evansgnash’s Recent Comments

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  More comments under ethanol and coal

  Great article. I put some comments under ethanol and coal. Read that for more details. One should realize that E85 vehicles have a mpg rating that is about 70% of that for gasoline. This raises the effective cost of E85 ethanol by 50%. In other words, $2.50 ethanol actually costs you the equivalent of $3.75 per gallon.  On Now they're burning coal to make ethanol posted 3 years, 7 months ago 13 Responses

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  The whole story is not being told by promoters

  I agree with your comments. Flex-fuel vehicles will run on E85 and the price of ethanol has been around the price of unleaded gasoline. The promoters of ethanol leave out some of the most important parts of the story. Flex-fuel vehicles get about 30% less mpg as you have pointed out. This means one has to buy 40-50% more E85 in order to go the same distance as gasoline. This adjusts the effective cost per gallon from $2.50 up to $3.75. This is just plain sticker shock. If most people realized that they were going to pay 50% more, I don't think they would support it. This is after a 51 cent federal subsidy to producers on each sale of a gallon of ethanol. The problem with ethanol is that it has about 70% of the btu content that gasoline has. The vehicles have larger tanks but it means the owner will spend more fuel carrying around 50% more fuel as well as the weight of the larger tank. Ethanol also weighs more than gasoline.

  California has only four E85 stations in spite of the fact that it is one of the most "green" states in the country. It must have 500,000 (est) flex-fuel vehicles. There are no E5 stations in LA or within 100 miles thereof. One should be very concerned if California isn't supporting ethanol. I think this is due the effective high cost. Many other states are the same way. Most of the stations are in the corn-belt areas where there are political and subsidy issues.

  Vendors that input infrastructure to support E85 may end up finding that no one wants to buy their fuel. They may take a terrific beating. Tax payers may also take a beating if the government decides to pay for 50% of the cost of ethanol. You could end up paying a lot more in income taxes. A country that uses more expensive fuel will only provide that fuel at a cheaper price to other countries that likely will consume it with higher polution effects increasing the green house effect. It is not easy to successfully subvert the economics.

  The emmisions department of Colorado recently provided an article to the local paper. The state wants to go to 20% ethanol. The article says that the state will exceed its ozone requirements under federal laws and it would be a bad idea. 10% ethanol is currently required in Denver. For non-flex-fuel vehicles the effective cost per gallon of the 10% portion of ethanol is about $5.00 per gallon. Unfortunately, almost nobody realizes it because the loss in mpg appear to be fairly small. This additional cost is because these vehicle are not designed to burn ethanol as efficiently as flex-fuel vehicles.

  Often the comments made about emmisions completely ignores all of the processing and distribution. Ethanol requires the consumption of more energy than it provides when generated from corn. The only practical fuels are oil, gas, and coal. If we use oil, we might actually increase our oil dependence. Gas is too expensive. Coal is notorius for polution. Sugar beats take only about half of the btus and could be a better choice. Sugar cane would be great but I don't think there is any in the US. Sugar cane requires a lot less fuel to process it. We must remember that there are reaping costs for other sources like switch-grass.

  Ethanol is actually alcohol (white lightning, vodka, etc). If a marketing failure occurs, these distilleries might be converted to providing cheap whiskey. This is not something we need considering the problems that are occuring at our colleges today.

  Personally, I think we need to look at biodiesel or to a new crop that can produce some type of oil that can be used in a newly designed engine if it can be found.On T-shirts are all sold out! posted 3 years, 7 months ago 6 Responses