AutoblogGreen

Let's go through your points:
less mileage - maybe in the lab, but real world tests say its a wash. Just because the energy content is less, doesn't translate 1:1 into mileage drop. Real world (do a web search) is inconclusive due to the varying nature of driving styles and engines and of course ethanol concentration in the tank, but your car will make more power and its cheaper to fill up your tank with. You can gain that mileage back by simply being less of a lead foot.
-bad for small motors - why still use a small motor appliance like a like weed whackers, better to just get an electric one
-uses a lot of petroleum - maybe now, but with economy of scale and distribution as it becomes more mainstream it won't. And ethanol doesn't have to come from just corn, but that is the only commercially available version at this time.
-food prices - maybe, jury is still out on this one. Is it due more to speculation or not? Corn ethanol is not harvested from food corn. And corn ethanol 'waste' is still part of the food chain with regard to beef.

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So sounds like your refute to these points is either buy new lawn equipment, or that i cant prove my point. Im all for biofuels but i just think that ethanol is not the way to go. Biodiesel is a way better option.

But as for the jury being out on less mileage... how about we ask the department of energy. go to http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/findacar.htm
click on 2009 chevy HHR and notice the difference in EPA MPG ratings

The car gets 22/32 with gas. and with E85 it is rated at 16/23. For the same flex fuel car as measured by the EPA. Even 5-10% ethanol has a noticeable impact on mileage. And if we demand that all fuel contains E85, the demand will outstrip the supply and ethanol will be more expensive than gas. Already ethanol costs something like $1.75 a gallon which is getting close to current gas prices.

Instead of spending money supporting ethanol, the govt should spend money on something that will produce better results. Like making electric cars cheaper.

Here is what i think they should do. Give companies a tax credit if they allow employees to charge their plugin cars at work. Now suddenly the cars only need half as much range (cheaper electric cars with less batteries) and the consumer gets to "fill up" for free. Also give the consumer a tax rebate for purchasing electric, and give companies tax rebates for installing solar pannels on their buildings if they participate in this program. That would really make an impact on pocketbooks and oil comsumption. Just an idea.

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Bonehead is right Seth

-less energy equals less milage

-farmers who PRODUCE ethanol refuse to use it (or a blend) with their own equipment!

-you say that the price is cheaper... really? think about the tax credits given to the Oil companies and farmers (and gas stations who are encouraged to use blends) where does that tax money come from... that's right TAX PAYERS

-think about what happens with the ethanol corrodes parts of the car... they have to be replaced... that's not cheap, and costing more money...


more things are coming out showing that the exhuast and process to grow is more harmful than regular gas.

it's a win-win for gas companies...
they get "cheaper" gas (more money) and they see you more often at the tank (less mpg means more trips to fill up... meaning more money for them) oh and all while looking "environmentally friendly"

think about who's really winning out here?

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Actually you will only get worse mileage if you run ethanol in an engine designed for gasoline. If E85 or even E100 were available everywhere and engines were built to run on alcohol with 13 or 14:1 compression, you would actually get about 15 to 20% better mileage that a comparable gas engine.

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- What's a wash is the dollars per mile. The relative price varies. Sometimes you're better off with E85. Sometimes not.
- Where does it say that the farmers refuse to use a blend? Where do they have a choice? In MN, it's mandated at E10 (assuming gas and not diesel).
- Food prices? Most of the equipment involved in the production and distribution of food runs on diesel. In MN, diesel is 60% higher than gas. Let that share part of the blame.

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I'd like to reply to you both in order:
"So sounds like your refute to these points is....that i cant prove my point"...well, yes. If you say "less mileage" I'm asking you to back that up since, as I will show later, that this has not been proven in the real world - unless you are running straight ethanol in an engine designed to use gasoline.

As for damaging lawn equipment, if your equipment is so old that it can't use ethanol or why would you want to run ethanol in it? You'd see better gains in upgrading to something electric in both cost and environmental benefits, or switch to an EFI model that can be tweaked to run blends of ethanol or gas with no issue of old deposits releasing and clogging lines.

"Biodiesel is better" - I agree.
"electric should have more subsidies than combustion engine vehicles" - I agree.

