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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
All other things being equal, you should get WORSE mileage from ethanol/gas than straight gasoline. The reason is that ethanol has about 35% less energy content per gallon that gasoline. Maybe if your vehicle is exceptionally badly-tuned ethanol will retard ignition long enough to prevent "pinging" but ... this hasn't been a problem since most vehicles went to fuel injection and electronic monitoring. So I really have no idea what they're talking about

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Originally posted by whozit:
I'm not putting corn in my car.

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Originally posted by DEVERSE:
Testing by Natural Resources Canada found that drivers can expect 3 or 4% fewer miles per gallon on E10, 4 to 5% fewer on E15 and 15 to 30% fewer miles on E85 compared to 100% gasoline.

Not sure about everywhere, but E10 and E15 here is only a penny or two less per liter than gasoline - so its not all that popular. No E85 fuel anywhere near I live so I have no idea of cost.
The only people that seem to be using "gasohol" here are a few fleet vehicles (government and certain private companies) as they get some type of rebate for using it.


Oh let the sun beat down upon my face;
With stars to fill my dream;
I am a traveler of both time and space;
To be where I have been

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Originally posted by 1kiki:
If we had cellulosic ethanol from paper, lumber, or agricultural waste the overall cost v benefit of using ethanol would be a different story. If we had ethanol/ fuel cell vehicles it would be a different story. But using ethanol for 'energy independence' is a policy that needs to be changed.

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Originally posted by 1kiki:
How many want to close their eyes, ears, and minds and believe that 1.5 gallons of ethanol produces less pollutants than 1 gallon of gasoline?

It results in less carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxides - both pollutants.

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Originally posted by 1kiki:
produces less pollutants

Oh, you didn't mean POLLUTANTS! You were just thinking of ONE pollutant! Silly me to respond to ignorance with real information.

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Originally posted by 1kiki:

Your reference:

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Ethanol combustion in an internal combustion engine yields many of the products of incomplete combustion produced by gasoline and significantly larger amounts of formaldehyde and related species such as acetaldehyde.(30) This leads to a significantly larger photochemical reactivity that generates much more ground level ozone.(31) These data have been assembled into The Clean Fuels Report comparison of fuel emissions(32) and show that ethanol exhaust generates 2.14 times as much ozone as does gasoline exhaust.(citation needed)


30 California Air Resources Board, Definition of a Low Emission Motor Vehicle in Compliance with the Mandates of Health and Safety Code Section 39037.05, second release, October 1989
31 Lowi, A. and Carter, W.P.L. (March 1990) "A Method for Evaluating the Atmospheric Ozone Impact of Actual Vehicle emissions", S.A.E. - Society of Automotive Engineers - Technical Paper, Warrendale, PA.

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One credible reference - the CARB - indicates more formaldehyde and acetaldehyde. A NOT credible reference - the SAE - claims that that leads to more ozone. And the figure - that ethanol by itself as the only fuel leads to 2.14x more ozone - is unreferenced. Not a very solid foundation for your argument...

Meanwhile

Proper catalysts neutralize CO from gasoline combustion.

Not entirely, which is why the South Coast Air Quality Management District was able to bring the region into compliance with USEPA ambient CO (carbon monoxide) * level standards, WITHOUT INCREASING OZONE, by switching to an alcohol/ gasoline blend in winter.

* Carbon monoxide is designated a priority pollutant by the USEPA, along with ozone, particulate matter, nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide and lead. http://www.epa.gov/oaqps001/urbanair/

Ethanol, when used properly, reduces 4 priority pollutants: carbon monoxide, ozone, particulate matter, and nitrogen oxides (reference in previous post).

Particulate matter - especially fine particulate matter, is associated with decreased lung and brain volume in infants and children, asthma, stroke, heart attack, and overall adult mortality. (FAR too many references to list! If you have an interest - and I guarantee you don't - simply google "fine particulate matter" and those health effects.)


Ethanol blended with gasoline as a fuel is a vital tool to reduce 4 (out of 6) USEPA priority air pollutants that have permanent and devastating health effects on people.

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According to Jacobson, burning ethanol adds 22 percent more hydrocarbons to the atmosphere than does burning gasoline and this would lead to a nearly two parts per billion increase in tropospheric ozone. This surface ozone, which has been linked to inflamed lungs, impaired immune systems and heart disease by prior research, would in turn lead to a 4 percent increase in the number of ground level ozone-related deaths, or roughly 200 extra deaths a year. "Due to its ozone effects, future E85 may be a greater overall public health risk than gasoline," Jacobson writes in the study published in Environmental Science & Technology. "It can be concluded with confidence only that E85 is unlikely to improve air quality over future gasoline vehicles."

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Originally posted by jewelstaitefan:
Somewhere in this thread I must have mentioned pollution.


Does anybody believe that ethanol or gasahol produces LESS air pollution, specifically greenhouse gas emissions, than real gasoline?

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