Political Crossfire Forums

[JLB]

Consumer Reports cites ethanol's low fuel economy, high cost


September 5, 2006



Consumer Reports takes on “the ethanol myth” in its October cover story, and the news is bad for the ethanol industry.

The magazine concluded that using E85 —a mix of 85 percent ethanol, 15 percent gasoline — “will cost consumers more money than gasoline and that there are concerns about whether the government’s support of (flex-fuel vehicles) is really helping the U.S. achieve energy independence.”

Consumer Reports’ editors tested a 2007 Chevrolet Tahoe FFV and found that the SUV’s fuel economy plunged 27 percent while using E85. Overall economy fell from 14 mpg to 10 mpg, “the lowest fuel mileage we’ve gotten from any vehicle in recent years,” the magazine noted.

The result: Unless drivers can find E85 priced more than 27 percent less than regular gasoline, they will end up spending more. And they will fill up more often, since the Tahoe traveled 300 miles on E85, compared with 440 miles on gasoline.

That is, if drivers can find the fuel. Consumer Reports tested the Tahoe in Connecticut, where no E85 commercial pumps exist.

The magazine also cited a Union of Concerned Scientists study that government support of E85 is causing more gasoline consumption, not less. Automakers get fuel-economy credits for producing flex-fuel vehicles, and those credits allow the companies to build more cars and trucks with low mileage ratings.

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060905/NEWS/60905023/1001/RSS01


It seems that oil is still the best way to go, until we build more coal gasification plants to produce fuel. 8:)

[Peace420]

Didnt they realize back in the day gasonline was more efficent than ethanol, thus why we use gasoline. (Ethanol also easily mixes with water)

[Medius]

Don't tell us, tell your government. They are the ones pushing for E-85. I want an oil-free solution to the problem.

[JLB]

Medius wrote: Don't tell us, tell your government. They are the ones pushing for E-85. I want an oil-free solution to the problem.

Like a horse, eh? :lol:

[Divinity11]

JLB wrote: Consumer Reports cites ethanol's low fuel economy, high cost


September 5, 2006



Consumer Reports takes on “the ethanol myth” in its October cover story, and the news is bad for the ethanol industry.

The magazine concluded that using E85 —a mix of 85 percent ethanol, 15 percent gasoline — “will cost consumers more money than gasoline and that there are concerns about whether the government’s support of (flex-fuel vehicles) is really helping the U.S. achieve energy independence.”

Consumer Reports’ editors tested a 2007 Chevrolet Tahoe FFV and found that the SUV’s fuel economy plunged 27 percent while using E85. Overall economy fell from 14 mpg to 10 mpg, “the lowest fuel mileage we’ve gotten from any vehicle in recent years,” the magazine noted.

The result: Unless drivers can find E85 priced more than 27 percent less than regular gasoline, they will end up spending more. And they will fill up more often, since the Tahoe traveled 300 miles on E85, compared with 440 miles on gasoline.

That is, if drivers can find the fuel. Consumer Reports tested the Tahoe in Connecticut, where no E85 commercial pumps exist.

The magazine also cited a Union of Concerned Scientists study that government support of E85 is causing more gasoline consumption, not less. Automakers get fuel-economy credits for producing flex-fuel vehicles, and those credits allow the companies to build more cars and trucks with low mileage ratings.

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060905/NEWS/60905023/1001/RSS01


It seems that oil is still the best way to go, until we build more coal gasification plants to produce fuel. 8:)

Wow. Perhaps the moon is properly aligned tonight...I agree with a JLB thread! :wink:

[JLB]

Btw, some of the "less informed" people on this board (and you know who you are....) have been saying that refineries having to make different blends of gasoline for the Western states has absolutely no bearing at all on the price.

Well, to better inform the public, observe this map of gas prices nationwide from today, and tell me what jumps out at you...




Hint: It has something to do with colors, and a line that goes North/South....... 8:)

[JLB]

Divinity11 wrote: JLB wrote: Consumer Reports cites ethanol's low fuel economy, high cost


September 5, 2006



Consumer Reports takes on “the ethanol myth” in its October cover story, and the news is bad for the ethanol industry.

