gas mileage, here Vs there

[James Jaragosky]

Recently I was riding in a taxi in Edinburgh Scotland; it was a midsize 4 door Toyota
It had a gas mileage usage meter built into the dash; it was getting 56mpg I ask the driver if that is mpg or kilometers per gallon and he states that it is mpg.
Why can’t we get that kind of mileage out of cars here in the states they sell Toyotas here.
It was a diesel but that is phenomenal mileage for a midsize even so .

[Caspar Hauser]

Remember that the gallon is larger in the U.K. 20 fl oz to the pint as opposed to 16fl oz in the U.S, though the fluid oz is slightly smaller.

1 gallon [US, liquid] = 0.832 674 184 63 gallon [UK]
1 gallon [UK] = 4.546 09 litre
1 gallon [US, liquid] = 3.785 411 784 litre

So a little conversion is needed.

However fuel consumption is does seem markedly better in Europe than in the U.S. The Bluemotion as an instance apparently giving 70mpg (U.K) or better.

I'm on the whole uninterested in vehicles (types styles etc) so I'm not expert but I seem to remember seeing vehicles by American manufacturers in the U.K. that are not visible here in the U.S. presumably if they are being bought there they have good fuel consumption as fuel is expensive there in comparison with here.

[Chris Damm]

I don't believe the emission standards are as high over there either. They allow their engines to breathe which increases milage.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

My understanding is there are a lot of vehicles not sold here in the US due to the emissions standards.

[Joe Pelonio]

The US also has higher standards for safety which even US brands sold in Europe cannot meet. Those standards add a lot of weight to the vehicles here which increases the fuel consumption.

[Paul Ryan]

A volkswagon jetta TDI can get over 50 mpg here. So considering a UK gallon is more, their emissions aren't as strict, and the diesle fuel is better. I am not supprised of the mpg he was getting. Around here in many of the states we are forced to burn fuel with 10-20% ethanol in it. That in itself reduces fuel economy. I have seen very very few problems associated with ethanol fuel but you can loose up to 20% fuel economy. In MN we will be forced to burn 20% ethanol starting in 2010. Since I drive so much for a living that will come out of my wallet. Right now my sebring averages 37 mpg between 70-80 mph and 34 between 60-65 mph. I am happy with that mileage but more is always better.

[phil harold]

European emission standards were or are lower than american standards

Which provides better fuel consuption per mile

[Matt Meiser]

A coworker and I were discussing the exact same thing last year after we saw a news report touting how efficient European cars were. We looked up several comparable sized cars and compared fuel economy (based on our gas, their "petrol" versions) and found very little difference actually. Their smaller cars, which we are now getting, do better. And the diesels do better. Neither do the kind of better that the news report we saw talked about--apparently they missed that whole imperial gallon thing.

At the peak of the latest oil crisis, I asked a guy I know who's very knowledgeable about alternative fuel vehicles why his company wasn't selling their diesel cars in the US. Then answer--emissions standards. They found a way to meet the US standards using urea injection, but the EPA wouldn't allow it (this changed just recently) because it relied on the operator to keep the tank full. That could have been done economically since urea is commonly available for agricultural use and they estimated it could be sold in gallon jugs for about $3. The cars could be sold at a similar cost to current gas models. Kind of makes you wonder about how much control big oil has over policy?

There were a lot of news articles a year or so ago about how US fuel economy has dropped as emissions standards were tightened and as we added mandatory safety features which equate to additional weight. Those were comparing comparable sized vehicles so the shift to big SUVs wasn't taken into account which of course lowers it further.

