Ethanol in our gas. Are our saws okay?

[eric_271]

No methanol has less btu's then gas and ethanol.

So it would be fair to say for you to make more HP with methanol or any kind of alcahol that you will have to run more gpm of it through your engine to = or out preform gas?

 

[MS-310]

So it would be fair to say for you to make more HP with methanol or any kind of alcahol that you will have to run more gpm of it through your engine to = or out preform gas?

True
On a older NON fuel injected or TBI engine you would need to drill or buy new jets on the carb. For ethanol its is Jetsize X 1.25 would = your size for ethanol. methanol I think is 2.5X.(thats what S.O.D. are)
When talking about fuel injected cars it mite lose 1 to 2 mpg thats what my 2003 GMC lost and my wifes 2005 sebring lost 1 Mpg.
If you want some more info look on line or you can PM me and we can talk.

http://running_on_alcohol.tripod.com/index.html

this site has so much info on it. It does say ever thing on how to upgrade you car and so on.
Jack

 

[Kneejerk Bombas]

Yes we use wood, works fine.

If ethanol production was not worth the money would any company have made it?????? The ford model T was built to run "CORN FUEL".
What ever you guys can pay $2.50 to 3.50 a gal for gas and make green house gases and I will make my fuel for $1.10 to $1.23 a gal and make more HP and better for the air.

It makes sense that at the turn of the century home made alcohol was easier to get or make than petroleum oil.
When you say it's better for the air, I can't see that. Wood burning makes horrible pollution. You're taking the energy stored in wood and converting it to ethanol. You're not making any energy, you're converting one form to another.
Up north were we have cold winters, burning wood to make ethanol would be stupid, we need the wood to heat our homes.
If the US started making ethanol large scale, what would they use? Coal? Petroleum oil? Nuclear? Certainly not ethanol, you don't get energy from the process, so it wouldn't work!
Your little still is great if you have free wood or some other fuel you want to convert to ethanol, but large scale, without government subsidies, you're just taking fuel from one source and moving it to another. It's not any cleaner!

 

[Kneejerk Bombas]

The other thing that occurs to me is we already are faced with deforestation and air pollution. If we start turning forests into gas, creating the huge amounts of pollution at the same time, we are really going to be in trouble.

 

[MS-310]

It makes sense that at the turn of the century home made alcohol was easier to get or make than petroleum oil.
When you say it's better for the air, I can't see that. Wood burning makes horrible pollution. You're taking the energy stored in wood and converting it to ethanol. You're not making any energy, you're converting one form to another.
Up north were we have cold winters, burning wood to make ethanol would be stupid, we need the wood to heat our homes.
If the US started making ethanol large scale, what would they use? Coal? Petroleum oil? Nuclear? Certainly not ethanol, you don't get energy from the process, so it wouldn't work!
Your little still is great if you have free wood or some other fuel you want to convert to ethanol, but large scale, without government subsidies, you're just taking fuel from one source and moving it to another. It's not any cleaner!

Yes it is cleaner, how do you think gas is refined????? using oil that makes green house gases, buring wood is useing solor energy read about stop making guess, the goverment does not have subsidies for "large scale stills"
they have them all over the corn belt if it did make them money how would they stay alive, it wont be from the goverment. The goverment is kinda funded from the oil companys.

So mike is it stupied to make your own fuel for 1.10 a gal. and burn it it your engines, thats not even selling your byproduct DG, witch is better for the animal 5% gain comparded to normal corn. It doesnt take much energy to make the ethanol have to heat it up once to 178 deg. it doest take much wood and a little elec to power some pumps.

And mike is burning propane better for the air then burnning wood?????

Jack

 

[MS-310]

The other thing that occurs to me is we already are faced with deforestation and air pollution. If we start turning forests into gas, creating the huge amounts of pollution at the same time, we are really going to be in trouble.

So y dont we start going corn and heating with it and also heating the stills with it, seen it done works very well. Air pollution is from what mike....
green house gasses, burnning wood has a hell of a lot less green house gasses then burning oil.

 

[Kneejerk Bombas]

The biggest greenhouse gas is carbon dioxide. When you burn wood all that stored up carbon is released.

