Alcohol Can Be Bad For Your Liver and Your Engine Too
July 22nd, 2010
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Note, this article deals directly with American energy policy and therefore may seem American-centric to some, but that’s simply because of the context of this policy
Ethanol is just another way of saying ethyl alcohol, which is generally the type of alcohol that a person means when they use the term “alcohol” in common conversation. It’s the exact same stuff that gives liquor its kick. If you’ve ever woken up with someone you don’t remember going to bed with, vomited all over your prom dress or photocopied your buttocks at an office Christmas party, it was probably because of alcohol.
Ethanol is also used as a motor fuel, most often as an additive to gasoline. In the United States, ethanol is now standard in most gasoline. The current standard for ethanol is 10% ethanol to 90% gasoline. Nearly all the ethanol found in US fuel comes from the fermentation and distillation of corn. Corn is a reasonably good crop for ethanol production, because it’s rich in starch and sugars and a large volume of corn can be grown per acre of land. Still, ethanol production is far from economical and as things currently stand, it would be all but it would be all but impossible to make money on production of ethanol fuel if not for extremely generous government subsidies and requirements that it be added to gasoline, whether or not the gasoline seller or the buyer of the fuel actually wants it.
Indeed the ethanol industry has become a prime example of environmental policy that sure seemed good at the outset, but has turned out to be disastrous. Ethanol’s proponents point out that it is produced domestically, as opposed to petroleum which is largely imported. While this is true, the total economics of ethanol are actually quite poor. It’s considerably more expensive and more energy intensive to produce than petroleum, so there’s no economic benefit to the nation by using it. It uses vast areas of land, huge amounts of fertilizer and enormous quantities of energy to produce ethanol and worst of all, it competes directly for resources with food crops, potentially driving up the price of critical staple crops.
As it has become more and more difficult to hide the dark side of ethanol, it the industry has been fighting tooth and nail to maintain (or even increase) the extremely generous government handouts that it has needed to remain solvent and make money with an inherently inferior and more expensive product. The US government is currently borrowing money at a rate greater than any other time in history (yes, even World War II!) and handouts to industries that do no good for anyone other than themselves would seem like a good place to cut back. For those making ethanol, this could mean the end of the gravy train.
Ethanol industry scrambles to keep incentives
WASHINGTON – The once-popular ethanol industry is scrambling to hold onto billions of dollars in government subsidies, fighting an increasing public skepticism of the corn-based fuel and wariness from lawmakers who may divert the money to other priorities.The industry itself can’t agree on how to persuade Congress to keep the subsidies, which now come in the form of tax credits worth about $6 billion annually.
One industry group, Growth Energy, made the bold move Thursday of calling for the tax credits to be phased out completely in favor of spending the money on more flex-fuel cars and gasoline pumps that support ethanol. A rival group, the Renewable Fuels Association, said it’s too late in the year to make such proposals — the tax credits expire at the end of the year, and legislative days are numbered.
As the industry bickers over what to do, Congress is signaling it’s growing tired of paying for ethanol. The House Ways and Means Committee is considering slashing the tax credit by 9 cents a gallon, from 45 cents to 36 cents, when it looks at a wide range of energy tax credits as early as next week. That would be the second cut in the credit in as many years.
A key senator also expressed skepticism this week. Sen. Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico, Democratic chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee and a longtime supporter of renewable fuels, said Congress should “weigh all factors, including the credit’s very high cost to taxpayers,” when looking to extend the credit. Bingaman noted that the ethanol industry is protected by congressional mandates for its use.
Some supporters say they see the writing on the wall.
“The longer we have this support structure in place for ethanol, the more people begin to question it,” said Roger Johnson, president of the National Farmers Union, which supports Growth Energy’s plan. He says a new approach is needed as the public becomes more skeptical.
This is not the only place that the ethanol industry is working the politicians. They would also like to see higher concentrations of the fuel added to standard gasoline sold at thousands of gas stations in the United States. Today most gasoline has about 10% ethanol added, although specialty blends of up to 85% ethanol is available at a few service stations.
