Date: Tue, 22 May 2007 10:33:22 -0600
Reply-To: "John Connolly, Aircooled.Net" <john@AIRCOOLED.NET>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: "John Connolly, Aircooled.Net" <john@AIRCOOLED.NET>
Subject: Re: politics of e85 RE: E85 in vanagons
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
I have run E85 for almost 2 years in 2 of my cars, and have converted
several so know a bit about it.
I DO know that the jury is still out on it actually being "cleaner". Yes
it's cleaner THE WAY WE CURRENTLY MEASURE "EMMISIONS", but is it producing
more bad stuff we do not measure yet? As usual the morons in charge will
figure this out after spending hundreds of billions of $, and after a LOT of
committments have been made towards the new fuel. Or maybe they are doing
this on purpose so that they don't find out until it's too late, I don't
know.
But I think it's a huge mistake to assume that ethanol is cleaner just
because the way we measure the tailpipe says it's cleaner. This is an error
because it is
1) Only measuring the tailpipe. What emmisions are dispersed in the mfg of
the ethanol?
and
2) what bad stuff is coming out the tailpipe we aren't measuring yet?
John
Aircooled.Net Inc.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jim Akiba" <syncrolist@BOSTIG.COM>
To: <vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM>
Sent: Monday, May 21, 2007 3:53 PM
Subject: politics of e85 RE: E85 in vanagons
> Most of the softparts will be ok, the one I'm wondering about is the fuel
> pump, but we've found an e85 capable pump for $40 that can be had
nationwide
> just in case. Not sure about the plastic used for some parts etc.. remains
> to be seen on the stock boxer.
>
> The engine management for the stock boxer won't be able to compensate to
run
> e85 correctly, but it may run and might drive albeit very lean... question
> is will the cooling effect of the e85 help avoid detonation running so
lean?
> Not sure, but somebody should try it.
>
> You hit the nail on the head about the ethanol production. But not moving
to
> e85 isn't going to fight the battle you intend to engage in. Diesel is
being
> crippled through legislation in the US... unfortunately the big money guys
> can make more pushing ethanol, and keep costs lower, so all the new
> particulate emissions regs are killing light duty diesel infiltration...
low
> sulphur was supposed to open the floodgates for OEMS to bring in euro
light
> duty diesel, and now just in time for the low sulphur mandate to come into
> effect they clamp down hard on particulates, an even more expensive and
> currently complicated thing to curb in diesels.
>
> The best thing is that I'm aware of several large scale cellulosic ethanol
> plants, that are under production, but that don't know what process they
are
> going to use to make the ethanol... they are building the )@&$%@* plants
but
> haven't figured out the process yet... anyone puzzled? Me too. But just
> follow the money up the yes men until it breaks on a fat cat.
>
> IMHO Resisting ethanol is not the way to help the situation. And ethanol
> isn't the holy grail, but it's a start, it's got the money behind it, and
> it'll work for lot's of people's wallets now.. and it does burn much
> cleaner. My question would be under current production methods, what's the
> total emissions of the production of e85 vs gasoline given the energy
> density differences.
>
> The next thing that is going to happen to squash light duty diesels in the
> US is the combo of GDI and either combined cycles or hybrids along with
the
> e85. They will continue to creep closer to diesel mpgs as time goes on.
It's
> cheaper to make GDI engines than fit light duty diesels with 5 way ammonia
> or nox catalysts, unless there's a breakthrough, watch the BLUETEC
> initiative to see if it's going to happen. If it fails, or doesn't make
much
> money kiss your light duty diesel wishes goobye for the next 8 years
anyhow.
>
> Jim Akiba
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Matt Roberds [mailto:mattroberds@COX.NET]
> Sent: Monday, May 21, 2007 4:55 PM
> To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
> Subject: Re: E85 in vanagons
>
> > From: Adrian Bertarelli <abertarelli@GMAIL.COM>
> > Date: Mon, 21 May 2007 12:03:56 -0600
> >
> > I haven't seen this question asked so i thought just for the
> > discussion, what would it take to convert our stock engines to run
> > on e85.
>
> The first thing you have to do is make sure all the soft parts of the
> fuel system are compatible with E85. E85 will eat some kinds of rubber
> and plastic. Most newer hoses will be able to cope with at least E10,
> but E85 may be too much for them. Unfortunately most aftermarket
> suppliers won't know the answer to this question, so "fill it up and
> see what starts leaking" is sometimes used as a test method.
>
> If you do nothing else, the ECU will probably more or less deal with
> the different fuel. If you do want to twiddle something, things in the
> direction of making it run richer may help a little. E85 has less
> energy than gasoline, so your engine power will be down. If it's engine
> rebuild time, you can bump up the compression to get some of the power
> back. If you bump it up enough, though, you have to run premium gas if
> you're not running E85.
>
> If you like the _idea_ of E85 but the above makes you uneasy, there is
> something else you can do. Run regular gas in your van, but once a year,
> drive out into the countryside. Find a farmer and hand him a couple of
> hundred bucks, cash. This will achieve the same goals as E85 production
> without all that fooling around with corn and combines and trucks and
> refineries and stuff. By most accounts, ethanol from corn takes more
> energy to produce than you get back from burning the ethanol - a lot of
> the ethanol stuff is a way to subsidize farming without appearing to
> subsidize farming. Yes, I know you can get a net energy gain by using
> crops other than corn to make ethanol, but as far as I know, this is not
> done in the US.
>
> Biodiesel is _probably_ a net energy gain - you usually get more out
> than you put into it. I don't think there's enough farmland for the US
> to grow all of our fuel, but we can probably make a useful dent in what
> we import if we decide we really want to.
>
> The absolute sure-fire 100% guaranteed way to save money on gas is...
> drive less! :) Then, do all the things that you've heard about since
> 1974... make sure your tires are full of air, change your fuel and air
> filters regularly, keep your engine in good tune, drive sedately, etc.
> When it's time for another car, consider one of the hybrids or the newer
> common-rail-injection diesels. You will have to look in Tokyo and/or
> Wolfsburg; Detroit isn't interested in building efficient cars. In
> 2007, there's no reason why your "daily driver" sedan shouldn't average
> 45-50 mpg.
>
> Matt Roberds
>
> !DSPAM:46521603132291041711982!
>
>
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