Vehicles that run on alcohol (Ethanol?)

MrMike

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I THINK this is the right forum for this thread,

During my very short stay in Brazil I noticed alot of vehicles there run on alcohol, and since I was told that some alcohol powered vehicles had supplimentary gasoline for starting up I wonder if it wouldn't be too hard to convert a gasoline engine to run on alcohol and if this might help soften the impact of the current "energy crisis".

Is this what "Ethanol" is?

Can it really be made from sugar cane?

Can a regular vehicle be made to run on it without replacing the engine?

How would it compare price-wise to gasoline?

Does anyone know?
 

tgood1

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Most newer model Ford Explorers and some other vehicles will run on E-85 (Ethanol/Gas mix) Unfortunatley it is only available in a couple of states in the US. The auto makers build certain cars to run on it to meet environmental standards, but you can't buy it in most places.



MrMike said:
I THINK this is the right forum for this thread,

During my very short stay in Brazil I noticed alot of vehicles there run on alcohol, and since I was told that some alcohol powered vehicles had supplimentary gasoline for starting up I wonder if it wouldn't be too hard to convert a gasoline engine to run on alcohol and if this might help soften the impact of the current "energy crisis".

Is this what "Ethanol" is?

Can it really be made from sugar cane?

Can a regular vehicle be made to run on it without replacing the engine?

How would it compare price-wise to gasoline?

Does anyone know?
 
Ethanol

Commercial grade alcohol made from corn, can be made from sugar cane.

It actually takes more energy to make it than it produces, we have 3 plants here in Ontario Canada and gasoline is blended with ethanol. One thing though it is a renewable resource.
 

MICHIGANMICHAEL

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Dec 22, 2003
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energy produced

actually you receive about (it will get better) 3 to 1 ratio on ethanol, Brazil has it refined to almost 8-1 from cane as it is more concentrated than corn. It can be made as well from sugar beets (sweet potatoes). We are getting ready to build a plant in Louisiana (near Katrina) that will be sugar cane based. A new corn fed plant will begin being built here in Michigan this fall with capacity of about 50,000.000 gallons per year, that will require 118,000 acres of corn. (good for our farmers) Brazil has this down pat & will soon be able to say bye bye to the middle east. I wish we could say that!!!

MM
 

MrMike

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Windeguy, I think the idea of Ethanol taking more energy to make than it produces is not a direct reference to electricity but rather the general BTU's in terms of effort. I have spent a good portion of the morning looking into this on the internet and of course most of the information out there is provided by people with one of several possible axes to grind, but it does seem like a logical move and I cannot believe that as the technology develops it will continue to be so inefficient to produce. Gasoline in the DR and the cheapest Dominican rum are now close to the same price per gallon now, so if the volumes produced were equal it stands to reason that alcohol would finally be cheaper to produce than it is to import and refine gasoline. (which is hardly an effortless process either)

And indeed it does look like there are a lot of vehicles already on the road that can run on Ethanol, (they were designed this way out of foresight on the part of their manufacturers) and older cars with carburetors instead of fuel injection are relatively simple to convert, apparently.

The main problem seems to be that alcohol is a lot more corrosive than gasoline, and if the fuel system of a given vehicle is constructed with materials that cannot withstand the corrosive power of alcohol (like many plastics, and cork seals) then there could be significant problems resulting from filling your fuel tanks with alcohol.

I also discovered today that one of the hardcore geeks I subcontract repair work out that my shop can't handle has his house set up to run on a generator he converted to run on alcohol, for which he makes the alcohol himself with his own still and has in this way emancipated himself from the tyranny of EDNORTE.

There are still two reasons it is unlikely the use of alcohol will become widespread in the DR in the near future:

1) the government profits from Gasoline
2) the public transport mostly uses subsidized LP natural gas.

The government is much too dumb add 2 and 2 and realize that what they lose on gasoline they might save on LP natural gas by investing in Ethanol so enterprising individuals might benefit from Ethanol, but it is doubtful the DR as a country will.
 

Chris

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MrMike said:
I also discovered today that one of the hardcore geeks I subcontract repair work out that my shop can't handle has his house set up to run on a generator he converted to run on alcohol, for which he makes the alcohol himself with his own still and has in this way emancipated himself from the tyranny of EDNORTE.

I will pay this tech for this technology? How much? When, Where and How Soon! In the market for a still and for the alcohol! And the planta can have some too..
 

MrMike

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Chris said:
I will pay this tech for this technology? How much? When, Where and How Soon! In the market for a still and for the alcohol! And the planta can have some too..

Like all hardcore geeks he is highly undependable. He has promised to fix every broken thing I own at some point or other and so far they are all still waiting for him.

I keep upping the offer for him to get my satellite TV running but I still don't know how much he's holding out for. My useless dish just keeps collecting rainwater and mosquito larvae.

Your best bet is to talk to him yourself. Hang out in my store for about 2 days and he will be by.
 

MICHIGANMICHAEL

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it is an option

A good point Mr. Mike, as here gas is selling (as of this morning in Rochester, Mi) @$2.97-3.19 per gal. My e-85 station is at $2.87 per gal for the ethanol product. I am no expert, but have talked with the people that build these units (we have supplied nearly ALL the high temp insulations for the Archer Daniel Midland units), and the only drawback here is to let the farmers run with the corn growing. Problem here is: the US government governs that commodity, and subsidizes that market. MOST people do not realize that you can buy a Ford F-150 to a Mercedes E 320 that will run on Both fuels, and there is no additional cost in doing so (www.doe.gov). Dept of Energy only promotes what it is allowed to. Here in the states 2.7 gallons of ethanol can be produced from a bushel of corn, the other part is that really NOTHING is lost, as the "multch" left over is great for cattle feed with no extra proccessing. Brazil has as well done a good job in converting diesel to bio-diesel (20% up to 100% non petrol based oil) from Palm oil. US has the ability as well with vegetable or soybean oil. I should point out that this technology has been around for nearly a hundred years, but we have always enjoyed cheap oil. Times are gonna change!!!!!!!!! But I like Chris' thought that...yes, it is almost as simple as a stil, but for multiple purposes.
MM
 

m65swede

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Here in my home state of Illinois, all gas stations offer 10% ethanol blends. These 10% blends will run successfully in any gas powered engine and give performance about equal to pure gasoline.

The newer E85 blend is currently priced about $0.50 per gallon less than regular gasoline at local stations. It really should be cheaper than that; lots of price gouging going on. Corn prices have been around $2.00 per bushel and are projected to remain about the same in the near future.

I would think that the DR could use sugar cane to produce ethanol but it would be wise to also give serious thought to developing a bio-diesel program.

Swede