How To Make Ethanol Work - Presented by The Auto Channel

With the recent run up in gas prices and the lingering war in the Middle East, there has been talk of renewable energy sources to power our cars and trucks. Ethanol, a biofuel, can be produced not only from corn, but sugar cane, switch grass, and wood. And using it, instead of gasoline, decreases the amount of pollutants a car emits.

But the question remains, "Are there any cars that can run on it?" Recently, Brazil introduced flex fuel vehicles. These vehicles can run both with ethanol, gasoline, ethanol and gasoline in any blend. So these vehicles can be used anywhere.

For more information about this story and for in-depth analysis of alt-fuels and alt vehicles visit TheAutoChannel.com.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• news
• make
• ethanol
• presented
• auto
• channel

[ExacavatoroftheWest]

Water powered cars are here. This technology is 1980s shit. Use a time machine to sell this crap. We don't need it. Corn is for eating and drinking. The evil elites are starving people to death. The demand for corn is unnaturally high increasing the cost of animal feed and grocery store prices.

The elites want people to starve or be vegetarians. You can eat tofu, I want my beef and pork. SMDH.

[TheAutoChannel]

@ExacavatoroftheWest

You have absolutely no...NO...idea of what you are talking about. None. In other words, zero true facts. You are devoid of any knowledge with any ring of truth to it.

Oh yeah, did I say that you don't know what you are talking about?

[emforty2]

growing plant for biofuel will just switch the pollution to the land[soil] and water instead of the Air.

pick your choice petrol or biofuel you ain't gonna win.

btw cars are only 20~30% efficient the 70% of energy is used[ converted] to heat and gets blown out of the tailpipe and the rest the heating of the radiator coolant LOL !!

[TheAutoChannel]

@emforty2

Your information is totally incorrect. We are LOL at you.

[rboos]

I also have 2 alcohol fueled cars, they have 10HP over the same model that uses gas. They polute less, and your country will avoid importing oil. Best of all, since they are flex-fueled, you can run any percentage of gas+alcohol. I run alcohol only. Renewable energy is great!

[daltonagre]

My family has two ethanol cars.Both are very good.

[TheAutoChannel]

@redhat123456789

Ethanol is sort of a joke, but the butt of the joke is you and others like you who believe the lies and gross distortions spread by the oil-gasoline industry, as you set forth in your earlier message. Ethanol always was, and always will be a better, safer, cheaper, more environmentally friendly engine fuel than gasoline will ever be.

You, you're just a dumb schmuck.

[IndyFan53]

@ReasonDefender. My car is already fuel flexible. I make my lawn mower run on it by priming it a few extra times. It doesn't always start right away, but to avoid that, I either use a little STP with the fuel or run the mower on a 50/50 blend is gas and E85.

[IndyFan53]

@ReasonDefender

[ReasonDefender]

@IndyFan53

Do you need to make any adjustments to your vehicle or lawn mower in order to use ethanol?

[joralebedev]

The problem with flex fuel vehicles is that they don't take advantage of the higher octane that ethanol has (105-107 vs. 80's-90's for gasoline) by using higher compression engines. If they did that, the efficiency difference between the two fuels would shrink considerably. This compression vs. octane concept is one of the most basic in internal combustion engine technology yet you never hear it mentioned with regards to ethanol... why is that?

[IndyFan53]

I run my car and my lawn mower on ethanol and I have no issues with it. It would be great if we use more celluose to make this fuel. They also plan to build a pipeline system for it, which would make it more accessible.

[rllang01]

@switchgrassfuel If it is true that ethanol takes more energy than it produces then the oil companies would be in favor of it. because they would be selling more of their product.

[mikehanoo33]

In fact, its oil that has a negative EROEI. Because oil is both the raw material and the energy source for production of gasoline, it comes out to about 20% negative. Thats just common sense; some of the oil is itself used up in the process of refining and delivering it (from the Persian Gulf, a distance of 11,000 miles in tanker travel).