ALTERNATE ENERGY: Ethanol: It’s Just Plain Corny

June 26, 2017

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by James Bobreski (Finger Lakes Times) ... Ethanol is the alcohol in our beer that we enjoy at a ball game, a party or after a long day at work. In this author’s opinion that’s where it belongs. Using food products as a source of energy other than intended for our personal combustion is simply not a good idea.

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Comment by Fletch: You are incorrect on so many things, let me count the ways.

#1) The Federal corn ethanol subsidy and import tariff ended back in 2011. Corn ethanol producers receive no Federal tax money today.

#2) Believe it or not, we used more fertilizer in 1980 before ethanol than after!
http://www.earth-policy.org/images/uploads/graphs_tables/highlights43_top_3.PNG

As such it is illogical to blame fertilizer problems on ethanol production since they would exist with or without ethanol. There is hope with a very quickly growing movement in agriculture that uses cover crops and soil health to sequester soil nutrients and even naturally grow their own.

#3) Most corn is not irrigated and believe it or not, we used more irrigation water in 1980 before ethanol than after!
https://www.ers.usda.gov/webdocs/charts/usgswaterwithdrawalpng/usgswaterwithdrawal_450px.jpeg

#4) We grew more corn in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s than we do today with 1932 the greatest at >113 million acres. That compares to 2015 the year the ethanol mandate maxed out of 88 million acres of corn.

#5) Corn is not a vegetable, but a grain. Most of all corn is grown as livestock feed, only a small percentage is for direct human consumption and I would argue that high fructose corn syrup is closer to a poison than food but that is another topic.

Corn ethanol is merely a value added product of feed production which uses a waste stream from it, the carbohydrates, which cattle can not digest and normally waste on the ground in their manure. Corn ethanol leaves the feed(i.e. the proteins, fats, and minerals) alone, actually enhanced to be healthier, more digestible, and more productive. Humans can eat the distillers grain too.

#6) Ethanol plants use less than three gallons to make one gallon of ethanol with the newer plants at 2.33 gallons and that number is still going down.

Gasoline water use is many times that number is going up especially with fracking and tar sands.

#7) Since corn ethanol uses a waste product of feed production, it is super cheap to make hence the reason we are exporting ethanol to Brazil who uses sugar cane which is not value added but must be specifically grown for that purpose.

E85prices.com shows that ethanol is most often >30% cheaper than E0 so it takes less energy to make and deliver a gallon of ethanol to the consumer than it does gasoline.

#8) In our current inefficient low compression engines, ethanol will deliver less mileage but with more power. If you consider the extra horsepower with an apples to apples comparison, then our flex fuel fleet gets 3% better mileage called the gasoline equivalent ratio.

See bottom of page 7 top of 8 from Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
http://web.archive.org/web/20170121004456/https://www1.eere.energy.gov/bioenergy/pdfs/analysis_saab2007.pdf

#9) In high compression ethanol optimized engines the efficiency is greater than any fuel on earth!
See these few examples of such engines:
FROM RICARDO:
The new federal CAFE standards are calling for a doubling of fuel mileage performance, which, Vint says, is going to send OEM’s looking for high octane numbers to improve efficiency and ethanol is the best source. Ricardo, an engineering firm with over 100 years in the business of engine design, has developed an extreme boosted direct injection engine (EBDI) to optimize ethanol blends. The 3.2 V6 gasoline engine rivals the power and torque of a much larger GMC Sierra 6.6 diesel, he said, and it delivers 3.5 percent better fuel economy than the diesel.
FROM CUMMINS ETHOS ENGINE:
According to Cummins, it delivers the power (up to 250 hp) and peak torque (up to 450 lb. ft.) of gasoline and diesel engines nearly twice its displacement...
...Using corn derived E-85, the high thermal efficiency and power-to-weight ratio of this engine results in 50 to 58 percent lower well-to-wheels CO2 emissions compared with the gasoline engine baseline. Using second-generation, lingo-cellulosic derived E-85, the power train’s efficiency features deliver 75 to 80 percent lower well-to-wheels CO2 emissions, depending on the drive cycle.
FROM SCANIA:
Scania has a number of products available for running on bioethanol – e.g. buses, trucks and waste collectors. Scania is the only vehicle manufacturer to date that has successfully produced bioethanol applications for heavy transport. Our engines adapted for bioethanol fuel have the same energy efficiency as a standard diesel engine and fulfill the Euro 5/ EEV emission level.
FROM THE EPA:
An important step toward increasing alcohol fuel demand, then, may lie in providing economical engine technology options that utilize such fuels more efficiently, to compensate for the lower fuel energy density. The FFVs produced today, however, use fairly typical gasoline engines, which, because they must retain dual-fuel capability, are not able to take full advantage of the favorable combustion characteristics of alcohols. Engines optimized for alcohol fuel use, on the other hand, may yield efficiencies that exceed that of state-of-the-art diesel engines—or, about one third higher than that of FFV engines. In earlier engine research at EPA with neat methanol and ethanol [1], for example, over 40% brake thermal efficiency was achieved over a relatively broad range of loads and speeds, with peak levels reaching over 42%.
FROM EPA & FORD ON FORD'S ETHANOL OPTIMIZED ECOBOOST SYSTEM:
Compared to production gasoline engines:
Fuel efficiency is ~15 – 20% improved for various drive cycles.
Full load performance is significantly improved, and comparable to production diesel engines.
THE INDY 500:
In 2005, the IRL used 100 percent methanol in their tanks. The fuel worked well and was more efficient than straight gasoline, but IRL officials believed there was room for improvement. In 2006, they moved to a 10 percent blend of ethanol and methanol, which was then changed to 100 percent ethanol for the 2007 season...
...The switch to ethanol also allowed the racers to carry less fuel and make fewer pit stops, thereby increasing efficiency even more. "When the cars ran on methanol tanks had to hold 30 gallons to accommodate the fuel requirements of the cars," Vervynckt says. "After getting the engines to perform at their full potential, there was a significant gain in mileage. Indy cars now have 22-gallon tanks. When a driver pulls in to change out his tires, he can fill up. Teams were able to match their tire and fuel stops exactly, instead of stopping for tires only, or fuel only."

