I do not plan to use Ethanol in a corvette, I never said that. However Ethanol will still work fine in there. You can also have water in regular gasoline - so that risk is even across the board.

 

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060212/...i_ge/bug_juice

article on the subject on yahoo today

 

Hey! Lets suppot our farmers not the sand dogs!!!

 

The issue of water and gasoline mixture isn't the same issue as water and E85 mixture. Formic Acid does not result from a mixture of gasoline and water; it results from a mixture of ethanol, gasoline and water:

"For a badly-contaminated amount of water in the ethanol and water mixture that separates from the gasoline (i.e., approximately 11% water, 89% ethanol, equivalent to 178 proof alcohol), considerable engine wear will occur, especially during times while the engine is heating up to normal operating temperatures, as for example just after starting the engine, when low temperature partial combustion of the water-contaminated ethanol mixture is taking place. This wear, caused by water-contaminated E85, is the result of the combustion process of ethanol, water, and gasoline producing considerable amounts of formic acid (HCOOH, also known as methanoic acid, and sometimes written as CH2O2), better known as the acid that causes so much pain for individuals 'stung' by fire ants. (It is this same acid that is naturally produced for methanol combustion even without water contamination of the fuel and it is what makes methanol so much more corrosive than ethanol.)

In addition to the production of formic acid occurring for water-contaminated E85, smaller amounts of acetaldehyde (CH3CHO) and acetic acid (C2H4O2) are also formed for water-contaminated ethanol combustion. Nonetheless, it is the formic acid that is responsible for the majority of the rapid increase in engine wear."


But instead of worrying about the technical answer, I defer back to my original comment. It's not safe to use E85 in the majority of ENGINES (not fuel systems).

Mike

 

Nothing would make me happier. As soon as they come up with an economically viable solution, let me know, and I'll be there with $$ in my hand.

 

Interesting article on other ways to produce ethanol linked above. They even confirmed what I said in post number 16: "we can't grow that much corn. Really."

Four billion gallons is a long way from 140 billion gallons. Even if we ramped up the moonshine production. I'd like to see them do it. Afterall, they'd still need pipelines to move the stuff around. I would love to see the oil sheiks eat shiite. But in my mind, the ethanol growers will be as effective as ***** in getting that done. The dollar, and not good intentions, will always rule.

 

When crops are grown, nutrients are taken from the soil. Those nutrients are partially restored when crop residues are plowed back into the soil. If instead the residues are converted to ethanol, the soil will suffer. As with slash and burn agriculture, the soil will be used up in a matter of a few years unless massive amounts of fertilizers, soil conditioners, and replacement organic materials are added to make up for the missing crop residues. That makes use of crop residues for alcohol production short sighted at best.

The other thing that concerns me about this biotechnical approach is what happens if these engineered bugs escape into the environment, which they certainly will if used on an industrial scale. Will we then be plagued by "superbugs" that consume our homes and even our clothing? Likely.

Note, I'm not some ecofreak. I'm not against bioengineering. I use genetically engineered seeds myself. But we really need to be careful about industrial scale bioengineering of microbes. To be economic, they have to be able to replicate on a truly massive scale, and that's potentially dangerous.

 

Well I agree in that we should be using nuclear. But I also think that we should be also using Wind, solar, as well as water such as "wave" generators. These generators are starting to be used more and more. There are different types but the general concept is to let the waves do the work to generate electricty. I read something a few years back (many years in fact lol) that the only thing we should be using fossil fuels for was for the use in making plastics. Of course this is subjective but then again it did make sense. I know that wind farms do work esp. along the coast and open areas of TX (ie Abilene) and that no matter how small of an amount, ethanol can help to offset dependency on foreign oil imports. But the thing I also know is that companies like the big petroleum companies aren't about to let some of these ideas come to pass and give up some of their record (Exxon Mobil's reported profits of $36 billion in 2005 ranked as the most profitable year on record for any company in the United States. Ever. Add to that profits of $25 billion for Royal Dutch Shell, $19 billion for British Petroleum, $14 billion for Chevron and $13.5 billion for ConocoPhillips ) profits. A colleague of mine brought up something the other day and at first I just kind of ignored it and then it made alot of sense. If we were to move more towards a workweek of 4 ten hr days we would basically cut our gasoline consumption by 20% for commuting purposes. This would also mean that we would have fewer cars on the roads and less traffic. Anyway, let's drink a few cold ones in support of alcohol research. Actually I have given up drinking till New Years. It will take me that long to forget how sick I got this past New Years.

