Ethanol blended with Gasoline

Google "vehicles that run on ethanol" and you will get lots of pages.

If you are not in the US you might want to investigate ethanol made from sugar cane. Brazil produces a lot of it. I have read more than once that it is better. The problem is that the US has raised a hefty tariff on it to protect US corporate farmers and then give them a subsidy to produce ethanol from corn.

Brazil is the one other country that uses either 22% ethanol or, in some vehicles, 100% ethanol. This ethanol is mostly derived from cane waste, which is a more efficient process than making ethanol from corn.

Now I know why whisky costs more than rum...

This link has a lot of information: http://www.distill.com/World-Fuel-Ethanol-A&O-2004.html

As far as the US market for ethanol; it is completely distorted by the tariffs and subsidies that Skelly mentions.

Skelly and Ca1ic0Cat and the others are correct about ethynol, cane and Brazil -

Hey if our big three could actually make and ship cars around the world to run on ethynol at a higher rate than those here consuming gasoline, perhaps the world would 'spin' just a little differently - lots of places in the world have premium conditions for cane, and the off-all from it would help fuel the bio-mass energy projects, with solar powered road grids providing for electric driven delivery road systems to move the bio-mass -

how can we harness these on a LARGE scale?

Jim

While on the subject--you may also note that California and others used to run cars on M85 --a blend of Gasoline with 15% Methanol.

I think M85 has been phased out on politics of corn-belt Ethanol lobby -- but officially fig-leafed as "toxic METHANOL".

Industrial Ethanol is not safe to drink either.

At INDIANAPOLIS , Racing cars race with 100% Methanol fuel even in 2008.

In the US, E85 is available in about 1 out of 100 gas stations. Therefore, most flex-fuel capable vehicles here are never used with E85. Sweden also has E85 available, and I suspect it may be more widely used there.

In the US, GM appears to make the largest number of flex-fuel capable vehicles. The motive for this appears to be to avoid CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) fines on their gas guzzlers. This avoidance of fines is possible because flex fuel vehicles are rated at 3.33 times their actual fuel efficiency for CAFE purposes. (In the US, car makers are fined if their corporate average fuel economy is less than stipulated by law.) Nissan also now sells two gas guzzlers here in flex-fuel form. The other manufacturers sell some flex-fuel models here, too. This Wikipedia article provides a list.

Of course Brazil has loads of cars that can run on ethanol.

What they don't tell you is that while running on E85 your mileage drops about half or more so if your gas guzzler gets 15 mpg on gas on E85 you get 6-7 mpg but a lot cleaner emissions foot print and a lot of head aches for the tech fixing your car

I've been using E85 in my vehicle( Silverado pickup) here in the U.S. for 4 years

and it's not quite as some have described here on this forum.

E85 is available near where I live , and is currently priced at more than one dollar

($1) U.S. below unleaded fuel. It gives about 15% less range than unleaded fuel,

but otherwise performance is vastly superior to even premium unleaded gasoline.

Other countries where E85 is available: Sweden, Germany, So. Africa, and now

Australia is trying it.

Germany also has many blends of ethanol , including E50(50/50 mix of EtOH/Gas).

In the U.S.: GM, Ford , Daimler/Chrysler make up the majority of available models.

Others are; Nissan, Mercedes, Mazda, Mitsubishi.

Subsidies to the industry are in place, it is true. And it makes for a rather lop-sided

market. But for an industry just getting underway, such as renewable fuels, it's a

necessary evil. Corn, on the other hand, is a well established agri-business -- and

with an available , local destination for it's product(ethanol plants) a payment system

is no longer needed, nor practical. That money would be better spent supporting next
generation bio-mass feedstocks(switchgrass,etc.)