The magazine concluded that using E85 —a mix of 85 percent ethanol, 15 percent gasoline — “will cost consumers more money than gasoline and that there are concerns about whether the government’s support of (flex-fuel vehicles) is really helping the U.S. achieve energy independence.”

Consumer Reports’ editors tested a 2007 Chevrolet Tahoe FFV and found that the SUV’s fuel economy plunged 27 percent while using E85. Overall economy fell from 14 mpg to 10 mpg, “the lowest fuel mileage we’ve gotten from any vehicle in recent years,” the magazine noted.

The result: Unless drivers can find E85 priced more than 27 percent less than regular gasoline, they will end up spending more. And they will fill up more often, since the Tahoe traveled 300 miles on E85, compared with 440 miles on gasoline.

That is, if drivers can find the fuel. Consumer Reports tested the Tahoe in Connecticut, where no E85 commercial pumps exist.

The magazine also cited a Union of Concerned Scientists study that government support of E85 is causing more gasoline consumption, not less. Automakers get fuel-economy credits for producing flex-fuel vehicles, and those credits allow the companies to build more cars and trucks with low mileage ratings.

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060905/NEWS/60905023/1001/RSS01


It seems that oil is still the best way to go, until we build more coal gasification plants to produce fuel. 8:)

Wow. Perhaps the moon is properly aligned tonight...I agree with a JLB thread! :wink:


You are on a roll.

Now keep your eyes wide open, and more will be revealed. 8:)

[Peace420]

[poweRob]

moved to enviro forum

[The Central Scrutinizer]

What's the news? We've always known that gasoline was better to run internal combustion engines, and we've always known that producing it was more expensive than drilling for and refining oil... and any intelligent advocate of ethanol knows that too. The main arguments for wider use of ethanol are not that it is cheap and efficient, but that:

1) It will reduce our petroleum dependence on OPEC
2) It burns more cleanly than more complicated hydrocarbons
3) The supply of oil is limited, but ethanol is renewable

Based on the law of supply and demand, of course gasoline is better in a business sense. It's cheaper and, hey, our engines are made for the s**t. But while it takes millions of years of pressure and heat upon decaying organic matter to produce oil, we can synthesize ethanol from plants we can grow in a few months. At some point, ethanol will make economic sense; it just doesn't now.

I don't fully comprehend the point of your post, JLB.

[JLB]

The Central Scrutinizer wrote: What's the news? We've always known that gasoline was better to run internal combustion engines, and we've always known that producing it was more expensive than drilling for and refining oil... and any intelligent advocate of ethanol knows that too. The main arguments for wider use of ethanol are not that it is cheap and efficient, but that:

1) It will reduce our petroleum dependence on OPEC
2) It burns more cleanly than more complicated hydrocarbons
3) The supply of oil is limited, but ethanol is renewable

Based on the law of supply and demand, of course gasoline is better in a business sense. It's cheaper and, hey, our engines are made for the s**t. But while it takes millions of years of pressure and heat upon decaying organic matter to produce oil, we can synthesize ethanol from plants we can grow in a few months. At some point, ethanol will make economic sense; it just doesn't now.

I don't fully comprehend the point of your post, JLB.

Better read it again then.

You have to burn almost as much oil to farm the corn to make the ethanol, as you could have burned without making the ethanol.

[ubikk]

Peace420 wrote: Didnt they realize back in the day gasonline was more efficent than ethanol, thus why we use gasoline. (Ethanol also easily mixes with water)

efficiency is realtive. what matters is the cost per btu. If they can get the cost per btu of alcohol to be lower than the cost per btu of oil, then alcohol will be acceptable. We'll just need slightly larger tanks.

Alcohol is not just a "subsititute fuel" - it is a superior fuel. It burns more efficiently and cleanly under compression and can deliver higher power in the same size engine compared with gasoline. That's why race cars often burn alcohol.

JLB wrote:
You have to burn almost as much oil to farm the corn to make the ethanol, as you could have burned without making the ethanol.

Almost. That's why they're trying to develop enzymes to get alcohol from cheaper crops like grasses and weeds.

