Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ilaine who wrote (169479)	6/11/2006 5:02:02 PM
From: pheilman_	Read Replies (5) \| Respond to of 793801

HW in my profile refers to hardware. I am an EE from Georgia Tech. That means I have taken courses in physics, chemistry and thermodynamics in addition to the core electrical engineering courses. Electrical engineering is very concerned with feedback systems. This is the politics thread, I am pointing out how a political decision was made to dilute gasoline with ethanol. And how it benefited a narrow group at the cost of the nation as a whole. I understand why Ish lashed back at me. This is a vast program based on faulty reasoning. Even the most extreme advocate, the "American Council for Ethanol" admits that mileage is reduced when ethanol is added. Now that we have established the proposition we are argueing about the numbers. Ish has repeatedly stated that a major experiment was run by his local electricity co-op with different results. These results are similar to cold-fusion, irreproducible. I had noticed that my car got significantly better fuel mileage when I filled up with gasoline in Nevada vs. in California. I went looking for the explanation. Here it is. California adds ethanol to gasoline, the fuel mixture controller senses excess oxygen in the exhaust stream and adds extra fuel. The result is the added ethanol, in my car, adds no energy. So, the farmers get paid, ADM gets paid, CA tax board gets paid and it is all waste. I find that a pretty big deal. Particularly when I add in the fact that a huge infrastructure is being built to create and deliver this useless product. And is consuming energy along the chain. I am saying I can and do watch the fuel consumption on every single tank of fuel I use, along with the instaneous and long term consumption. To really prove this one way or the other I would like to find the weekly consumption of gasoline for California. The use of ethanol is mandated for all gasoline in the summer months and a graph would show whether the aggregate usage goes up or down at that transition point. Below I quote a comparison of fuel mileage in two adjacent states that differ on using E10. It is politics. And no one seems to be doing the research to show it is worthwhile. Did the quantity of oil imported into the US drop when this mandate went into effect? If there is no energy benefit to using ethanol the whole chain is waste. The numbers: Ethanol 77,000 BTU/gallon Gasoline 110,000 BTU/gallon E10 106,700 BTU/gallon 3% less than Gasoline E85 81,950 BTU/gallon 25% less than Gasoline If there were no other effect taking place the expected fuel mileage would drop by about 3% when using E10. But it is even worse than that, that is due to the ELECTRONIC closed loop, feedback, air fuel system. Go out and measure it. If I am correct it is a complete boondoggle. And someone is going to notice it. Here is another person that watched his fuel mileage plummet: markgottlieb.blogspot.com ...Actually, we should probably pass on that opportunity. There is compelling evidence that adding 10% ethanol doesn’t save gasoline and in fact, may actually increase the rate of gasoline consumption. It seems counterintuitive, but stick with me and I’ll explain what I’ve learned: I drive a small pickup truck that gets about 32 mpg when I burn gasoline. When I burn E10 (90% gasoline and 10% ethanol) the mileage drops to about 29 mpg. That means on a trip of 320 miles I would burn 10 gallons of gasoline, or 11 gallons of E10. But here’s the counterintuitive part: When I burn E10, 90% of that is gasoline. Guess how much 90% of 11 gallons is — it’s just a fraction less than 10 gallons. Whether I burn gasoline or E10, my truck burns 10 gallons of gasoline. Unfortunately when I use E10, I have to buy and pay for 11 gallons of fuel. It should be obvious why I use E10 only when nothing else is available. Of course my experience could be an anomaly, so I started looking for other evidence. I asked around and found that others who keep track of their fuel economy have had similar results. Then I found information which is indeed compelling: The United States Department of Transportation (USDOT) keeps data on how much fuel each of our 50 states burns each year, and the miles driven, so I looked at the fuel economy figures for Minnesota and Wisconsin. Our two states are similar. Both are in are Upper Midwest and have similar weather, topography, demographics, and about the same mix of rural and urban population. The only apparent difference is that Minnesota mandates all their motor fuel contain at least 10% ethanol, while most fuel sold here is still straight gasoline. Here is what I found: -- In 2003, Minnesotans used 2.730 billion gallons of ethanol-blended fuels while driving 55.296 billion miles. Minnesota’s average fuel economy was 20.25 mpg. -- In the same year, our Wisconsin drivers used 2.570 billion gallons of fuel while driving 59.615 billion miles. Wisconsin’s average fuel economy was 23.20 mpg. Minnesota drivers burned more fuel than we did while driving less distance. In fact, their rate of fuel consumption using E10 was 114% more than our consumption rate using gasoline. Now here’s the real kicker — Minnesota actually burned more gasoline at their than they would have had they used straight gasoline and their mileage rate equaled ours. (90% of their fuel is gasoline. Their rate of consumption is 114% of ours. 90% of 114 is more than 100.) We need to look closely at what happened in Minnesota before we jump into mandating ethanol for our drivers. If our overall mileage numbers drop to Minnesota’s it would cost our drivers millions and save no gasoline. From: allpar.com Gasohol is generally worse than wasteful (I've found in "real life use") - depending upon the car. I've found that most cars I've run lately on gasohol used 10% to 20% more fuel (with a 10% solution of alcohol in the gasoline) which is "negative efficiency" (waste). I've formulated a theory as to why this is: Alcohol has less energy per gallon than gasoline, thus less "power". A driver will subconsciously push harder on the loud pedal to go "their usual pace" and waste fuel. (This relates to gasohol used in ANY vehicle). I found this when using "leaded gasohol" in my 1967 Chrysler. Alcohol is an "oxygenate" which on modern cars (with closed oxygen sensor fuel injection control) means that the computer is "fooled" into thinking that the mixture is too lean with 10% alcohol, therefore the computer enriches the system to "compensate" (using more fuel). More alcohol is also therefore ingested into the engine and it becomes a spiraling effect of enriching the mixture to some extent (in theory). Therefore, a measured 10% to 20% reduction in MPG with gasohol and a total waste of the ethanol.