[Orion Henderson]

Just got back from Germany a couple of weeks ago. Had a rented Mercedes C class wagon with the 2 liter 4 cylinder supercharged engine (gas-not diesel) and a slick 6 speed manual. Got about 33 MPG. Beautiful car-free upgrade too. Safety standards are an issue on some of the mini cars they have; but that is only part of it. The reality is that, at least in Germany, most people drive compact or midsize cars. There are more "micro" sized cars than we see, but not that many. They do tend to drive a vehicle a size class down from what an equivalent American would. IE, a family of 4 would typically drive something along the lines of a Focus wagon or 5 door. Pick up trucks are virtually non existent as is 4 or AWD. Most work vehicles are small vans. They seem very practical really-more space than most pick ups with secure cargo. Even farmers have vans.

Emissions standards were more lax than ours for a while. That has changed, theirs are now equal to ours. Their emissions were generally geared to reduce CO2 emissions, not "smog" forming emissions.

Diesel is cheaper than gas there. We tax diesel more which is why it generally costs the same or more here. Diesel puts out less CO2 but more soot.

A big reason why their cars get better mileage is the transmission. Most cars are manual. Second, they run smaller engines for the most part too. Even the big Mercedes and BMW's run small motors. IE, an E class MB with a 4 cylinder (and a stick) or a big S class with a small V-6 diesel.

The roads matter too-highways and 2 lane roads between towns-not stoplight ridden roads loaded with houses and businesses like we have. The towns are very densely populated with lots of open space between them. Quite different than we have (in most places anyway).

Just my $.02.

I do have some pics.

[Steve Rozmiarek]

A volkswagon jetta TDI can get over 50 mpg here. So considering a UK gallon is more, their emissions aren't as strict, and the diesle fuel is better. I am not supprised of the mpg he was getting. Around here in many of the states we are forced to burn fuel with 10-20% ethanol in it. That in itself reduces fuel economy. I have seen very very few problems associated with ethanol fuel but you can loose up to 20% fuel economy. In MN we will be forced to burn 20% ethanol starting in 2010. Since I drive so much for a living that will come out of my wallet. Right now my sebring averages 37 mpg between 70-80 mph and 34 between 60-65 mph. I am happy with that mileage but more is always better.


Paul, I really question that ethanol reduces milage by that much. I grow the danged stuff, and we use it extensively out here. I'm just not seeing the results that you mention. Ethanol is an methanol (I think), which will have different properties than gasoline, but because you can use E85 or gas in some motors without changing the fuel to air ratio, I don't think it requires an increase in proportions like the racing alchohols do. Those would require 20% more volume, but I don't think that ethanol does.

Biodiesel is far more common in the UK too. Biodiesel in our fleet of semis has proven to actually increase milage, pretty significantly in some instances. Most of our trucks get 5 to 6 miles per gallon, and the biodiesel actually increases that by 1 to 1 1/2 mpg. We have a biodiesel industry here too, but it is still developing. Canola and camalina are examples of what can be grown to produce oil seed stock.

BTW, Orion mentioned higher taxed diesel here. I can buy farm diesel which is still taxed, dyed red and not for highway use, about a dollar cheaper per gallon. The difference is more tax. Diesel costs far less to refine then gas too.

Emmisions control is the main reason IMHO. It's ridiculous how much restriction is put on airflow through our engines, in and out, and to expect an efficient use of fuel from that is akin to having your cake and eating it too. Thank the politicians.

[John Pratt]

A perfect example of gas milage here vs. there and how it relates to emission standards is the Smart Car made by Mercedes. In Germany it gets 60mpg and here about half that. You have to change emission standards so we don't polute the environment, at the same time people want better gas milage so we don't polute the environment, at the same time..... Sounds like a vicious circle in some ways.

[Tom Godley]

The difference in mpg is just a factor of engine size and weight.

The safety mandates add hundreds of pounds as do the options that are normally standard on US spec cars.

Emission mandates are different everywhere in the world and can account for some of the difference. Manual transmissions do not always give better MPG especially as engine size increases.

Diesel fuel in the USA has historically had too high sulfur content -- making it hard to meet the requirements for passenger cars.

Also, as europe and others moved from gasoline to heaver fuels gasoline has become an export item to the USA -- resulting in a reduction in the cost historically with diesel/ home heating fuel.

