gasoline products

[Dualfuel]

Hi, I wrote a letter to some friends, and thought I would share it with you, to see what your opinions were...

Tue, Feb 19, 2013 at 10:29 AM

FROM Bruce Jackson TO 3 recipients

Gasoline products

From Bruce Jackson
To emolivei@mtu.edu
balafran@mtu.edu
mroberts@mtu.edu

Hi,

I took five minutes and found this little wiki chart.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasoline_gallon_equivalent

This has been bugging me for a long time now. The numbers are pretty straight forward. The implications are not. The so called regular gasoline you buy now, has ethanol added. Rumor has it that it is 10% Ethanol. Doing some quick math with the chart I get 110210 BTUs per gallon. Pure regular gasoline is 114000 BTUs per gallon.

The vehicles that you three probably drive every day, don't care whether they burn pure gasoline or gasoline/ethanol mixtures. The engine's fuel delivery system simply compensates for the different air/fuel mixtures required by the different types of fuel. This has been so since the late '80s and in the case of Volvo, since the late 70s. Your gas tank systems are sealed from the atmosphere so moisture laden air doesn't get into the tank (the importance of that in a second). So you as drivers, have accustomed yourselves to the apparently seamless transition to blended fuel. Or have you?

When you put your foot on the throttle, you expect to GO! You keep pushing that throttle pedal until the vehicle is performing at the level you are looking for. Burning fuel, provides performance, and burning more fuel gives more performance. Because the gasoline/ethanol blends don't have the same number of BTUs per gallon as pure gasoline, the engine is required to burn more fuel to provide the same amount of performance as pure gasoline. You have to burn more of this mixed fuel to do the same job. This obviously hits you in the pocket book. This is the most direct implication of alcohol being added to your fuel. There are others, more sinister...

Hey guess what? They don't blend the ethanol into your gasoline at the gas station. Ethanol is ethyl alcohol and is miscible in water (think vodka). Gasoline is a blend of hydrocarbons that is not miscible in water. When ethanol is exsposed to the atmosphere, it immediately begins absorbing the humidity from the air. Blending alcohol and gasoline together only works as long as water isn't present. As soon as the ethanol absorbs enough water from the atmosphere, it falls out of solution with the gasoline. Now you have a problem....the ethanol has a high octane number, so it can be blended with a lower octane gasoline. When the two liquids seperate, the alcohol becomes nearly unburnable and the gasoline is so volatile that your engine must retard the spark timing. This means the spark ignites the mixture late in the power stroke, allowing a lot of the fuel/air mixture to simply go out the tail pipe as waste heat. So now your foot goes even deeper into the throttle looking for that performance.

Another implication that I sense but haven't researched, and which might be more in your wheel houses, is the idea of who is paying for all this? The ethanol in the gasoline, I hear farmers are loving the high corn prices. Does the Federal government subsidize the oil company's use of ethanol? Obviously, the type of gasoline, if it's lower octane, is less expensive to produce, so why aren't we seeing a lower price at the pump? I pay $4.39per gallon for pure premium gasoline, while the RUG price is $3.77. Is that the actual difference (I tend to doubt it, but don't know where to look to answer the question)?

Some other implications that probably are marginal in the grand scheme of things:

The gasoline/ethanol blend is barely volatile enough in this weather to ignite. Pour some on the ground and try to lite it, it won't burn. Try that with pure gasoline and you won't need a hair cut for a while.

The gasoline/ethanol blend is so corrosive that it will devour any non sealed fuel system. Anything with a carburetor, or open gas tank will be subject to acidic corrosion. That means the fleet of engines in vehicles and equipment that is older, will be destroyed if the fuel is not removed after each use.

Who decided this mixture had to be law? If the premise is produce less emissions, then the answer isn't to burn more fuel then needed. If the premise is to make more road fuel domestically, then perhaps reforming frakked natural gas into gasoline would be more sensible then burning up our food supply especially if 46 million are already on foodstamps. We need to find out who is responsible for this and what their reasons were. I think the experiment has gone on long enough.

