-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Evergreen Solutions wrote: > Hi all, I recently found out that a local fuel wholesaler has begun selling > E85 to consumers in our small town, and I'm also happy to report that my car > is an FFV and capable of running it. However, I *believe* that I read > somewhere that ethanol will get you *less* far per gallon than traditional > petrol.
It's funny. Ethanol is a slightly more efficient fuel in many ways, but it "contains" less energy per volume unit than does petrol. This is why one has to make allowances for running much leaner. In automotive engines, it's perhaps a bit strange, my very limited experience has been in small engines, and the math is very evident in those cases; Here's a very good write up: http://members.aol.com/pullingtractor/carbfuel.htm Folks think somehow that ethanol has more energy because of it's higher octane (which is kinda a misnomer anyway). But that isn't the case really. Because of it's higher "octane" one can burn a lot more of it without destroying an engine, meaning one can force a lot more fuel/air through the engine, making it excellent for hot-rodding. My old Saab Sonett LOVES the stuff, but it's too expensive for an every day fuel commercially. > > On the ethanol site it talks all about 105 octane, etc, but I can't seem to > find a good answer. I'm hoping someone will tell me that mpg goes up instead > of down, but I'm not holding my breath. > > Reason? I don't make a lot of money, and this wholesaler is selling his E85 > (which is advertized as being "partially from waste products") for $2.799 > per gallon, while regular petrol is back down to about $2.159. Directly, I > can't afford to go less far for more money. This isn't unique to your situation. I think if you poll anyone, regardless of their income they will empirically state that they cannot afford to pay more when they could pay less. I think the old saw goes something to the effect of: The poor have little, Beggars none; The rich too much Enough? not one. -Ben Franklin So much for money, eh? So, in the grand scheme of things. Bio fuels have real fixed costs. This is really true for commercial providers. For good folks who are brewing their own utilizing cast off products like waste vegetable oil, that's a grand thing. But commercial providers are not in that category. They have real costs. Look at the price of virgin soy oil, figure in a 60 percent yeild +transport and storage and rational profit, and you see a much higher price per unit at the pump than dino fuel. Same goes for ethanol. You see, no one, not one, really figure in the cost of the raw material in extractive oil processes. In the most liberal round numbers to avoid potential screaming matches, Folks best guess is that it took around 500 million years to sequester the carbon currently found in our fuel oils . Good ole crude as it were. But the most hopeful numbers one can find, we will expend ALL of this in about 500 years (calm down folks, I'm taking best case). No one I know, who has children, like my immediate family, wants anything else for their children, than for them to grow up, have a family of their own, enjoy life, grow old, die, and for their families to do the same. And so on. This extrapolates to far beyond 400 more years if you think about it at all. So, we are about one million times "better" than nature in making use of carbon. So, if you take these numbers into account, Dino fuel should cost a great deal more per gallon than it does currently. I mean a *LOT* more. A whole lot more, as in orders of magnitute more. But the demand for it is based almost completely in it's relative low cost. Since bio fuels are NOT extractive, but rather replentishable, (renewable is a misnomer in this case) They don't have the hidden costs of extractive fuels, and environmental costs aside, actually are tens to hundreds of thousands of times LESS expensive, even though the cost at the pump is much higher, because the cost of the raw material is right there, quite litterally at your feet. Whereas in the other case, the cost is so high, it's completely ignored. So, in conclusion. If you can afford to make use this fuel at all, you will in a de-facto sense, be increasing the demand for it. There by in an economincs 101 sense, be increasing the scale thereby lowering the cost. So if you can't afford to run it all the the time, perhaps you can afford to run it every third tank or so. at this stage, here in the US, E85 is a "boutique" fuel. As long as folks don't make much use of it, it will remain so, and the cost will remain high. Your local seller for instance, if they could commit based on demand to longer term higher volume purchases, their suppliers could commit to larger scale production, lowering the costs all around. Making the fuel more viable. This is kinda how it works. Tiz a far far better thing you will be doing by putting your limited fuel dollars into this economic model, and you know this ;) So, whatever you can do, do. - -I'm trying to convince myself more than you, so please don't take it personally ;) - Take care, keep up the good work, - --chipper > > And also, if anyone else out there has a local E85 seller, what are their > prices in comparison to dino? > > Thanks in advance! > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > Biofuel mailing list > Biofuel@sustainablelists.org > http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org > > Biofuel at Journey to Forever: > http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html > > Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000 messages): > http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/ > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.0 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFDjZkL0STXFHxUucwRAgBKAJ0eNcCkSe913KdFx0uIA/sL4UgVrQCfUx4T +m/zU/kDimJwWD9gNrJFW7g= =gixn -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- _______________________________________________ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
