Why does everyone think ethanol is a gasoline alternative?

Question

while in Las Vegas for about a year I saw 1 Ethanol station if you would like to call it that, and they sold this so called flex-fuel that General Motors is so proud about and that was a 85% gasoline 15% ethanol blend. I just wanted to get things cleared up.

Answer 1

One other thing that people have to consider is that these "flex fuel" vehicles when running on E85 have a significant reduction in overall fuel economy (up to 34%) along with a similar decrease in power for the vehicle in question.  

So first, you're reducing the amount of gasoline being used by 15% (85% gasoline, 15% ethanol) but you're increasing fuel consumption per mile by 34%, you're actually INCREASING your use of gasoline overall by 32.8% (85% / 66%).  

Second, on the vehicles that are most often converted to "flex-fuel" vehicles, mainly SUV's, the reduction in Torque and Horsepower may very well make the vehicles that are already slow to begin with, even slower and may pose a safety hazard.

Just food for thought.

Answer 2

http://www.first-molecule.com

Answer 3

All our gasoline is 10% ethenol by law most of the year.

Answer 4

It is a gasoline alternative.  It's just not very widely used.  Wait until gas is $5.00 a gallon, and you may see some people looking into it more seriously, but right now it's just a pain.

By the way, Vegas is about as far away from ethanol country as you can get.  Check out places like Iowa, where corn is grown.  Ethanol comes from corn, and it's much more popuar in the Midwest.

Answer 5

It's 85% ethanol, 15% gasoline.  Let's clear that up first of all. We have stations all over the place here.  If people use it more stations will pop-up. Consumers drive demand.  Do you we want to create demand for homegrown, American fuel or foreign oil?  It is made in America, clean, and renewable.  Gasoline is none of those things.  I'll support a farmer any day over an arab.  And by the way, oil makes the cost of EVERYTHING go up.  Oil is the number one cause of inflation.  Everything you buy at the store has to be shipped there via diesel truck.  Nothing rises the prices of goods, including food, more than crude oil.  Higher transportation costs lead to higher prices. I'd rather pay more for food and less for everything else I buy.

Answer 6

For all the reasons that have been discussed here ethanol is not the perfect solution, but as a biofuel it has one important advantage.  The carbon that it puts into the atmosphere when burned was recently taken from the atmosphere when the corn (or sugarcane) was grown.  There is no net increase in the amount of carbon (dioxide) in the atmosphere unlike what happens when we burn fossil fuels such as petroleum and coal.

Since increased levels of carbon dioxide are a main cause of global warming, using biofuels such as ethanol and biodiesel is one way to slow that process down.

Answer 7

right now ethanol is cheaper to buy, only so that the consumers like it. even though you can travel 10% further with a gallon of gasoline than a gallon of ethanol. its also boosting up the prices of farmed foods. people claim for it to make the air cleaner. but it is still a big polutant.

Answer 8

Ethonal can be used instead of gasoline to run your car that makes it a gasoline alternative.  10% ethanol is great, it reduces the amount fossil fuels burned a bit, but more importantly it contains oxygen and ignites at a higher temperature than gasoline, so ethonal increases the octane of regular gasoline, not much advantage in most cars but important in high performance cars with high compression to preven knocking, second the extra oxygen in the chemical makeup of ethonal allows the gasoline to burn more completly and cleanly.

The pros and cons of E-85 are still being debated.  Almost impossible to get any straight anwers on the subject since both the oil industry and the corn growers a bit scared of what the may or may not find.  Persoanlly corn seems like a pretty high value crop to be tuning into fuel.

Answer 9

People who think ethanol is a solution to our need for fuel are dumb a Al Gore.

If we took ALL the agriculture land in the U.S.A. and dedicated 100% of it to growing bio-mass from which we could produce  ethanol fuel, but NO FOOD, we wouldn't have enough ethanol to come CLOSE to meeting current demands for automotive energy needs.

THAT'S a FACT that can not be refuted by anyone willing to tell the truth.

