Ethanol-powered Saab diesel on display in Sweden

By chris #1, Posted: 5/22/2008

Sold. ok so why is it that ford, Gm, and chrysler all have diesel tech (yes i know they all buy their diesels from some one else, but they can still do it themselves.. ford is going to do its own diesel soon)... but we aren't using this technology?

I assume this comes from the spark-less, high compression ignition, which is in the works for gasoline but evidently, very real and current technology in ethanol.

yeah yeah yeah.. blah blah.. food shortage.. what ever. people dont need to eat. if we can get even better than diesel mileage out of a car running ethanol... then lets do it.

By Gus #2, Posted: 5/22/2008

Agreed.
This bio-ethanol, especially if and when cellulosic ethanol becomes perfected, will be the cure for most of what ails us.

By chris #3, Posted: 5/22/2008

oh god, dont even bring cellulosic into this. That really is the key right there. I think with all of the "subsidizing" that the fed is doing right now to sell E85 on the public... well all of that money should be spent funding research into Genetically Modified microbes that will actually be able to return something decent on cellulosic.

you're growing the food already, and most of the plant matter isn't edible.. so convert it into fuel. farmers will be the 21st century oil barrons.

If we can ditch gasoline for ethanol, like leaded was ditched for unleaded the last time we went for an eco craze, then the auto manufacturers would have no problem making some flex fuel vehicles now, and then getting crazy CAFE ratings with high compression, sparkless ethanol.

By Jake #4, Posted: 5/22/2008

Something wrong here. 95% CO2 emissions? 95%???
I demand to see a link to support this, otherwise I call typo...

By burke #5, Posted: 5/22/2008

....The cure? Ethanol (E-85) powered cars? Another bluff, if you asked me, at least here in the "states". The other day I stopped in a gas station that was saling E-85 and here was the price: $3.43/gal vs. $3.73/galon of regular gas (about 2 weeks ago)...Does this make sense? I guess it makes the same sense as diesel prices a lot higher than gasoline prices...
I hear that E-85 is corn based alcohol, whose production is inefficient compared to a sugar based alcohol, which is very cheap...Gas stations are becoming notorious for all the nonsense that takes place there! Finally, I think that as long as the same brand names control the production and distribution of gas, the cure is never going to come from a gas station.

By Gus #6, Posted: 5/22/2008

E85 from cellulosic ethanol makes sense in every way, but corn based ethanol does not, simply because it still takes more energy to make than it produces.
And since E85 gets worse mileage than the equivilant gasoline amount, the price needs to be much lower to make sense to the buyer...

By David #7, Posted: 5/23/2008

Don't confuse E85 which is 15% gasoline with E95 which is a diesel substitute containing 95% Ethanol and 5% ignition improver (mostly water actually). And I guess that the 95% lower emissions doesn't refer to any well-to-wheels assesment. Anyway I think it is nice to see a car running on ethanol getting these kinds of mpgs, usually reserved for cars running on diesel. By the way, Scania (which used to be the same company as SAAB) has been using E95 in their busses for some years.

By chris #8, Posted: 5/23/2008

burke, just like gus touched upon, cellulosic ethanol would use everything that you dont eat. corn stalks, leaves, husks, soy plant waste, you name it. anything that is green and you dont eat (which for corn ends up being like 95% of the mass of the plant itself), can be broken down by bacteria and converted into alcohol.

alcohol, literally, the same kind that you drink.. can be made by any kind of "food". plant waste, corn kernels (most of the E85 you buy is from that), sugar cane, sugar beats, potatos, potato skins, alovera, cacti, plankton,... anything. if you have a good enough nose, you can smell alcohol production in your composter.

the reason why E85 is so cheap is because, like gus said, it doesnt work well in low compression "gasoline-flex" engines.. so the government subsidizes the hell out of it. it actually costs more than gasoline, but the government wants you to go green, and to help out the nations farmers, increase domestic industry, you name it. so they subsidize it until its actually worth it for many people to buy a flex car and actually buy the gas.

to be specific, really, ethanol is used in a lot of racing. it burns much better than gasoline, much more pure of a burn, and it doesnt transfer heat to the engine as much as gasoline. it tends to "explode" more than "burn". but those engines are developed specifically for high compression where alcohol works the best. converting diesel engines into ethanol burners only makes sense.

but the point about cellulosic ethanol is, the world needs food. simple as that. and most of the plant matter we grow, we dont eat. if we could get bacteria to eat that waste for us, and convert it into a fuel (ethanol, or drinking alcohol as its better known as) then we're literally getting automotive fuel,... for free. the plant waste was just going to rot in the fields anyways.. might as well put it to good use.

the problem is that cellulosic ethanol is hard to produce right now because a bacterium that can eat it doesnt really exist yet. they exist, but they don't convert it into alcohol..so you would need a second step to break down into alcohol.. which isn't profitable, so it isnt done on an industrial scale yet. as soon as they find a bacteria that can break down the cellulose and turn it into alcohol in one step, and quickly, preferably consuming as little water as possible, then you'll see the imminent death of gasoline, and like david said, possibly diesel as well.

By Jake #9, Posted: 5/23/2008

That's why I think the article refers to 95% CO reductions, not CO2...

By Tonto #10, Posted: 5/23/2008

The Brazilians have been producing automotive Ethanol since 1975, and they’ve been making it out of Sugar Cane instead of precious Corn. Since 2003 they’ve had cars that are truly “flex-fuel” that can run on pure Ethanol, or pure Gasoline or any mix of the two.
Since 2006, 80% of all new cars sold in Brazil are Flex-Fuel.

Brazil is the world largest producer, and exporter of Ethanol whose 4th largest customer is Sweden, just after South Korea, and the U.S. With Brazil’s favorable weather/climate, and years of experience they’ve become the experts in this renewable fuel. Their Ethanol production factories are self sufficient where they use the whole Sugar Cane. The dried out husk fire the boilers, and the excess heat is used to power steam electrical generators. Even the smell in the air at the plant is like sweet molasses.

There are a few warm places in the U.S. and it would be nice to see what kind of Ethanol production from Sugar Cane the U.S. can produce on its own.