Some other interesting things about this chart....Methanol which is the lightest alcohol, and also sold as fuel, has half the BTU value of gasoline per gallon. It presently sells for $3.50 a gallon. It is directly reformed from natural gas. The noteworthy point here, is that I have buying Methanol for years and its always been tied to the price of gasoline, selling for about $.20 more per gallon. Because of the natural gas boom, the price has dropped below gasoline. They couldn't hold the price as high, because there simply isn't demand for it, and its production cost has fallen. Methanol could replace gasoline if it cost about $1.80 or so per gallon. This would be a real answer to the domestic fuel production fetish being bandyed about without the dangers of driving a CNG fueled vehicle.

Biodiesel has more BTUs per gallon then gasoline and has to be burned in an engine that has a lower specific brake fuel consumption then gasoline burning engines. I bring in my fuel for $1 per gallon production cost. I have always wondered why I wander off and never consider the expense of making biodiesel, but when one factors in these three facts, the vast difference in cost/mile becomes obvious. A win for me, I guess.

Anyhow thanks for reading this, and have a good day,

Bruce Jackson

[SteveU.]

Hey BrucePJ
You need to edit out and tighten up all of the empty white space on this post to make it readable.
I was on my third try to find other "new posts" before I bumped into your text at the bottom.

Here's some real world for you. This "green", "reformulated" gasoline stuff started out here on the US West Coast.
Bees nest Southern California has a very real vehicle emmisions problem. Reducing the emitted unoxidized HC's really has helped in the last 50 years. Oxygen molocules (alcohol's) added into the actual fuels helps with this for them. Thier real hard problem was thier photosynthesis yellow haze smog. Engines NOx. This was combatted by engine timing and EGR controls to reduce the combustion temperatures and especially peak in cylinder pressure events - NOT by oxygenate fuel modifications. Up north here in the Insect nest PNW urban areas of Portland OR, Seattle & Tacoma and even Spokane WA the real measurable problem was seasonal air inversion vehicle Carbon Monoxide emmisions. Under those conditions adding an oxygenate to the fuel really helps. We've had to suffer through winter blends of oxyegated fuels going back 25 years now. Year around blended fuels for the last 5-6 years. They dare not use actual methanol due to already in service system corrosion problems. For years used synthetic (yes from natural gas) MTBE oxygenate additive. Usable metals and plastics systems safe but Real hygroscopic stuff. The ground water contaminations problems at manufacturing, blending and distribution points were very real.
And now the latest darling oxygenate additive in ethanol gonna' save our air, save our economy, make us US energy indepedent and forced us all to be Green willing/unwilling to boot.

Each area needed a different formulated fuel for thier specific concerns.
Full cycle Energy use efficiency, and for national economy sensibility it is STUPID to impose the needs of one regional area on all.
Naw. It has been easier to creep out state by state and just make one shoe fit all no matter how loose the fit for some or bleeding painful for others.

OK back to the very real world.
Back in 1999 we bought a "flex-fuel" Plymouth minivan. capable of detecting, adjusting and operating on any gasoline from 100% unoxygenated "clear" to blends of E5 through E85.
14 years and 250K+ miles I have operated on all of these. The most difficult to get a baseline on here has been actual unoxygenated gasoline. For three years now again we have "clear" gasoline available. Once every 4-8 weeks a 30 mile trip for me to the  Distributor to get 5 gallon cans of "clear" gasoline: regular grade for my aircooled four stokes and premium grade for my Stihls has finally given me enough known "clear" tank fills in the minivan of "clear" RUG to be able to accuratly base line.
I get year after year, season in and out; 275 to 300 miles per 16 USD gallon fill on the different 5 to10% oxygenated gasoline pond scum blends.
Got this particular system to be able to drink as much as anything available possible anywhere we would possibly travel Canada, US and Mexico.
I get consitently 175  to 195 miles per 16 USD gallon fill on E85 gasoline blended.
"Clear" oxygenate free gasolines I get consistently 320 miles per 16 USD gallon fill.
This van has special high flow fuel injectors for the less energy dense blended fuels, SS lines and alchohal resistant line seal and has an expanded modified computor mapping program for the blended fuels with additional ignition curves. Really 90% as good as it will ever get for gasoline based blened 'flex-fuels'. Maybe a tiny bit better with the later active camshaft timing  control and the later individual cylinder timing control systems
Never have noticed a difference in useable power. No noticable difference in the off idle take off. Still able to cruise in demand up to 80 MPH.
Some very noticeable differences in hot and cold weather cranking starting times and cold idle smoothness depending on the fuel blend.

