enforcer

After reading this, why would anyone use E10....and I hope no-one has...

"A fuel-efficiency showdown between the three most-popular types of petrol on the market concludes the ethanol blend will cost you more in the long run and may not even help the environment. Ethanol-blend fuels are about three cents a litre cheaper than regular unleaded at the pump but Drive found bills are higher overall because it burns less efficiently.

Drive put the three fuels to the test, driving three identical Toyota Camrys more than 2000 kilometres in a range of conditions to see which fuel drives your dollar further. The E10-fuelled Camry in the test cost $276.55 to run, while the regular unleaded version cost $271.56 and the premium unleaded fuel version, which cost, on average, 15 cents a litre more than E10, cost $285.54. Had we used thirstier six-cylinder cars or less-efficient used cars, the equation would probably have strengthened further in favour of unleaded and premium fuel."

http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/news...585154588.html

2SeeKU

iTrader: (1)

I'm not suprised. I've always felt premium lasted that little bit longer, not to mention it's supposed to be better for the car.

matt13b

I tried that 100 octane fuel from Shell and found that i was getting even worse economy than usual so I went back to 98 non-ethanol. I was getting between 20-30km's less per tank with the ethanol blend..Ive also heard that while most cars can handle an E10 fuel it isn't very good for your car(fuel lines etc.)..

Flashwing

The whole notion of using ethanol blended into regular gasoline is just a really bad idea. Besides the absolute waste of resources required to make the stuff it clearly lowers the overall energy in gasoline cause it takes more ethanol to do the same job.

There are a few studies backing up the OP's statement that it can actually cause more harm to the environment. Another idea that sounded good on paper but sucks in practice.

Sadly, pretty much everywhere here in the US you get some kind of blending in the fuel. If you can find ethanol free gasoline I'd use it for sure!

auzoom

I remember reading somewhere that the carbon footprint of producing a litre of ethanol (growing, refining, etc) and a litre of petroleum fuel are about the same. Only issue is that another study showed that to produce 20% of the Diesel required by the EU from Bio sources would utilise the entire crop space of the United Kingdom. Point is that Ethanol is great when you consider we are running out of crude oil, but we have enough problems feeding everyone now, let alone if we turn all our crop space to fuel.

Spend the time on hydrogen or better yet, go look up algae and diesel...very cool imho. It can be produced using land that no one wants (Swampy, briney coastal land) and uses large amounts of Carbon dioxide in its production (thats a good thing!). Read about it here.

Cheers

Andrew

Flashwing

I can't speak about the "carbon footprint" but in the case of ethanol it's been well documented it takes more energy to make it than it produces. Large amounts of water, a crop source, and the stuff has to be transported by tanker truck instead of pipeline.

Ethanol free gas is the way to go!

DMRH

Dont bother flaming me as I get my E-10 for free

Caltex rate their E-10 as 94-RON (marketed as 91-ron) & as such suitable for the RX-8 (see below list from Caltex web site)

Reality finds our 4AT version does "ping" a little in the 5000rpm ping-zone using this fuel. However, I think thats from the extra carbon build up from the wifes "putt putt" driving style. I also note the range per tank has dropped by an easy 10% - 20% but as stated above, we get our fuel for free.

Caltex web site Mazda listing.............

Mazda2 - May 2005 build onwards, Mazda3, Mazda6, RX-8, MX-5 – July 2005 build onwards, Tribute - April 2006 onwards, CX-7, CX-9
E10 Suitable = Yes

REgards

thisllub

I use E-10 95 RON all the time.
It is up to 15 cents a litre cheaper than 95 premium.
I haven't noticed any loss in range at all and the car performs better with it than 91 RON non-ethanol fuel.


Claims that it is a waste of resources to produce ethanol are ridiculous and they usually come from second hand abuse of statistics from green groups.
Similar claims are made for beef.
I have about 40 cattle and 120 acres.
The average rainfall here is 1600mm
Therefore if I sell all my cattle at 200kg dressed I use about 95000 litres of water to produce each kilogram of beef.
However if I only have half the cattle I take 190000 litres per kg.
See how stupid it is?
The rain falls on the land whether I grow cattle or weeds.

Renewable fuel production is just as valid as producing food.

labrat

I didn't know the greenies were against ethanol production. There are quite a few non-green conservatives like me who think that it's a dumb idea as well. In Australia, it's just to keep the cane farmers happy, and give Labor a chance of keeping cane seats in parliament, while giving the pollies the opportunity to spread a bulshit green message around. If you do a total energy balance from the time you plant the cane, right through harvesting, making the sugar, fermenting and producing it and then burning it in a car, then you're looking about the same cost and carbon footprint as producing and burning the real stuff. Note "total energy balance" means ALL energy inputs have to be included, including the diesel that goes into the tractor to plough the fields and harvest the cane, as well as the energy used in making the fertilizers and the pesticides.

The findings of "Drive" aren't surprising. As a chemist, I've done the math myself, and ethanol doesn't produce as much heat as gasoline, and heat = energy, and that's what drives the car. Less energy per litre means more litres of fuel to obtain the same power output. That's what Drive found.

Note "octane" rating refers to the anti-knock characteristics of the fuel, which may or may not be related to the specific energy content, depending on what you use to obtain that octane level.

