[Diy_efi] Is E85 worth it?

[Steve Ravet]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: diy_efi-bounces at diy-efi.org 
> [mailto:diy_efi-bounces at diy-efi.org] On Behalf Of Klaus Allmendinger
> Sent: Friday, August 25, 2006 4:58 PM
> To: diy_efi at diy-efi.org
> Subject: RE: [Diy_efi] Is E85 worth it?
> 
> Hi,
>  
> I have done some research recently into ethanol as fuel. From 
> the various studies and test results the conclusion I came to 
> is that ethanol is a superior fuel for engines compared to 
> gasoline, PROVIDED the engines are designed around ethanol fuel.
>  
> 1. Production efficiency
> To produce (and transport) 1 BTU of ethanol energy requires 
> the expenditure of ~0.6 BTU in input energy. About half of 
> that is in other fuels like fossil fuel. The other half comes 
> from electrical energy, which can be nuclear, water, wind and 
> also fossil. 1 BTU of gasoline requires ~0.2 BTU in drilling, 
> transportation and refining. The difference is that gasoline 
> puts out a total of 1.2BTU worth of greenhouse gases vs. 
> Ethanol at 0.6 BTU (well to wheel). The CO2 from burning 
> ethanol is taken up by the plants in next years crop and 
> therefore doesn't contribute to atmospheric CO2 total. The 
> 0.6 BTU is with todays technology producing from corn. Within 
> 3-5 years, the yield producing ethanol from other biomass and 
> using newer distillation technologies the expected 
> expenditure is predicted to drop to about 0.2-0.3 BTU. This 
> is comparable to gasoline. Gasoline prices are expected to 
> rise in the future because it is a finite resource. Ethanol 
> prices will continue to fall in the future because the cost 
> is a function of technical efficiency, not of scarcity.

If you don't mind, I'd like to see the sources you have studied, because
what I've read is far in the opposite direction, like 7 gallons of
petroleum to produce 1 gallon of ethanol.

All resources are finite.  The price of most fall with time, and the
availability of most increase with time, due to increased efficiency in
use and production.  The price of oil and gasoline would certainly
follow this trend if they weren't interfered with politically.

Human production of CO2 at about 5 gigatons per year is a tiny fraction
of the CO2 already in the atmosphere (over 700 GT), and dwarfed by the
carbon transport mechanisms between atmosphere, surface ocean, marine
biosphere, land biosphere, and deep ocean.

--steve


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