re: Hidden Costs of Ethanol Fuel: Not What it's Cracked Up to Be

Voltaire — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 15:04:35 GMT

There is a way to use Ethanol to help clean the environment and save some money on auto fuel expenses.

Ask Your mechanic First!

Where I live, E-85 is 2.59 a gallon. Regular pump gasoline is currently 2.99 to 3.09 a gallon. If you drive an auto made after 1987, and have decent rubber fuel line connections and a newer fuel filter, You could add one gallon of E-85 when You fill your tank.

Add one more gallon E-85 to each subsequent fill up until you are buying equal amounts of Pump gas and E-85. You will be saving a good 25 cents a gallon and with a 50/50 mix, You will be polluting the air You breathe less too. Engines pollute far less on a higher concentration of Ethanol to pump gas.

Adding one gallon of E-85 to your tank is only making standard pump gas that has 5 to 10 percent Ethanol a bit closer to 10 to 15% Ethanol. Adding a little more each time You fill up slowly cleans up Your fuel system and should prevent your fuel filter from clogging up. That is why you slowly increase the Ethanol concentration.

If you drive a vehicle that requires Hi Test or Supreme gasoline, making a 50/50 mix of regular pump gas and E-85 will raise the octane level and You would be saving even more money.

Some vehicles are 100% E-85 compatible starting in about 1998, but it is not widely known.

Your vehicle may already be 100% E-85 compatible, there is a list below since auto manufacturers don't tout E-85.

www.e85fuel.com/.../flexfuelvehicles.php

re: Hidden Costs of Ethanol Fuel: Not What it's Cracked Up to Be

Voltaire — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 07:20:35 GMT

I like win-win solutions that heal the environment.

The problem is not Ethanol, but monoculture as a farming practice when applied to corn Ethanol production.

Give Ethanol a place to work where it does not use up prime crop land or even ag land.

Grow cattails on marginal land or even empty gravel pits, using primary treated sewage. The cattails absorb nitrates, phosphates, other minerals and (undigested vitamins) in sewage. A man made 35 acre cattail marsh can process 5 million gallons of sewage a day and water coming out the end is treated to tertiary treatment levels. Dead zones in the ocean could be a thing of the past as well.

Guess how much Ethanol and Methane Sewage plants could fertilize? 150 billion gallons net, on less than 1.5 % of land area.

That is enough to power every piston powered vehicle in the US, including piston powered aircraft. This concept is the brain child of Permaculturist David Blume, author of "Alcohol Can Be a Gas"

Health concerns with Ethanol? There are pollution reductions of over 90% by switching from Gasoline to Ethanol.

Gasoline is actually a waste product, You get different cancer causing compounds out of the average gal. of gas every time you buy it. Benzine, cyclopentane, waste pesticides, etc. Every bit that escapes into the environment can cause Health problems.

Corn is only slightly energy positive making about 320 gallons per acre of dryland corn.

Fodder Beets or Sorghum can make for 1000 gallons Ethanol per acre.

Ethanol from Cattails is at least 7500 gallons net per acre in Ethanol at 2500 gal. and 5000 gal. net as methane.

No genetic engineered bugs that might destroy the environment are needed either. No fertilizer inputs needed, no pesticides needed.