[Paul Ryan]

Paul, I really question that ethanol reduces milage by that much. I grow the danged stuff, and we use it extensively out here. I'm just not seeing the results that you mention. Ethanol is an methanol (I think), which will have different properties than gasoline, but because you can use E85 or gas in some motors without changing the fuel to air ratio, I don't think it requires an increase in proportions like the racing alchohols do. Those would require 20% more volume, but I don't think that ethanol does.

Biodiesel is far more common in the UK too. Biodiesel in our fleet of semis has proven to actually increase milage, pretty significantly in some instances. Most of our trucks get 5 to 6 miles per gallon, and the biodiesel actually increases that by 1 to 1 1/2 mpg. We have a biodiesel industry here too, but it is still developing. Canola and camalina are examples of what can be grown to produce oil seed stock.


Steve,

On most new cars that are flex fuel compatible there is a sticker on the windshield that is taken down when the car is purchased. The sticker shows the difference in range based on what fuel type you are using. Depending on engine size E85 gets 15-20% less than regular 87 octane gasoline. States like ours that mandate a % of ethanol are already reducing or engines fuel economy. The fuel does burn cleaner but it takes more to burn. The BTU's in fuel also show the difference. Diesel has more BTU's than gasoline and gas has more BTU's than ethanol. It simply takes more ethanol to produce the same power as it does for gas.

The reason vehicles can burn either gas or ethanol is really not that big of a deal. Ford uses a fuel sensor that measures the specific gravity of the fuel, it then determines how to change the fuel/air mixture. Chrylser watches the oxygen sensor wave pattern and adjusts fuel/air mixture to compensate for the higher oxygen content in ethanol.

There is a real simply way to get our cars to get more fuel mileage. All that needs to be done is to lean out the mixture. Gasoline engines today run much richer than necessary. The reason for the richness of the mixture is to get the catalytic conver to "light off". The cat needs unburnt fuel to reach its effcient temperature. If the cat is too cold it will not clean up the NOX emissions. However if the exhaust gets to hot the CO2 and NOX emissions wont be able to be cleaned up either, hence the reasons for EGR valves. The EGR recirculates inert exhaust gases back through the engine to cool down the exhaust temps. If you can get the engine computer to run in closed loop constantly and lean out the preprogramed oxygen sensor settings. Engines would get much better fuel mileage but emissions would be out of wack. My 1st car was a 1967 plymouth barracuda, with a 318. If I drove it sensibly on the highway I could get up to 22 mpg with it. Thats 42 year old technology we could do much better today if we dont care what we breath.

[Joe Pelonio]

My experience is that with the 10% ethanol that we use all year here now I lose maybe 1mpg, barely noticeable. The flex-fuel cars are a bit of a joke, here, because there are only maybe 3 stations in the state that sell E85.
I'm driving a company pool car that's flex and I doubt it's ever been filled with E85 since the nearest station that sells it is 70 miles away.

Diesel right now is less than gas. The problem is that in winter it goes way up
higher than gas because it comes from the same source as heating oil, so the cost and demand thing kicks in.

[Greg Cuetara]

About the ethanol in the fuel I can vouch for the fact that it reduces fuel economy by about 20%. I lived in Denver about 10 years ago and they used to put ethanol in the fuel for half the year and I saw a noticable difference in fuel economy. It never made sense to me to use more fuel to get to the same place. you use more fuel but less emissions per gallon but in the end the same amount of emissions go into the air. Another question i have is can older engines handle 10% or 20% ethanol and not have any problems.

Another question I have is that I have a friend who had an older saturn sl2 car which got almost 40 mpg and is probably one of the safest vehicles on the road. Why can that vehicle get good gas mileage but now we have to have a hybrid to get back up to 40 mpg. Maybe it is the tigher emissions standards we have today? Doesn't make too much sense to me as you have to use more gas so in the end we just use more gas but put the same amount of crud out there.

