Ethanol Free Gas Petition

[ElRod]

http://www.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=836232

Post's 28 & 29

[Hipster]

+1 It's amazing the amount of residue Ethanol leaves behind.

Originally Posted by ElRod

My interest in keeping pure gas available is this......

[GrahamD]

Originally Posted by Hipster

+1 It's amazing the amount of residue Ethanol leaves behind.

Ethanol, dries clean. It's not ethanol that does that. It's something in the fuel or additives that does that, maybe because someone took the cheap option and used something that was not suitable. There are another 166 odd chemicals in what most people call "pure fuel".

Used to see that kind of thing a lot before ethanol was a twinkle in the polies eyes.

We cleaned it off and never went to that servo again. Well until we forgot or they changed hands or something.

Have a read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasoline and that is just the basics...

[GrahamD]

Originally Posted by ElRod

http://www.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=836232

Post's 28 & 29

Thanks ElRod.

[Ramv]

Originally Posted by ÖÖ.

Get TuneEcu. Add +50 % fuel to all maps. Run with E85 and save Polar ice packs?

Ethanol, (at least in the US) is far more energy intensive and generates more greenhouse gasses than gasoline. If you are looking to decrease GHG, than LNG or CNG (not readily available in motorcycles yet) are the best bet. As far as motocycles go, if this is your primary concern, a KTM twin is probably not your best bet. Lots of small thumpers out there that will get 65 mpg+, which will be a far more substantial reduction in emmissions than using any particular fuel source.

Ethanol is also very expensive in the US right now due to poor corn crops, (which of course is also driving the food costs up).

[ÖÖ.]

Originally Posted by Ramv

Ethanol, (at least in the US) is far more energy intensive and generates more greenhouse gasses than gasoline. If you are looking to decrease GHG, than LNG or CNG (not readily available in motorcycles yet) are the best bet. As far as motocycles go, if this is your primary concern, a KTM twin is probably not your best bet. Lots of small thumpers out there that will get 65 mpg+, which will be a far more substantial reduction in emmissions than using any particular fuel source.

Ethanol is also very expensive in the US right now due to poor corn crops, (which of course is also driving the food costs up).

I don't know if using E85 makes your bike any more eco friendly. Probably just the opposite like you said. Only thing I know is that it's a bit cheaper here.
-RE85 1,07 € / litre, $5,35 / gallon. 85 % ethanol.
-95E10 1,65 € / litre, $8,35 / gallon. 10 % ethanol.
-98E5 1,70 € / litre, $8,61 / gallon. 5 % ethanol.

And maybe I'm more interested about the fact could it be done than any real savings etc.

[Ramv]

That's a big savings! Here, e-85 is only about 10% cheaper than 87 octane(90% gasoline/10% ethanol), and the fuel mileage suffers substantially when running it on E85 capable vehicles, eating up any cost savings.

[GrahamD]

Originally Posted by Ramv

That's a big savings! Here, e-85 is only about 10% cheaper than 87 octane(90% gasoline/10% ethanol), and the fuel mileage suffers substantially when running it on E85 capable vehicles, eating up any cost savings.

If the powers that be woke up one morning and decided to get NREL or CSIRO to research a few things and acted on facts you could have your cake and eat it too. But the pollies knee jerked their way from one decision to the next and came up with a mess.

There is nothing wrong with Ethanol itself, it's just it's often dumped into cheap fuel and sold with a bad formulation.
There has been plenty of experience using alcohol fuels and as as an engineering problem it's not hard.

It would have been way better if they just said that you can use either. 98RON on this side 108RON ethanol on the other.
I am sure that a few manufactures would have taken advantage of that and come up with some serious alcohol burning super bikes / cars. 15:1 compression ratios and big power are all possible without any problems.

Heck while you are at it why not get all that fracked gas and pig farts and nitrate it. Then you have a nice transportable liquid you don't have to compress to 10 million PSI called Nitromethane.

You should be able to chase super bikes on a 125 using that stuff.

Plenty of ways to skin a cat, just that the way it has been implemented makes Monty Python skit look serious.