ethanol and Ford Super Duties

[dstegjas]

Does anyone one know what year they started manufacturing Ford F250 Superduties to accept ethanol. I have a 2002 F250 Super Duty with the 5.4 engine and was curious about this. If it will except it, I am still not sure I will try it. However I am interested in any experience any of you have had with ethenol.

Jim

[billy_56081]

When you say ethanol are you speaking of the common mixture of 90% gasoline and 10% alcohol or the E85 which is up to 85% alcohol? If it is the standard 90/10 mix your truck will be fine with it, we have no choice but to run it here in Minnesota. If you are speaking of the E85 you need a flex fuel rated vehicle or it will cause problems with your vehicle. Everyone i have talked to that has a flex fuel vehicle is not real impressed with the fuel mileage when running E85. The drop in fuel mileage while running E85 in their vehicles makes them no more cost efficient. BTW I think we are all going to see the true effect of ethanol on our economy soon as crops are at record highs and we are burning our food in our vehicles. In southern MN there are ethanol plants popping up all over and there is now starting to be a corn shortage and alot of them haven't even opened yet. Keep watching your grocery bill you will see what I am talking about.

[dstegjas]

Billy,
I was referring to the E85 fuel and my truck evidently is not equipped to run it. I have seen a few stations here in Ohio starting to carry the E85 fuel. That was the reason for my question.

I have no doubt that the price for anything related to corn will be going up. I think people would be amazed if they knew how many things are made from corn.

Thanks for the response.

Jim

[torpedoman]

alcohol has less energy per gallon than gas so no matter what you mileage is going to suffer when you use it. Really stupid to use food for fuel but it is a government program so what do you expect?

[Cheesehead]

I would rather pay the local farmers for energy/fuel than the Mideast oil shieks.

Cheese

[R.W.Dale]

I would rather pay the local farmers for energy/fuel than the Mideast oil shieks.

Cheese

 What a great Idea Instead of feeding this great nation and most of the world we'll put our farmers to work powering some scoccer mom's 4dr, 4x4, V10, 1ton family car


Trust me us Americans are just dumb enough via our driving habits to inflate the price of a box of cornflakes to $35 at which point you'll be begging to pay some towelhead $120 for a bbl of oil. And don't think for a second only corn products will increase in price, all food will get very expensive as farmers all over the country get out of food growing and get into the lucrative energy business.

 Now I don't know about you, but I don't need gasoline to survive. But I sure as heck can't do without food. This E85 policy is the dumbest Idea our country has came up with since Social Security.

The ONLY realistic solution to out energy problems is Nuclear powerplants recharging electric, hydrogen and compressed air powered vehicles. Try getting the tree huggers to go for that!

[Cheesehead]

I would rather pay the Mideast oil shieks for energy/fuel than the local farmers.

Cheese

[billy_56081]

  I can walk to the grocery store from my house to get food is gas get too expensive for me to buy. If food gets too expensive for me to buy I will starve to death.  Corn is not just corn flakes or corn chips. It is the main ingredient in livestock feed and meat, eggs and milk will be through the roof if we keep burning corn in our cars. Martin county MN is I beleave the largest hog producing county in the US per capita. Martin county cannot produce enough corn with in its borders to feed the hogs it has much less the 2 Ethanol plants that are planning to open this summer. I work indirectly with the agriculture/ livestock buisiness, the farmers are very happy with the crop prices, but the feed mills and livestock producers are very worried about the prices of the feed and ingredients. Some of the livestock producers are talking of not raising until the prices of feed drop.

[torpedoman]

with food i can walk anywhere i want to go may take a while but I'll get there. without food it is a moot question. You gotta keep in mind that over 90% of the crop support checks are mailed to a madison ave address not some poor family farmer. Nuke power and electric vehicles is the way to go.

[Cheesehead]

Some people think ethanol is made only from corn.

Cheese

[R.W.Dale]

Some people think ethanol is made only from corn.

Cheese

NO! but one way or another either directly from the commodity itself or indirectly from the usage of farmland ETHANOL is made from FOOD. That's right peoples driving habits will begin to dictate the price of PEOPLE fuel. A.K.A FOOD! stuff you cannot live without.

[billy_56081]

ALL the ethanol made in southern MN right  now is made of corn. 

[oldandslow]

I have seen some articles in the news recently about ethanol actually having a negative energy value. One was in Popular Mechanics magazine recently and Walter Williams last column in the newspaper addressed this. It seems that when you add up the amount of energy it requires to grow the feed stock, corn or whatever, and process it into ethanol it requires more energy than is produced.

Not too great an idea when you take that into consideration is it? Add in it's reduced BTU value and it gets even worse.

[DDelle338]

  Your'e right in the fact that it takes more energy to make than it delivers. So the idiots that were backing it started bantering on about how much less AIR pollution it makes. WRONG!! It's still a pollutent, PLUS, the amount of water that is polluted in the process to make ethanol is staggering!
  I'm all for finding alternative renewable energy sources but, this ethanol thing ain't it.  Now maybe when they find a way of making it out of by-products of food sources and garbage it will be worth it. But untill then,.... it needs to be put on hold.