Another question I have is how much energy is required to produce 1 gallon of ethanol and how much energy do we get out of that 1 gallon of ethanol? If it takes more energy to produce that 1 gallon than we would get out does it make sense to use it and produce it?

Greg

[Steve Rozmiarek]

Paul, you certainly know your stuff about engines, and I'll defer to your knowlege on that. I do however own an Acadia that does not care one bit if you use ethenol fuel or not. It gets the same milage no matter what. I'm not really impressed by the milage that it gets though. I have a new GMC diesel pickup that gets nearly the same, and has a huge amount more power to push around its extra weight. It also uses an "exhaust filter", that has to heat up and reburn the crud every now and then. I see the milage decrease for the 15 minutes or so it takes to do that every 400 miles or so. It makes no visible exhaust ever though. Wierd for a diesel.

Greg, you asked about the energy used to make ethanol, and that is certainly no new argument against it. Anti ethanol folks say that it takes the same amount of energy to make it as it produces. They will cite the amount of energy taken from the planting of the corn seed to pumping it into your tank, with one tiny little ommision. The fact that the extraction of ethanol leaves a buy product with nearly identical feed value to the corn it is made of, which actually replaces corn in the rations for feeding livestock. This little ommision makes it so that the actual process of producing ethanol should only matter to energy use, not the growing of the crop. I don't know how many watts of power it actually takes to distill and seperate corn, but it is not much. I can't imagine that it would take more then the finding, drilling, shipping, refining, shipping again, etc that crude takes.

That side of the argument is even wrong on the farmers use of energy to grow corn. The "facts" that I have seen use data from the 40's and 50's about passes through the fields, and fuel use by equipment. It makes me think that someone with a little at stake is trying to disparage ethanol.

I hate political enviromentalism, and I really hate the use of ethanol to further that goal, but I also think that ethanol really does have a place in our energy requirements. Plus, it helped buy me a Felder...:D

[Joe Pelonio]

I don't know how reliable this source is, but it is a University professor indicating that it takes far more energy to produce ethanol than it gives.

http://healthandenergy.com/ethanol.htm

and this article talks about the pollution from the process of making ethanol.

http://zfacts.com/p/83.html

Still, I'd bet that it's less impact than production of gasoline, it's just not nearly as "green" as people think.

[Mike Henderson]

There is no question that adding ethanol to gasoline reduces the MPG. My wife and I took a cross country trip some years ago in a car that had a trip computer. I was getting about 26mpg consistently until we hit the states that mandate ethanol in the gasoline. Exact same driving, essentially the same roads (Interstate) and same altitude - lower MPG, down to about 22MPG. At first, I thought something was wrong with the engine but finally figured out it was the ethanol. When we got to a state without ethanol in the gas, the MPG went back to what it had been before.

The science supports this. Ethanol does not have as many BTUs in a gallon as gasoline has.

Mike

[Karl Brogger]

I'm no chemist but I believe ethanol is almost alcohol or at least really close.

I do know for a fact it takes almost twice as much alcohol to get the same amount of power out of an engine as gasoline. In a performance setting the most valuable reason for putting up with such a pain in the rear fuel as alcohol is that because the evaporation of fuel in the cylinder also acts as a coolant, and dumping in twice as much cooling potential in also means you can turn the screws to it a bit more.


And yes, Europe has very lax standards for diesel emissions. Modern US diesel powerplants are now a complete waste of money for most vehicles. All you are doing is paying an extra $7k for an engine that gets lousy mileage, and is in the shop non-stop with emissions equipment related issues. In order to get an engine to burn cleaner, it must burn hotter. The easiest way to get the cylinder temps up is to throw more fuel at it. Nice thinking eh?

