MikeyB

Bad news for ethanol production.
http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/...bc7af1f899.htm

MikeyB

rockcrawler304

Ouch. That is going to hurt the E85 market.

infidel

Interesting because the Farm Report this morning said flooding would only reduce the corn crop by 3%.
Didn't seem like very much to me but maybe it is.

jforce

The car is not designed to fail. Only to get worse power and mileage on e-85 driving consumers back to gas. It's nothing but programming in the ecm. Carmakers only care about ffv sales becaues of fleet purchases by the gov. They were/are willing to do anything to keep those sales. If the gov spec is x they are not going to give them y. I have been tuning gas engines in racecars for years and fuel is always the largest part of the equation. You build and tune the engine for the fuel used. E-85 is 105 octane. If you can't make that number work for you something is wrong. I really can't get into btu's, flame propagation,speed,etc. here, but i can tell you what i have found. Maybe you should try some e-85 in your 4 stroke bike.

jforce

That is a great article. It did detail some of big oil's dirty tricks. They will stop at nothing,and they have the money to do it. E-85 is a large part of it. For years it has been a double standard-alt. fuels get lip service and nothing else. They are still talking about hydrogen fuel cells...please. E85 is here NOW. It can work,It is proven,(Its far from new,Ga has a rich tradition of running it durning prohibition to outrun the revenuers.) The Diablosport tuner for e-85 is a start,with better timing and fueling maps.

capt.Ron

I was not referring to the CAR failing but rather the flex fuel idea. Again I find it laughable to think that the car makers would do this R&D yet purposely build them so they are unattractive to the consumer.
So far I have yet to find E-85 sold anywhere in this area.
Not an issue for me but I would definitely have to make some carb adjustments for my bike. This is something I have to do anyway if I compete in an event that has a major altitude change from here.

ronbros

WE THE PEOPLE,,, are the victims of the insane. quote,john Lennon

chipmonk

but you didn't address the point that, even in that article, they disagree with your assertion that the U.S. automakers are 'in bed' with the oil companies, and don't want their ethanol powered or flex fuel vehicles to succeed. it states the exact opposite, that the automakers have quite a bit invested in ethanol's success, and would like to see the widespread availability of ethanol.

jforce

What investment? bad programming of the ecm,another sensor and some stickers? The automakers just want to jump on the "green'' bandwagon.They can than use that for marketing and image. The article does touch on that,and mentions the mileage credits,allowing them to build gas guzzlers w/o penalty if they build a certain number of "ffv'' vehicles to gov specs.

capt.Ron

That is something that has been in existence for years and years.
Not just cars but motorcycles as well.
Take my Yamaha WR 400. It's the exact same engine as the YZ. The only difference is gearing, timing, and a throttle stop. I prefer the gearing of the WR but the timing and throttle stop was changed within minutes of purchase. Unplug one wire that retards the timing and remove the throttle stop and it's a screaming beast!!
The reason for these 2 factory settings is to improve fuel mileage. Doing this allows them to build other less mileage machines and still stay within the CAFE standards imposed on them.

Ray Roton

http://www.fuel-testers.com/about_ethanol_fuel.html

bhaugen

Wow, thats an anti ethanol site. I keep seeing buy our test kits cause you might have engine damaging ethanol in your tank...

Before I bought a diesel I ran gassers. I started out with an 87 s-10 in 1990 and ran 10% enthanol blend in it when ever I could (which was very often cause its been available that long around here), no filter plugging, no fuel line deterioration, and no engine stalling. That was a crappy 2.8 v-6. I had a 170k on it when I finished college and sold it. The only issue I had was an oil leak. They guy who bought it after me ran it well past 200k. Also, I did some comparisons when I first started running e-10 with it and did not notice a fuel economy drop. Now E-85 will give you a drop in fuel economy, that has been proven.

Some of that info is pertenant to older carberated cars, that did not have the proper fuel lines. But hey what do I know, I have only put a few hundred thousand miles on burning 10% entanol.

AggieJustin

I noticed over the weekend while I was in Durant that there were a few stations with signs out front highlighting the fact that their gasoline had no ethanol blended in. Didn't realize there was such a backlash running against the blended gas. Pretty much every pump in Dallas is doing at least 10% ethanol.

patdaly

The sad thing is, there are way too many people who believe the anti-ethanol crap.

We have had it for decades here, and I have run everything from 2 stroke chainsaws to my 1961 Deere 3010 to late model cars, no effect, none, nada, zilch.

We are just now beginning to see E85, and guess what, as soon as I have a reliable supply, I am switching my Nova over, think about it, race fuel for cheap...........

And to those who think E10 changes their fuel mileage, I say prove it. I can show you differing mileage with different brands of straight gas.

wvopowered

Heres a Quote from David Blumes Book "Alcohol Can Be A Gas"

"Myth #4: It’s Food Versus Fuel—We Should Be Growing Crops for Starving Masses, Not Cars!

Humankind has barely begun to work on designing farming as a method of harvesting solar energy for multiple uses. Given the massive potential for polyculture yields, monoculture-study dismissals of ethanol production seem silly when viewed from economic, energetic, or ecological perspectives.

Because the U.S. grows a lot of it, corn has become the primary crop used in making *ethanol here. This is supposedly *controversial, since corn is identified as a staple food in poverty-stricken parts of the world. But 87% of the U.S. corn crop is fed to animals. In most years, the U.S. sends close to 20% of its corn to other countries. While it is assumed that these exports could feed most of the hungry in the world, the corn is actually sold to wealthy nations to fatten their livestock. Plus, virtually no impoverished nation will accept our corn, even when it is offered as charity, due to its being genetically modified and therefore unfit for human consumption.

Also, fermenting the corn to alcohol results in more meat than if you fed the corn directly to the cattle. We can actually increase the meat supply by first processing corn into alcohol, which only takes 28% of the starch, leaving all the protein and fat, creating a higher-quality animal feed than the original corn. "

http://www.alcoholcanbeagas.com/