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Off Topic discussions / Re: My Smart Fortwo Pure
« on: 2008.04.25, 05:04:51 »
You're right.. I did misspeak my source for the stats was outdated, however brazil doesn't edge the US out by a whole lot, and in 2006 the US actually outproduced brazil.
Also, most of the problems are outlined here: http://www.energybulletin.net/5062.html though I don't believe this was completely unbiased and it is slightly dated it still lists the problems for a "green" energy source.. ethanol may be an alternate fuel, it is however not green.
However.. e85 is still e85 no matter how it is produced, while using sugar cane reduces the impact on food supplies, it still has less energy potential of other fuel sources.
If we are going to use ethanol at all, it would be best if we ran on straight ethanol (not an ethanol/petro blend) and had cars which were tuned to simply run on it, the problem here is that the petro is used mostly as a stabilization agent, since alcohol is much more dangerous to transport in a fuel tank then petro is. I have seen formula engines modified to run off pure ethanol and the storage system was a aluminum fuel cell. This of course wouldn't be suitable for road use, even though the car was close to 600hp it did max out at about 2.5mpg =)
Also, most of the problems are outlined here: http://www.energybulletin.net/5062.html though I don't believe this was completely unbiased and it is slightly dated it still lists the problems for a "green" energy source.. ethanol may be an alternate fuel, it is however not green.
However.. e85 is still e85 no matter how it is produced, while using sugar cane reduces the impact on food supplies, it still has less energy potential of other fuel sources.
If we are going to use ethanol at all, it would be best if we ran on straight ethanol (not an ethanol/petro blend) and had cars which were tuned to simply run on it, the problem here is that the petro is used mostly as a stabilization agent, since alcohol is much more dangerous to transport in a fuel tank then petro is. I have seen formula engines modified to run off pure ethanol and the storage system was a aluminum fuel cell. This of course wouldn't be suitable for road use, even though the car was close to 600hp it did max out at about 2.5mpg =)
Brazil still is using E85, good old American corn ethanol. While they have discovered ways of producing ethanol from other crops, as far as I am aware none are currently in production today. I have alot more faith in sunfuel since it is close to being viable, can be used in any currently available diesel engine without modification, has close to no co2 impact and diesel engines are more efficient then gassers anyway.
Well, actually as Brazil is the number one producer of ethanol in the world and among other the majority of ethanol used in Sweden comes from.... Brazil. Sugar cane did the trick for them. Also Australia is putting a lot of efforts into sugar cane to produce ethanol, due to the prices of oil, there is now a lot of money to be made. Read some where that Australia plan to be among the top 3 producers of ethanol in a few year.

, but it is not a perfect solution also.

