E85 Ethanol Fuel - Corn Power?
A Look At Ethanol Fuel From A Tuning Perspective
It may look tasty, but turn it into ethanol and corn is both a renewable fuel source and a
Do a quick Google search on ethanol and you'll find yourself buried in a mountain of information from various perspectives. The Corn Growers of America want you to believe that ethanol-an alcohol derived primarily from corn that's mixed in with regular gasoline-is the solution to all of our environmental, economic and political problems. Automakers building Flex Fuel vehicles, which can run on as much as 85 percent ethanol (or E85, as it's labeled at the pump), also want you to believe that ethanol is the way of the future. Truth be told, there are significant pros and cons to the use of ethanol as an automotive fuel source, but from a tuner's perspective the upside appears to far outweigh the downside, given that some of the top go-fast shops in the nation are converting their fastest and most powerful machines to run on E85. So what are the pros and cons of ethanol and why are shops like GST Motorsports converting their legendary time attack Subaru Impreza L to it? Read on.
Whether you're aware of it or not, you're probably putting an ethanol-blended fuel in your car every time you fill up; more than 50 percent of the nation's fuel supply has up to 10 percent ethanol content (or "E10")and has been blended into pump gas for decades. The main reason ethanol is being blended into pump gas is that it's being mandated by the government as part of a "renewable resource" strategy. But it's also being blended into more and more of the gas you can buy at the pump because it increases octane to gasoline, which helps protect against engine knock and can even improve engine performance if it's tuned to take advantage of the increased octane level. Ethanol also helps keep fuel injectors clean, plus it may lower the level of exhaust emissions, though this is a hotly debated topic.
The jury still seems to be out on whether or not ethanol is a truly "green" energy source
Some studies have shown that ethanol can reduce carbon monoxide emissions by as much as 30 percent, reduce volatile organic compounds (VOC) emissions by up to 12 percent and reduce particulate matter (PM) emissions by more than 25 percent, while other studies have shown that there is no emissions advantage conferred by ethanol-or worse, that ethanol-blended fuels increase ozone and particulate emissions and contribute significantly to global warming. Many governments and their research agencies continue to argue that producing ethanol produces fewer greenhouse gases when the entire production cycle, from gathering to refining to emissions, is taken into account, while some independent university-based researchers argue that much of the research on this topic doesn't account for the real-world fact that when agricultural land is used for fuel there is less land to grow food. This drives up food prices and leads to conversion of forests and native grasslands to grow food, which has severe greenhouse gas consequences.
By David Pratte
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