Can ethanol be used in place of petrol?

Question

can ethanol be used in place of petrols in vehicles? are there any drawbacks in using ethanol in place of petrol?

Answer 1

Let's burn our food supply!

Answer 2

Most "petrol" in the US contains 10% or less of ethanol but it may not where you are.  E85 is another form of petrol which contains 85% ethanol.  The vehicle needs an engine that is manufactured to handle this grade of fuel.  The biggest drawback to running on E85 versus regular petrol is lower fuel efficiency.  There could be a loss of as much as 10%.  There are also some issues with the fuel freezing the closer to 100% ethanol in the mixture espcially at temperatures below zero F.

Answer 3

Yes it can.  And it burns cleaner, is renewable, helps our economy, and keeps money here rather than in the hands of muslim terrorist countries.

Answer 4

Depends on the type of ethanol being used.  The U.S. ethanol is made primarily of corn based ethanol which uses almost the same amount of oil to create that it is not beneficial.  Oil has to be used in the processing, fertilization, etc.  Also, being made of corn will have other cost draw backs because the cost of corn for consumption would increase also causing the prices of beef to increase too. There are other much more benficial types of ethanol, sugar (used primarily in Brazil although damaging to the environment and hard onthe people cultivating it), even algae could be used.  Check out this months or maybe it was October's issue of National Geographic it has a great article about the benefits and problems of ethanol.

Answer 5

Yes, ethanol can be used. It IS being used. The problem is there is not nearly enough ethanol being made in the world. It is not clear that enough ethanol can EVER be made. Not enough to replace all the oil we use now. We use an astoundingly large amount of oil every year. It isn't going to be easy to make THAT much bio fuel. It is EASY to make some, even a lot. But not THAT much. It is all about HOW MUCH you can make. This makes it an economic problem. Where economic does not mean money but supply of resources and demand for products. Even if it was a communist state and all things were free, there is still an economy of how much ethanol there is and how much people want to use and how to balance that. Economics is not a dirty word and not even primarily about cash money. Expensive does not necessarily mean cash money cost, but cost in hours of labor and pounds of resources and amount needed of some thing. Any environmentalist who ignores economics as mere greed that should be killed off is part of the problem and not part of the solution. And by the way, I am not an economist. My education is in physics and astronomy.

Answer 6

Yes. Orginally internal combustion engines were designed to run on alcohol and biological oils (in case of diesel engines). Petroleum proved to be an easier alternative at the time. The drawback is that ethanol is not a lubricating as gasstation petroleum so you would have to mix in some oil to lubricate and keep the wear of the engine under control. Read up on the aceton fuel scam for more details on how it will ruin your engine in the long run unless you adjust your engine to it.

Answer 7

The short answer is yes.  The better question is "should ethanol be used in place of petroleum products?"