The Ethanol Papers - Paperturn manuscript - Flipbook - Page 260
And, Cummins has developed an engine that is in testing right now, see this
link, A Cummins Gasoline Engine? And this link, Updates On 5 Cool Projects
At Cummins.
Reply from MARC:
Hi Paul - Thanks for your comments and links, all of which are greatly informative.
Let me address your last point first: You are absolutely correct that vehicles
designated as "flex fuel" vehicles are not optimized to use ethanol, they are
merely more "friendly" to ethanol blends. Therefore, they do not maximize the
potential of the ethanol fuel. A flex fuel vehicle typically just has an adjusted
software program that understands that a fuel other than non-ethanol fuel is
being used. The flex-fuel vehicles still lack the ability to adjust to all three of the
necessary changes that would permit them to optimize the ethanol. Most people
don't know this and so when they argue with me or others about how flex fuel
vehicles get less MPG they think it's because ethanol is inferior to gasoline.
The oil industry has done a very good job in hoodwinking the public - they do a
very bad job at protecting the public from poison, but they are very good liars
and they know how to steal more money from the public.
A recent webinar presented by FuelsInstitute.org, titled "ELECTRIC AND HIGH
OCTANE VEHICLES--DEVELOPMENTS AND IMPLICATIONS," addressed
this issue and talked about how the only way for auto manufacturers to meet
the coming emissions standards is to build new engines that are optimized to
run specifically on higher octane fuel blends. They state that there are only two
ways to achieve the higher octane blends: one with toluene, and the other with
ethanol. But, they point out, toluene is more expensive than ethanol and is poison. Consequently, the only safe and inexpensive alternative is ethanol. The
webinar talks about all new "gasoline" engines being designed specifically to
optimize blends like E30, or higher.
Now, let me address the BTU portion of your comment; and let me again thank
you for your comments on this point, along with a big thank you to fblee for his
insightful and informative comments. Any discussion about BTUs with respect
to internal combustion engines is completely irrelevant. The term BTU (British
Thermal Unit) is misused to explain something that has no relationship to how
