Ethanol To Be Introduced In The Near Future?

[el_bichito]

On one of the current affair shows they are going to talk about how ethanol is good and that it has been been aproved to be sold as well. ist on this thursday

does anybody know what the go is with this will it damage your engine or what. I have heard things such as..... that only cars that are built from like this year or last year onwards can handle it well. and that any car older than a year ...welll it will affect it...they were not meant to run on this fuel and that....they werent designed for it and it will damage it ...if the unleaded has ethanol in it.....

any knowledge would be appreciated, has anybody had bad experience with it, they dont plan to label it if it only 5 percent, but they will wen its 10 percent, at the beggining of next year.

yeah since i read this kind of inetresting.

http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/st...255E662,00.html

http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2003/s943324.htm

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200510/s1486146.htm

http://www.raa.net/page.asp?TerID=146

Edited October 19, 2005 by el_bichito

[browny]

Ethanol isn't the solution to fuel problems.

1. Where do we get the feedstock from? Raping the farming land? I did some rough calcs to illustrate the amount of feedstock that would be required. To substitute only NSW's petroleum products with ethanol would consume all of the Austs sugar cane crop and half our wheat crop.

2. Given the above. Ethanol blends are just a stop gap solution that's generating a lot of media hype. It might buy us some time, but I don't see the point in spending too much time developing the technology if it's ultimately going to be a failure.

3. The engine damage issue is just a small tech problem compared with points 1 and 2.

4. Ethanol has a lot less energy content than petrol. So your fuel consumption goes up and you either refuel twice as often or have to carry twice and much fuel with you.

5. The price cuts they are talking about (ie a few c/l) are pretty much neutralised by the increased fuel consumption. So you're not much better off overall.

6. Don't quote Brazil as a great example of ethanols success. Their farming techniques aren't exactly sustainable.

[Big Rizza]

From what I've heard, Ethanol has a cleaning effect on your engine, which initially sounds great. If you run your car on it FROM NEW it will enjoy a long trouble free life. Unfortunately, if you run a car more than a few months old, the carbon deposits built up from regular petrol use get swept away by the ethanol in big chunks, blocking valves, injectors, fuel lines and damaging pistons etc. So running a used car on Ethanol can cause irreversable damage, running a new car on Ethanol is potentially a good idea. Just what I heard.

[Jase]

I posted this in the forced induction section recently:

from the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries website

http://www.fcai.com.au/ethanol.php/2004/03/00000001.html

"Nissan vehicles manufactured from 1 January 2004 onwards are capable of operation on ethanol-blended fuels up to E10 (10% ethanol), providing that blending of the ethanol component to the petroleum component of the fuel has been properly made at the fuel refinery (ie there is no "splash-blending" of the fuel).

For Nissan vehicles manufactured prior to 1 January 2004, Nissan Australia does not recommend the use of E10 because of drivability concerns and/or material compatibility issues."

regards

Jase

[Mulkers]

There is a report done by MRT and the UNSW, which has been posted on here, showing that ethanol is more powerful, and has better bfyb than any other 95 or 98 ron fuel... should check it out

[browny]

Can you find the link?

[Bliksem]

isnt ethanol similar to methanol in chemical composition?

possibly higher octane?

meh i dunno... just a thought.

[Patto-]

Here is a link to the thread about 98 RON fuels tested for those too lazy to find it themselves.

98RON Fuels Tested Thread

[el_bichito]

hmmmm.. yeah who knows maybe this was done to make ethanol look good everything else i have read seems to go against this. maybe they are making this 98 ethanol look good with another ingredient in it and then people will say ethanol is good in fuels so it gets introduced.....and then they will just make it crapppy and cheap and take out the ingedient that made it good.

...but by thne it will be too late. it will be at the petrol pumps everywhere.

what i have read seems to be a common trend

ethanol doenst produce as much power as petrol so saving a couple of cents with ethanol wont matter since it wont as long...they just cross each other out...maybe thsi is all been done as a gimmick to make it look like the goverment is doing the right thing by the enviroment.

[Marsss]

yeah... maybe....

[puls8]

The major source of ethanol is actually the refinement of sugar cane, at the moment alot if not most of the ethanol produced as a byproduct has minimal use and is wasted. So positive number one, ethanol blends will add to the australian economy, as the sugar industry is currently not really worth jack due to many reasons.