"less energy equals less mileage" - too simple a statement. Yes equal volumes of E100 have less energy than E0, but E100 is around 120 octane with E85 being around 109. Regular gas as you know is 87-93. If your engine has a modern fuel injection system, then it can listen for knock and adjust timing on its own increasing the power of the engine. Because the engine is making more power, even on Ethanol, it works less for a given speed, increasing mileage.
This is why real world tests on E15 show no mileage loss, and E85 have shown variable loss with corresponding power gains.
That loss is not significant enough because if ethanol is less than gasoline, you still win financially even if over a years time you went to the station a few more times.
"but that low ethanol price is subsidized" - isn't that the point? It's cheap as an incentive to use. When demand picks up supply will compensate to meet the demand, and eventually the subsidy can go away (it can now as far as I'm concerned, and tax gas higher to make up any difference). I would rather have my taxes go to alternate fuel research than not have an alternative.
Besides, if you have a real flex fuel vehicle, and you mix E85 and gas all the time, you realistically never have a set blend in the tank, and weather, driving style, percentage mix, and terrain all hurt the lab numbers. Talk to/web search people who have done conversions, they will tell you their experiences.
"farmers not using ethanol" - so? if they can make more money selling it than using it, why not?
"price is cheaper" a few weeks ago when gas was near $5 a gallon, ethanol was half that. If you had a flex fuel vehicle, you could price shop gas v. ethanol, and hopefully in the future, you can price shop other ethanols not just corn which I will be happy to see be replaced.
"ethanol corrodes" - ethanol doesn't corrode, the minute amount of water it can absorb while sitting in the tank in the ground at the station could theoretically rust an oxydizable metal if one exists in the car's fuel system (the tank, the fuel line, the fuel pump, the fuel injector). Have you heard of this in a modern car? in a car built in the past decade?
"gas companies getting rich" whoever sells the ethanol will make money from its sale. If that is a gas company, so be it. I don't see whats wrong with that.

The ethanol discussion has to extend to whether you are doing it for financial savings, doing it because its better for the environment, doing it because you want your fuel dollars to stay local. As you can see, my leanings are towards the first and third topics.

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check out this site... i have plenty more i could send you too but i'll start with one:

fuel-testers.com/ethanol_fuel_benefits.html

from the site - - -
benefit 5:

"The farming industry is booming now due to the need for increased production of corn and grains, used to produce ethanol"

..."Did I mention that farming industry equipment is exempt from using ethanol fuels?
They produce ethanol but refuse to use ethanol in their engines. Doesn't sound right to me...
One reason given for farm equipment E10 government exemption is because farmers correctly believe that ethanol fuel will decrease the useful life of their gas-powered equipment, which they expect to last for 20 or more years - "

gazetteextra.com/ethanol050907.asp


from

Q: Does E10 result in lower gas mileage?

A: Yes, slightly, experts said.

i could go on... i'm just saying that people should do their research and make their own decisions.

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Chris,

You state you lose 6 mpg with E10 and also that you lose 15-20%. Well, if you are getting 30mpg then losing 20% would get you down to 24 mpg. I find this hard to believe and feel it is more to do with driving style than E10. If you decide to make it worse, it will get worse! I use E10 in my Mini and still manage to get 30-32 mpg per tank in a vehicle that is EPA rated at 35 mpg highway.

George

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The last time I stumbled onto 100% gas (outside of DC) I got 38MPG. The next tank I was back down to the same 30-32MPG that I got the 4 tanks before and the 4 tanks after with E10.

You can find it hard to believe if you want but you'll be unable to convincing me that how I drove that single tank was worth 6MPG on an interstate ride when I've done 10,000 more Interstate miles (on the same driving conditions) with E10 getting 32MPG.

I'd love to do a "taste test" but no one advertises that they sell real gas in my area, it's all E10 now. Heck, I'd even let the wife pick when to put in the real gas so I wouldn't know when I was running it and I'm positive I'd know the difference by the time 3/4 tank was left.

My point is that I lose money and burn more (of everything: gas, ethanol, and money) when E10 is involved and that's with a 2008 vehicle. I bet it's worse on older vehicles that don't have as good of a/f monitoring solutions (especially those old carburetted ones).

And you can rule out using anything more than E10 because I'm NOT going to VIOD my MANUFACTURERS warranty.

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