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could we make a car that runs off of alcohol?

twoodcc

twoodcc

macrumors P6
Original poster
Feb 3, 2005
15,307
26
Right side of wrong
i was just wondering this last night. i was thinking about how gas prices are so high, and was wondering what else we could use.

i thought, "we get the power from gas when it burns, so what other liquid is flammable?" and alcohol is what i thought of.

after looking it up, it looks like some alcohol is made from Ethanol, and i guess we are already making some cars run off of that.

any thoughts?
 
twoodcc said:
i was just wondering this last night. i was thinking about how gas prices are so high, and was wondering what else we could use.

i thought, "we get the power from gas when it burns, so what other liquid is flammable?" and alcohol is what i thought of.

after looking it up, it looks like some alcohol is made from Ethanol, and i guess we are already making some cars run off of that.

any thoughts?
Click to expand...

Up until the 1920s it was common for cars to run on Ethanol. Look at some old movies. When the said put Ethyl in the car it was ethanol. Farmers would have their own still and make their own fuel.
 
You want to let your car drink alcohol?

By next week, it'll drive a bit sluggish and be a bit more non-responsive. However, it'll tell you that it's fine.

By next month, it'll show up late and won't even take you to where you need to go.

In 3 months time, it'll be on crack.
 
twoodcc said:
are you sure? i'm not talking about drinking alcohol here

i mean, how much does it really cost to make it?
Click to expand...

while it might be cheaper per gallon it is not cheaper to us per mile. You loose a lot of hp and miles per gallon going over to ethol. it has a lot less power in it.
 
MongoTheGeek said:
Up until the 1920s it was common for cars to run on Ethanol. Look at some old movies. When the said put Ethyl in the car it was ethanol. Farmers would have their own still and make their own fuel.
Click to expand...

Not quite. Although enthanol was well-known (and seen as a replacement or additive in the future) in the 1920's, Ethyl--actually a brand name--was something else entirely, and not as relatively gentle as ethanol.

"[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]Ethyl leaded gasoline is the confusing brand name choice for tetra ethyl lead (TEL), which was an anti-knock (octane boosting) gasoline additive discovered by General Motors researchers on Dec. 9, 1921 and introduced commercially in Ohio on Feb. 2,1923."
Source: http://www.radford.edu/~wkovarik/papers/ethylconflict.html
[/FONT]
 
twoodcc said:
i was just wondering this last night. i was thinking about how gas prices are so high, and was wondering what else we could use.

i thought, "we get the power from gas when it burns, so what other liquid is flammable?" and alcohol is what i thought of.
Click to expand...

:confused: jokes apart, there are already engines that work perfectly fine on alcohol, including car engines. Major economic trends (corn growing) are changing because alcohol is becoming an increasingly important fuel.
In Brazil alcohol (from sugar cane) has fueled cars for years, and is used for heating and electricity.
so it's a good idea, but about 30-40 years late ;)
 
Many all new cars are flex-fuel if I remember correctly meaning they can burn fuel that is up to 85% enthanol (E85). Some places are starting to add ethanol to gasoline-- if you see fuel that is written as E10 or E15 the number corresponds to the percent of the fuel that is ethanol.

Like someone already stated, burning ethanol reduces our HP and fuel efficiency. It is being produced in great quantities in the midwest right now which has caused corn prices to rise quite a bit. Farmers are receiving a lot of government subsidies to produce it.
 
While running a car on ethanol seems good, it actually has many downsides.

-right now the government is subsidizing corn production for ethanol. They are subsidizing it so that people will make it. Now, that doesn't mean that it wouldn't be mad without government subsidies, but I think it means that if it wasn't subsidized, less would be made. The government is fooling around in the free market, and that's not good. If ethanol was so wonderful, companies would make it without being given government subsidies.

-it takes more energy to make a gallon of ethanol than it puts out. Now, I want to say that this applies mainly to corn ethanol. Cain ethanol is better, but that means importing from Brazil, and everyone thinks that a trade deficit is a bad thing, and Congress won't ever make us use the cheaper, more effeicient stuff unless it's from the US, due to trade protectionism theory. :)

-It doesn't make that much less greenhouse gasses. I'm not certain of numbers, but I want to say that it might even be worse than gas. I know that liquid coal is worse than gas.

