1engineer
Moderator
Hey just giving you 5th gen guys a link here http://www.toyota-4runner.org/gener...anol-production-requirements.html#post1535588 as I know some of you don't go outside this sub forum. This is good news for our 5th gen 4Runners.
EPA Decreasing Ethanol Production Requirements
- Thread starter 1engineer
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Excellent, as the "corn" problem is rooted in politics.....
Corn Ethanol: Poster Child For Crony Environmentalism - Forbes
Corn Ethanol: Poster Child For Crony Environmentalism - Forbes
homeyclaus
New member
Pure malarkey.
Ethanol is an excellent additive in the right circumstances. I'd rather ban the government from our gasoline than ethanol.
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CookieRoe
Senior Member
Cool. Can you expand on that? All I've heard are the negatives that ethanol does.
jrandom
New member
Luckily I have a station close to my house that sells ethonal-free 88 octane for a very reasonable price over regular. Seeing a 1-3 mile per gallon increase in mileage easily justifies it and knowing I am not burning corn even better. There are better uses for corn products... like high fructose corn syrup 
On the contrary I would rather see them control the price of gasoline better, since in my state the total taxes on a gallon of gasoline are roughly $0.43 cents per gallon, the other $3.00 goes straight to the refiner/driller, and a mere 0.05~ to the station owner. Maybe its just me but something truly seems wrong with that IMO.
On the contrary I would rather see them control the price of gasoline better, since in my state the total taxes on a gallon of gasoline are roughly $0.43 cents per gallon, the other $3.00 goes straight to the refiner/driller, and a mere 0.05~ to the station owner. Maybe its just me but something truly seems wrong with that IMO.
homeyclaus
New member
Ethanol is generally used as an oxygenate (as in, releases additional oxygen for a more complete and cleaner burn) during combustion, and to reduce combustion temperatures. It's not "as good" as MTBE, but then it doesn't cause birth defects and mutations at the same concentrations**. The "ethanol is bad" stuff is marketing from the MTBE manufacturers.
Granted, ethanol is corrosive to components auto makers insist on using in the US market - that's not a problem in Brazil, since consumer demand is driving the manufacturers there (GM, Ford, VW, Fiat, Toyota all make vehicles that will run on any combination of ethanol and gasoline - E0 - E100, with no anti-corrosives). Ethanol is also more hygroscopic which plays a part in it's inherent tendency to corrode things, but all oxidants play fast-and-loose with electrons.
Ethanol (well, all alcohols) also increase the anti-knock index of the fuel, and prior to false-enviro-crony-capitalism injecting itself into the discussion it was a good idea.
** Of course, MTBE is now considered something that "just makes water unpotable" and not a carcinogen or really bad for you.
homeyclaus
New member
Luckily I have a station close to my house that sells ethonal-free 88 octane for a very reasonable price over regular. Seeing a 1-3 mile per gallon increase in mileage easily justifies it and knowing I am not burning corn even better. There are better uses for corn products... like high fructose corn syrup
On the contrary I would rather see them control the price of gasoline better, since in my state the total taxes on a gallon of gasoline are roughly $0.43 cents per gallon, the other $3.00 goes straight to the refiner/driller, and a mere 0.05~ to the station owner. Maybe its just me but something truly seems wrong with that IMO.
Government price controls through farm subsidies and other circle-jerk policies is what got us into this mess. If you like that sort of thing, I have friends selling an apartment in Beijing.
jrandom
New member
Not to totally derail the OT and get into a huge political debate in which not a single one of us can individually do anything about.
You aren't going to stop what has already happened BUT at the very least you can help to change it. But hey keep the villagers bickering at each other instead of bickering at the poli-wonks and big business who started it all in the first place. That gives them time to make up more crap instead of fixing what's broken.
You aren't going to stop what has already happened BUT at the very least you can help to change it. But hey keep the villagers bickering at each other instead of bickering at the poli-wonks and big business who started it all in the first place. That gives them time to make up more crap instead of fixing what's broken.
1engineer
Moderator
Yeah but you didn't explain the important part, the energy equivalent.
http://www.afdc.energy.gov/fuels/fuel_comparison_chart.pdf
homeyclaus
New member
I happen to think that's overstated. An engine designed for a given fuel will be more efficient than one adapted for a fuel. You can get enough of an increase in efficiency from an all-ethanol engine to make up for the difference. Probably methanol too - look at the top fuel dragsters and the crazy alco-stuff they run. With LPG it's a downright trivial exercise, even reducing non-CO2 emissions at the same time.
1engineer
Moderator
I buy that. Unfortunately, that is what we have to work with, and I really don't think we can grow enough corn in a season to power everything that uses gasoline. Cellulose maybe but I don't fancy living on a clear cut earth either.
