E85 and Flexfuel:
the farts of anti-ecology

Today, E85 ethanol car fuel is the only available, affordable and practical way to have a truly green car, with 85% less greenhouse effect and local pollution, and no deported pollution. What of course I did. However, a nasty surprise awaited me: two big well slobbery schemes, which I then denounce here.

The good point is that, despites these gesticulations of the enemies of life, in 2023 in France a counting finds 14% of cars (on 300) with the yellow Crit'air badge of the E85. (We also have 6% of LPG-CNG, and, well, zero electric)

 

Why E85 gazoline

War in Ukraine is a good pretext

The problem of non-approved boxes (In France)

How to install a box (in France)

Comparison of the different energy sources for cars

 

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Why E85 gazoline

E85 gazoline is made from ethanol (alcohol) instead of hydrocarbons (in fact, for technical reasons there are still 15% hydrocarbons in it, but that's a problem that can be solved later). The advantages are as follows:

☺It is a simple mean, and affordable to all, to radically lower our contribution to the greenhouse effect. Indeed, the CO2 emitted during the combustion of ethanol is re-absorbed as soon as the next year for its production (plants cultivation). In more there are no scams like hidden CO2 (emited at other stades of the production). It is said that ethanol is carbon neutral.

☺Ethanol can easily be made from cellulose, by far the most important biomass, whereas biodiesel requires specialized crops (such as rapeseed). For example, miscanthus, an easy-to-grow grass, produces far more usable cellulose than any other plant. This crop would also save cow farmers, rendered useless by the rise of vegetarianism.

☺Ethanol burns without soot, so local pollution (particulates) is much lower than with petrol. My technical inspection shows zero.

☺Unlike electric cars, which require rare materials (lithium, rare earths for magnets), ethanol burns in existing engines, with no special requirements.

☺There is no recharging time: you just fill up at the pump, as with fossil fuels.

☺Range is far superior to that of electric vehicles, almost as good (90%) as that of fossil fuels.

☺Ethanol E85 works very well, with no notable drawbacks. Most engines can handle it without a hitch, with no premature wear or loss of power. No knocking either, as ethanol's octane number is naturally high.

War in Ukraine is a good pretext

putin's energy blackmail against the international community forced oil companies to buy from more expensive sources. Without going into details inaccessible to the public, in France the price of muggle (fossil) fuel has risen from about €1.2/l to €1.9/l (in France), that is a 60% increase (June 2023).

E85 fuel, which still contains 15% muggle petrol, should therefore rise by 9%, from €0.6 toward about €0.65. However, it reached an average of 1.05€ (in France), this making an increase of 75%!!! (June 2023)

Clearly, some people used the war in Ukraine as an excuse to rip us off, or to pursue some rearguard suicidal fight against ecology. What I don't know, is whether this scam is the work of private companies or of the french government.

Added April 2024: the prices lowered considerably. In the end, the war in Ukraine may only be a pretext, unless this is what some call the «wariness of war» ha ha ha ha!

 

The problem of non-approved boxes (In France)

Normally, in 2023 all cars should accept E85. However, given the considerable backwardness of the automotive industry, in most cases this requires us to install a flexfuel box on our car. Of course this is what I did. But the problem that many people have had, and which justifies this page, is that I was fitted with a non-approved flexfuel box, without my knowledge, and I had to change it. Of course, I was advised to lodge a complaint against the garage who did that. But it was not easy, as the owner had changed in the meantime. But above all, I quickly realized that they were not necessarily the ones responsible. Explanations:

When you buy tires, or any other automotive equipment, you do not have to worry about whether they are approved or not: simply because they are sold or supplied by approved professionals, everyone knows they are approved. Everything happens behind the counters, between the suppliers and the government authorities in charge of checking the equipment, without the end-user having to worry about it. Any professional selling non-approved products would be condemned. So how could flexfuel boxes be an exception? Why is it us, the end-users, who are requested to justify the homologation of these boxes specifically, whereas for all other accessories it is up to the manufacturers to do so?

