Alternate fuel, and a cheap machine that can use it.

[Dr. KillGood]

Well the guy supposedly made a way that splits the HH from the O with 1 half volt of power.

[Rekarp]

Well the guy supposedly made a way that splits the HH from the O with 1 half volt of power.

Volt isn't a measure of power. EPIC FAIL

[vskid]

Well the guy supposedly made a way that splits the HH from the O with 1 half volt of power.

That means nothing. Thats like saying "my car gets 100 miles per". Amperage and the amount of water are other things that are needed to decide if something is good or not.

[Dr. KillGood]

Well jesus I forget what it said but it was not a lot ok.

[bicostp]

OK E85 IS WORTHLESS. You burn 10-20% more fuel burning E85 then straight gas alone. Plus E85 doesn't burn as clean. Also all the food that should be going to Africa is being diverted into USELESS fuel.

But in that case, it's economical if ethanol costs at least 21% less than straight gasoline.

The other thing about ethanol is that it's domestic. We don't have to worry about sending our money to volatile nations because we produce our own fuel. It worked for Brazil, which makes ethanol out of sugar cane, and is now basically energy-independent. Why can't we take a native grass and produce fuel with it?

And who said anything about food getting turned into fuel? I don't know about you but I don't eat grass.

As for food for Africa, guess how it would get there. Right. On ships that run on fossil fuels. Why can't they grow more food over there? Not to sound like a heartless bastard, but why is it our responsibility to help people in impoverished nations, while we can't even help ourselves? Why should we plant, grow, pick, process, and ship the food form here to there at a large expense when the same operations can be performed over there cheaper? We can relocate our labor overseas, why not our charity?

Long story short, as it stands now ethanol is the most viable alternative fuel, because it wouldn't require everyone to go buy a whole new car, can be generated with domestic resources, and can utilize the existing gasoline infrastructure.

[Triton]

OK E85 IS WORTHLESS. You burn 10-20% more fuel burning E85 then straight gas alone. Plus E85 doesn't burn as clean. Also all the food that should be going to Africa is being diverted into USELESS fuel.

thats where you are wrong, in a properly set up vehicle yes you burn ~30% more ethanol by volume than gasoline but you gain power, lower intake temperatures, its MUCH higher octane (more power again) and produces a fraction the pollution that fossil fuels produce! and E85 DOES NOT REQURE ANY SORT OF FOOD PRODUCT TO BE MADE! just because they are currently using mostly corn (which is NOT FOOD GRADE but feed grade in most cases) doesnt mean that they HAVE to, its already been covered that there are better things to use than corn to make it

also the last time i saw it, when gas was ~3.00-3.20 a gallon here at least e85 was around 2.20 a gallon, almost a dollar cheaper per gallon, havent checked the prices lately but i may tomorrow

[Rekarp]

OK E85 IS WORTHLESS. You burn 10-20% more fuel burning E85 then straight gas alone. Plus E85 doesn't burn as clean. Also all the food that should be going to Africa is being diverted into USELESS fuel.

thats where you are wrong, in a properly set up vehicle yes you burn ~30% more ethanol by volume than gasoline but you gain power, lower intake temperatures, its MUCH higher octane (more power again) and produces a fraction the pollution that fossil fuels produce! and E85 DOES NOT REQURE ANY SORT OF FOOD PRODUCT TO BE MADE! just because they are currently using mostly corn (which is NOT FOOD GRADE but feed grade in most cases) doesnt mean that they HAVE to, its already been covered that there are better things to use than corn to make it

also the last time i saw it, when gas was ~3.00-3.20 a gallon here at least e85 was around 2.20 a gallon, almost a dollar cheaper per gallon, havent checked the prices lately but i may tomorrow

I don't know where you got that E85 has more power but thats straight up wrong. Ethanol has a lower energy density then gasoline so it is impossible to get more energy out of it or power as you put.

Less pollution? E85 produces more Nitrous Oxide (Smog) then straight gasoline itself. Pure gasoline burns pretty clean to begin with.

So what if they arn't making it out of food but they are still replacing food crops with E85 crops.

Yes I know about switch grass and its supposed to be great. You can't compare Brazil and the USA. The USA consumes much more (about 45% of the worlds consumption) gasoline. It is impossible to grow enough switchgrass to power every single vehicle due to limited land.

Please don't comment if you don't know what you are talking about. I was a PGE (Petroleum and Geosystems Engineer) for 2 years before I swapped to EE and I have sat in on about 5 or so seminars about alternative fuels. I have seen 3 presentations on switch grass.

So ethanol bad...mmmk?


edit// Ethanol is not economical viable. At the moment it is heavily subsidized by the government.

[soundwave]

As for food for Africa, guess how it would get there. Right. On ships that run on fossil fuels. Why can't they grow more food over there? Not to sound like a heartless bastard, but why is it our responsibility to help people in impoverished nations, while we can't even help ourselves? Why should we plant, grow, pick, process, and ship the food form here to there at a large expense when the same operations can be performed over there cheaper? We can relocate our labor overseas, why not our charity?

Its kind of our fault that Africa is such a sh!thole..
And, IIRC, we only send them our surplus.

As far as growing fuel goes, we as a country need to look farther into algae farming in the deserts of Arizona, New Mexico, etc. Areas where no other crops can be planted can harvest bio-diesel-ingredient rich algae.

