Off Topic Gas and Alcohol comparison

[IMSA]

I'm looking for a site that compares the differences between gas and straight alcohol fuel (not a blend of gas and alcohol) use in a car engine for a debate I'm having.

Thanks

IMSA

[MacDuff]

1. The Oil Drum

is a great resource for these kinds of discussions - here is a link to a discussion that touches on ethanol production (you do have to skim through the thread to find specifically what you are looking for)


<http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2006/3/7/03949/82426>

comes down to this - it won't work, even if we converted all of our agricultural land, to ethanol production, we can't replace oil with ethanol....and people seem to forget all the fossil fuels that goes into producing corn (in the form of diesel for tractors, natural gas for fertilizers, oil for pesticides - more diesel to transport to the factory, LOTS more natural gas to heat the "beer" that you make from the corn, and lets not discount the MASSIVE amounts of water that goes into the process) - NONE of this was discussed in the 60 Minutes report of course....

in fact, ethanol production now is a big corporate giveaway to ADM - corn is subsidized with our tax dollars so that it is MUCH cheaper than it should be...if all supports were dropped for corn and ethanol, the price/gallon for ethanol would be up around $7/gallon - and it is about 70% of the btu's you get from gasoline (meaning you have to use more of course)

...and then there is the fact you'd be using all the land for food production, just to keep the car culture moving....starving people may object to this....


biodiesel faces similar problems

[OxQQme]

2. alcohol is very corrosive

and etches into most metals used in auto fuel systems and turns rubbery parts into a soft gummy crud.
Indy race cars use straight alky in specially prepared very high compression ratio engines during the race and those teams then run straight gas thru the system after a race to flush all traces out before they trailer them.
In addition, a car that gets 30mpg on gas would get just over 20mpg on alky. And have 20-25% less power.