Using automobile gas with ethanol

In fact, it was a whole SQUADRON of planes...called something like the
Vanguard Squadron...an aerobatic team flying RV-3s or RV-4s...back in
the 90s. Whatever happened to them?

Scott



Tater Schuld wrote:


remember seeing a 100% ethanol plane at oshkosh, so it cannot be impossible
to convert.

Tater Schuld wrote:


I've been contemplating switching some vehicles over to 100% ethanol, and
grow my own, to kill off the demand for it at the pump. if the demand is
high does than mean seed corn is going to skyrocket too?



Corn is not the most efficient source for ethanol. If I am wearing a
cynical hat I am prone to think that it is just an agri-business
wheeze. They are all set up for handling corn, they have squeezed the
cost end of the business to the bone, the only way left is the old
fashioned grow the demand end. They have practically maxed out the corn
syrup side of things (try finding any food stuff out there that doesn't
have added corn syrup). So what's left? Fuel. Elephant grass yields
more ethanol than corn by some margin and yet 'go green, go yellow' is
the refrain. Not very joined up thinking. IMHO biodiesel is a better
option for a home brewer.



Si

"Bog snorkler extraordinaire"

On 25 Apr 2006 22:50:38 -0700, wrote:

FYI, here in Pennsylvania, where until recently I drove a tank-truck
delivering fuel, the "branded" SUNOCO is blended 10% etanol in all
grades. I know of no other retailers selling ethanol-blend unless they
buy blended specifically, from SUNOCO.


Up here in Ontario, what used to be Co-Op , UPI, and at least one
other non-Sunoco supplier used 10% Ethanol.

Shell Premium has NO Ethanol, and according to shell, never will.

However, several of the convenience stores have placarded their pumps:
"...may contain ethanol" in anticipation of perhaps buying the blend.

We hauled the ethanol (denatured with addition of 2% gasoline) 9200
gallons per load, 100 miles from Philadelphia (rail and sea-port
terminal) to the SUNOCO bulk-plant (pipeline terminal) in
Mechanicsburg, at the rate oif three or four loads daily. So there is
some use (demand) for the stuff. Most ethanol arrived by ship.

*** Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com ***

"Si" wrote in message oups.com...


Corn is not the most efficient source for ethanol. If I am wearing a
cynical hat I am prone to think that it is just an agri-business
wheeze. They are all set up for handling corn, they have squeezed the
cost end of the business to the bone, the only way left is the old
fashioned grow the demand end. They have practically maxed out the corn
syrup side of things (try finding any food stuff out there that doesn't
have added corn syrup). So what's left? Fuel. Elephant grass yields
more ethanol than corn by some margin and yet 'go green, go yellow' is
the refrain. Not very joined up thinking. IMHO biodiesel is a better
option for a home brewer.



Si

"Bog snorkler extraordinaire"


Here is a link to a very interesting story about American agricultu
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...toryId=5342514
(I wish there was a transcript available)

It's also quite a lot of BS.

A McDonald's meal has 2 bushels of corn?? Not. From that, he divines that
it takes 2 gallons of fossil fuel to make a McDonald's meal. More crap.
He's not taking anything into account for the use of the by-products in the
manufacture of things like corn syrup or ethanol.

He also goes on about how evil corn is because it's ruining our eating
habits. That's like blaming the gun for shooting someone instead of the
person pulling the trigger.

He talks about "cheap" fertilizer. In the last two years my anhydrous
ammonia has gone from $170 per ton to $500 per ton. That's not cheap, I'm
sorry to say, and the idea that farmers just dump the fertilizer on willy
nilly is ludicrous, it's simply not cost effective. I pay almost $1,000/
year for nothing other than soil sampling and fertilizer recommendations.

Then he talks about getting off fossil fuels and solar energy. What a
moron. What does he think actually grows the crops? It's all solar
powered. This idiot hasn't spent 30 minutes on a farm in his life.

Not surprising that he's a university researcher. Those that can, do, those
the can't, teach and write scare tactic books.

John Stricker

PS: The most efficient thing to make ethanol from is the crop with the
highest sugar content so that's sugar beets and sugar cane. It CAN be made
from corn and within 10 miles of me there is an Ethanol plant that uses
strictly grain sorghum. His calculations of what the energy return of
Ethanol is completely disregards the value of things like distiller's grain
and other by-products which are high value, high use items.

".Blueskies." wrote in message
. net...

"Si" wrote in message
oups.com...


Corn is not the most efficient source for ethanol. If I am wearing a
cynical hat I am prone to think that it is just an agri-business
wheeze. They are all set up for handling corn, they have squeezed the
cost end of the business to the bone, the only way left is the old
fashioned grow the demand end. They have practically maxed out the corn
syrup side of things (try finding any food stuff out there that doesn't
have added corn syrup). So what's left? Fuel. Elephant grass yields
more ethanol than corn by some margin and yet 'go green, go yellow' is
the refrain. Not very joined up thinking. IMHO biodiesel is a better
option for a home brewer.



Si

"Bog snorkler extraordinaire"


Here is a link to a very interesting story about American agricultu
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...toryId=5342514
(I wish there was a transcript available)

"Si" wrote in message
oups.com...

Tater Schuld wrote:


I've been contemplating switching some vehicles over to 100% ethanol,
and
grow my own, to kill off the demand for it at the pump. if the demand is
high does than mean seed corn is going to skyrocket too?