-there are millions of miles of pipes in our country. We send lots of products in these pipes. We clean the pipes between "shipments" with several miles of water. We can send gas trhough these pipes, because it doesn't mix with water. We cannot send ethanol through these pipes, because it does. We have to then ship ethanol by plane, boat, rail or truck, which is very expensive, and produced more greenhouse gasses. :)

I am much more fond of a diesel running on grease from Mcdonalds. Personally, I just try not to drive too much. But because I don't support ethanol very much, I still get branded as ane arth hater... :(
 
Ethanol is not the future, purely and simply. Biodiesel is more viable overall because it doesn;t require the same level of refinement, and is easier to obtain as a waste product at the moment.
 
.JahJahwarrior. said:
-it takes more energy to make a gallon of ethanol than it puts out. Now, I want to say that this applies mainly to corn ethanol. Cain ethanol is better, but that means importing from Brazil, and everyone thinks that a trade deficit is a bad thing, and Congress won't ever make us use the cheaper, more effeicient stuff unless it's from the US, due to trade protectionism theory. :)
Click to expand...

It depends on how you count various things. The most pessimistic numbers for BTU yields in corn ethanol are around .75, the best are around 1.3, depending on who does the math. If you start fermenting the biomass in addition to the the grain (not done here, probably because of the way the subsidies work) the yield goes to between 3 and 5. Bio-Diesel gets similar yields.

.JahJahwarrior. said:
-It doesn't make that much less greenhouse gasses. I'm not certain of numbers, but I want to say that it might even be worse than gas. I know that liquid coal is worse than gas.
Click to expand...

The advantage comes in that while it releases huge amounts of CO2, all of that came from the atmosphere so it is carbon neutral.

.JahJahwarrior. said:
-there are millions of miles of pipes in our country. We send lots of products in these pipes. We clean the pipes between "shipments" with several miles of water. We can send gas trhough these pipes, because it doesn't mix with water. We cannot send ethanol through these pipes, because it does. We have to then ship ethanol by plane, boat, rail or truck, which is very expensive, and produced more greenhouse gasses. :)
Click to expand...

Used to. Now they just run the oils through sequentially and like the mystery dum-dums the sell the top and bottom of each run to people who don't care what they burn. Ethanol can now run through.

.JahJahwarrior. said:
I am much more fond of a diesel running on grease from Mcdonalds. Personally, I just try not to drive too much. But because I don't support ethanol very much, I still get branded as ane arth hater... :(
Click to expand...

Its a great way to reuse the resource and smells oh so yummy running down the road.
 
Electric cars are the future.

Fuel cell cars will explode and cost too much right now in R&D and companies don't want to invest too much in it. Gas will obviously disappear, hybrid cars will be around for a while.
 
ErikCLDR said:
Electric cars are the future.

Fuel cell cars will explode and cost too much right now in R&D and companies don't want to invest too much in it. Gas will obviously disappear, hybrid cars will be around for a while.
Click to expand...

Not so much...at this point the vast majority of electricity comes from non-sustainable sources, most of which also pose major pollution issues, and that situation will not change for a lifetime or two even by the most optimistic (yet still credible) estimates.

The fuel cells projected for use in automobiles carry their hydrogen inside metals, not in a pressurized cylinder. As such, they are safer than a current automobile's fuel tank.

Unfortunately, as it stands today, we aren't even certain that fuel cells are a viable option...but the possible benefits are worth the cost of finding out...
 
Lord Blackadder said:
Not so much...at this point the vast majority of electricity comes from non-sustainable sources, most of which also pose major pollution issues, and that situation will not change for a lifetime or two even by the most optimistic (yet still credible) estimates.

The fuel cells projected for use in automobiles carry their hydrogen inside metals, not in a pressurized cylinder. As such, they are safer than a current automobile's fuel tank.

Unfortunately, as it stands today, we aren't even certain that fuel cells are a viable option...but the possible benefits are worth finding out...
Click to expand...

that's what i thought
 
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