Answer 10

retards like ms have NO CLUE what they are talking about.

they think it's good for the environment because it's natural.

in reality, more e85 is required to go the same distance as gasoline.

it costs more, pollutes more and harms the environment more than gasoline.

but ms (mostly stupid) read on a website how great it is, so he's convinced.

even when you provide links, the idiot won't read them. (i think it's because there are no pictures). but he could still have his nurse read them to him as a bedtime story right after play time with mr. crayon and mr. paper.

he's sooo stupid, i tried to explain the "ideal gas law" to him. he said it only applies to balloons!  intelligent people know it applies to ALL enclosed vessels, including cylinders in a motor.

then ms (major simpleton) goes on to produce an article about airplane motors and indy cars, but refuses to admit they aren't under the hood of his 06 mercury marquis. (his daddy bought it for him. his dad says "chicks dig it!")

oh well, i guess there will always be idiots living in a fantasy world, driving chick magnets, and we just have to hope darwin's "survival of the fittest" theory is true.

although ms (minimum smarts) will argue that theory only applies to balloons too!

edit-

ms (mentally stagnant) intelligence level shines through again.

if it takes 15% more fuel to power your car,  you need 15% more fuel.

which means you have to buy 15% more and the gas station has to have 15% more fuel delivered...

how does it get to the gas station?

wind powered or bio-mass powered trucks?

i don't need a link to figure that one out, bright boy.

further more, not ALL ethanol producers make their fuel with wind power and bio mass.

of course, you knew that.

indeed, yesterdays posting you said there was a 25% difference between gasoline and E85 in your area. now it jumped to 35%.

(not 40% like you claimed, rocket scientist)

your really saving money with that airplane motor now! or was it an indy motor?

ps

run out of oil!?! are you really that stupid?

never mind your answers prove that.

here is the current KNOWN oil:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_reserve...

when we run out f that oil, we have this oil:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_shale

when we use up that oil, we can just make some with this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_dep...

come on 'tard boy. at least make me think about a response. your a mental liteweight.

ps-

yep we figured out how to make oil, by duplicating nature.

but oil is finite. way to go mental midget.

i think yovu've been sniffing to many ethanol fumes.

isn't it share time at the institution yet?

pps-

yes you have a college degree. i was there when you graduated.

you don't remember?

the president of the clown college said you graduated with honors.  do you still have that red wig you wore at commencement exercises?

pps-

we now import 81% of our oil? funny your link doesn't even metion that fact.

why? because it's a lie!

and you that wasn't me with the mop. that was your mom, "butch". she has that "man look".

i told you to put your glasses on so you could tell us apart, but you said you couldn't wear them and the red ball nose at the same time.

ppps-

i heard the guy make the mess.

he crapped himself when i told him about this un-employed clown on the internet who had an indy motor in his 06 mercury chick magnet and he was trying to lie about how great ethanol is.

don't worry your mom, butch, is there now.

she's bummed. she had to get her tattoo appointment changed.

she told me they were working on that harley tat across her chest again.

bummer.

pps

your toilet keeps clogging because you keep putting out soo much c**p.

have butch put in a commercial toilet. or better yet, grow up and admit alcohol as a transportaion fuel, SUCKS!

IF IT WERE SUCH A GREAT FUEL WE'D HAVE USED IT FOR THE LAST 100 YEARS.

ethanol, methanol, and naptha, went the same way electric and steam cars did. extinct. they were phased out by the marketplace.

good ol' capitalism green boy.

Answer 11

It helps, butanol is much better though. Look it up on wikipedia. Ethanol gives you worse fuel economy. Butanol has as much energy as gasoline.

Ethanol puts out ozone which is highly poisonous.

Global warming is bullshit

Answer 12

People think ethanol is an alternative fuel because it is not (all) gasoline.  It is not really that effective in the long run, because it is more costly (in time and money) to make, and the fact that it generates less energy than the energy used to produce it.  Also, it would take an enormous amount of farmland to grow the corn necessary to fuel the country, and I think farmers would also want to grow something else than corn on their land.  In addition, corn is a crop that likes alkalinic soil, so farmers would have to dust their crops.  The runoff from their fields, saturated with the plant fertilizers, would run into streams, causing algae to flourish.  When the algae die, they release the CO2 they captured in their lifetime and kill all the fish in the affected body of water.  Lastly, it is still 85% gasoline!

Answer 13

Flex fuel vehicles can burn regular gasoline or a mixture of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline. All gasoline powered cars can run on gasoline with 10 percent ethanol.