acceptable air/fuel combustion ratios. Gasoline, at a perfect mix, is 14.7:1 (parts air to parts fuel). Alcohol is perfect at 8:1. That means that for a given quantity of air, we burn very close to TWICE as much alcohol as we would gasoline. This puts E 15 at about 13.5:1. Also, alcohol acts like diesel. The more rich you run, the more power you make (under these circumstances, the lower your mpg) So, the manufacturers are making the flex fuel vehicles run a bit rich when on alcohol. More horsepower sounds good, right? Add those two facts to the low efficiency/low compression ratio problem, and 15% alcohol fuel is not going to yield a 3% mileage loss. Based on air fuel ratio alone, you are looking at a minimum of a 9% loss. I am experiencing about a 14% loss.

Did we get technical enough, or do I need to get out all of my old racing/mechanics/forced induction w/alcohol books?

[mika]

Gasoline and ethanol can be compared in a laboratory for energy output and matheematical comparisons can be made to determine how much of each it takes to yeild a certain amount of energy.

Engineers in turn can take that and other informtion to design and build engines that maximize the use of fuel.

In the real world where I live there isn't 'pure gasoline' and pure- E10 made up of 90% pure gasoline and 10 percent ethenol. In the US, the last time I checked you would have one of at least 47 different blends of various componets and up to, but not necessarily 10% ethanol. In addition I have to wonder about the real world calculation process v the laboratory. No matter how careful a margin of error in the process must be allowed for in the discussion. Therefore, from my perspective if you understand the base perameters a person is arguing from all of you can be right.

As a replacement component in fuel blends to deal with the original polution problems in my region ethonal was a reasonable solution with minimal impact on mileage in line with laboratory predictions.

As an alternative fuel mixed in a variety of seasonal and regional blends the real world impact on mile per gallons has been greater than the laboratory would suggest. The annecdotal evidence on this forum puts it in the 7-10% range.

As to performance the stuff can be used quit effectively. Racers, hotrodders and a variety of applications make all sorts of horsepower with the stuff. My vehicles have changed over the years and continue to improve in their ability to use the stuff. I have not had any more problems with various components than I had in the past with 'pure gas'. That is my anicdotal experience.

I would like to see an alternative polution component developed that would replace ethanol in gasoline. Until that happens I can live with it.

For a great variety of reasons I don't see corn based ethanol as a sensible alternative fuel. Cane based ethanol does little to change my overall view it as an alternative fuel. Beyond the polution componet need I would happily see the stuff go away.

[169nlulaforest]

You have a VERY short memory, as Indycars have only been running ethanol for a couple years.

Before that it was methanol, which is not the same thing and is not available at your local gas station.

I beleive your Memory a little short all these fuel belong to the same faimly please see these 3 links.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IndyCar_Series#Fuel

http://www.differencebetween.net/sci...l-and-alcohol/

http://www.differencebetween.net/sci...-and-methanol/

[36654]

Math it up all you want.

Did we get technical enough, or do I need to get out all of my old racing/mechanics/forced induction w/alcohol books?

That's why we have computer controlled fuel injection on modern engines.

[36654]

Gasoline and ethanol can be compared in a laboratory for energy output and matheematical comparisons can be made to determine how much of each it takes to yeild a certain amount of energy.

Engineers in turn can take that and other informtion to design and build engines that maximize the use of fuel.

In the real world where I live there isn't 'pure gasoline' and pure- E10 made up of 90% pure gasoline and 10 percent ethenol. In the US, the last time I checked you would have one of at least 47 different blends of various componets and up to, but not necessarily 10% ethanol. In addition I have to wonder about the real world calculation process v the laboratory. No matter how careful a margin of error in the process must be allowed for in the discussion. Therefore, from my perspective if you understand the base perameters a person is arguing from all of you can be right.

As a replacement component in fuel blends to deal with the original polution problems in my region ethonal was a reasonable solution with minimal impact on mileage in line with laboratory predictions.

As an alternative fuel mixed in a variety of seasonal and regional blends the real world impact on mile per gallons has been greater than the laboratory would suggest. The annecdotal evidence on this forum puts it in the 7-10% range.

As to performance the stuff can be used quit effectively. Racers, hotrodders and a variety of applications make all sorts of horsepower with the stuff. My vehicles have changed over the years and continue to improve in their ability to use the stuff. I have not had any more problems with various components than I had in the past with 'pure gas'. That is my anicdotal experience.

I would like to see an alternative polution component developed that would replace ethanol in gasoline. Until that happens I can live with it.

For a great variety of reasons I don't see corn based ethanol as a sensible alternative fuel. Cane based ethanol does little to change my overall view it as an alternative fuel. Beyond the polution componet need I would happily see the stuff go away.

Mika,

Anecdotal observations of performance in un-controlled conditions is "at best" subjective. Consider that there are several vehicle elements (drivetrain, tires, etc.) downstream of the engine before vehicle power reaches the pavement. In addition, there's the variation in environmental factors (pavement conditions, path traveled, wind) and the daily/hourly variation in hotel loads (HVAC and electronic devices).

Be it a car, airplane or a ship......in-situ measurements of efficiency/performance often provide ample opportunity for bogus results. Thus, they are loved by salesmen.

[mika]

Be it a car, airplane or a ship......in-situ measurements of efficiency/performance often provide ample opportunity for bogus results. Thus, they are loved by salesmen.

and posters who don't want to accept the underlying chemistry that is obvious even to liberal arts grads.

[169nlulaforest]

And I guess ya'll think this is a new subject. Ya'll I just had to throw that in there, I'm from Tennessee.

Please check out this link, another bit of wisdom from the Hemp Car.

http://hempcar.org/ford.shtml

[der verge]

and posters who don't want to accept the underlying chemistry that is obvious even to liberal arts grads.

I agree.
Also, something was stated earlier about fuel economy testing standards being set by the EPA in the 70s, and not changing much. As I have visited quite a few auto manufacturer dyno labs through out my career, I know a few things. Highway fuel economy i still based on a 55mph cruising speed, I have seen the fuel "warmed up" to "help" the economy rating of an engine, and don't forget that testing in a lab is under "perfect" conditions.
You will never hit your rated fuel consumption on a 30 degree day traveling at 75 mph.....

[36654]

I agree.

You will never hit your rated fuel consumption on a 30 degree day traveling at 75 mph.....

No mystery. Fuel consumption is proportional to shaft power. Shaft power is a function of velocity to the third power or greater. Accordingly, many trucking companies promote lower speeds to save fuel costs. Traveling 65 vs 75 cuts a big tractor trailer fuel consumption from 8~8.5 MPG to 5~5.5MPG.

[kantuckid]

I wouldn't put much faith in the rationality of such a choice. Washington is pay to play and the corn lobby has bought a lot of the (subsititute your own epithet) folks in Congress.
The idea of using a food crop to burn, especially when it take so much petroleum to make it that there is little net energy gain, has never made sense except as a subsidy for farmers.
Brazilians make it from sugar cane and so could we if sugar wasn't such a screwed up commodity in this country- long history of political corruption there as well.

We're already seeing a lot of inflation in food prices, a concern clearly reflected in public surveys but hidden by the inaccurate way the govt does COLA math and corn isn't what's doing it yet- at the moment its a combo Bernanke printing money and fuel prices...

I have read that we in USA, have the highest priced sugar in the world-so a lot politically will have to give to make real headway on that type fuel-BTW,the Brazilian version is not the kind you eat.