Now about top fuels: Here is a handy little explanation: A "nitro-burning" engine and a "top fuel" engine are the same thing -- engines designed to burn nitromethane rather than gasoline. Gasoline is a hydrocarbon, and the common chemical formula for gasoline is C8H18. Nitromethane has the formula CH3NO2. Nitromethane is a little like gasoline that has been pre-mixed with nitrous oxide. The fuel comes with its own oxygen atoms to help it burn.
The big advantage of nitromethane is that you can get a lot more power from each explosion inside the engine. Pound for pound, nitromethane is less energetic than gasoline, but you can burn a lot more nitromethane in a cylinder. The net result is more power per stroke. You typically need about 15 pounds of air to burn 1 pound of gasoline, whereas you need only 1.7 pounds of air to burn 1 pound of nitromethane. This means that, compared to gasoline, you can pump about 8 times more nitromethane into a cylinder of a given volume and still get complete combustion.
Since nitromethane is not as dense as gasoline in terms of energy, you do not get an 8-time improvement in terms of power. It is more like a 2.5-time improvement (see this page for a comparison). Still, you can double or triple your engine's horsepower simply by changing the fuel. That's a huge improvement!
And yes, I realize I'm talking to someone who knows way more about this than I do lol.
KeithMaine
Member
Another part of the ethanol scam is the effect on how much you pay for gas taxes. I drive 30k year which is about 1666 gallons per year. If I assume a 10per cent fuel mileage penalty associated with E15, then I spend an extra $561 per year in gas (166 gallons times $3.50 per gallon). Part of that $561 is an extra $53.16 in gas tax (at least in my state). I'd like to get more for my $561 than political playoffs for a bunch of politicians who feel compelled to pander to the corn lobby every four years.
If you can do basic arithmetic, then you know burning corn as a motor fuel is a scam. Further, when we choose to put corn in our fuel tanks, then we are driving the global cost of corn up, which means that some poor kid at the bottom of the food chain is going to bed hungry tonight.
I'm sure there is a corn farmer who disagrees, but if we weren't burning it in our tanks, then someone somewhere would be eating it.
P.S. if you think I am ugly about ethanol, try talking to snowmobiles and boaters about it! They pay the mileage penalty and get to rebuild carbs and replace burned pistons thanks to ethanol.
If you can do basic arithmetic, then you know burning corn as a motor fuel is a scam. Further, when we choose to put corn in our fuel tanks, then we are driving the global cost of corn up, which means that some poor kid at the bottom of the food chain is going to bed hungry tonight.
I'm sure there is a corn farmer who disagrees, but if we weren't burning it in our tanks, then someone somewhere would be eating it.
P.S. if you think I am ugly about ethanol, try talking to snowmobiles and boaters about it! They pay the mileage penalty and get to rebuild carbs and replace burned pistons thanks to ethanol.
homeyclaus
New member
Right. I am not saying ethanol is the answer. It's an answer, and a very specific one at that.
What is totally and unequivocally wrong is how the US is going about producing ethanol for fuel. At best, it's woefully inefficient, for every joule we get out we're using 1.6 joules or so.
Gasoline isn't octane, C8H18. It's mostly butane and pentane, and hexane, plus a lot of other stuff that burns, kind of.
That's called volumetric efficiency, although that term is overloaded (as in, used more than once), both in terms of engine displacement vs power produced, and the engine displacement you need to get a given amount of power out of a given fuel.
But ... internal combustion engines burn, not explode fuel. Explosions in the combustion chamber cause what people refer to as engine knocking. Which is why I roll my eyes at the octane numbers; they're actually a measurement of how slow, or stably, a fuel burns under pressure. Lower octane = faster burn, which is why higher octane fuels also have a lower energy density.
Meh. It's more inefficient the way you explain it, and so I wish to retract them as an exhibit. What about those tiny little internal combustion engines for model aircraft? They have methanol (aka rubbing alcohol, how cool is that?) and nitromethane models.
The only thing I have a clear memory of was when we re-built propane engines used in GM trucks. The initial conversions used 145% more LPG fuel by volume and had slightly less power. Once we rebuilt them with the right cam shaft setup, rings that would actually seat properly without having a solvent thinning their lubrication, and so on, we could get all of the power at 110% of the fuel consumption. And we could eliminate a lot of emission controls and still crush the tailpipe emissions test. I fondly remember laying a 40' strip in a 30' panel van (with dually, truck-size tires) with a 350 and glass packs for mufflers. That was the $400 rebuild I have been the most proud of.
And you just proved that I should do the f***ing math on my notepad here before typing stuff.
