Sioux County, NWIA | Granary - 5/14/2026 06:51
I really know nothing about ethanol other than it’s 10% at the pumps and I run ethanol free gas in my small engines.
E15 - I am reading is lower cost than E0.
Is the true cost of making ethanol lower than gasoline or do government subsidies make the cost of ethanol lower?
Where does the ethanol blend max out?
If ever we were to run out of oil, could ethanol replace it all in gas and diesel engines?
One of these days we are going to run out of oil. Not sure electric cars are the answer. Is 100% ethanol - all engines, gas diesel possible?
There are no subsidies to produce ethanol. The closest thing to a subsidy is the mandate to use x amount of it. The ethanol plants are not getting government payments to produce.
There is not a maximum amount of ethanol that can be blended from a chemistry standpoint. E1-E99 is possible. From an production standpoint, if corn is the only feed stock, the US would be limited to something in the 20% range. We are putting 40% of our corn though an ethanol plant and my guess is the average blend is about E-15. We could probably put a higher percentage of corn production through an ethanol plant but I don't see how it could be much beyond 50%. There are too many other corn users.
Yes it would be possible to run an engine on E100. To fully utilize pure ethanol a spark ignition engine would need a higher compression ratio, a richer fuel/ air ratio, and more timing advance. Diesel engines would have to converted to spark ignition to run 100% ethanol. If a diesel is run on diesel fuel as a pilot fuel it is possible to supplement the engine with hydrous ethanol which can tolerate the high compression ratio of diesel engines. Hydrous ethanol had a low energy density compared to gasoline or diesel so fuel storage volume is a problem on mobile engines.
Edit to add -- the post above that E100 does not exist is true. All ethanol is denatured with 1-2% gasoline at the production plant so the true nutcase alcos out there won't drink the stuff.
Edited by Gearclash 5/14/2026 08:58
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Ethanol Question
