Can cars burn pure ethanol, 100%, without making changes to motor?

Question

Can cars burn pure ethanol, 100%, without making changes to motor?

Answer 1

No.

Answer 2

No, the engines have to be special designed.  Check out Brazil for a successful alternative fuels program.  They suffered along the way but finally are independent of oil.

Answer 3

No one would be required to alter the engine to run on pure ethanol.

Answer 4

Seems to depend on the year model of the car. The wik mentioned this

" Post-1988 fuel-injected cars are designed to accept E10 fuel, and may be tolerant of higher concentrations of ethanol to varying degrees, usually up to at least 20% (Show me the proof!!)"

E10 = 10% ethanol.

also

" Beginning with the model year 1999, an increasing number of vehicles in the world are manufactured with engines which can run on any fuel from 0% ethanol up to 100% ethanol without modification."

Answer 5

where would you get the Ethanol with out making changes to Nature

The irony here is that the growing eagerness to slow climate change by using biofuels and planting millions of trees for carbon credits has resulted in new major causes of deforestation, say activists. And that is making climate change worse because deforestation puts far more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than the entire world's fleet of cars, trucks, planes, trains and ships combined.

"Biofuels are rapidly becoming the main cause of deforestation in countries like Indonesia, Malaysia and Brazil," said Simone Lovera, managing coordinator of the Global Forest Coalition, an environmental NGO based in Asunción, Paraguay. "We call it 'deforestation diesel'," Lovera told IPS.

Oil from African palm trees is considered to be one of the best and cheapest sources of biodiesel and energy companies are investing billions into acquiring or developing oil-palm plantations in developing countries. Vast tracts of forest in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and many other countries have been cleared to grow oil palms. Oil palm has become the world's number one fruit crop, well ahead of bananas.

Biodiesel offers many environmental benefits over diesel from petroleum, including reductions in air pollutants, but the enormous global thirst means millions more hectares could be converted into monocultures of oil palm. Getting accurate numbers on how much forest is being lost is very difficult.

The FAO's State of the World's Forests 2007 released last week reports that globally, net forest loss is 20,000 hectares per day -- equivalent to an area twice the size of Paris. However, that number includes plantation forests, which masks the actual extent of tropical deforestation, about 40,000 hectares (ha) per day, says Matti Palo, a forest economics expert who is affiliated with the Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Center (CATIE) in Costa Rica.

"The half a million ha per year deforestation of Mexico is covered by the increase of forests in the U.S., for example," Palo told IPS.

National governments provide all the statistics, and countries like Canada do not produce anything reliable, he said. Canada has claimed no net change in its forests for 15 years despite being the largest producer of pulp and paper. "Canada has a moral responsibility to tell the rest of the world what kind of changes have taken place there," he said.

Plantation forests are nothing like natural or native forests. More akin to a field of maize, plantation forests are hostile environments to nearly every animal, bird and even insects. Such forests have been shown to have a negative impact on the water cycle because non-native, fast-growing trees use high volumes of water. Pesticides are also commonly used to suppress competing growth from other plants and to prevent disease outbreaks, also impacting water quality.

Plantation forests also offer very few employment opportunities, resulting in a net loss of jobs. "Plantation forests are a tremendous disaster for biodiversity and local people," Lovera said. Even if farmland or savanna are only used for oil palm or other plantations, it often forces the local people off the land and into nearby forests, including national parks, which they clear to grow crops, pasture animals and collect firewood. That has been the pattern with pulp and timber plantation forests in much of the world, says Lovera.

Ethanol is other major biofuel, which is made from maize, sugar cane or other crops. As prices for biofuels climb, more land is cleared to grow the crops. U.S. farmers are switching from soy to maize to meet the ethanol demand. That is having a knock on effect of pushing up soy prices, which is driving the conversion of the Amazon rainforest into soy, she says. Meanwhile rich countries are starting to plant trees to offset their emissions of carbon dioxide, called carbon sequestration. Most of this planting is taking place in the South in the form of plantations, which are just the latest threat to existing forests. "Europe's carbon credit market could be disastrous," Lovera said.