Catapillar said screw it, not worth the hassle, and won't be producing engines for over the road trucks any longer once the next round of emissions laws take effect.


edit- I believe right now the return for producing ethanol, vs diesel is about 1.1:1. As in it takes 1 gallon of diesel to produce 1.1 gallons of ethanol. Corn just isn't a effecient or responsible way to produce ethanol, but it was quite the little money maker for all involved for a while there. With out the subsidies a gallon of E85 should be almost double the cost of gallon of gas.

[Greg Peterson]

Steve brings up a salient point. If corn were being grown exclusively for the production of ethanol then there would certainly be more efficient means of producing energy.

However, one could argue that ethanol is is simply a byproduct of producing feed. The corn is being grown regardless.

Just think of all the ethanol we haven't extracted from the corn crops over the past 100 years.

[Jason Roehl]

I'm no chemist but I believe ethanol is almost alcohol or at least really close.


Ethanol is short for "ethyl alcohol", and is AKA "grain alcohol", or the alcohol that is in all beer, wine and liquor.

Methanol is short for "methyl alcohol", and is AKA "wood alcohol", and is often used as the denaturing compound in denatured alcohol, which is mostly ethanol. The methanol makes it poisonous so that Mr. Excise Man won't slap a tax on it, since you're not going to drink it.

Ethanol allows for higher compression ratios in an engine, since it is an anti-knock compound. This has been known for 80+ years, but DuPont won that battle with its lead additive compound so we had leaded gas for many years. So, in addition to the slight change in air/fuel ratio the engines in flex-fuel vehicles make, they also advance the spark timing even more--giving more time for the fuel/air charge to burn fully (and get more of the available power out of it).

[Steve Rozmiarek]

Steve brings up a salient point. If corn were being grown exclusively for the production of ethanol then there would certainly be more efficient means of producing energy.

However, one could argue that ethanol is is simply a byproduct of producing feed. The corn is being grown regardless.

Just think of all the ethanol we haven't extracted from the corn crops over the past 100 years.


Exactly. It also takes no where near 1 gallon of diesel to grow corn for 1 gallon of ethanol. Ethanol also make CO2 as a byproduct, which is compressed and used for industrial purposes.

Just for fun, to grow corn, I have my equipment perform three functions. Strip till, planting and combining. The strip till tractor will burn 13 gallons of fuel per hour, and cover 25 acres. The planter will use about 6 gpa, for 25 acres per hour. The combine will burn 20 gpa, and cover about 20 acres. We also spray, which uses 20 gph, at 160 acres per hour. Add that .125 gallon in there, and you get 1.885 gallons of diesel per acre total used by my farm to grow and harvest the corn. It also has to be trucked to the plant, so figure that each truck will haul 1200 bushels the 60 miles, at 6 miles per gallon, giving a total use of .016 gallons of fuel burned per bushel of corn hauled for a round trip.

Ok, an acre of corn will produce roughly 200 bushels of corn, so a bushel of corn requires 1.885/200=.0094 gallons of fuel to produce, plus the .016 gallons per bushel to haul, for a total of .0254 gallons of diesel per bushel used to grow corn and deliver to the ethanol plant.

Here's where it gets interesting. One bushel of corn will produce 2.77 gallons of ethanol. Now, I'm just a dumb farmer, but 2.77>.0254, yes?

Add the feed value of the byproduct, and the sale of the CO2, and I'm thinking that there is a significant amount of disinformation out there. BTW, I'd love to show this process to anyone that cares to learn the truth.

[Rod Sheridan]

Exactly. It also takes no where near 1 gallon of diesel to grow corn for 1 gallon of ethanol. Ethanol also make CO2 as a byproduct, which is compressed and used for industrial purposes.

Just for fun, to grow corn, I have my equipment perform three functions. Strip till, planting and combining. The strip till tractor will burn 13 gallons of fuel per hour, and cover 25 acres. The planter will use about 6 gpa, for 25 acres per hour. The combine will burn 20 gpa, and cover about 20 acres. We also spray, which uses 20 gph, at 160 acres per hour. Add that .125 gallon in there, and you get 1.885 gallons of diesel per acre total used by my farm to grow and harvest the corn. It also has to be trucked to the plant, so figure that each truck will haul 1200 bushels the 60 miles, at 6 miles per gallon, giving a total use of .016 gallons of fuel burned per bushel of corn hauled for a round trip.