 

They now extract ethanol from saw grass - and this stuff is just trimmed like your regular lawn. Roots on saw grass go down 6 feet and can grow in the desert. Also, you can make ethanol from regular waste as well. Hey, look, even a 10% reduction in perto dependence could be massive. 20% would have the Arabs worried. You use ethanol as a stop gap measure, and then you move to hydrogen or other alternatives.

 

Electricity is fungible, of course, ie you don't have to care how it is generated as long as it is available on demand. But the problem with wind, wave, or solar is that those resources aren't demand scheduleable. In other words, the wind doesn't necessarily blow when power demand peaks, and the sun certainly doesn't shine when demand peaks. Several years ago, the demand peak across the US shifted from daytime to evenings. The daily loss of light incidents suffered by solar generation are at least predictable, if unfortunately timed, but wind and wave are much more variable.

The National Electric Reliability Council sponsored research into what happens to the grid if energy sources aren't demand scheduleable. Computer models of the grid showed chaotic behavior when more than 10% of the sources of grid power weren't demand scheduleable. Fortunately, we're well below that limit today with alternative energy sources, but it does raise a serious issue if we were to try to massively increase energy production from such sources.

In specific niche markets, those things certainly work, and in a few cases they are even economically viable, but it is unlikely that they can shoulder a significant portion of the grid's electrical load without massive, and very expensive, storage schemes to stablize the grid.

We can't ignore economics. Solar costs roughly $5 per installed watt-hour, making it incredibly expensive. Wind is much better at about $5 per installed kilowatt-hour, but nuclear is the clear winner at 10 cents per kilowatt-hour installed capacity.

Nuclear power could be much less expensive, and even safer than it is now, with some simple changes to the way we build, license, and operate plants. Instead of custom building nuclear plants one of a kind one at a time, we could mass produce a small standardized modular design (100 megawatt size) covered by a single blanket license. Then any size power plant we desire could be quickly and inexpensively assembled from groups of these standardized modules.

These modules would be designed to be passively safe. That means the operators could simply walk away and the plant would shut itself down naturally and gracefully following the natural laws of physics, ie no active systems have to be working to force a clean shutdown. There have already been prototypes of this design built and tested. We know it works, and we know what it would cost. No additional research or breakthroughs are required.

(I'm talking about fast flux designs where the coolant serves as the moderator. Dump the coolant, or allow it to boil off, and the reactor goes subcritical. There are other passively safe designs too, but this is the simplest, and we have a natural model that operated on and off for millions of years in Africa.)

If we decide not to reprocess fuel (a foolish decision IMHO), the modules could serve as their own disposal vessels. They would be fueled at the factory and when the fuel becomes depleted, we could simply truck them to a disposal site and abandon them. (Note I don't advocate this, but it would be technically and economically feasible.) All of the spent fuel from all the world's reactors since the beginning of the atomic age could be piled on a single football field and would come to a depth of 3 feet. (Not something I'd advocate, but it graphically illustrates the magnitude of the disposal issue.)

 

This is an educational thread. I learn some new stuff. Thanks Guys.

 

Even your lawn has to have its nutrients periodically replenished if you bag and remove the clippings. Constantly robbing from the soil while putting nothing back simply isn't a viable long term solution.

However, converting household waste to energy is certainly a more attractive prospect than dumping it in landfills. (There are better ways to recycle, but we generally don't practice them.) Already, there are some commercial projects tapping methane from landfills, making ethanol too would be a bonus.

Note that there are many small things we could do to reduce our need for high quality energy sources. We could use passive solar design in the construction of our homes and businesses. That would reduce heating and cooling demands. Superinsulation is another thing we could do, though that can lead to sick building syndrome. We could use compact fluorescent lights instead of incandescent lights. Etc, etc, etc. We can't remove the need for high quality energy to run our civilization, but we can use it more efficiently. That could easily hit your 10% target. But growth, both economic and population, quickly eat up any such savings. We can't conserve our way out of the looming energy crunch.

