Discuss Detroit » Archives - Beginning January 2006 » E85 Fuel and the affects to the Metro Area « Previous Next »
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Digitaldom
Member
Username: Digitaldom

Post Number: 427
Registered: 08-2004
Posted From: 69.14.238.105
Posted on Monday, February 13, 2006 - 11:55 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

For those that do not know what I am talking about let me explain. This is a new fuel that our local GM motor company is producing cars to support.. High-Level it's 85% Ethanol produced from Corn here in the US and 15% Oil. This could be a huge boost to the local farming communities and Metro Detroit in the Engineering.. I urge you to research and comment on this new technology. It will definitely help alot of farmers in our area along with our own economy. For more details visit www.e75fuel.com.

Here's my letter to local congress officials

To whom it may concern,

I was wondering why you have not supported the Bill E-85 Fuel Utilization and Infrastructure Development Incentives Act of 2005 to further enhance our ability to avoid foreign oil imports. I realize this is a very heated topic, but the US one way or another needs to get away from foreign oil dependance. This is one step to ensure that future. Many of our wars lately are being fought due to oil security. You may not admit it, but I know this is the truth.

This legislation along with many others will promote farmers to produce more crops helping the average farmer and your voter base in Michigan.

Many farmers in Macomb County, Michigan are selling out to developers which is hurting the farming industry and local communities that do NOT want these subdivisions to go up. I realize some communities are greedy waiting for the tax money to roll-in. But consideration is not being taken in the lack of infrastructure to support these developments. We have a very great urban sprawl issue here in the Metro Detroit Area.

Supporting this bill and others like it may in fact entice some of these farmers to continue growing crops and increase there profit enabling them to stay in business.

The future may not entirely on flex-fuel technology but it's a start, and it DOES support local farmers across the US. Not foreign terrorist who get there money from oil.

I do realize that the E85 fuel has one big downside, and that is fuel economy, but I am sure technology, tax breaks, and the reduction of war budget to protect oil assests will make this a good profitable endeavor.

Look at the example of Brazil, which can now produce it's own fuel without foreign oil dependance. They are ahead of the curve.

The advantages to E85 are great including lower car emissions which can help the Detroit Metro Area Reduce pollution.

Please consider supporting this legislation.

This issue of foreign oil literally has caused the war in Iraq and otherwise... But keep in mind that not the intention of my post.

Otherwise I would have posted this on a different forum. This being the motor city we all need to come together to support something even GM is supporting E85. This will help our local economy by supporting GM cars built in America
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Rberlin
Member
Username: Rberlin

Post Number: 364
Registered: 06-2005
Posted From: 69.208.252.142
Posted on Tuesday, February 14, 2006 - 2:26 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

E85 from corn doesn't really save much fuel. Big debate about whether or not it actually costs more oil to make than just using the oil in the first place. E85 from grass or sugar cane is the way to go, I think Brazil was able to cut its foreign oil imports by half due to their ability to use sugar cane. As far a performance goes, ethanol only really loses performance in flex fuel cars because ethanol runs more efficiently at higher compression ratios than gasoline. I think Saab has a car out that uses a turbocharger tuned to the amount of ethanol in the car to make more power than it would be able to run on just gasoline alone. Tune a car to run on E85 alone, and you can get much better performance than you could with gasoline.

What I really like is bio-diesel. More efficient than gas/E85 and Michigan produces a hell of a lot of soybeans. I just wish a domestic made a good small displacement turbo diesel. Not a Liberty though, for some reason I find them to be very ugly.
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Livernoisyard
Member
Username: Livernoisyard

Post Number: 50
Registered: 10-2004
Posted From: 69.242.223.42
Posted on Tuesday, February 14, 2006 - 3:08 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Due to an azeotrope, regular distillation of ethanol is limited to a mixture of only 94% ethanol/6% water. So, some changes to the distillation process are needed to produce anhydrous alcohol.

In any event, the considerable energy costs to produce ethanol need to be considered - its growing, harvesting, and distillation. When I studied chemical engineering at the University of Wisconsin - I had a hand at distilling ethanol during the mandatory summer lab there. UW has a 5-story+ high fractioning tower with some 75 taps within its major building on the engineering campus.
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Motorcity
Member
Username: Motorcity

Post Number: 20
Registered: 12-2003
Posted From: 167.236.0.61
Posted on Tuesday, February 14, 2006 - 10:05 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Michigan is also a major sugar beet producer. They produce about twice the energy per acre as corn does and the fermentation process is simpler but less well researched than corn. If we are going to get serious about E85, the US will need to drop tariffs on imported sugar from Brazil and Michigan's sugar beet growers will need to step up to Ethanol.
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Rberlin
Member
Username: Rberlin

Post Number: 365
Registered: 06-2005
Posted From: 69.208.252.142
Posted on Tuesday, February 14, 2006 - 10:24 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I was wondering about sugar beets. Assuming the US drops the sugar tariffs from all the Bay City sugar related work will disappear overnight. But if we can turn that production towards ethanol, especially since I thought they were building two new distilling plants in the thumb, we might be able to save our Saginaw area agriculture without changing it too much. I can only imagine the havoc to the economy with all those farmers having to learn new rotations.
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Hornwrecker
Member
Username: Hornwrecker

Post Number: 813
Registered: 04-2005
Posted From: 63.41.8.48
Posted on Tuesday, February 14, 2006 - 1:06 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Here's a link to E85 station locations in MI, all four of them. Not really convenient at this time.

E85 in MI
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Toolbox
Member
Username: Toolbox

Post Number: 836
Registered: 10-2003
Posted From: 66.184.29.148
Posted on Wednesday, February 15, 2006 - 2:01 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)


quote:

E85 article from Detroit News.

The big problem is that ethanol, like other alternatives to good ol' gasoline, is no silver bullet. The first issue is that ethanol is energy intensive to produce, more so than gasoline, according to some experts. And more important , the fuel is less energy dense than gasoline, so that a gallon will cover about 30 percent fewer miles......

Then there is the question of finding ethanol; in our neck of the woods it's going to be a rare sight........




Still a bigger fan of diesel.
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Bvos
Member
Username: Bvos

Post Number: 1170
Registered: 10-2003
Posted From: 69.212.49.239
Posted on Wednesday, February 15, 2006 - 10:53 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I'm glad no one has stated that ethanol is environmentally friendlier. Its only redeeming environmental value is that it is a renewable energy source. The production of ethanol through distillation alone creates as much pollution as the refining of gasoline. Add to that the fact that ethanol cars get poorer gas mileage and there isn't much environmental value from an air pollution standpoint.

The only hope that ethanol can become an environmentally friendly(er) fuel source is if scientists are able to figure out a way to create large sums of it through cellular methods.

Baring a major breakthrough in that area, my money's on biodiesel as well.

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