Germany recently required car makers to enumerate how many legacy vehicles would not be compatible with the blanket upgrade of Euro 91 and Euro 95 grades from E5 to E10 planned for 2009. Estimates range from 350,000 to several million.

US manufacturers have long used different materials for the fuel systems in their cars, but it seems to me that one study by one university hardly amounts to conclusive proof that moving from E10 to E20 will be problem-free for all motorists. It's up to manufacturers to certify which models and model years would suffer no damage.

Note that the move would reduce volumetric fuel economy by another ~3% due to the low energy density of ethanol.

Besides, until and unless cellulosic ethanol becomes available in large quantities and, ethanol can be shipped cost-effectively to the coasts, moving to E20 is probably ill-advised for any number of reasons. Of course, the corn ethanol lobby would disagree.

Another article on E20 had a auto manufacturer noting E20 caused failure of the catalytic converter on their vehicles.

If ethanol cannot be shipped cost-effectively (to the coasts) then that would be an argument for going to higher blends (such as E20) in ethanol producing areas ... which I assume includes Minnesota

Harvey D,

Hey even 20% would help reduce the price of energy. Should cars get more efficient (and maybe smaller) of course, heck I even believe cars should go electric in the long term.

Algae Biomass could replace all USA petroleum usage with just 5% of agriculture land (those are conservative estimates based on 15% oil mass, 80% oil mass is theoretically possible, with 30% being a average point at present) also algae will be grown in enclosed bags that can be place anywhere be it open desert or open sea, so I really don't see second generation biofuels harming food production, in fact algae's main byproduct will be protein rich animal fodder, now that that would not do me much good (vegetarian) but we could make tofu out of it instead.
http://www.massey.ac.nz/~ychisti/Trends08.pdf

I agree with DavidJ - until we overcome the costs/inefficiencies with transporting ethanol, it makes much more sense to use more ethanol closer to where it is produced and less in areas further away.

@ mahonj -

as the name implies, cracking breaks long HC chains into shorter fragment. A typical side effect is that these fragments then recombine into branched isomers.

Butanol has 4 carbon atoms, ethanol only 2. You can get the former by cracking the latter.

==According to a very recent study, USA cannot produce enough biofuel (all types) to satisfy even 50% of the current liquid fuel consumption without curtailing food production.==

Which study is this?

I'd like to add it to my repituar.

From the rough numbers I have seen, we have 90 million acres in corn production and 20 million of those are for ethanol. Since we are not even to E10 nationwide, it is not hard math to figure the rest.

I wish that I could have same conviction as Seidl that corn ethanol should be avoided. There certainly are very good reasons to avoid corn ethanol, yet U.S. politics are such that corn ethanol is what (wrongly) is being promoted.

Given the potential for improvement in emissions and reduction in foreign oil that ethanol might provide when done efficiency and fairly (avoiding negative impact upon food prices), should we wait or start tweaking the ethanol supply for better social benefit?

E10 has been a boon for us living in cold climates. No more iced up fuel lines; no more having to carry a stockpile of Heat (methanol) under the driver's seat all winter; no more limping down a country road hoping you can make it to the next town.

I keep accurate fuel records, and I haven't seen an increase in fuel mileage when I drive in a state with no E10. I figure that the increased octane of ethanol lets the engine timing run more advanced and compensate for the lower BTUs.

There will always be a need to convert damaged grain into a useful product, such as ethanol. Every year crops are damaged by hail and high moisture storage, causing aflatoxin and other molds to develop. Ethanol is a good use for these damaged grains.

We need to stop talking about how much biofuel production we would need in the future to equal today's usage. No matter what happens, we're at peak fuel usage now and it will never again be equaled. Our present fuel usage is aberrant and unsustainable. We could look to Europe as a model, which has equal mobility to the U.S. but nearly twice the fleet fuel economy.

Well call me stupid..... but about this issue of corn and ethanol and people starving to death, it's my understanding that the vast majority of corn grown in the US is all field corn or feed corn used for animal feed and industrial uses and ethanol production. Only a small percentage of all corn grown is actually sweet corn meant for human consumption. And I further understand that any of the horse corn used for ethanol production is still suitable, and is still used for animal feed and whatnot even after it goes through the ethanol production process.

So that being said, what's the problem? The sweet corn will still be there for people to eat, and the feed corn will still be available for cattle to munch on even after it goes through the ethanol production cycle.

What am I missing?

PaulF:

Presently, USA's yearly corn production is about 6 billion bushels, 1/3 is already used to produce ethanol, 1/3 for USA's food chain (mostly to feed animals to produce meat, milk, cheese etc we consume) and 1/3 is exported. The 2 billion bushels exported are mostly used in the food chain in other countries.

Contrary to what a lot of people think, about 2/3 of the corn produced in USA ends up in the food chain.

If the corn usage is changed, to lets say 2/3 for ethanol and, only 1/3 for the food chain (or even worse) that would create a worldwide food shortage. If other countries do the same, the total effect would be even much woarse.

It is very simple maths.

Another secondary effect is that USA farmers (and others) will switch from wheat-rice production to corn (to produce more ethanol) if they can get a better price etc. This would create a cascade effect on food shortages and price.

The effect on food price has started already with oless than 5% ethanol and will get a lot worse when 100 more large corn ethanol plants go into production in 2008/09.

Use of corn and other edible agriculture products (other than unedible bad parts or wastes) should be restricted to real surpluses. With reserves at an all time low, real surpluses are just not there any more.

Corn ethanol above the %5 to 7.5% level is NOT sustainable and is NOT asn acceptable solution.

It would be much easier and wiser to reduce fuel consumption by up to (and more) than 50% with more efficient vehicles such as hybrids, PHEVs and BEVs.