Where can I get Ethanol Free Fuel? Because everywhere I go to gas up has signs that say “May Contain up to 10% Ethanol”. I just want good old fashioned Gasoline. Where can I get that anymore?
Here’s the deal… Ethanol sucks. It’s bad for your engines. My motorcycles and my previous motorcycles all said don’t use Ethanol as it will ruin your engines, your fuel lines, and will rape kittens. Another reason I don’t like it, it doesn’t feel as powerful as good old Gas does. I don’t get the same pick up and go. And I don’t get the same MPG. Not a huge difference, but the difference is there and it’s irritating. To me, it’s just irritating and I don’t like it. Why does it feel this way? Because Ethanol has 1/3 less energy than petroleum… so to develop the same amount of power, you have to burn 1/3 more of it. Does this sound like an efficient fuel? No. It isn’t. It also grabs and holds water, furthering problems inside the engine. Not to mention the fact that it takes 10 gallons of fuel to produce 1 gallon of Ethanol. And we mix 10% into our fuel? This is a stupid waste. Especially when our Government subsidizes 3 Billion a Year of Ethanol, because it’s expensive to make. Don’t believe me? READ THIS. Just Google Ethanol and spend a week reading about all the bullshit having to do with Ethanol just so Politicians can get Corn Farmer Votes. Those are some expensive damn votes.
Here’s another reason to not like Ethanol. It’s made of Corn. Government Subsidized Corn. That alone is a whole other issue I’m not touching right now…. but we’re using corn for fuel. Corn feeds us. It feeds our Cattle, which in turn feeds us. We EAT corn. We live on Corn. But we are taking crops of Corn and converting it to Ethanol. This has a side effect. Let me break it down for you as simple as possible so those in Eugene Oregon will understand. Beef prices are at an all time high. Food is getting more expensive… Because we’re freaking turning it into Ethanol. Cattle Feed is Corn, Corn is used for Fuel, and now Cattle Feed is more expensive, now beef is more expensive. See how that works? Now, you can’t say just eat chicken… Because Chicken Feed is also Corn!
Now our incredibly fucking brilliant President says that we need to raise beef prices to protect Ethanol… something we shouldn’t be using anyways! Motherfucker! This man is batshit insane! We need to get away from Ethanol. We need the Politicians to stay away from our Food and Fuel. Fuel prices are high because of them. Their mandated regulations and differential formulas have driven prices through the roof. Blame oil companies? They make 10 cents on a gallon. Go look up how much the government makes. That’s one reason. The other reason is that their regulations have forced the oil companies to produce not just 3 formulations of gasoline (Regular, Midgrade, and Premium) but hundred of different formulations for different regions of the country. Sure, there are Winter and Summer blends, but how about we let the Oil Companies and Auto Industry decide what’s best to run in our engines instead of the Village Idiots we send to Washington?
For any liberal vegans out there reading this (*BWHAHAHAHA, yeah right*), high corn prices in the USA also adversely affect the poor of Latin American countries like Mexico. Their diet consists largely of tortillas made using corn from the USA.
It is such an inanely stupid idea to burn food stocks as fuel for vehicles. And, let’s not get into the environmental harm that ethanol causes (increased ozone emissions and reduced fuel economy).
“It is such an inanely stupid idea to burn food stocks as fuel for vehicles.”
Been saying that for a while. Whose bright idea was that to begin with?
Morons.
I’m all with you on ethanol being stupid. Entirely a PR product with huge downsides and no upsides. To be fair though gasoline is practically a food stock too. Everything that goes into those fields is either propelled by (water, harvesters, ect.) or made from (pesticides, fertilizer) petroleum. We’re well and truly fracked.
There are a few stations that provide no ethanol few and far between but there is an app for that (lol)
Closest station is 2 hours. Dang.
luckily ethanol free gas is available at several stations close to me and that’s all I use
Ogre, your math is off. If ethanol has 33% less power per gallon, you need to burn 50% more of it to get the same amount as 1 gallon of gas.
Using simple numbers, not actual values:
If one gallon gas= 9 units energy.
That means one gallon of ethanol has 6 units of energy.
Which means you have to burn 1.5 gallons of ethanol to get same amount of energy as one gallon gas.
Oh… I stand corrected. Ethanol is not as good as I made it out to be.