Corn is not the most efficient source for ethanol. If I am wearing a
cynical hat I am prone to think that it is just an agri-business
wheeze. They are all set up for handling corn, they have squeezed the
cost end of the business to the bone, the only way left is the old
fashioned grow the demand end. They have practically maxed out the corn
syrup side of things (try finding any food stuff out there that doesn't
have added corn syrup). So what's left? Fuel. Elephant grass yields
more ethanol than corn by some margin and yet 'go green, go yellow' is
the refrain. Not very joined up thinking. IMHO biodiesel is a better
option for a home brewer.



Si

"Bog snorkler extraordinaire"

I agree that adding ethanol (or methanol for that matter) to fuel is little
more than a way to sell the stuff. In fact, the only good sounding argument
that I can ever remember hearing for alcohol as a fuel is that, when used as
100% of the fuel, it supposedly does not require additives to meet a
performance number, a/k/a octane. Supposedly, it you have a high
compression engine, and want to run at high power, you just run it rich.
However, alcohol is hydroscopic and required a lot of energy to produce.
Perhaps, if we have built a couple of nuclear power plants each year for the
past three decades, we would have electric power in need of a market. OTOH,
if we had all that surplus electric capacity, it would probably make more
sense to just run electric trains and busses directly. I won't suggest
anything beyond those, but some niche markets cold make sense.

As a concept, diesel almost makes sense for ground pounding, but I have no
idea what is actually required to home-brew it. If you buy diesel for an
automobile at the pump you will eventually break even, which is better than
the gasoline electric hybrids, but the cars currently offered seem to be
geared purely for advertised fuel economy so that performance can be poor.

Currently, I am not sold on diesel aircraft for the homebuilder; despite the
outstanding work done by Thielert. If you can buy one of theirs, it seems
to make sense. And it obviously assure the availability of compatible fuel
at airports. But if you plan to convert your own, the engines of which I am
aware seem to weigh at least a third more than an equivalent gasoline
engine. I am not convinced they really have to be that heavy, since modern
computer controlled injection systems should be able to limit the peak
pressures, but the automotive diesels (mainly VW) that I know to be
available in the US are a little too heavy to have any advantage.

Peter

On Wed, 26 Apr 2006 17:04:09 -0400, clare at snyder.on.ca wrote:



Up here in Ontario, what used to be Co-Op , UPI, and at least one
other non-Sunoco supplier used 10% Ethanol.

Shell Premium has NO Ethanol, and according to shell, never will.

Yeah for now but Dalton has promised that we'll all be burning 10% by
2009. Now they need to build more ethanol plants to meet the
legislated need. Most of the corn will come from Michigan cuz it's so
much cheaper there.

"JStricker" wrote:

It's also quite a lot of BS.

A McDonald's meal has 2 bushels of corn?? Not. From that, he divines that
it takes 2 gallons of fossil fuel to make a McDonald's meal. More crap.

Enjoyed your analysis and your viewpoint from the farmer's
perspective.

With even a grain (pun intended) of common sense, it should be obvious
that McDonalds isn't going to subsidize each and every meal they serve
by charging FAR less for it than the "reported raw materials" above
cost (imagine the cost if you actually include the packaging, labor,
potato and other food product).

It also assumes that farmers are losing a boatload of money on every
bushel of corn they sell. Nice of them to do that for the rest of us,
huh?

Unfortuately, the kind of nonsense you point out is invisible to a
large segment of the population who'll believe anything they read (as
long as it aligns with their other agendas).

Mark Hickey
Habanero Cycles
http://www.habcycles.com
Home of the $795 ti frame

On Thu, 27 Apr 2006 12:58:04 GMT, (Drew
Dalgleish) wrote:

On Wed, 26 Apr 2006 17:04:09 -0400, clare at snyder.on.ca wrote:



Up here in Ontario, what used to be Co-Op , UPI, and at least one
other non-Sunoco supplier used 10% Ethanol.

Shell Premium has NO Ethanol, and according to shell, never will.

Yeah for now but Dalton has promised that we'll all be burning 10% by
2009. Now they need to build more ethanol plants to meet the
legislated need. Most of the corn will come from Michigan cuz it's so
much cheaper there.
Ethanol fuel is a crock anyway, particularly when made from corn, as
so much of the fertilizer required to get a good corn crop is
petroleum based. Ethanol is pretty much a wash when produced from
corn. Gotta use elephant grass, or other non-fertilizer intesive
biomass if ethanol is going to be ANY kind of a solution.
*** Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com ***

On 27/4/06 4:55 pm, in article ,
"clare at snyder.on.ca" clare at snyder.on.ca wrote:

On Thu, 27 Apr 2006 12:58:04 GMT, (Drew
Dalgleish) wrote:

On Wed, 26 Apr 2006 17:04:09 -0400, clare at snyder.on.ca wrote:



Up here in Ontario, what used to be Co-Op , UPI, and at least one
other non-Sunoco supplier used 10% Ethanol.

Shell Premium has NO Ethanol, and according to shell, never will.

Yeah for now but Dalton has promised that we'll all be burning 10% by
2009. Now they need to build more ethanol plants to meet the
legislated need. Most of the corn will come from Michigan cuz it's so
much cheaper there.
Ethanol fuel is a crock anyway, particularly when made from corn, as
so much of the fertilizer required to get a good corn crop is
petroleum based. Ethanol is pretty much a wash when produced from
corn. Gotta use elephant grass, or other non-fertilizer intesive
biomass if ethanol is going to be ANY kind of a solution.
*** Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com ***

Didn't Henry Ford propose running his vehicles on fuel (ethanol presumably)
produced from hemp plants?