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^ not to mention biofuel from corn actually takes more energy to produce than it provides
by cjonas 5y ago
^ not to mention biofuel from corn actually takes more energy to produce than it provides
- ehnto 5y agoThe dream would be for that energy to come from renewable electricity, so I think it's still a viable fuel to consider for the future as a holdover fuel for the enormous internal combustion engine fleet the world has. We can't immediately convert everyone to electric, so a good holdover might be making renewable fuels more viable. I intend to keep my car in operation for a long time, as a car for motorsport, so I converted it to E85 for performance and long term robustness of fuel supply. My guess is that as petroleum and diesel fuels go out of fashion, only niche consumers will need combustion fuels, and that will be motorsport and ethanol blends. Companies can already make ethanol racing blends work financially, so I expect it to stick around.
- atatatat 5y agoDo you run gas through your lines and injectors before storage?
- ehnto 5y agoNot currently but I still use the car once a week, we have an all year driving season so I just inspect the lines occasionally and I haven't seen any erosion yet. I think I would run unleaded through it if I had to store it for 6+ months though.
- unixhero 5y agoWhat lines? EDIT: Fuel lines? Are these things which one simply modifies for fun and profit?
- loonster 5y agoThere are two statements here that you are getting mixed up. Ethanol absorbs moisture. You cannot store gas that contains ethanol for as long as you can non ethanol gas. If you are putting your car in storage, it is prudent to flush out the ethanol. This can be as simple as running the tank down and filling up with regular gas, and then driving more so the lines don't have ethanol gas anymore. Ethanol attacks rubber compounds in a different method than gasoline. You need to have special lines to run E85 gas. I presume he switched it out himself. Not sure what else is involved in the conversion.
- ehnto 5y agoYep that's all correct, there were a few lines that needed to be replaced with E85 rated lines, it wasn't a big task though. For my setup I have an ethanol content sensor so I can run regular and ethanol based fuels, and I upgraded my fuel pump and injectors, as you need about twice as much fuel volume per combustion compared to regular unleaded. To answer the "Why" of the parent post, typically it's because you can get more power out of a vehicle with ethanol. The reason you can get more power out of ethanol fuels, is because the aforementioned increased volume of fuel cools the combustion temperature. Ethanol brings some of it's own oxygen, hence why you can combust that extra fuel without adding more air. Lowering combustion temperatures reduces the tendency for an engine to "knock" or "ping". Knocking is when the flame front is uneven, which gives a poorly timed and high peak pressure combustion that can lead to catastrophic failure. Most turbocharged or supercharged engines are "knock limited" meaning you could produce more power if you could eliminate the risk of knocking. This only gets worse as turbo/superchargers increase intake air temperatures, which increases combustion temperature, increasing the tendency to knock. So by using ethanol fuels, you decrease combustion temperatures and get back the ability to push the engine further using other parameters.
- ryathal 5y agoIf it took less we would already be a post scarcity world so that's hardly a problem with biofuels. They are a reasonably good solar battery.