Keep in mind though that the gasoline dispensed contains “up to 10% ethanol”. To have the same BTU’s it will take about 10.5 “units” of gas by the math above to equal the same amount of BTUs in a all gas formula.
With 68% of the US under drought conditions it is predicted there is going to a real shortage of corn and soy beans. Beef prices are already up because of that. Now would be an excellent time to kill of the ethanol programs. Which won’t happen because of the twin conditions of rabid enviro’s and greedy crony agriculture companies.
This is very true. The drought has effected us out here big time. It’s effected wildlife a lot. We’re not expected a great hunting season because of it.
I’m a farmer and I hear the complaints and rebuttal all the time. Bottom line-customers should be able to buy what they want (but of course that doesn’t happen for guns, healthcare, drugs, or food). Ethanol is there because it burns cleaner and helps cars and cities meet clean air standards. The corn grower associations rightly convinced the government it was safer than methanol. Listen closely right here: any study you see saying that ethanol production is not cost effective is lying. Those stats come from studies in the 70’s where the books were cooked. Does ethanol contain less energy? Yes. Somehow, current research shows that of a handful of different vehicles tested all had improved mileage over straight gasoline when ethanol was added at 15-20% rates ,depending on the vehicle. Curious if true.
So why is corn in everything from fuel to plastic? Because our brilliant President Carter placed an embargo on our grain exports. We were no longer a supplier to be trusted. Our markets collapsed while the rest of the world geared up to replace us in the world markets.The government liked the idea of cheap food (happy constituents), so government policy was always to over-produce. Cheap food required assistance to keep farmers in business as the cost to produce was higher than the market price.No free markets here. Food wasn’t as cheap as you thought, now was it?. Producer groups seached for ways to use the glut and ethanol was a huge success. Once again the market has started to set prices, poor farmers are free to fail, and my standard of living is not based on a government “safety net”.
Droughts happen, but the best cure for high prices is high prices. Compressed natural gas is coming so I think ethanol has reached its peak. Government payments are tiny compared to the past and consist mainly of reduced rate revenue insurance for those who wish to buy it. Meanwhile, farmers don’t get rich on corn they don’t have to sell, but next year will come.
Ogre, no one cares about the farm vote at less than 2% of the population, but a lot of money changes hands in cost of production and most of the bigger players are global names you would know. Conspiracy no, but political manipulation is usually good business practice for the high rollers.
So how many acres are you subsidized for? Look I’m all for Farming. I’m not against farming. For two years I worked in Wisconsin and Northern Ill as an LDS missionary… I didn’t do a lot of preaching and I didn’t go Door to Door. I worked on Farms. Pig, Dairy, and lots of Corn. I talked with the Farmers and their families, I prayed with them and for them. I know their pains and troubles. I live in an area surrounded by them here in Utah. And I always buy a ton of fresh corn from the local growers. Because I like it.
But the Government needs to get out of the Farming Business. Amongst a great many other things.
Every farmer I know would be better off by far if the Government would leave them the hell alone.
Ethanol still sucks. Old studies or not, the physics doesn’t change. It’s energy poor compared to Gasoline. And the little bit they put in Fuel to clean it up? That’s useless… It’s more expensive and useless. And when I had to replace the fuel lines in my Magna, I took them into the Dealership for them to look at. “Yup, that’s Ethanol for you.” Sure it was only 10 bucks and took me about 3 minutes to switch them out, but if we had regular old Gasoline, that wouldn’t have happened. Maybe you do need Cleaner Air type fuels in Chicago. Fine. Doesn’t mean I need it out here in the middle of nowhere.
If something needs to be subsidized, then it is, by definition, not cost-effective.
Vehicles that get improved mileage on ethanol blend do so because they were engineered to run on ethanol blend. If you take a car that’s designed for ethanol and run it on straight gasoline, of course it will get worse mileage than on the fuel that it was engineered for. The question, therefore, is what sort of mileage a car with the same level of technology would get, if it were engineered to run on real gasoline.
I have yet to see any engine that runs better on a lower energy fuel. But I’ve heard that theory before… I’d like to see it in practice. Some of these Flex-Fuel vehicles run fine on Ethanol, sure. But I bet they would run better on Gasoline.
Ethanol is more detonation-resistant than gasoline. Detonation is a limiting factor in engine performance; you /could/ get more out of the engine, but you’d detonate and the lifespan would go way down.