The multi-billion-euro European carbon market does not permit the use of reforestation projects for carbon credits. But there has been a tremendous surge in private companies offering such credits for tree planting projects. Very little of this money goes to small land holders, she says. Plantation forests also contain much less carbon, notes Palo, citing a recent study that showed carbon content of plantation forests in some Asian tropical countries was only 45 percent of that in the respective natural forests. Nor has the world community been able to properly account for the value of the enormous volumes of carbon stored in existing forests.

One recent estimate found that the northern Boreal forest provided 250 billion dollars a year in ecosystem services such as absorbing carbon emissions from the atmosphere and cleaning water. The good news is that deforestation, even in remote areas, is easily stopped. All it takes is access to some low-cost satellite imagery and governments that actually want to slow or halt deforestation. Costa Rica has nearly eliminated deforestation by making it illegal to convert forest into farmland, says Lovera.

Paraguay enacted similar laws in 2004, and then regularly checked satellite images of its forests, sending forestry officials and police to enforce the law where it was being violated. "Deforestation has been reduced by 85 percent in less than two years in the eastern part of the country," Lovera noted. The other part of the solution is to give control over forests to the local people. This community or model forest concept has proved to be sustainable in many parts of the world. India recently passed a bill returning the bulk of its forests back to local communities for management, she said.

However, economic interests pushing deforestation in countries like Brazil and Indonesia are so powerful, there may eventually be little natural forest left. "Governments are beginning to realize that their natural forests have enormous value left standing," Lovera said. "A moratorium or ban on deforestation is the only way to stop this."

This story is part of a series of features on sustainable development by IPS and IFEJ - International Federation of Environmental Journalists.

© 2007 IPS - Inter Press Service



Source: http://www.commondreams.org/headlines07/...

Answer 6

No, but older cars can just by increasing the venturi jet size in the carburator.

Ethanol has about 30% less chemical energy in it than gasoline, so you need to have the engine "inject" 30% more fuel for doing the same thing you used to do.

However if the engine is built with much higher compression to run ONLY on ethanol, it will deliver more horsepower and BETTER fuel economy!

About last Sundays Indy 500:

"But unlike its fossil fuel cousin, ethanol is made from grains like corn. Drivers said it's a green fuel that improves mileage by 30 percent, which allows for smaller fuel tanks.

"Instead of running 30 gallons you're running 22, so you have 8 gallons less of weight in the car," said Jeff Simmons of Team Ethanol."

http://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/13364376...

(Hey, thats an idea.  I wonder if I could fit an ethanol indy car engine under the hood of a old buick?)

Answer 7

You need to install a flexible fuel converter - which actually connects to your fuel injectors.  Without this your car will not run properly on anything over about 40% ethanol.  The units are available for $400-600 and could be self installed but it is better to find a mechanic to do it - it only takes about an hour.

Answer 8

Nope, you'd have to re-jet carb, resize fuel injectors, and deal with whatever happens from the corrosiveness of ethanol.

You definitely, positively can't build a car that you can put ethanol in one fillup, and gasoline the next fillup, and have it work right.  If you want that kind of fuel versatility, go diesel, and you can burn anything from jet fuel to lard.

Answer 9

Yes you can run 100% ethanol in older cars. I've done it, but it doesn't help with anything except cleaning up "emissions" for your smog test.

One of the main problems is that 100% ethanol needs a high compression ratio to give you any performance boost.

Furthermore, the materials in the fuel system of most cars are soluble to some extent in ethanol...meaning you'll destroy your fuel system and clog up jets, injectors, fuel pumps, etc....with rubber/plastic goo.

100% methanol does not leave an oil film on the top end cylinder walls after combustion like gasoline (to some extent), diesel or LP gas do. This results in faster top ring/cylinder wear.

Answer 10

NOPE

Answer 11

I had always heard that you could, but it wasn't a good idea.  I've heard of hillbillies who run their cars on moonshine, so I suppose it's possible.

Answer 12

No not safely.

Answer 13

use safety do not try.