Are you able to use E85 fuel in a 2006+ Civic Hybrid?

Nope.

its for the best really. The non domestic manufactures are smart enough to see past the false hope that people put on ethanol.

Ethanol is a perpetuation of oil dependence. It is status quo. This is why GM is so into it. It follows their pattern of energy alternative and transportation alternative destruction over the last century.

It takes 1.6 gallons of petrol based gasoline to produce 1 gallon of corn based ethanol here in the US. It gets worse when you learn that 1 gallon of ethanol has far less energy than 1 gallon of fossil fuel based gasoline.

why would you spend 1.6 gallons of gasoline to produce something that doesn't even replace 80 percent of a gallon of gasoline? Its like trading someone a dollar for a quarter. Even more problematic is that it still must be mixed with fossil fuels. It is an extender not a replacement.

I will give it the fact that it is not releasing as much previously sequestered carbon, it is extracting much of it from the air. But what we need is focus on a carbon free fuel. Not on something that extends our use of fossil fuel.

That figure has recently come under dispute. The 1.6:1 ratio is based on older methods of farming and refining. Based on modern methods and comercial (not rural) farming, that yield can be brought down to 1:10 or even 1:20.

The new ratio does come with new costs though. The modern methods produce large amounts of greenhouse gasses which can cancel out any savings you get in emissions. So basically if the entire US were to magically switch to E85 tomorrow, we would still pollute just as much as we do today.

Reduction on oil dependence would be a net result though.

References: http://rael.berkeley.edu/ebamm/Farre...ence012706.pdf

Dan is an official (Honda) Hydrogen Economy Convert!
Houston Hybrid and Hypermilers Club <106mpg.com>

Best commute = 14.3mi @ 114 MPG (sg2)
Best (non-trivial) tank = 769mi @ 85.7 MPG (fcd)
MPG Centurion-Hybridfest 2007-Prius II-26mi @ 106 MPG (sg2)
Dan <11011011> @ CleanMPG.com

as best I can tell from that summary they picked data collected by 6 other researchers. They then picked data from each they thought was most accurate and derived a new ratio. I didnt see any that approached a 10:1 ration much less 20:1. I read the best case scenario as 9:1 with the average appearing to be 5:1.

20:1 doesn't make any sense because ethanol is a blend of 15 percent gasoline. So if you consumed no fossil fuel in the production you would still be at 7:1 best case scenario as that is the mixture rate for consumable ethanol. Anything claiming ethanol production would be better than 7:1 would therefore seem rather dubious. This doesn't even account for the fact that ethanol contains much less energy than gasoline. 1 gallon of ethanol will not power your car for as long as 1 gallon of gasoline. This is why they are comparing joules output.

I am not sure I am buying what they are saying in this study. It would be interesting to see some of the criticism, if any, of the article.

do you have links to any responses?

Your correct, I was looking at the study and referring to E100. In it they state: My deduction that this translates to 100 gallons of gas being equivial (in the full energy cycle of the study) to 95 gallons E100 and 5 gallons of gas. Which in this case would be a 1:19 ratio. My arithmatic error was based on the simple conversion of 95% reduction to 5% consumption, or 5/100 or 1:20. Quick math always is sloppy math.

But I certainly agree that the study is very optimistic. I would certainly agree that current production would probably only yield 1:7. Or stated differntly, it would take 1 gallon of gas to bring 7 gallons of ethanol to market. But it's still better than taking 1.6 gallons of gas to bring 1 gallon of ethanol to market.

Personally, I'm pretty concerned by the amount of GHGs this rush to FFV would produce.

Your figure also lines up nicely with a comparison of FFV to hybrid tech I did recently on another forum.

Dan is an official (Honda) Hydrogen Economy Convert!
Houston Hybrid and Hypermilers Club <106mpg.com>

Best commute = 14.3mi @ 114 MPG (sg2)
Best (non-trivial) tank = 769mi @ 85.7 MPG (fcd)
MPG Centurion-Hybridfest 2007-Prius II-26mi @ 106 MPG (sg2)
Dan <11011011> @ CleanMPG.com

ethanol is about 89 Mj / gallon
gasoline is about 121Mj / gallon

in 100 gallons of gasoline you have 12,100 Mj
in 100 gallons of ethanol you have 8,000 Mj

ethanol therefore only contains about 73.5 percent as much energy per unit of volume as gasoline.

so if this is factored in you are only getting your car 3/4 as far on ethanol compared to gasoline.

My concern is that we dont want to rely on this tech as it is a very tiny baby step, and its not very sustainable. It still emits carbon and consumes copious quantaties of resources and land to work. We need to focus on a broad spectrum of solutions to carbon emmission.

Wind, solar, carbon sequestration to offset emmissions etc.

I just dont want people getting the idea that ethanol solves any problems. it can hardly be percieved to even start to address any.

Well put - my research has borne the same conclusion. The only real solution right now is reduced energy consumption (hybrid) or battery-electric vehicles (plug in). Hopefully the future sees emphasis on the environment versus a 0-60 time of less than 7 seconds.

Well, E85 is about 1/2 the price of regular gas right now, So if E85 will only take me 3/4 as far I'm still saving money..

It would be nice to have the option of using E85 or regular for situations where you'll be saving more money. Then again I bought a HCH-II for the money savings the enviromental benefits are just a bonus.

Why are so many people under the illusion that ethanol is "green"? When it's anything but that.