How many cords of wood does it take to make a gallon of ethanol?
How hot does the still need to get and for how long?
Maybe if you could use the heat from the still to heat your house or something other than just ethanol production...
Around here a cord of wood goes for around $300. You can buy a lot of oil for $300.

 

[BlueRidgeMark]

I did ask you the right question, there isnt any goverment subsidies when small scale still are used and we can still make it cheap.
BlueRidgeMark im sure you know your stuff about some thing but this field you dont know very much about ethanol production, so pls dont talk about unless you know, most people dont know much about it so its cool to teach people the right thing.

Big difference between small scale production and the corn/ethanol industry. That is massively subsidized in the form of tax breaks.

Of course, there's the economics question and then there's the energy question. Getting one side of the equation right doesn't automatically equate to getting the other side right. Unless BOTH are right, it's not sustainable.

IM sorry mark if I said any thing to piss you off, I mean no harm in this message. Thanks for the arguement.
Jack

Hey, we're just jawing here. Nothing to get upset about on either side!

 

[CaseyForrest]

Take away the government subsidies and THEN ask that question.[/QUOTE

I did ask you the right question, there isnt any goverment subsidies when small scale still are used and we can still make it cheap.
BlueRidgeMark im sure you know your stuff about some thing but this field you dont know very much about ethanol production, so pls dont talk about unless you know, most people dont know much about it so its cool to teach people the right thing. IM sorry mark if I said any thing to piss you off, I mean no harm in this message. Thanks for the arguement.
Jack

310, you are cooking Ethanol in your backyard for your own personal use.

You don't have to worry about keeping up with the 20 million barrel a day oil use currently here in the US. You don't have to worry about the EPA, Taxes, insurance, employees, machinery, land, buildings, etc. Those all take money, and lots of it.

Lest not forget the reason Ethanol production is subsidized by the Government. Because its not really a viable replacement for gasoline at the moment. Sure it burns cleaner, helps the farmers out, and lessens our dependence on foreign oil. But gallon to gallon it takes more energy to produce then you get in the end. If your government subsidized price of E85 is only a couple cents less than regular unleaded, think what it will be when the government stops funding it.

Current Diesel prices are a perfect example. With the new Sulfur Emissions restrictions in place, Diesel will stay high for a very long time.

 

[MS-310]

310, you are cooking Ethanol in your backyard for your own personal use.

You don't have to worry about keeping up with the 20 million barrel a day oil use currently here in the US. You don't have to worry about the EPA, Taxes, insurance, employees, machinery, land, buildings, etc. Those all take money, and lots of it.

Lest not forget the reason Ethanol production is subsidized by the Government. Because its not really a viable replacement for gasoline at the moment. Sure it burns cleaner, helps the farmers out, and lessens our dependence on foreign oil. But gallon to gallon it takes more energy to produce then you get in the end. If your government subsidized price of E85 is only a couple cents less than regular unleaded, think what it will be when the government stops funding it.

Current Diesel prices are a perfect example. With the new Sulfur Emissions restrictions in place, Diesel will stay high for a very long time.

Hay lissen it does not take more energy then what you get out of it. ethanol has been around for a long time now and works great it just cost about the same price of gas untill now.
Casey it does not take more then you get out of it.
the only goverment help that I know of is the $.50 the goverment pays the "mixers", thats when you mix 85% ethanol to 15% gas.
Casey you live kinda by me do you know where woodberry is?????
Thats the where the new ethanol plant is and I have talked to the boss dude for a long time now, thats where all my commmets come from about the goverment subs.
Casey do you get the lansing state journal???? Read the local and state part on the bottom page.
It doesnt have to be 2 cents cheaper becuz no supply up in michagn.
Look at the corn belt e-85 is like 2.00 a gallon.

 

[MS-310]

The biggest greenhouse gas is carbon dioxide. When you burn wood all that stored up carbon is released.

How many cords of wood does it take to make a gallon of ethanol?
How hot does the still need to get and for how long?
Maybe if you could use the heat from the still to heat your house or something other than just ethanol production...
Around here a cord of wood goes for around $300. You can buy a lot of oil for $300.

the still needs to be at about 180 deg. for about 6 hours to make 60 to 70 gallons, about 4 arm loads of wood will do this in the summer but the winter Im not for sure cuz we heat the house and barns.