Ok, an acre of corn will produce roughly 200 bushels of corn, so a bushel of corn requires 1.885/200=.0094 gallons of fuel to produce, plus the .016 gallons per bushel to haul, for a total of .0254 gallons of diesel per bushel used to grow corn and deliver to the ethanol plant.

Here's where it gets interesting. One bushel of corn will produce 2.77 gallons of ethanol. Now, I'm just a dumb farmer, but 2.77>.0254, yes?

Add the feed value of the byproduct, and the sale of the CO2, and I'm thinking that there is a significant amount of disinformation out there. BTW, I'd love to show this process to anyone that cares to learn the truth.

Thanks for the informative figures Steve.

Do you pump water or put fertilizer on the corn fields?

Regards, Rod.

P.S. Glad to hear that it financed your Felder, it's good to stimulate the economy and get something nice in return.

[Paul Ryan]

Exactly. It also takes no where near 1 gallon of diesel to grow corn for 1 gallon of ethanol. Ethanol also make CO2 as a byproduct, which is compressed and used for industrial purposes.

Just for fun, to grow corn, I have my equipment perform three functions. Strip till, planting and combining. The strip till tractor will burn 13 gallons of fuel per hour, and cover 25 acres. The planter will use about 6 gpa, for 25 acres per hour. The combine will burn 20 gpa, and cover about 20 acres. We also spray, which uses 20 gph, at 160 acres per hour. Add that .125 gallon in there, and you get 1.885 gallons of diesel per acre total used by my farm to grow and harvest the corn. It also has to be trucked to the plant, so figure that each truck will haul 1200 bushels the 60 miles, at 6 miles per gallon, giving a total use of .016 gallons of fuel burned per bushel of corn hauled for a round trip.

Ok, an acre of corn will produce roughly 200 bushels of corn, so a bushel of corn requires 1.885/200=.0094 gallons of fuel to produce, plus the .016 gallons per bushel to haul, for a total of .0254 gallons of diesel per bushel used to grow corn and deliver to the ethanol plant.

Here's where it gets interesting. One bushel of corn will produce 2.77 gallons of ethanol. Now, I'm just a dumb farmer, but 2.77>.0254, yes?

Add the feed value of the byproduct, and the sale of the CO2, and I'm thinking that there is a significant amount of disinformation out there. BTW, I'd love to show this process to anyone that cares to learn the truth.


Steve,

I will be the 1st one to admit that I know very little about ethanol before it enters the fuel supply and ultimately our engine. It seems you have really done your home work and research on how much $$ you spend to grow 1 bushel of corn that can be used to produce ethanol. My question, It looks like it takes a very small amount of diesel to grow and transport the corn to the manufacturer. But how much electricity does the plant use to distill the corn into ethanol once it reaches their facility?

All I know is at this point the only advantage ethanol has over gas is it burns cleaner. If I burn it reqularily it will cost more to transport my sorry but around than gasoline would cost me. But if the price of ethanol can get down to about $1.00 less per gallon than gas it would be a wash 1:1. If we could get ethanol that low or better, even lower, I would be all for burning it. Just out of curiosity have you looking into switch grass. As I stated earlier I know very little about growning corn for ethanol, but all I ever hear is switch grass or sugar cane is the way to produce ethanol. It costs less and produces more gallons per bushel.

[Steve Rozmiarek]

Rod, another benefit of this is sort of illustrated by the Felder. The money generated by this process stays here, rather then dissapearing into a sand dune someplace. Of course my Felder purchase sent some of it to Austria, so I guess I contributed to that problem a little...

