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Fuel quality and the onset of Ethanol

Gamphy

Gamphy

Well travelled
Location
Jaipur
I currently live in India, for the past couple of years E20 petrol is what we have, there is no choice, the government has just set the standards for E22 and E30 to be rolled out over the next 3 years. They are also looking at the Brazilian Flex fuel model to bring in E85/E100.
In all likelihood, based on the accelerated roll out of E20 petrol, it will all be E30 within a couple of years.
As we already know E20 is not great for older vehicles incapable of making adjustments for leaner burn fuel, but E30 is going to wipe out a lot of older vehicles, as well as use food for fuel, so glad I've got a fully programmable ECU!
What is the standard fuel in your country?
 
Some competition bikes run on 100% methanol because they consider it runs cooler.
Jap speedway bikes , highly tuned Vincent replicas and some road racing Hogs come to mind--!
No problem on a carbed bike, just a 500 main jet instead of a 180, so might be big demand for carb conversions!
 
Here in Germany there is Super E5 with 95 oct, Super E10 with 95 oct, Super Plus E5 with 98 oct.

There is also Shell with its V-Power with 100 Oct and ARAL Ultimate with its 102 Oct.

The interesting thing is that the V-Power and the Ultimate should not contain ethanol.

These two fuels are usually 0.3 – 0.35 € more expensive, or approximately 2.35 € per liter.

I only fill my bikes with ethanol-free fuels.

Nothing that comes from governments by decret is good, not for us, not for our environment and not for our machines. Ethanol is hygroscopic, it draws water. What this do to your fuelsystem if the bike was unused for a while do you know by yourself. further the ethanol fuels are only stable for a few month, after this time they get broken. With all consequences, defective injectores, defective fuel pump etc.
 
Gamphy said:
food for fuel
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all of those brewers grains are sold as very high quality animal feed
infact even more digestable as many of the starches are already broken down

where I am we have choices of
E10 as standard fuel as 87 octane
E15 as a bit cheaper fuel with a small octane bump to 88
E85 at some stations
and Corn free 91 octane (we have lots of boats and Recreational gas powered things here)

if driving a flex-fuel vehical in years past I found if there was a fifty cent/gal spread with E85
you were saving money
but the growers subsidy was pulled a couple years back so that spread has closed up

Dorable has only seen corn free since I got her
but with the more than $1/gallon price difference for corn free
I may start running E10 or maybe just every other fill
I do use the Stabil Marine 360 additive to keep any rust from getting going in her tank
 
In my part of Australia (Queensland) we have 91 RON Unleaded, 94 RON E10, 95 RON Unleaded & 98 RON Unleaded. The Queensland mandate for E10 is I think about 2% of petrol refined. Only the E10 contains Ethanol, the others are unadulterated.
Other states are different. A few years ago it was hard to find ordinary 91 RON unleaded in some areas of New South Wales for instance.
 
E10 is pretty much the standard in the USA. Some stations are now pushing E15 with misleading names like "Unleaded 88" (on the theory it's one point higher octane than 87-octane E10). Many stations in Iowa, taking advantage of the fact that there is no legal definition of "Super Unleaded," use the term for 87-octane E10 (this led to some hilarity at a BMW MOA off-road training course I attended about eight years ago--people owning early Wetheads, which lacked knock sensors, filled up with "Super" thinking it was 91-octane premium; when they tried the steep uphill start their engines sounded like they were ingesting gravel).

Some corn-country Harley riders have re-flashed their bikes to run E85 (and only E85; the systems are not flex-fuel) because the stuff is basically astronomical octane and allows them to raise the compression ratios to levels that would explode a gasoline-fueled Big Twin.

I have mixed feelings about E10. On the one hand, making it from corn is wasteful, expensive, and at best neutral in terms of environmental impact; as Tom Vilsak (US Secretary of Agriculture at the time) said at an ethanol conference (as reported by the Associate Press), the purpose of the ethanol mandate was "to assure a stable price for corn." On the other hand, it's been a standard for decades, and if a manufacturer can't build a bike that runs properly on E10, then maybe they shouldn't be in the business (and their bike shouldn't be in my garage). And the stuff does have value in that it pretty much eliminates moisture-related problems like winter gas line freeze and rusting, both of which afflicted my cars and bikes before it became the standard.
 
It's a deficit fuel. More energy is expended producing it than is liberated by burning it. It cost more per gallon to produce than gasoline. It has less energy content than gas so we burn more of it to go the same distance.
It costs more to produce a gallon of it than gasoline. 500 gallons of water is consumed to produce one gallon of it. Every gallon of it produced is a sacrifice of a gallon of what could have been good whiskey that the world will never taste.

If nothing was done to somewhat stabilize corn prices, we and much humanity would have been truly screwed.
 
Eatmore Mudd said:
It's a deficit fuel. More energy is expended producing it than is liberated by burning it. It cost more per gallon to produce than gasoline. It has less energy content than gas so we burn more of it to go the same distance.
It costs more to produce a gallon of it than gasoline. 500 gallons of water is consumed to produce one gallon of it. Every gallon of it produced is a sacrifice of a gallon of what could have been good whiskey that the world will never taste.

If nothing was done to somewhat stabilize corn prices, we and much humanity would have been truly screwed.
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Won’t disagree with any of that. The US has been dealing with the problem of what to do with the corn surplus for over a century. A surplus of cheap corn is why we Americans eat so much beef (1 kcal of beef requires 10 kcal of cattle feed, which is mostly corn) and why testing hair samples for corn protein is a standard way to tell if an unidentified body washing up on an island was an American (we consume so much corn starch, corn syrup, etc., in our foods that it shows up in hair). We should really have a better way to manage our corn production so that we meet demand and have a stable price.