However, if the ethanol industry gets its way, the regular unleaded gasoline you purchase at your local gas station may soon be 15 or 20 percent ethanol. It’s unclear now whether service stations may be required to add that much ethanol to their gasoline or whether it will just be optional. In a true free market, no gas station would add such large amounts of ethanol to their gasoline, because its more expensive, but if subsidies are generous enough, it may be worth their while. Current regulations do not require ethanol be added to gasoline, but they do require an oxygenator be added, and ethanol does fulfill this role, while at the same time being economical due to extreme subsidization.
The blend rate refers to the federal rule that limits ethanol blends to no more than 10% for standard automobiles. Commonly known as “E10,” the fuel contains 90% gasoline and 10% alcohol. But recent comments from the Obama administration indicate that the EPA will provide a bailout to the corn ethanol industry, which will likely allow retailers to blend up to 15% ethanol into U.S. gasoline supplies.
Ethanol and your engine: the good, the bad and the ugly:
Is it a good idea to add ethanol to gasoline? It can be, in at least some circumstances. Adding small amounts of ethanol to gasoline (generally less than ten percent) does have some advantages. These include the following:
- Ethanol is an “octane booster” which can be added to increase the octane level of low octane gasoline to make it suitable for higher compression engines and avoid knock.
- Ethanol can help prevent small amounts of water from freezing in fuel lines and filters, effectively making it a fuel line antifreeze
- Ethanol acts as an oxygenator. Used in relatively small amounts it can reduce the problem of incomplete combustion of fuel and tailpipe emissions.
US law now requires oxygenators be added to gasoline in order to reduce incomplete combustion. Ethanol has become the primary alternative to MTBE, another popular oxygenator. MTBE and other chemicals like it are banned in two states, in part due to groundwater contamination concerns. Ethanol is not the only alcohol-type oxygenator, as methanol and isopropanol also do the job, in some cases better than ethanol. They, however, are not subsidized and therefore tend to be more expensive to the gasoline seller, even if the overall economics are more favorable.
The minor advantages of ethanol may well make it worthwhile as a fuel additive in some circumstances. However, it also has some big disadvantages, although these tend to be minor to non-existent as long as the content is only around a few percent. As things currently stand, the 10% or less content of ethanol found in gasoline rarely causes major problems, but if concentrations go up, they are likely to cause some bigger problems.
- Ethanol absorbs water. In small concentrations this can be a desirable trait that purges water from the fuel system, should it get in. However, larger concentrations of ethanol can mean enough water is retained in fuel to cause significant damage to engines. Since ethanol absorbs water, it is not suitable for shipment in pipelines or tankers pre-mixed with gasoline. In such circumstances it would be too much of a risk if any water got into the mix. Ethanol must be shipped separately, generally by rail car, and added shortly before sale. Even then, if water enters the fuel tanks, such as heavy rain washing down fill hatches, it can cause huge problems, because it won’t stay separate from the fuel.
- Ethanol is less energy dense than gasoline and as such it will decrease fuel mileage. In some vehicles, this can be quite significant.
- In addition to being a fuel, gasoline has the added bonus of some lubrication and anti-corrosion properties. Gasoline coats the internal components of fuel systems and inhibits corrosion and degradation. It also helps lubricate fuel pumps and injectors. Ethanol does not have this property and the more ethanol that is added to the fuel, the less well it lubricates and protects components.
- Ethanol has lower flame velocity and generally burns slightly cooler than gasoline. Depending on the engine type, this can be a problem that may lead to timing issues or buildup of residue in the pistons and exhaust system.
- Ethanol can dissolve some of the seals and other materials in fuel systems. Most modern fuel systems no longer use materials that are not compatible with ethanol, but older vehicles and motors may still contain them. This has the potential to cause severe damage to the fuel system and engine.