[The Central Scrutinizer]

JLB wrote: The Central Scrutinizer wrote: What's the news? We've always known that gasoline was better to run internal combustion engines, and we've always known that producing it was more expensive than drilling for and refining oil... and any intelligent advocate of ethanol knows that too. The main arguments for wider use of ethanol are not that it is cheap and efficient, but that:

1) It will reduce our petroleum dependence on OPEC
2) It burns more cleanly than more complicated hydrocarbons
3) The supply of oil is limited, but ethanol is renewable

Based on the law of supply and demand, of course gasoline is better in a business sense. It's cheaper and, hey, our engines are made for the s**t. But while it takes millions of years of pressure and heat upon decaying organic matter to produce oil, we can synthesize ethanol from plants we can grow in a few months. At some point, ethanol will make economic sense; it just doesn't now.

I don't fully comprehend the point of your post, JLB.

Better read it again then.

You have to burn almost as much oil to farm the corn to make the ethanol, as you could have burned without making the ethanol.

...which doesn't change what I said one iota. I agree with you, we should use oil as long as it's economically feasible. But saying that ethanol is going to be frozen out of the market forever is betraying a lack of faith in the market. Someone will invent a cheaper way to create it, or a more efficient way to use it, and the market will have out. And there are decent reasons to push for the technology now. Do you really want America to have to be dependent upon the House of Saud in order to remain an economic power?

[Kindred]

JLB wrote: The Central Scrutinizer wrote: What's the news? We've always known that gasoline was better to run internal combustion engines, and we've always known that producing it was more expensive than drilling for and refining oil... and any intelligent advocate of ethanol knows that too. The main arguments for wider use of ethanol are not that it is cheap and efficient, but that:

1) It will reduce our petroleum dependence on OPEC
2) It burns more cleanly than more complicated hydrocarbons
3) The supply of oil is limited, but ethanol is renewable

Based on the law of supply and demand, of course gasoline is better in a business sense. It's cheaper and, hey, our engines are made for the s**t. But while it takes millions of years of pressure and heat upon decaying organic matter to produce oil, we can synthesize ethanol from plants we can grow in a few months. At some point, ethanol will make economic sense; it just doesn't now.

I don't fully comprehend the point of your post, JLB.

Better read it again then.

You have to burn almost as much oil to farm the corn to make the ethanol, as you could have burned without making the ethanol.
That information is not contained within the article.......

[ChuckBerry]

ubikk touched on something that JLB did not mention that the article said. I bought the magazine from the newsstand, and it mentioned that
engines need to be optimized to burn ethanol OR gas, because a single engine cannot burn both equally efficiently. Ethanol engines need to
be higher compression to extract the most energy out of the fuel. As an oxygenate additive to gasoline at a 10 percent mix, ethanol is a
good choice to stretch fuel supplies and make the oil dependency curve less steep. Merely making fuel hoses tough enough to tolerate ethanol
does not mean that the vehicle is now ready to use ethanol efficiently.

The engineer that develops the variable compression engine will be as rich as Warren Buffett.

[poweRob]

Kindred wrote: JLB wrote: The Central Scrutinizer wrote: What's the news? We've always known that gasoline was better to run internal combustion engines, and we've always known that producing it was more expensive than drilling for and refining oil... and any intelligent advocate of ethanol knows that too. The main arguments for wider use of ethanol are not that it is cheap and efficient, but that:

1) It will reduce our petroleum dependence on OPEC
2) It burns more cleanly than more complicated hydrocarbons
3) The supply of oil is limited, but ethanol is renewable

Based on the law of supply and demand, of course gasoline is better in a business sense. It's cheaper and, hey, our engines are made for the s**t. But while it takes millions of years of pressure and heat upon decaying organic matter to produce oil, we can synthesize ethanol from plants we can grow in a few months. At some point, ethanol will make economic sense; it just doesn't now.

I don't fully comprehend the point of your post, JLB.

Better read it again then.

You have to burn almost as much oil to farm the corn to make the ethanol, as you could have burned without making the ethanol.
That information is not contained within the article.......

And it is a bullcrap falsity...

Brazil has ethanol plants that run on the waste cane stalks of the sugar cane they use to make the ethanol. If your farming vehicles are running on biodiesel, which farmers are known to do for decades now, your fossil fuel usage is squat.