Fun fact: when car makers first developed high compression engines that needed anti-knock additives, they found two alternatives: tetraethyl lead and ethanol. Both worked equally well, but lead could be patented. And that’s why three generations of Americans grew up with our brains pickled in lead… which reduces intelligence and increases the tendency toward violence.
 
Vimto said:
Meh you guys aint seen nuthin yet. We fed our cattle dead cattle. We turned herbivores into carnivores and cannibals. They went mad and we ate them and we went mad.

Not me though I was living in Germany at the time eating German beef so I'm OK. Honest. :unsure:
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I was not permitted to give blood for years because I lived in England for 2 years during the time this was going on. Those prions are nasty, and unstoppable.
 
lorazepam said:
I was not permitted to give blood for years because I lived in England for 2 years during the time this was going on. Those prions are nasty, and unstoppable.
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Yep. Every time I donate (they got me on the platelet train, which means two hours connected to the vampire machine every other week) I have to answer about five questions (or, more accurately, the same question phrased five different ways) about whether I was in the UK during the mad cow fiasco.

Vimto said:
Meh you guys aint seen nuthin yet. We fed our cattle dead cattle. We turned herbivores into carnivores and cannibals. They went mad and we ate them and we went mad.

Not me though I was living in Germany at the time eating German beef so I'm OK. Honest. :unsure:
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We also turn carnivores into herbivores: domestic cats are pure carnivores (no cat has ever been observed to eat plants in the wild), but pet-food scientists have come up with ways to process plant protein and add the necessary flavors and aromas so that they can be fooled into eating "vegan" cat food. Because Muffy has principles, y'know, but she can't live without her cats...
 
Scott Free said:
Won’t disagree with any of that. The US has been dealing with the problem of what to do with the corn surplus for over a century. A surplus of cheap corn is why we Americans eat so much beef (1 kcal of beef requires 10 kcal of cattle feed, which is mostly corn) and why testing hair samples for corn protein is a standard way to tell if an unidentified body washing up on an island was an American (we consume so much corn starch, corn syrup, etc., in our foods that it shows up in hair). We should really have a better way to manage our corn production so that we meet demand and have a stable price.

Fun fact: when car makers first developed high compression engines that needed anti-knock additives, they found two alternatives: tetraethyl lead and ethanol. Both worked equally well, but lead could be patented. And that’s why three generations of Americans grew up with our brains pickled in lead… which reduces intelligence and increases the tendency toward violence.
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My grandmothers planted corn beans and squash together back when corn was an easily digestible protein. Something changed and corn hasn't been the same these last few centuries.

No one had studied what caused the change. If anybody figures that out.....

In other news the French may sprinkle a half teaspoon of corn to garnish a salad now and then but they don't eat corn as a side dish. However Southern France grows massive crops of corn every year. A little for feed but most for export to the distilleries in Ireland.
 
Eatmore Mudd said:
My grandmothers planted corn beans and squash together back when corn was an easily digestible protein. Something changed and corn hasn't been the same these last few centuries.
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The produce currently available commercially is nothing like that I consumed in my youth, 50 years ago. It has been hybridized and genetically engineered to grow faster, withstand storage and transport, and look prettier. Studies have shown that due to shortened growth cycles, nutrient levels in some produce have declined 60%. I grow as much of my own veggies as possible, and use heirloom, non-GMO seed. The flavor is incredible, much like what I remember from youth (especially my tomatoes!) Labor intensive, yes, as I refuse to use pesticides, but fresh, healthy, and really tasty!
The corn I get from a like-minded friend is plump, bright yellow, chewy, and tastes like CORN (not like the sweet, watery pustules from the store)

Not trying to hijack thread....... just ranting..... sorry;)
 
OldSchoolGuy said:
The produce currently available commercially is nothing like that I consumed in my youth, 50 years ago. It has been hybridized and genetically engineered to grow faster, withstand storage and transport, and look prettier. Studies have shown that due to shortened growth cycles, nutrient levels in some produce have declined 60%. I grow as much of my own veggies as possible, and use heirloom, non-GMO seed. The flavor is incredible, much like what I remember from youth (especially my tomatoes!) Labor intensive, yes, as I refuse to use pesticides, but fresh, healthy, and really tasty!
The corn I get from a like-minded friend is plump, bright yellow, chewy, and tastes like CORN (not like the sweet, watery pustules from the store)

Not trying to hijack thread....... just ranting..... sorry;)
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I'm with you! Been gardening for about 40years now. I've run the gamut of garden infrastructures, techniques, tools and fads and now I've finally returned to the simple basics. It's much easier to manage and my tomatoes no longer end up costing $25 a pound.
 
Eatmore Mudd said:
My grandmothers planted corn beans and squash together back when corn was an easily digestible protein. Something changed and corn hasn't been the same these last few centuries.

No one had studied what caused the change. If anybody figures that out.....

In other news the French may sprinkle a half teaspoon of corn to garnish a salad now and then but they don't eat corn as a side dish. However Southern France grows massive crops of corn every year. A little for feed but most for export to the distilleries in Ireland.
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Corn isn't digestible and never has been unless it's processed. It has to be soaked and cooked in an alkaline solution before any of its nutrients are bioavailable. Without the nixtamalization process, it just passes straight through the digestive tract
 
Vimto said:
Meh you guys aint seen nuthin yet. We fed our cattle dead cattle. We turned herbivores into carnivores and cannibals. They went mad and we ate them and we went mad.

Not me though I was living in Germany at the time eating German beef so I'm OK. Honest. :unsure:
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Still not encountered anyone who suffered BSE as a result, I was born in England and lived there during that time ate plenty of beef during that time. It was a hoax.
Moved to Ireland, I couldn't donate blood although I was asked to join the organ donor register......
 
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