Quote:
Originally Posted by Por_sha911
JUst to clarify, the problem with ethanol in items not used frequently is the absorption of water. All this is old news and accepted science. Why do folks still debate this?
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There are several problems with burning ethanol.
It has significantly less BTUs per volume, meaning you get less horsepower from a gallon of ethanol than a gallon of gas.
Stoichiometric for gasoline is just under 15 to one air to fuel ratio.
For E85* it's 9.9.
That means it takes a lot more gallons of E85 than it would for gasoline.
It could be argued that E85 has more potential because of anti-knock properties, but that only would come into effect with variable compression ratio, wide open throttle, etc.
IOW it would matter on a race car designed to take advantage of those specific properties.
The hygroscopic properties of ethanol were mentioned above, which makes ethanol tend to increase corrosion in engines. Not good.
Common elastomers that are just fine with gasoline do not do well with ethanol.
mostly an issue with older engines.
Some folks like to say that ethanol is less expensive than gasoline. Bull flop.
Ethanol is cheap only because the gubmint is subsidizing it, making it look cheaper than it is. we all pay.
Ethanol is made from corn. Corn is food.
Corn is food for people and food for things that people eat. Like cows.
Turning corn into fuel makes people food more expensive.
And that is dumb.
DISCLAIMER: I worked for Valero a long time ago and still own some Valero stock. Valero is an ethanol manufacturer/supplier.
I currently work in biomass-fuel R&D.
* E85 is higher concentration than E15, obviously. I used E85 as an example to demonstrate the difference between ethanol and gasoline.