The scenario I suspect is as follows: someone in the government services did not do their job, just because it is about ecology. Given the sickly hostility to ecology of the successive French governments, it is plausible that saboteurs could have refused to do their job, or that they gave manufacturers false, ambiguous or incomplete instructions. The Flexfuel company would then have gone ahead, thinking they were in the clear, supplying boxes without approval. Then someone would have realized the blunder, but instead of acknowledging the state's responsibility, they are making the good citizens to pay for it.

It is a phenomenon I often observed: as soon as a place is supposedly «outside of society», some people imagine that no law applies there any more. I have seen this even in companies. This could be the case for ecology, which some people imagine is «against society». Or some people are decompensating (a psychiatric term, when a sick person can no longer pretend to be normal).

Whatever happened, whether simple negligence or deliberate sabotage, these blunders cost France several years of delay on green cars, and a great deal of trouble which could have been avoided. Shame on the culprits.

But this did not stopped E85 from spreading, and the number of box installers from multiplying. In four years, I have seen four times as many in my region.

 

Given the ambiguity of responsibilities, it was difficult for me to press charges. But the main reason is that I prefer to Testify for the Good, even at the cost of personal loss, and continue to devote my life time and energy to useful activities. Experience shows that this is far more effective than a lawsuit.

 

How to install a box.

The original French text is specific to France, so that I can give only summarized guidelines for other countries.

☺If you buy a car, make sure it is already flexfuel. But check you don't pay much more than with installing a box on another car!

☺Forget the ten bucks boxes on the Internet: they are not approved, and you will not know how to install them yourself. More, roadworthiness tests may reject them.

☺Check that your car is compatible with alcohol fuels. Note that in cars not adapted to alcohol, the piping will corrode, creating a serious fire hazard.

☺You may need to update the papers, registration and insurance of your car. Check with the related services

☺Look for a specialist flexfuel garage, which will check whether your car is compatible, and if so, can install a box.

☺Request the garage to make things in the legal way, and to provide the needed paperwork to update your car papers.

 

Comparison of different energy sources for cars

In their morbid opposition to ecology, the media and politicians spread a lot of disinformation, which scientists must correct. List, in 2023:

☻Neither electricity nor hydrogen are «energy sources»: indeed, they are found nowhere in nature. So there can be no «electricity economy» or «hydrogen economy». In fact, they have to be manufactured, and this requires... energy. Electricity and hydrogen therefore are not intrinsically green: they only have the virtues of the energy used to manufacture them.

☻Producing electricity from heat (coal, oil, gas) is less than 30% efficient. So that, in some cases, an electric car can produce more CO2 than a gasoline-powered car.

☻Worse still, hydrogen is currently produced from electricity, which is expensive and further reduces efficiency. This is why you can find hydrogen in the television, but not at gas stations.

☻Today, however, there is another way of making hydrogen: the reforming oil and gas (Turquoise hydrogen), we can obtain hydrogen at low cost, while using these resources to their end, without adding to the greenhouse effect. An almost ideal solution for transition.

☻Hydrogen is an explosive gas, which has to be stored under pressure. This poses major safety concerns for everyday use, especially at the gas station or in the event of an accident. We already have this problem with LPG, but with hydrogen it is much worse, and no car is ready yet. Turning this hydrogen into gazoline would be a much better solution.

☻There also is a lot of confusion between global pollution (CO2, climate) and local pollution (particulates, nitrogen oxides). Air quality policies sanction local emissions, but without guarantees about CO2. And as we saw, electric cars can emit fossil CO2 in some cases, whereas vegetal CO2 is carbon-neutral.

☻Another confusion is to stigmatize CO2 globally, whereas only fossil CO2 really adds to the greenhouse effect. Especially, miscanthus CO2 recycles itself from one year to the next, without adding to the atmosphere. It is said to be carbon neutral.

 

As we can see, a naive and ignorant attitude leads to many serious mistakes. And on this basis, politicians force decisions which could quickly become counter-productive. The comparative table below aims at setting the record straight, specifically on energy sources for transport (this table does not apply to other cases). Please note:

☺Some cases could improve with the evolution of technologies, for example avoiding scarce resources (metal-air batteries) or better hydrogen manufacturing processes, without rare catalysts. But hey, at our modest level of final users, vital urgency therefore imposes pragmatic choices with what is actually available today.

☺If E85 éthanol is nearby white, we remark that with today technologies (2023) a totally while line is oil or methane reforming into hydrogen.