How much actual gasoline does it take to produce 1 gallon of e85 ethanol?

Question

A friend told me it takes just as much gasoline for ethanol than regular gasoline.

Answer 1

I have the perfect website for you.

Ethanol contains 76,500 (1 gallon)

You need 98,000 BTU to just make 1 gallon of ethanol

BTU is the the amount of energy that is contained it.

The real number is- It takes 1.29 units of energy to make 1 unit of ethanol energy.

http://www.slate.com/id/2122961/

Ethanol must be shipped by train or truck.  It takes more gas to make ethanol than ethanol contains.  If you would start to like to learn about ethanol, here is a first website.

www.cato.org    then search for ethanol

Also search for Tad Patzek

Answer 2

It depends on how you make it. In theory it could be made without any gasoline but in practice various amounts of gasoline are used. Some people claim that the corn based ethanol in the U.S. takes more gasoline to make that it supplies. But the sugar cane process in Brazil definitely does not. And there are other ways to make it. So the statement that "it takes just as much gasoline for ethanol than regular gasoline" is only the special case of how it is made from corn in the U.S. in some cases. It can be done better.

Answer 3

Lets see,  I am thinking e85 means 85% ethonol, so you need  15% of a gallon per gallon of e85.

So you need .15 gal of gas to make one Gallon of e85.

Answer 4

Sugar cane based ethanol is productive because sugar contains much more energy than corn. (try using a match to set a cube of sugar on fire)

These are the steps to produce ethanol:

1. Prepare the field for planting with a diesel engine powered tractor.

2. Plant the corn seeds with said tractor.

3. Fertilize the field with said tractor. Also add in the energy used to make the fertilizer.

4. Irrigate the field with water pumps usually powered by electricity.

5. Harvest the field with a diesel engine powered harvester.

6.Transport the corn to a distillation plant with a diesel engine truck.

7. Distill the corn using the heat from burning fossil fuel (usually natural gas)

8. Transport the ethanol by tractor trailer (ethanol is too corrosive to be sent by pipeline)

Also, because ethanol is an alcohol, it evaporates at ambient temperature so count on losing 10 to 20% by the time it reaches the combustion chamber.