Even when the E85 blend was fully $1.00 a gallon Federally subsidized for the ethanol portion of it, it was never available retail here for less that 30% of the the cost of the MTBE blended gasolines.
Poor value to me  - needed to be at least 40% cost less for the increased fuel comsumption. Last week I checked and available E85 was only priceing here as 10% a USD gallon less than the  now normal E10%  blended pump gasolines. Very poor choice for "Greener" E85!! Keep drinking the common pump pond scum mini-van!
"Clear" RUG here cost me 10% more. Break even. I only mini-van top up/fill up on my small engine fuel run trips.
On these:
the four stokes start up MUCH better on "clear" gasoline in the winter with MUCH less stitting around unused fuel deterioration problems. They have noticeable more power in the summer and MUCH less warm restarting problems. Same for my 2-stroke Stihls. All fellows running oxygenated fuel blends in thier outdoor equipment here spend a lot on more in shop time down and produce less work outside. On dedicated only Made in Japan brands like Shindowa there are many 1st hand cases I know of actual lean out overheating and burn ups on the oxygenated fuels in the first 10 hours of operation. Ethanol blended being the worst.

The politics of all of this?? Follow the money to faced individual commisioned paid people and faceless corperations driven by quarter to quarter resuls. From that accumulated money pool follow back out to the been "convinced" anything green is better voters.
Think not?? Just that grumpy 'ol SteveU. ranting again?
Flex-fuel vehicles been around since the mid-90's when the Feds started giving Emmisions and CAFE off-set credits for every vehicle they would produce and sell with this feature.
Chrysler/Dodge needed these off-sets back then to be able to make and sell more full sized pickups without paying per vehicle CAFE penalties. Ford then when "Green-Leaf" on Taurus's, minivans and Escapes in the early 2000's for the same reasons. I do not know why GM was so late coming to this hog trough. Gov'Mint 2007/08 loan maybe?
Anyhow guys and gals vehicle flex-fuel tech  is out there for 17 years now in the real world for driving vehicles. Very usable and seamless. Makes you able to travel fuel safer.
Small engines . . . search out and pay more for the good pure stuff or buy a lot of engine repairs and premature needed engine replacements.

Regards
Steve Unruh

[Henry W]

Guys,

I just cleaned up the first post.
If something strange happens while posting please report it.

Thanks,

Henry

[LowGear]

Interesting chart:

1 gallon of gasoline is about 30 KW.  At $5 a gallon that's 6 KW per dollar.  I pay my private utility corporation 45 cents a KW or $2.70 for 6 KW.  Hmmmmmmmmmm.

Casey

[Dualfuel]

Thank you Henry for cleaning that up....I wasn't aware of it, but I did have a hard time formatting it in my emailer. I think the next manifesto will be written in note pad or some such first.

Steve, I don't find what you wrote grumpy at all, infact I find it very informative, and confirms what I suspected. For years now I have found it impossible to relate to people and the gaspump, because the biodiesel skews my thinking...when I started out it cost $.25/gal now the cost is $1.00/gal. Further skewing my thinking was the truck we call the Courier de Bois, or bush runner, which has the big mud tires and gets 40mpg. When your fuel costs $1.00 a gallon and you don't really burn much, pain at the pump has no meaning.
Only recently, because we have the Honda, and no life support for the diesels, have I been brought back into the gasoline fold (so to speak). Frankly, I am very worried. I see the same thing happening to the fuel as to my box of grahm crackers, namely, that the price is the same but I am getting less for the money.
I don't know what the rest of youse will do about this....but I just orded another 1000gallons of methanol for this summer's biodiesel production, and I am also investing in a better gas producer with a superior turn-down ratio for use with the small fry engines.
Thats the trouble with being born into the midwestern car culture....I WANT to burn fuel. I like it. Can you imagine just driving around visiting people and looking at things? That was my culture, and how I made a living for many years. I used to cruise in a towtruck, and go around and buy cars and junk. Seems like another century ago now (I guess it was...).

Times are a changin'
BPJ