Second positive ethanol actually is a higher RON than petroleum products, i think its about 114 and has much better combustion properties. Although with higher blends there is an increased fuel consumption but we are talking very minimal and with a low blend like E10 you most probably wont even notice it. The reason for this is just a tuning problem same as if you tried to run your car on avgas its not tuned for it therefore cant take advantage of it.

Yes the properties have some down sides though, ethanol may eat so to speak through rubber but again in such low blends as E10 i doubt we will really see this. There are rubbers that are now in use that are inert to these properties, hence the car manufacturers saying the use is accepted. Tthey have been around for a long time though and i am of the opinion the only reason they were not used is cost cutting. Also you have the issue that ethanol will absorb water vapour but seeing though our fuel systems are closed systems i dont see a problem here.

So really ethanol has its ups and downs like everything but in my opinion the ups strongly outway the downs. Sure, the reduction in petrol prices will be small but money in your pocket is money in your pocket right? All i would suggest is like normal you dont pay attention to any of the crap on any current affair programs as they most the time are purely uneducated or biased opinions, just do a bit of research for yourself and decide for yourself what you think.

Edited October 21, 2005 by puls8

[KamikazeR33]

if it was so good, y werent we using it yrs ago?

never listen to wat mrt say, they always lie

[browny]

If you can argue that a few % decreased economy is negligible, then you can argue that a few % lower c/l is also negligible. And therefore the argument that it's cheaper at the pump is null. Hell i'd say even a 10c/l decrease is really SFA, that's what, a whole $6/tank.

I've yet to see anyone show me that ethanol or any other biofuel will provide a significant long term solution. I want someone to put together a sound systems analysis that considers the size of the problem and the size and impact of the solution. Instead everyone seems to be focussing on trivial crap such as fuel line damage and saving 5c/l.

The "but it can be made from a waste product argument" doesn't sit well with me either. Please show me some calcs that outline the quantity of waste product that we have, the volume of fuel that could be obtained and then put this in perspective with the total amount of fuel required. Waste products are waste products for a reason.

[puls8]

The fact is that at the moment there are no significant long term solutions, yes there have been substantial increases in alternative fuel technologies but these are far from a major production stage. Especially if we have people complaingin about power reductions of ethanol there is no way hydogen combustion engines will be widely accepted by the general public. Ethanol is just a band-aid while there is R & D in the area, lets face it petroleum fuels is the major source of energy of the world, once it runs out it runs out. With the addition of bio-fuel or mixes we may prolong this giving us a further time to develop our technologies while at the same time creating a cleaner and more productive fuel.

As for fuel consumtion, the large concern is with carbie engines, a fuel injected engine will have an increase of 2% yes thats 10L/100km to 10.2L/100km and the conversion to the petrol bowser your still going to be coming out ahead at the end of the day. Id rather have $6 extra in my pocket everytime i fill up the money adds, maybe $300+ a year if u fillup once a week.

There are system analysis to show the positive and negative sides to the arguement but the fact is the government releases very few of them but it would be safe to say at the present time australia would already have an easy capacity to produce 200+ million litres of ethanol per year, and this is a more sustainable market than the sugar industry atm, but remember its not only the sugar industry there are many other crops that a simply thrown away as they are not deemed good enough quality for the market. At the end of the day though everybody thinks about themselves consumer will worry about what effect they will see on their car business what will it do to its profit and so on, policy is not always introduced as it is the best thing there are many other factors ($$$$$ lining big business pocket being the big one)

[J-Spec Sweden]

Ethanol is getting quite common in Sweden. And we're happy about it cause we have a lot of forrests that we can make it out of=)

Ethanol is said to give a 30% hp gain, and you will need 20% more fuel. As the ethanol is cheap up here thats a good alternative. 98 octane petrol is about 2 Aud/litre, and the ethanol is 1,25 Aud/litre. Does not fit all engines though.. -But one of my skylines is gonna get fed with it in the near future We'll see what happens

Edited October 22, 2005 by J-Spec Sweden

[browny]

  Quote

maybe $300+ a year if u fillup once a week.

A $300 saving isn't much when you put it in perspective with the $3500+p.a you would be spending on fuel.

  Quote

but it would be safe to say at the present time australia would already have an easy capacity to produce 200+ million litres of ethanol per year

My rough calcs indicate this would offset less than 1% of NSW's petroleum consumption.

My big concern is that this is a problem with a time scale of 30-50 years and I don't have the confidence that either the govt or businesses are thinking that far ahead. Politicians think in three year terms.