- The oxygenating properties of ethanol can be a major problem if enough ethanol is present. In high quantities, the additional oxygen results in a fuel/air mixture that is acutely too lean. Running an engine too lean (too much oxygen to not enough fuel) can cause all kinds of problems. These include misfired pistons, bad timing, valve damage and higher temperatures than the engine is designed for. All of these issues can cause severe wear and damage to the engine.
It should be noted that most of these problems should not be terribly severe in modern automobiles. The problem of a vehicle running too rich or lead based on the fuels content of ethanol is generally not much of an issue for modern fuel-injected engines. Cars made in the last ten to twenty years have oxygen and exhaust sensors which can detect the levels of oxygen and combustion gases in the exhaust and adjust the fuel level and choke accordingly.
Still, even though mot newer cars shouldn’t have problems with high ethanol content, this is far from a sure thing. Already, a few incidents have shown that modern vehicles are not always ready for high ethanol content. Last year, for example, Toyota recalled nearly a quarter of a million cars because of ethanol-related corrosion problems in the engines and fuel systems.
Carberated engines, however, face some major problems. Such engines do not have the ability to adjust themselves to varying oxygenation levels. Most were initially designed for standard 100% gasoline. When run on 10% ethanol, they may experience some problems with overly-lean burning ratios, although this is usually fairly minor. At 20%, the problem can be much greater. It is possible to modify such engines to account for higher levels of alcohols in fuel, but if the amount is variable or unknown this problem will not be easily addressed.
Carburated engines can be found on many older automobiles. Most “classic cars” use them as do some newer vehicles with specialized engines. Owners of these vehicles are likely to face complications and may need to install specialized sensors or chokes to keep their cars from being damaged. They may also need to use special fuel blends and additives to counteract the effects of ethanol or increase lubrication. In some cases, fuel system components and seals may even need to be replaced.
However, carburators are common in other applications aside from automobiles. Nearly all two-stroke engines and most small gasoline engines continue to use carburators. These engines are the ones that can be found on lawn mowers, chainsaws, generators, outboard boat motors, motorbikes and many many other applications. There are millions of such small engines in the United States alone and these may well turn out to be where ethanol hits the hardest. Indeed, even the modest levels of 10% ethanol may already be causing some problems, especially in older gasoline equipment.
For manufactures of small engines, the issue of higher ethanol concentrations presents a conundrum that is not easily solved. Adding oxygen sensors and fuel injection controllers to every chainsaw and weedwhacker produced would dramatically increase costs and with the future of ethanol concentrations up in the air, it’s difficult to know what ratio engine designers should expect their product to encounter.
Mechanics see ethanol damaging small engines
Rick Kitchings has been a small-engine mechanic for about 30 years, and he’s been busier than ever lately.Recently, a customer came into his shop in Savannah, Ga., with a string trimmer that had barely been used. “It looked like it just came off the showroom floor, but the motor was absolutely shot, absolutely worn out,” Kitchings said.
The owner had fueled the trimmer with an gasoline-ethanol blend, which is becoming increasingly common thanks to a federal mandate to convert to biofuels.
Although the Web is rife with complaints from car owners who say ethanol damaged their engines, ethanol producers and automakers say it’s safe to use in cars. But smaller engines — the two-cycle utility engines in lawnmowers, chain saws and outboard boat motors — are another story.
Benjamin Mallisham, owner of a lawnmower repair shop in Tuscaloosa, Ala., said at least 40 percent of the lawnmower engines he repairs these days have been damaged by ethanol.
“When you put that ethanol in here, it eats up the insides or rusts them out,” Mallisham said. “All the rubber gaskets and parts — it eats those up.”
Conclusion:
In the past few years, it’s become very clear that ethanol offers no economic benefit and few if any environmental benefits. While there are circumstances, where a small amount of ethanol may be a worthwhile fuel additive, the levels of 10%+ and the heavy subsidies given to ethanol are not benefiting anyone besides the producers. In the near future, we may have to deal with higher concentrations. If your car is more than a few years old, you may want to check with your dealer to make sure this won’t cause any unexpected and expensive problems. Be especially careful with lawnmowers, chain saws and boat motors, however, because these are the kind of engines ethanol can destroy. Contact the manufacturer and consider taking such equipment to a small engine shop for adjustments or just to get advice on how to run it on higher blends of ethanol safely.