[Triton]

ethanol = not ideal but that doesnt mean its bad. lower energy density yes but you can get a greater horsepower output and run higher boost levels (on a turbo car) with ethanol than with gasoline, it drops intake temperatures, is higher octane (more resistant to predetonation etc)which means you can run significantly higher boost levels and therefore more power!
i dont see how an 85% solution of alcohol and additives would burn significantly less cleanly than commonly available gasoline/gasohol, in todays society there basically is no such thing as "pure gasoline" almost all gas is at least e5 or e10 and even regular is chock full of additives and other crap. ethanol in a properly configured engine will have slightly higher co2 and nox emissions than gasoline but significantly less hydrocarbon emissions. gasoline might burn somewhat cleaner under ideal conditions but all the cars on earth tend to run at less than idea levels. i never said that ethanol was the end all be all solution to the worlds problems but Hell, its cheaper than gas, thats all i care about right now

Please don't comment if you don't know what you are talking about. I was a PGE (Petroleum and Geosystems Engineer) for 2 years before I swapped to EE and I have sat in on about 5 or so seminars about alternative fuels. I have seen 3 presentations on switch grass.

I would appriciate it if you would not talk down to me, you might have more of an education in this subject but that doesnt mean your better than i am, dont be condescending

[Rekarp]

ethanol = not ideal but that doesnt mean its bad. lower energy density yes but you can get a greater horsepower output and run higher boost levels (on a turbo car) with ethanol than with gasoline, it drops intake temperatures, is higher octane (more resistant to predetonation etc)which means you can run significantly higher boost levels and therefore more power!
i dont see how an 85% solution of alcohol and additives would burn significantly less cleanly than commonly available gasoline/gasohol, in todays society there basically is no such thing as "pure gasoline" almost all gas is at least e5 or e10 and even regular is chock full of additives and other crap. ethanol in a properly configured engine will have slightly higher co2 and nox emissions than gasoline but significantly less hydrocarbon emissions. gasoline might burn somewhat cleaner under ideal conditions but all the cars on earth tend to run at less than idea levels. i never said that ethanol was the end all be all solution to the worlds problems but Hell, its cheaper than gas, thats all i care about right now

Please don't comment if you don't know what you are talking about. I was a PGE (Petroleum and Geosystems Engineer) for 2 years before I swapped to EE and I have sat in on about 5 or so seminars about alternative fuels. I have seen 3 presentations on switch grass.

I would appriciate it if you would not talk down to me, you might have more of an education in this subject but that doesnt mean your better than i am, dont be condescending

Ok more power in an optimized E85 burning but you are still burning 20% more fuel. I looked at some cars that run on E85 and they typically have 20-40 more horse power. Is that really worth burning an extra 20% of fuel?

I wonder if you realize that growing the plants to make the ethanol uses a lot of energy as well.

Some good facts here

http://nature.gardenweb.com/forums/load ... 12037.html

I would rather have CO2 (not bad for the environment) emissions then Smog (terrible for the environment).

The only reason it is cheaper is because the US government is subsidizing the farmers by about 50 cents to a gallon. Guess where you are paying that from? Taxes. So it is not cheaper to begin with.

I don't care if I was condescending towards you. You apparently haven't done any broad research on this subject and only seem to spit out what digg.com brings up.

Government needs to push Electric Cars not Ethanol. Nuclear/Wind power on the grid to charge them. Why use ethanol as a stepping stone when we can make a full leap with ease?

[Extreme_Jesus]

just like to point out that gas isnt that expensive, its just you've had majorly cheap gas for years and now its finially reaching the same sort of proportions as other parts of the western world.

1 gallon = 4.5 litres

and over here its like about £1.06 per litre so thats £4.77 per gallon. So were talking $9.51 a gallon.

just putting things into perspective

[Sparkfist]

Gas is expensive. If you take into consideration inflation, you'll find that there was only one other time when gas cost the same (proportion wise), and that was the 1970's oil crisis. Now it's not just Middle-Eastern countries wanting more money for their oil, now it's the guys on Wall street hyping up the value of barrels of oil to make money, the general situation we have in the Middle-East and oh many number of price gouging gas station owners.

I wish scientists would get that damn cheap semi-permeable membrane developed already. Then we can go and use fuel cells to run cars.

[bicostp]

Not only that, but we're borrowing money from one country to buy oil from another. Our economy is so out of whack that it's bring driven by credit, not income. And when they lower the interest rate, it makes the dollar worth even less.

Oil prices are a reflection of America's credit drying up.

[Triton]

I don't care if I was condescending towards you. You apparently haven't done any broad research on this subject and only seem to spit out what digg.com brings up.

I do not read digg.com. you aparently cant make a valid argument without belittling the person you are arguing with. I have no problem being corrected when i am wrong but when you insult my intelligence it just makes you look like a dick, im done with this thread.

[Rekarp]

I don't care if I was condescending towards you. You apparently haven't done any broad research on this subject and only seem to spit out what digg.com brings up.

I do not read digg.com. you aparently cant make a valid argument without belittling the person you are arguing with. I have no problem being corrected when i am wrong but when you insult my intelligence it just makes you look like a dick, im done with this thread.

I didn't belittle you just everyone thats a blind sheep and believes everything fox, CNN, and digg says. I am sorry if I rubbed you wrong but when people champion Ethanol as being "our savior" I have to put them right.

Not only that, but we're borrowing money from one country to buy oil from another. Our economy is so out of whack that it's bring driven by credit, not income. And when they lower the interest rate, it makes the dollar worth even less.

Oil prices are a reflection of America's credit drying up.

True that.

Gas isn't that expensive when you compare it to other things like Milk and Printer ink

I will have to agree with Bic tho. Biggest thing we need to do is stop importing oil.