Thread: E10: Am I dreaming or is it better

Originally Posted by CJT

I am not to sure if this is correct or not.

However what i have been told with Ethanol fuel in Australia is that it is sugar cane based which does not burn as cleanly as the Ethanol fuel in the US which is wheat based.????

Might just be someone making things up, but I would have thought that ethanol being alcohol would burn better.

As I mentioned earlier though I just use 98 Octane.

Ethanol is ethanol: chemical formula C2H5OH. It's the "other ingredients" from refining that might make a difference if left in, not the ethanol.

Originally Posted by simonl8353

In general, some pre - 1986 cars will operate on E10 ULP, however Land Rover recommends that they do not use ethanol blended petrol due to the aging of the vehicle fuel systems. It is important however that Land Rover vehicles with carburettors do not use ethanol blended petrol."

I know the systems in my 101 are old so I always check that the ULP I use is not E10 however from the middle of the year all ULP in NSW will be E10 - I will then have to switch to Premium Unleaded - at 10mpg will hit the hip pocket but I will be running mainly on LPG - just refuel more often than switching to petrol.

Garry

Thanks dirtdodger.

I've gotta say I'm enjoying driving with the E10 even more than with other fuels.

Although not as "punchy" as when using a premium fuel it is better than using normal unleaded.

I'll be posting back here with economy figures after I fill up next.

E10 actually has about 3% less energy than petrol (E10 has 33.18 MJ/litre, petrol has 34.2MJ/litre = 2.83% difference). Some else indicates 6%, I don't understand how they get to this figure.

This is why, when it was introduced it was 3% cheaper. Back then, petrol was about $1 a litre (remember those days), so E10 was 97c /litre. The fuel companies have either kept the price difference about the same to petrol, or removed it.

One thing that most motorists (but few drivers) get confused about is octane - E10 has a higher octane rating. Motorists think octane = energy, whereas the octane that is being talked about is the [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octane_rating"]octane rating[/ame], which is a measure for the [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engine_knocking"]anti-knocking[/ame] properties of petrol. The octane rating is not directly related to the amount of octane contained in petrol. If you really want to go to sleep, read about the composition of petrol sometime. We burn a pretty complex chemical as a fuel. Premium petrols have a higher octane rating, but the other chemicals that make it better / behave differently are the big difference.

In theory and mostly in practice, when an electronically controlled engine goes closed loop, then the fuel economy can be better, as the ecu advances the engine until just before knock / detonation, and then retards it a bit. Closed loop driving is constant speed / open road driving, which allows the engine to run optimally, as it isn't changing speed so quickly, as in stop / start peak hour traffic, so you may pick up some economy here with a higher octane fuel (depends on how you drive it etc) .

E10 is being introduced to create an ethanol industry (sustain the cane farmers) in Qld - it has little to no environmental benefits, just some political and perhaps some feel good ones.

From an environmental pov, The yanks (California first, from recollection) have legislation that made adding an oxidising agent into the fuel a requirement. Unfortunately the first agent was linked to birth defects, destroying ground water etc, so ethanol is being used as an alternative. So the spin is "If it's good enough for them..."

There are debates about whether the energy content to create ethanol outweighs the energy content in ethanol, it may be more or marginal, but it's not environmentally friendly. But then you can argue that neither is petrol / diesel / lpg, so let's not go there.

Anyway, my two cents worth, which with rounding is.....

Cheers

Er who says that E10 is now higher octane than 91?

In the past this was so, but NSW has now mandated that all "standard" unleaded be E10. So there is no incentive for oil companies to add octane to their normal unleaded as a sales feature or in fact to have a 91 octane unleaded fuel. I recently went to a Woolies and there was no 91 unleaded available so it has started.

I will bet that the oil companies will now use lower octane base fuel before adding the ethanol to get 91 octane .

Not a word has been said by anyone and I recently asked a friend who was an Esso exec and is usually close to the industry, and he didn't know but if you were an oil company and the chance came to make more money what would you do?
I would be interested if anyone has any concrete info either way.

Regards Philip A

E10 actually has about 3% less energy than petrol (E10 has 33.18 MJ/litre, petrol has 34.2MJ/litre = 2.83% difference). Some else indicates 6%, I don't understand how they get to this figure

see Bioenergy Conversion Factors

LHV of Ethanol =21Mj per litre
LHV gasoline =32mj per litre

= 65% at 10% concentration 6.5% = 4.5% less all things being equal.
I am not a chemist and there may be some other complementary reaction going on but on the face of it we can split the difference.
Regards Philip A

No problems on the maths calculations - depends on the figures used. We all know that ethanol has less energy, whatever the figure. The effect will show up in increased fuel consumption.

Except that 10-6.5 = 3.5 not 4.5 as I later realised.

So 3.5% it is.

Regards Philip A