So, if you design an engine in such a way that it would detonate on gasoline, but will take advantage of the detonation resistance of ethanol, you can get greater performance out of a given displacement. That’s why the statement was about a “handful of vehicles” (ie, ones with very high compression ratios, and probably forced induction), and specified larger percentages of ethanol (15-20%, versus the less-than-10% that is found in gas at the pump). The engine has to be one that will benefit from detonation reduction, so the ECU can advance the timing without detonating, and the percentage of ethanol needs to be enough to meaningfully impede detonation.
The same effect occurs in a smaller degree with high-test. Octane actually reduces the energy density of the fuel, but the added detonation resistance allows the engine to run more-advanced timing, producing enough extra power that the reduction due to the combustion-inhibiting properties of octane is overwhelmed.
Another example is water injection in turbocharged vehicles. The addition of water takes up space that could otherwise be bringing more combustion air into the engine, but the fact that the water cools the air charge increases the density of the air by a greater amount than the water droplets impede airflow.
And, of course, many racecars run methanol, which has less than half the energy per gallon that gasoline does. But the enhanced engine power justifies it.
The lesson, though, is that only an engine designed to take advantage of such a fuel will gain that performance. Pump m/ethanol into a low-compression engine, and you derive no benefit at all. As usual, the government is forcing a one-size-fits-few solution on everyone.
Vehicles in the test were new and stock, that’s why I’m curious about it. Agree with what you’re saying.
“New and stock” is irrelevant. The question is whether they were designed for better performance on higher-ethanol blends. Apparently, they were.
Feeding /any/ engine the fuel that it was designed for, will result in better performance.
2 were flex fuel, 3 were not.
“Flex fuel” means they were engineered to run on E85.
Typically, “flex fuel” is mostly just a programming difference in the ECM, not any major mechanical difference in the vehicle.
A engine having high maximum pressure in the combustion chamber (either due to a high compression ratio, or a turbocharger) will be prone to detonation, so the ECM will typically have a less-advanced ignition timing, standard, and will retard the timing based upon internal curves and readings from the knock sensor.
A similar engine which starts out with a stock timing which is fairly advanced, and relies on the ECM to carefully monitor the knock sensor and retard as-needed, will be able to take better advantage of low-detonation fuels.
It used to be that the programming within an ECM was pretty limited, due to the cost of the computer technology. With advances in processing and the dramatic reduction in the cost of computer memory (so the ECM can have pre-calculated tables for a wider range of situations), that’s been less of a limitation, and some manufacturers have taken advantage of it.
Race cars run on methanol, which makes ethanol look high-energy. It’s clear that alcohol fuels /can/ be used to good advantage. But that does not make them ideal, or even competitive with gasoline. It’s still far cheaper to collect fuel that was produced over millions of years by natural processes, than to generate that fuel right now. The current use of ethanol is nothing but a subsidy for corn producers, just like Obamacare forms a subsidy for the insurance companies.
I work at a GMC dealership and it’s always laughable to see the miles per tank listed on the new vehicles. You can go nearly 500 miles per tank on regular gas, or you could pay higher and use ethanol and get 325 miles per tank. Now why in the world would you want to run ethanol? I’d much rather have real gas and go farther between fill ups. But somewhere some politician thought that we needed the ethanol in Utah just like we needed the phosphates taken out of detergents so we can have white build up on our dishes.
Our Politicians know what is best for us!
Not sure about your state but in Ohio most marinas have non ethanol fuels.
The real future of liquid fuels is the Fischer-Tropsch process (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fischer%E2%80%93Tropsch_process).
Take hydrogen and carbon monoxide, run it through a catalyst, and pure crude oil comes out the other end. Pump it into a refinery, and get your various products. With the added benefit that, by controlling the temperature and pressure and the exact makeup of the catalyst, you can control the ratio of heavy oils to light oils. So, if you wanted to make lots of gasoline, you can do that. If you need more #2 diesel, you can adjust to produce a higher fraction of heavier oils.
The hydrogen and carbon monoxide feedstocks can come from natural gas, coal, cellulose, etc. So, you can convert some convenient, local substance into gasoline, diesel, lubricating oil, etc.
But but but but… we got to invest in WIND energy!!