#10) Here is a Ford F-150 4X4 example on cost per mile to drive. Let us see which fuel is the cheapest to run. Prices on e85prices.com today are:

E85 $1.81/gallon
E0 $2.64/gallon

The Ford F150 4X4 EPA rated at 17mpg for E0 and 13mpg for E85

E85 = $1.81/gal divide by 13 mpg = $.139/mile
E0 = $2.64/gal divide by 17 mpg = $.155/mile

E85 is a cheaper per mile and is safer in a crash (the reason the Indy 500 switched to alcohol), has more horsepower, and exposes you and your family to a fraction of the carcinogens and toxins as seen in the above Oak Ridge link.

Note also with E85 more of your money goes to American workers and American businesses who pay American taxes and put it in American banks to buy goods and services that you or your fellow Americans produce.
With E0, more of your money goes to Arab sheiks who put it in Swiss bank accounts and pay little if any in tax.

#11) Ethanol on most chemical compatibility charts you will find is equal to at worst, but most often less corrosive on rubbers, plastics and metals than what gasoline and BTEX(benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylene) are on them.

If you have any doubts, check out this one:

https://www.coleparmer.com/Chemical-Resistance

Or here for a second opinion:

http://www.graco.com/content/dam/graco/ipd/literature/misc/chemical-compatibility-guide/Graco_ChemCompGuideEN-B.pdf

Or here if you need a third opinion:

http://legacy.shurflo.com/pdf/industry/CCChart.pdf

#12) If ethanol caused ozone, then ozone levels should have increased with the exploding use of ethanol. Instead ozone levels crashed:

https://www.epa.gov/air-trends/ozone-trends

#13) Anhydrous means without water. Anhydrous ethanol means 200 proof or 100% ethanol. Hydrous ethanol like they use in flex fuel cars in Brazil is 192 proof or 96% ethanol and 4% water. It is the best conventional distillation does.

They used to sell a lot of little cans of alcohol called HEET and DRY GAS to fix the water problems that used to exist in winter with the use of straight gasoline back before E10.

If ethanol truly ever caused problems with water, every single winter on the first cold day there would be thousands upon thousands of stalled cars throughout the upper US and especially Canada with frozen fuel lines. It is the exact opposite today, we do not freeze fuel lines and don't need HEET or DRYGAS because we already have alcohol in our gasoline.

...Mercury Marine says, "After the transition period from E0, E10 may actually be a superior marine fuel as it tends to keep low levels of water moving through the fuel system, keeping the system 'dry.'"

...Mercury Marine, which recently hosted a Webinar on ethanol myths, noted that ethanol does not "grab water molecules out of the air." It is hydrophilic, which means ethanol holds water. With regular gasoline (E0) as well at E10, the primary cause of water collecting in tanks is condensation on tank walls. But unlike E0, which can absorb almost no moisture, E10 can hold up to half of one percent of water by volume, and the water molecules will dissolve in the fuel. The "solubilized" water will bypass the water separator and burn harmlessly through the engine...

According to a paper published by the Society of Automotive Engineers, at 68 degrees F, alcohol with as much as 45% water will mix with gasoline and not separate. With 4%, alcohol will form a stable mix with gas down to about minus 22 degree F.*

*A.C. Castro, C.H. Koster, and E.K. Franleck, Flexible Ethanol Otto Engine Management System 942400(Warrendale, PA:Society of Automotive Engineers International, 1994)

#14) I will make a new post if I missed anything. Take a look Jim, you have to try to research and be certain before you make claims. READ MORE