Hi all,
rising gas prices and generalized E10 had me think about what the situation will be in 10 to 15 years from now. Oil resources are limited, and the need for energy is increasing exponentially with increasing population and the economic development of various parts of the world. The crisis kept oil prices stagnant for a while, but the hoped recovery will undoubtedly boost oil prices again. Though the Peak Oil theory is being questioned, the rate of new sources being discovered and investments made to exploit them as well as expanding exploitation of older sources won't match the increasing demand. So I think we are in for a trend of ever increasing oil prices.
How is this going to translate for the transport industry ? Electric cars are not yet up to the needs in terms of range, Hydrogen doesn't seem to be a credible alternative at least for a while, so what are we left with? Ethanol, LPG and natural Gas? I think an improved use of the biomass will yield more ethanol into the gasoline. We may progressively see E20, 30 40 etc. until we reach E85. So i looked into that and in fact it's just a matter of "enriching" the mixture to run with more ethanol. This can be done quite easily, even on the mechanical fuel pumps I guess. The problem is going to be variable rates of ethanol in the gas-tank as I guess it will take a while before everything harmonizes at the fuel pumps. In this respect programmable EFI is quite an interesting avenue as it's just a matter of plugging another sensor in the fuel line that will tell the controller the part of ethanol in whatever is flowing to the injectors and the controller will just adapt its order to the injectors in real time.
There is some experience with converting E500s to ethanol and the only bad side effect is that older fuel pumps go bad. Once replaced by ones that can deal with Ethanol all is good. In my case, my Megasquirted W111 5.0L coupe would be an easy conversion as I would just have to add that sensor in the fuel line and program the controller accordingly. I was debating to go early CIS on my 5.6 Pagoda project but now I'm hesitating. I think I will start with the CIS and then convert it to Megasquirt if this is what is going to keep the car on the road.
What do people think ? Is Ethanol in our future or are there other solutions ?