 

To operate correctly, this fuel (E-85) must be burned in a GM vehicle with an engine designated 'Flex Fuel Engine'. There are appx. 1.5M of them out there. Check your owners manuel as to it's ability to use Ethanol fuel mixed with gasoline (85%/15%). It is a good eco thing and reduces our dependance on oil. The LS2 engine isn't one of them.

 

This is got nothing to do with Corvettes or cars in general. Current fuel contains 10% ethanol. Two boat manufactors Bertram and Hatteras used fiberglass gas tanks in there older models. (Both are considered the RollsRoyce of boats.) Ethanol melts fiberglass! Particles of dissolved fiberglass are passing through the gas filters and coating the valves with a black soot. Furthermore, the glass tanks are becoming soft to a point that you can pass a screwdriver through the tanks. Just imagine carrying 200 plus gallons of fuel and having the tanks rupture.( One gallons of gas vapor is equal to 2 sticks of dymomite!)This will effect the older models with gas engines. Both manufactors no longer make the smaller boats and the use of diesel engines in the larger models elimnates the problem.
Bottom line is --ethanol is highly corrosive.( I have always compared it with lacquer thinners.)

 

I'm picturing one of those little label maker thingies exploding.

 

Shopdog presents very articulate and, IMHP, accurate summary of the economic and technical issues facing this country. However, his presentation of the facts and suggested solutions are not new. Those of us that have been around the energy industry in one capacity or another for the past 30-odd years have been espousing his position ad nauseam. Unfortunately, since the first Arab oil embargo of the early 1970's, the political establishments at the federal and state levels have lacked the intestinal fortitude to formulate and adopt any form of economic, cohesive, comprehensive energy policy that addresses the long term. There has been no energy policy at all. In spite of the fact that the information is well know to the scientific and policy-making communities, we have seen nothing more than knee-jerk reactions to short-term or one time negative events from the polititians. Most of the time it has been self-serving and reactionary; counter to the long term best interests of the U.S. Unfortunately, both sides of the political aisle are responsible - although in varying degrees and for different reasons. Technical developments, such as the nuclear plant modular design described by shopdog, make some of the solutions more palatable in some political circles. Unfortunately, there are too many Neros-with-fiddles presently holding court in the U.S. to initiate change. It remains to be seen whether the required and dramatic course correction can occur before the fundamental fabric of our social and economic cloth is torn beyond repair. We have fiddled away the last 30 years while increasingly gourging ourselves on larger servings of energy. The clock is ticking and we keep playing.

 

You're so right on Shopdog. It's frustrating to watch efforts to conserve energy being driven by uninformed polititions and tree-huggers. There are plenty of real, proven facts, that point to nuclear power as the way to go for electricical energy production, but those people are either too stubborn to hear the facts, or they have their own agenda to follow.

The sad part is that the majority of the public, i.e. the voters, will listen to the garbage fed to them as the truth, while the scientific community is in dissagreement. Then we constantly get pointed to stupid alternatives that offer no improved enviornmental impact, or are cost prohibitive. Like using electricity produced by oil burning plants to power an electric car.

Whenever this subject comes up I always wonder what's gonna happen 30 or 40 years from now. The way things are going now, that's a scary thought.

 

I'm picturing someone saying "y'all watch this"

 

And if gas became cheaper, less people would carpool. C'mon, that's the problem with all of these "let's all not buy gas on Thursday" emails They are silly.

The problem with conservation as a solution, is that as people conserve, decreasing demand, the cost of gasoline goes down. Then, because gasoline is now cheaper, people take more Sunday drives, in bigger cars. It doesn't work unless you pass laws that infringe upon people rights (make them drive less, or drive smaller cars). And that is NOT what America is about.

The best thing that could happen is for people to understand how our economy works. Just look at the post I quoted - everyone has been brainwashed to think corporate profits are evil. Corporate profits are what separates us from Russia. Buy stock in that company and share the profits.

Participate in the economy. Don't criticize it.