 

[GASoline71]

Reading some of the pro-ethanol posts here are just like reading some of the pro-Amsoil posts of old. The ones defending it are prolly in the business of makin', sellin', or distributin' it. :bang:

Gary

 

[CaseyForrest]

Hay lissen it does not take more energy then what you get out of it. ethanol has been around for a long time now and works great it just cost about the same price of gas untill now.
Casey it does not take more then you get out of it.
the only goverment help that I know of is the $.50 the goverment pays the "mixers", thats when you mix 85% ethanol to 15% gas.
Casey you live kinda by me do you know where woodberry is?????
Thats the where the new ethanol plant is and I have talked to the boss dude for a long time now, thats where all my commmets come from about the goverment subs.
Casey do you get the lansing state journal???? Read the local and state part on the bottom page.
It doesnt have to be 2 cents cheaper becuz no supply up in michagn.
Look at the corn belt e-85 is like 2.00 a gallon.

You have to consider the BTU output of Ethanol in your equation. Ethanol puts out 2/3 the BTU Gasoline does. Thats why your mileage goes down when using it.

Here is a simple way of putting it. If you are using Ethanol to produce Ethanol, you will use roughly 1.5 gallons to produce 1 gallon. Thats why its not really a viable alternative to replacing gas yet.

Im not arguing the merits of Ethanol, I think its great and we should be headed in that direction. Ethanol has been around allot longer than most of us here. Farmers used to make it and run everything off it. Then prohibition came around and all "Homemade" Stills were shut down. Everyone became dependent on gas, and never looked back.

 

[WRW]

You have to consider the BTU output of Ethanol in your equation. Ethanol puts out 2/3 the BTU Gasoline does. Thats why your mileage goes down when using it.

Here is a simple way of putting it. If you are using Ethanol to produce Ethanol, you will use roughly 1.5 gallons to produce 1 gallon. Thats why its not really a viable alternative to replacing gas yet.

Im not arguing the merits of Ethanol, I think its great and we should be headed in that direction. Ethanol has been around allot longer than most of us here. Farmers used to make it and run everything off it. Then prohibition came around and all "Homemade" Stills were shut down. Everyone became dependent on gas, and never looked back.

I'm sorry, but I don't quite understand the ratio of 1.5/1. Ethanol is produced by a fermentation process...the energy needed to produce it is provided by bacteria. The fire under the still is merely to heat the water/alcohol mix enough to evaporate the alcohol. This is not a perpetual energy machine, it is just taking advantage of nature's work.

 

[CaseyForrest]

I'm sorry, but I don't quite understand the ratio of 1.5/1. Ethanol is produced by a fermentation process...the energy needed to produce it is provided by bacteria. The fire under the still is merely to heat the water/alcohol mix enough to evaporate the alcohol. This is not a perpetual energy machine, it is just taking advantage of nature's work.

The 1.5/1 ratio is if you were using ethanol as your fuel. You have to use something as fuel to heat up your brew, correct?

 

[Kneejerk Bombas]

the still needs to be at about 180 deg. for about 6 hours to make 60 to 70 gallons, about 4 arm loads of wood will do this in the summer but the winter Im not for sure cuz we heat the house and barns.

In digging through some websites, I found it takes 1 bushel of corn to make 2.5 gallons of ethanol. So to make 65 gallons, you'd need 26 bushels of corn. That's over a thousand pounds!
You can process over a thousand pounds of corn in 6 hour with 4 arm fulls of wood?
Another interesting thing I found is that each bushel of corn processed into ethanol creates 17.5 pounds of CO2.
A bushel of corn costs about $3 to grow and harvest, as an average in the US.

 

[PWB]

A bushel of corn costs about $3 to grow and harvest, as an average in the US.

That's why your government supports your farmers by buying it up and dumping it across the border for 2 bucks a bushel. ALL the corn in our local ethanol plant comes out of Michigan. Not fair to the rest of the world........

 

[Four Paws]

In response to what Mike said, here is a link to some of the same info.

http://autos.aol.com/article/hybrid/hub/_a/food-or-fuel/20060816132809990001