E 85

I have been asked to answer a few questions about alternative fuels. I have developed multiple fuels and currently they are produced marketed in the midwest.

Energy Secretary Chu: All American cars should be E85 capable

Although I am a proponent of alternative fuels and a manufacturer of alternative fuels, I would take exception with the position. Ethanol was intended from the beginning (I was there) as an additive to gasoline to help improve emissions profile of IC motors using RFG fuels. It did its job and lowered most of the emissions from gasoline of that era. Ethanol supplied O2 to the burn, to more completely burn the fuel in the cylinder before the exhaust valve opened, because it did this very satisfactorily it also used up more potential carbon compounds in the fuel and raised the exhaust temperatures which conversely raised the NOx emissions. You had a good thing but with a few problems this is where the story becomes interesting and our current attitude on alternative fuels was manipulated by both sides. Ethanol could see that they could get 10% of the market for their product without having to create an infrastructure they would be able to wholesale their EoTH at gasoline prices. The oil companies were asked to give up 10% of their sales and 10% of their profits. Here comes the greed on both sides.
Rather than work together ethanol started to try to legislate that all fuel had to have O2 in the blend by weight. Oil companies weren't going to take giving up 100's of millions of dollars in profits lying down. As a byproduct, off of the cracker, they had an alcohol they could use methanol, that they already owned. Unfortunately, methanol was a deadly poison and mutagenic and they new that they would never be allowed. They had a plan, take two moles of methanol and bond them to and oxygen molecule and wala you have a new product MTBE (methyl tert butyl ether) and by going to EPA and applying for time to evaluate and improve this product they were able to put into the environment. Ethanol legislated that all gasoline had to have an O2 content, it backfired. What should have been done was ethanol would be sold to the refiners at a cost competitive price and that gasoline reformulated the carbon content so that the NOx emissions would maintain at petroleum levels. Lots of games on both sides, one of my favorites is when EPA was petitioned to modify the clean Air Act they were asked to change the names of the volatiles from VPS (volatile petroleum solvents) to VOC (volatile organic compounds) this is what is emitted when you fill your tank the reasoning was surely alcohol would evaporate faster than gasoline, which by the way if you do an RVP test is just the opposite.

I have broken three fingers on my left hand and typing is slow, enough for today, if you would like some more historical perspective let me know. I enjoy the reading the forum but am somewhat awed by some of the assertions as fact. Ethanol is a great additive to reformulated gasoline but as long as greed enters into the discussion then finding solutions is difficult. Ethanol will work as a fuel E85 but there are issues, I would rather see it used as an additive at the refinery level to clean inherently emission heavy petroleum fuels.
Technology does exist to allow computer to know what fuel is being burned.
Ethanol has less BTUs per mole than gasoline thus less potential energy worse mileage but cleaner.
One of the questions was why alternative fuels use conventional fuels? You have to run the refinery, distillation columns and molecular sieves on something. No I am not getting into the energy balance question and start a lot of emotional post. Most ethanol plants don't co generate and it is a energy intense process but it allows lower energy gasoline to be sold and used by today's cars.

Remember for the 2.5 gallons of ethanol we get from a bushel of corn 32 lbs of cellulose to dispose of to the livestock market so eat beef, chicken and pork to keep the ethanol prices down (that last is a little truth and a little tongue in cheek)