Comments on: Ethanol, petrol cars emit same emissions – report

By: Greg Brown

Greg Brown — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 04:50:43 +0000

It is so easy to get outdated information on these i-net sites.
I think Ethanol has a huge role to play in replacing fossils.
A new Australian discovery that enables alcohol to be obtained from cellulose, with Algae and household rubbish (& sewerage) to be used as the feed stock, is a brilliant new direction in sustainability. Residue from algae can also be used as a stock supplament and fertilizer to remineralize from agri-mining (ie. where minerals are stripped out of the soil and flushed out to sea in sewerage). Algae requires huge amounts of CO2 from the atmosphere (ie. NOT from fossil & coal fired power stations, as some suggest!) and can be grown in sea water, that is where most the minerals come from. This is a far better prospect than the further rape of countryside of its organic matter and minerals and competition with food markets. Think about this…am I wrong?

By: Logic Lost

Logic Lost — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 06:56:23 +0000

Logic – “The formal systematic study of the principles of valid inference and correct reasoning”.

By: Shak

Shak — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 08:54:09 +0000

But if an engine is made purely for ethanol then it’ll all be fine. E85 will provied more power as it has more octane and can be compressed much higher compared to petrol.

By: Disorganise

Disorganise — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 08:41:01 +0000

The simple answer to reducing our reliance on foreign oil is to use LPG surely? We must have HEAPS of since given we’re selling boat loads off to china for next to nothing.
sure it’s not renewable, and probably isn’t any greener, but it’s cheaper – and with the new technology available we can get goos power from it. If the government mandated that all fuel stations stock LPG, then surely we could build dedicated LPG engines that were more efficient (since they don’t need to run petrol at all)?
Using ethanol is short-sighted in my opinion – we’re better off growing FOOD. What happens when we have a shortage of ethanol production due to severe drought or whatever – oops; we’ll be forced to import grain etc, along with all the risks of foreign bugs destroying our local ecosystems…nice.

By: Mumble Duck

Mumble Duck — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 03:06:50 +0000

And it also quickens the rate of recking engine components in the engine if you use ethanol compared to conventional petrol. Such as spark plugs need to replaced a lot more.

By: mekarls

mekarls — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 11:45:08 +0000

Using ethonal in a standard car is a waste.
Ethanol needs a motor with a compression ratio of around 14:1, otherwise the performance and economy is poor.

By: Neo Utopia

Neo Utopia — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 11:35:46 +0000

Sugar cane, like many other plants get their nitrogen from ammonia, nitrite or nitrate in the soil. There are only some plants which are able to absorb nitrogen oxides for their source of nitrogen. Doesn’t carbon monoxide just mix with oxygen eventually anyway to form carbon dioxide?

By: Family Guy

Family Guy — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 07:31:06 +0000

Oil is old carbon extracted from below the earth and released into the atmosphere. Ethanol is carbon extracted from the air by a plant and then re-released with little carbon net gain.

I don’t think ethanol is the ultimate answer but if it means we are reducing our dependency on oil then this must be beneficial.

By: Shak

Shak — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 07:07:21 +0000

Yes but the point of ethanol is that it is entirely renewable and does reduce or dependace on foreign oil. Lets worry about pollutant later as motor vehicles dont contribute as much as industry. We have to stop using so much oil. Simple as that.

By: Mick

Mick — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 06:50:14 +0000

Ethanol fuel is just an alternative to petrol to make people feel better about driving their cars. It isn’t really a long term solution to all the global climate problems.
I think V8 Supercars is a prime example of this since they changed to E85. Sure they emit less CO2 but because they need to burn so much more of it to get the same performance than they would petrol they are only saving something minor like 2-3% in their CO2 emissions. Looks good for marketing, but that is about it.