Actually, I think that’s a good idea. Maybe we can install turbines over DC, to capture energy from all the rising hot air?
Ogre, I agree government should not be involved but markets go up and down for physical commodities. My opinion is: That’s life and if the general consumer can’t handle it they are too sheltered from reality.
Old studies-come on Ogre! It’s not about age, The data was manipulated and the math was wrong. But that was about efficiency while you are concerned about energy density. Diesel is higher in btu’s but no fun on a bike.I buy premium for my K1200RS and the bike sits all winter with Stabil in the tank. No problems in 14 years but I’m 8 years overdue and I know it.
Did Utah need ethanol? No, not for air quality. But while corn was cheap the ethanol was cheap and the only blood shed over it was mine on scraped knuckles. That was popular when most people cared more about $/mile than miles /tankful. If the politicians had not made a law requiring ethanol for no reason they would not have to make a law to remove it. Free market forces would pull ethanol off the table when prices were no longer competetive and plants would shut down. With higher prices demand destruction has started already for corn and ethanol will be the second to go. The first is livestock so brace yourself. Ethanol is safe right now because they price or hedge their purchases well before use. Livestock producers are liquidating now as they have no feed. Takes 2 years to get a steak on your plate and 10 months for a pork chop once prices settle down so look out. After the liquidation meat could get ugly.
Around here the marina gas is the most expensive around. Plus, the jack booted thugs don’t like fuel sold without road taxes used on the road. Don’t talk about it if you do it.
One final thing, Ogre. How many acres am I subsidized for? All of them. Are you subisidized on food? Yes. Are you subsidized for gas? Yes. Is your house mortgage subsidized? Yes. There is no where to stop unless we stop it all. I know you’ll vote for that.
Here’s a FACT for the etcrapahol crowd. My 2000 Isuzu rodeo(V-6, 4WD) got 20-21 mpg all day long on the highway. I filled it once every 5-6 days and checked the mileage every time.
Until one day I noticed after filling it up the mileage dropped to ~18mph. This was up in Virginia. It took me a couple of weeks before I realized that the gas stations there had been required to shift to 10% crapahol. What tha means is that I now use at least 10% more fuel then I did before.
THAT’S the real story of that crap you are trying to sell. It IS subsidized, it IS NOT as efficient as gasoline and it does cause major problems with a lot of engines.
And for the dis-believers, fill a quart jar with that crap and set it on a shelf. After about a week you will be able to see the gasoline, the craphol and the water sitting in three separate layers. Now think about all that stuff sitting in those thousand gallon tanks at the gas stations and what gets pumped into your tank.
Here in Missouri, a major corn producer, the gas station don’t have to let you know that the gas you’re buying has ethanol in it. Definitely sucks.
“Let me break it down for you as simple as possible so those in Eugene Oregon will understand.”
Trust me George. Those of us in Eugene who actually care really do understand. The problem is that liberals don’t understand because they don’t want to. It would require them to actually pay attention to logic, and they can’t do that because it flies in the face of their sacred ideology: This is the way I want it and therefore it’s how it has to be and it must be true because I said so. Any evidence to the contrary is simply a lie. And a preponderance of the evidence doesn’t matter, since it is only lie upon lie upon lie.
Your from Eugene? LOL – that comment wasn’t meant for you.
I know it wasn’t. 🙂 But believe me, we do have plenty of liberals here, starting with the mayor.
But the rest of what I said still holds true.
You can buy real gasoline at the airport. It’s called 100LL avgas. The tetraethyl lead that it contains will throw your modern vehicle for a loop, however. It will ruin your O2 sensor and probably screw up the catalytic converter also. It’s too expensive to buy for frequent use, but when I wind up with a few gallons that had to be drained from an aircraft, or are otherwise suspect for aviation use, my older cars love it.
So I’m reading that the El Nina current in the Pacific is going bad. Asia and the West coast of South America are predicted to see bad harvest. What next a dang asteroid strike?
I am fortunate here in SW Arkansas to have found four different gas stations that all sell Ethanol Free gasoline where all I roam… sure, it costs a little more, but my car, an ’01 Audi TT, gets between 70 to 90 MORE miles per tankful… it all works out for the good… dang that grain alcohol, better spent on drankin’ than dilutin’ gasoline!!! Just sayin’… 🙂