My information is that you shouldn't allow rotaries to ping or knock, ever. Knocking causes physical damage to regular motors as well, and shortens their lives. I'm sticking with 98 or 95 RON, without ethanol in it. I'm not in a position to change my car over whenever I feel like it, so I'm doing my best to keep it in the best shape possible so that it lasts as long as possible.

Revolver

What?! No burnouts in the lab carpark?

Seriously, I've read some reports on this as well in a few current affair journals and they all pretty much agreed with what Labby is saying. I personally think ethanol is a poor substitute, which has been politically driven. Hydrogen seems to be a better long term solution and I'm sure if they keep throwing money and time at it they'll iron out the current pitfalls. Mazda may be very glad it has persisted with it.

thisllub

After your second sentence everything above is wrong. I will give you the facts and you can easily verify them. I have a background in chemistry too.
John Howard set up the ethanol subsidy in 2003 at the behest of his good friend and benefactor Dick Honan from Manildra who donated over $300000 per year to the coalition cause.
Mind you Labor haven't missed out. Since they were elected he in now funding them at a similar rate. We do have the best politicians than money can buy.

With regard to the carbon footprint of ethanol read the following article.
http://www.carbohydrateeconomy.org/l...a_Gallon_.html

Therefore for each unit of energy from ethanol there must be a lower carbon footprint than gasoline as all of the carbon in the ethanol comes from plants.

If you look at the table here you will see a chart of significant greenhouse gas savings from the use of ethanol as fuel.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol_fuel

As a chemist you should know the difference between heat and energy per mole.
Although ethanol has less energy per mole than petrol it actually burns hotter.

I agree with this except that I am not afraid of ethanol. When 95RON E10 is 20% cheaper than 95RON unleaded I consider it a no brainer. I never put 91 RON E10 in the car.
I suspect that as the engine works better with 95RON fuel it may be why I see very little difference in fuel consumption.
I have found big differences in mileage with different fuels in some cars and few with others.
I had a 95 Ford that would do 9 l/100km on premium on a long trip and a 98 Mitsubishi that used more than 13 whatever you put in it.
The Mazda seems to get about 12.5 all the time.

auzoom

So you would rather grow the crops so you can drive your tractor which helps grow your crops which drive your tractor! The debate about energy output aside, it is unfeasible to go down the path of an energy source that takes away from food. We can barely feed the world as it is, imagine if we wanted to divert all our crop space to fuel production.

The one quote I have to laugh at is this one What is this being compared to? or is this the usual one sided marketing?

Cheers

Andrew

labrat

I know no such thing. Heat is energy, period. Using data from the CRC Handbook and writing the equations assuming complete combustion, I calculate that the heat of combustion for ethanol is -1234.8 kJ/mol, or -26.8kJ/g, or ~34kJ/mL. In contrast, using iso-octane as the model for petrol, the heat of combustion is -5104.2kJ/mol or -44.7kJ/g or -65kJ/mL, making the appropriate corrections for density. On a volume basis, which is what you pay out of the bowser, the operative comparison figures are 34 for ethanol compared to 65 for petrol. Clearly, you get much more heat and energy out of petrol than ethanol. Thus for a 10% ethanol blend, you'll get approximately 5% less energy out of a litre of fuel. This is more or less what the empirical Drive tests show. Shell claims a generalof a 3.5% loss in fuel economy for E10 fuels, which is more or less in line with my calculations.

Ethanol-based fuels are also more hygroscopic (moisture-absorbing) than pure hydrocarbon fuels, and therefore more susceptible to contamination, especially in poorly maintained service stations. The problem of phase separation with bugs growing at the fuel-water interface is well known.

I realize that Mazda has sanctioned the RX-8 for use with E10 fuels, and that E10 is 98 RON, however, I'm not sure whether Mazda was subject to any arm-twisting on this subject by government or how much actual long-term testing they've done on the RX-8.

As always in these things, caveat emptor.

Revolver

Reasoned, principled debate backed up with references, facts and figures!

I think I need a little lie down to recover from the shock...

To be honest guys, I doubt anyone really yet knows accurate answers to some of these bigger questions (e.g. carbon footprints, is it a longterm viable alternative, is it more energy efficient to use something else). I certainly wouldn't trust what I've read but it is a debate which has to occur and I hope the pollies get it right...for all our sakes...

thisllub

I don't dispute that ethanol contains less energy per unit but don't agree with your definition of heat.
Heat is a flow of energy to do work.
To state the obvious;
In an internal combustion engine that is the burning of a fuel in oxygen to produce a hot gas. The expansion of this gas is the method of energy transfer from fuel to the vehicle.
The key factor here is the conversion of fuel and air to hot expanding gas. Ethanol causes a hotter more expanded gas than gasoline despite needing more molecules to do so.
Methanol works even better at this despite needing an even higher fuel / air mix.
That is why it is used in race cars.

I guess that is something we will find out over time.

I base the decision on economics vs supply. In a small town that can be significant.
The local independent E10 fuel is currently 86 cents per litre. 91 RON at the major up the road is a full 10 cents more expensive and I expect their 98 RON to be around the $1.15 mark at least.

rotarenvy

I have tried e10 blends in both the rx-8 and a turbo astra. the lack of mileage is evident in both. The rx-8 was indifferent to it but the turbo astra is a little animal running on it! it gets better performance from it. can't say why: maybe it's the added cooling when it's injected, maybe it leans out the mixtures a bit. which ever way it's good stuff and way better than using higher octane fuels.