This entry was posted on Thursday, July 22nd, 2010 at 5:28 pm and is filed under Bad Science. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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July 26th, 2010 at 2:30 am
drbuzz0 said:
Tweaking your boric acid levels is much more of a pain in the arse than it’s worth though, and you can’t react all that quickly, especially in terms of powering up (safely).
Still, I like the thermal flywheel approach, I’d never heard about that before. Smart. Potentially quite dangerous, but that’s the power industry all over.
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July 26th, 2010 at 4:04 am
Loadfollowing is not accomplished through the boric acid content of the coolant, this is accomplished through the “grey rods” or effect regulating rods. The reason for this is the core dynamics of changing the reactor output, especially when going from full power to, say, house-turbine (most extreme case). The xenon poisioning of the core is not something you can regulate through the boric acid concentration as the rate at which you can change the chemistry in the coolant is not fast enough. (US-EPR ~76 slm and AP-1000 ~32 slm makeup rate).
It is possible to use boric acid to take the reactor to a new power level slowly, this is an advantage if you have to do something on the turbine plant or condenser to fix a minor problem, not for loadfollowing though. It is true however that Gen 3 and Gen 3+ plants have limited loadfollowing capability in their design, but I will believe it when I see it…
Excess steam can always be dumped into the condenser, assuming you can open (and regulate) the dump valve quickly enough. In my experience on gen 2 power plants, this is really tricky as the dump valve have a tendency to be a bit slow compared to the turbine shut off valve and the preasure buildup in the steam generators, safety relief valves will open before the dumpvalve at which point the reactor will scram. A good set of operators can keep the plant in “house-turbine” mode and I have seen it been done, which incidently makes proffesional pilots look like unorganised schoolboys at a sweet shop…
The economics of nuclear plants does not take loadfollowing into account in the calculations that I have seen, so I am not sure it is a good idea from that standpoint. Perhaps in countries with limited hydro or other similarely reactive production.
I can’t comment on BWRs as my experience and knowledge is not up to scratch there…
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July 26th, 2010 at 6:19 am
The load following issue is a bit of a red herring – the penetration of NPP would have to by much, much higher than it is now before it becomes a problem.
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July 26th, 2010 at 7:40 am
Matt said:
What he said.
Attempting to load-follow by boric acid is viable in principle, but generally silly. You either have to slowly add B10, seeking a homogeneous concentration slowly rising to drop your reaction down a notch or two; or you really dump some in and end up with a heterogeneous primary fluid which will choke the reactor suddenly and then let it pick up again, this process repeating until a sensible mix is achieved. The former is feasible but unreasonably slow, the latter has the potential to be seriously unsafe.
Sucking up all that boron afterwards is worse. Cycling fluid out to deborifiers can only be done so fast, and again you don’t want to risk a heterogeneous dilution so it’s not easy to handle.
As DV8 says though, load-following on nuclear power is largely irrelevant, even the French don’t bother despite having about 80% nuclear generation – they do their load following from hydro, thermal and (peak demand) gas turbines.
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July 26th, 2010 at 9:49 am
I stand corrected on the issue of load following with boric acid injection.
In any case, load following with ouplants is rarely an issue except in areas where they have extremely high penetration, as is noted. Economically, it makes a lot more sense to run them at baseload all the time if you can.
Should we ever get the share of nuclear energy up past about 50-60%, then we can start worrying about how new nuclear plants will need to load follow.