I do irrigate, but most growers of ethanol corn do not. I personally have high efficiency electric systems on 95% of the fields. I did not include the btu's of energy in that post last night because of how corn is marketed. I over simplified a little to make a point, but in actuallity, all the corn produced here is put into the market "pool" and most of it goes directly to feedlots, as they are willing to pay more for it then the ethanol plant is, generally. The guys that have lower overhead, dryland growers, will take less for their corn that is put into the market, which goes to the ethanol plants. I have irrigation for the other more profitable crops, and corn is more of a rotation crop. In fact, I'm interested in replacing it with something else, maybe chicory.

Paul, the cellulistic processes, like switch grass, is interesting. We don't have a plant here for that, but the potential gains are greater. I think they are still perfecting the process. It's one thing to make ethanol in a lab, and a completely different one to build a plant I suppose.

The question about the use of energy by the plant, I've been told by industry reps that the process takes about 30,000 btu per gallon of ethanol. I also have been told that the total process produces a net energy gain of about 85,000 btu per gallon of ethanol. The industry changes technology so fast that plants built 5 years ago are now nearly obsolete, so beware of old studies and data. Heck, my farming practices have cut the energy use to grow corn by 30% in the last 5 years.

I better get to work! If anyone wants more info on the process, try looking for new USDA studies.

[Karl Brogger]

Thanks for the informative figures Steve.

Do you pump water or put fertilizer on the corn fields?



and, how much energy does it take to produce the ethanol at the plant. and get the ethanol to the refinery, and....... Now that you've taken a high energy fuel by volume like diesel, and used it to produce a low energy by volume fuel like alcohol, I fail to see the net gain. I'm too lazy to google the actual BTU content, but that's actually what needs to be assessed


The agricultural standpoint is just the first step. Corn is a horrible product to produce ethanol from, if we could do it from sugar beats, or sugar cane like they do in South America, then it might get a higher return. I heard a statistic once that if every tillable piece of land were planted in to soybeans, and all of those soybeans were used to make B100 biodiesel, it still wouldn't come close to meeting out demands for fuel.

[Greg Peterson]

The whole ethanol debate is manufactured.

A little misinformation inserted into the right outlet and the debate goes off the rails. Steve has done a pretty good job of including facts that have been curiously omitted from the discussion. One wonders who and why they came to the decision to not fully inform their audience of these facts.

I see little to no harm in developing ethanol.

It's a necessary step in the right direction.

[Steve Rozmiarek]

and, how much energy does it take to produce the ethanol at the plant. and get the ethanol to the refinery, and....... Now that you've taken a high energy fuel by volume like diesel, and used it to produce a low energy by volume fuel like alcohol, I fail to see the net gain. I'm too lazy to google the actual BTU content, but that's actually what needs to be assessed


The agricultural standpoint is just the first step. Corn is a horrible product to produce ethanol from, if we could do it from sugar beats, or sugar cane like they do in South America, then it might get a higher return. I heard a statistic once that if every tillable piece of land were planted in to soybeans, and all of those soybeans were used to make B100 biodiesel, it still wouldn't come close to meeting out demands for fuel.

Hi Karl, I think I addressed that at about the same time that you posted yours, so I hope I clarified enough.

[Ben Hatcher]

I've done quite a bit of research on this topic. Ethanol has 70% of the energy capacity as gasoline. So, 10% ethanol will give a 3% reduction in fuel economy. Diesel not only has higher energy capacity but a more efficient combustion process. The result is 30-40% higher fuel efficiency.

Europeans tend to drive smaller cars, with smaller engines, with standard transmissions. Even the same model names aren't the same. The Accord in the US is larger than the same model sold in Europe. 52 mpg isn't a surprise for a mid sized car if it is an imperial gallon and a diesel car.

As a side note, it actually takes about 30-40% more oil to make a gallon of diesel than a gallon of gas. So, if you were to calculate the number of barrels of oil required to fuel 10 cars to drive 1000 miles each, 5 diesel, 5 gas, they'd come out about the same.