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July 26th, 2010 at 11:57 am
I’mnotreallyhere said:
Heterogennous mixtures are not possible in the RCS in western reactors, you may get them in SEVERE LOCA type accidents but they are not allowed in the design of plant at normal operation. The turnover in the RCS is so rappid that any injection from safety systems will create a homogeneus mixture in the reactor coolant, stratification of any kind is not possible under normal operation and most abnormal circumstances. The speed of the fluid is ~4 m/s (more than 12 feet per second), it does not stay in the reactor vessel for more than 2 to 2.5 seconds. It might be possible to inject boron in the “cold” leg in one of the reactor loops (through the boron injection system) and create a “plug” of high boron coolant, however this plug would mix with the coolant from the other loops at the bottom of the reactor (before the core) and enter the core as an even mixture (trust me, with the Re numbers we are talking about the coolant is thouroughly mixed). The SIS system is injected into the reactor vessel downcommer, so even if you managed to activate the SIS system without scramming the reactor, you would still end up with an even mixture in the coolant through the core. These are large volume high pressure systems that you just can’t ‘dab’ in willy-nilly, not to mention all the reactor interlocks you have to defeat to accomplish this (Westinghouse design based PWRs and any other).
The chemistry and volume control systems (CVCS) does not allow you to make rappid changes to the reactor coolant chemistry as this “could” lead to boron dilution events, which are designed against. This is why you have a finite letdown flow capability from the main RCS to the CVCS in order to adjust the chemistry (and boron), the let down rate is governed by the charging pump capacity. Normally you “feed and bleed” to get rid of Boron, you bleed off coolant in the CVCS system to waste and replace it with demineralised water to dilute the boron content in the RCS (via the CVC-tank and charging pumps), this gives you slow and even changes to chemistry. Deboronation ionexchangers are only used at the end of cycle where dilution would require you to feed and bleed large portions of the entire coolant inventory. Though this also depends on the discharge permits of the plant.
The point is you can’t have heterogenous mixtures in the RCS. It is possible to use the boron concentration for regulating the output of the reactor. It is not possible to do it in load following mode as you need to regulate the neutron flux faster than you are able to using the chemistry system. I am not talking about throtteling down the reactor to, say from 100% to 50%, you can do that using boron, the problem is keeping the reactor at 50% when Xenon poisioning (and other reactive effects) sets in…
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July 27th, 2010 at 9:33 am
I was working on the basis that with a bit of effort it’d be possible to dump a few litres of boric acid at 20k ppm B10 in and you’d see brief fluctuations of power as it washed through the reactor and then round the circuit but perhaps not. I guess with volume of the reactor against the volume of the branches it probably wouldn’t work.
It’d be feasible to imagine a reactor based on using Conc(B10) for load following but yes, it’d have to be seriously modified from current designs and would be really quite a daft (read: unsafe) idea.
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July 28th, 2010 at 12:23 am
DV82XL said:
Yeah, that’s kinda the ultimate dream situation. If you had a static source of many gigawatts thermal power and it was cost effective to use it for whatever, then you could make almost anything out of almost any feedstock. Synthetic fuels would be just the start and they’d be easy.
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July 28th, 2010 at 12:29 am
Chem Geek Gregor said:
Yes, only another chemist really understands the potential of this. Cheap plentiful, high temperature heat is the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
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August 1st, 2010 at 6:17 pm
just a couple of points to make here, no point in starting an argument with people that already have their minds made.
Yes there are currently in use high starch ethanol breeds of corn in use. It has been grown for the past few years now. No it does not compete with animal feed, as it can be used for either feed or ethanol production, but produces a much higher ethanol yeild per bushel
The big theory that Ethanol drives up food prices and takes away precious food that could be used elsewhere is a joke. All the processed corn that is used in the process depending on the plant is either converted back to animal feed and resold, or is prossesed into corn starch, corn oil and other corn products. It is really quite impressive how far down these mills can strip and seperate a kernel of corn for various uses.
The majority of energy used in the newer plants is not used to produce the ethanol but to dry the feed to create DDG (Dried Distillers Grains) in areas where there are large cattle farms the feed is not dried and sold as wetcake. Also most of these plants have the ability to switch from Ethanol production to food grade production. and the Tax credit that keeps being referd to does not go to ethanol producers (here is the shocker) it goes to the Refineries in the form of a ethanol blending tax credit. Yet another scary thing is that the majority of profits from these plants is from the animal feed and syrup they sell as a by product
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August 1st, 2010 at 6:22 pm
abbalah said:
References please. This is interesting if true, but without some proof, it cannot be taken seriously.
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August 2nd, 2010 at 3:05 pm
what would you like references for? I cannot speak for every plant in the industry, as there are several different design packages. as far as food vrs Fuel here is info on DDG.
http://www.ansc.purdue.edu/biofuel/distillersgrains.htm
a large multi-purpose plant and information on their products can be found here
http://www.grainprocessing.com/
This plant is dual purpose alcohol production, but currently the beverage / pharm side has had higher demand than the ethanol side of production (and lets face it $20+ a gallon for vodka or perfume is far more profitable than $1.90 or so for ethanol)
this is to a USDA study in energy use from 08 and yes it came from growthenergy.org)
http://growthenergy.org/images/reports/2008Ethanol_June_final.pdf
Grain Ethanol isn’t ever going to completely replace gasoline, but for now as a transition it is helping and it’s providing myself and roughly 200,000 other Americans jobs, it’s not stealing food from anyones mouth or driving up food prices ($4 a gal diesel and supply/demand did that) They grind corn, strip starches used for the fermentation and then sell the processed feed as a better end product for feed then the corn was before they started.
As for the now $.45 tax credit it did start out benifiting the ethanol producers, but it is a ethanol blending tax credit, The refineries figured out if they buy the ethanol outright and blend it themselves they get the tax credit. Some producers may still benifit from this but the majority do not, Given that 10% ethanol blend is law now in most states the tax credit has just turned into a free bonus for the large refineries.
The particular plant I’m refering to sells wet and dry DDG, Corn oil (used as a feed additive or for bio-diesel), Corn syrup (animal feed additive) and Ethanol for the 10% additive
It may not be the best alternative to oil, but it gets a much worse reputation than it deserves. Also when an ethanol plant is decmissioned they don’t turn into a superfund site:
http://www.scorecard.org/env-releases/land/site.tcl?epa_id=ILD042671248
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August 8th, 2010 at 12:12 pm
abbalah said:
Robert Bryce in The Ethanol Trap:
The most disgusting aspect of the blowout in the Gulf of Mexico isn’t the video images of oil-soaked birds or the incessant blather from pundits about what BP or the Obama administration should be doing to stem the flow of oil. Instead, it’s the ugly spectacle of the corn-ethanol scammers doing all they can to capitalize on the disaster so that they can justify an expansion of the longest-running robbery of taxpayers in U.S. history.
(…) The bankruptcy court is the best place to comprehend the oversupply of ethanol. Over the past 18 months or so, bankruptcy casualties have included VeraSun, the second-largest producer in the United States; Pacific Ethanol; Aventine Renewable Energy; and others.
In industry parlance, the corn-ethanol sector is facing a head-on collision with the “blend wall.” Ethanol producers depend on gasoline sales because their product must be mixed with conventional fuel. But thanks to the recession and the end of Americans’ love affair with large SUVs, U.S. gasoline demand is flat or declining. That has left a smaller pool of gasoline to absorb all the alcohol the ethanol industry is producing. Or as Bob Dinneen, the president of the Renewable Fuels Association, has put it, “[W]e have lots of gallons of ethanol chasing too few gallons of gasoline.”
(…)
Yes, it’s madness. And none of this even considers the effect that the ethanol rip-off is having on food supplies. Earlier this year, the Earth Policy Institute estimated that in 2009, the U.S. ethanol industry consumed 107 million tons of grain, or about 25 percent of total domestic grain production. That amount of grain, said the Institute, “was enough to feed 330 million people for one year at average world consumption levels.”
Via: Seeker Blog
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March 3rd, 2011 at 9:29 pm
[...] Typically concentrations are up to ten percent, though they may be higher in some circumstances. It has been noted here before that using ethanol as a fuel additive is something of a double-edged s… Ethanol is an effective octane booster and can produce modest increases in combustion efficiency, [...]
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