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Brett Hartwig

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it might get a few less miles per gallon, but here in Freeport, IL, E85 is $2.09. That is $19.50 in savings for one fill up. can't beat that!!
 
You might be able to beat that,:lol: especially if you get 20 % less mileage per gallon w/ E85. Switch back to gasoline!:lol:
 
Jim,



Let's say Freeport did get 20% less MPG on Ethanol. As long as regular 87 costs more than $2.61/gal, he would be money AHEAD by buying the Ethanol.



Do the math.



TJR
 
Here in Maryland, we only have 3 pumps that is fully E85. And even though, they say its cheaper to buy it. Around here, being we only have limited pumps, 87 gas equals out to about $3.20 pg, and E85 equals out to about $3.05 pg. Yeah not much cheaper. If we had more pumps, the price prolly would be cheaper and well cost effective, but since we don't, it isn't. It sucks!



On a side note, I don't fully understand why some gas stations aren't cheaper anyway. Even though they have in the mix with regular gas 10% Ethanol. Like Sheetz, for one. Their pumps say they have E in the mix, but the price of the gas is still very expensive. Don't make any sense, but not much anymore does.
 
Same in Dallas, E85 is only 25 cents cheaper than regular unleaded. They hook the price to unleaded. Unleaded goes up, E85 goes up, Unleaded goes down, E85 goes down but always 25 cent difference kept.
 
I was getting about 400 miles on a tankfull in my '07 V8 Limited when travelling out of this area that has the 10% Ethanol mixture. I remember that when we started switching the the 10% mixture, there were shortages all around the area, and prices went up. It was as if the switch over the the E-mixture was unexpected or something. IT was not uncommon to have 4 stations on the corner, and only one of them have regular unleaded, and the others would have mid grade or premimum..



If I fill up here before I leave out of town, I get about 70 miles less out of the tank of gas. I am not a big fan of this E-mixture. It was done supposedly to reduce emissions, not really save money.



I see signs on the pump asking if your boat can use ehatnol?? Anyone know what the issue with this would be?? If it has to do with the fuel lines and what not, why would a car be different than a boat?? They say that the 10% mixture is not enough to affect the rubber lines in vehicles that are not ethanol compatiable... I'm not sure I believe it...
 
The boat thing is because in certain stern drive boats, a small fuel leak in the engine compartment, even just the fumes can build up. In fact, my boat has a ventilator that I run to keep them from accumulating. Alcohol fumes are even sneakyer than gas. So it is not recomended to use ethanol gas since the alcohol fumes could compound a potentially explosive situation.



I understand from a relative that outboard motors can use the ethanol with no problem.



AL
 
Yeah but dont you have to have a 2004 and up Sport Trac do drive on E85. Byt the way....i read somewhere that you get 210 horsepower w/ e85 but you get 205 w/ regular gasoline for the Sport Trac. I cant find the site now. I dont know if that was true or not.



By the way on average ethanol costs about a dollar less than regular gasoline. But the e85 gas stations are not everywhere.





And in Denver prices are about $ 3.29 at Safeway but like 3.69 at Conoco, ......:angry:

 
Hey Freeport,

I live in Rockford and our E85 was $3.09 at the station I drove by this morning. Sounds like it might be worth the drive to Freeport. Can you tell me where in Freeport your station is?
 
I don't have a FlexFuel engine in any of my vehicles, but even if I did, there are hardly any gas stations that sell E85 down here in oil country.



The reason that Ethynol is not much cheaper than gas is the same reason that gas is so high. It's supply and demand and they cannot produce the ethynol fast enough to keep up with the demand.



The other point that I heard recently is that we should probably not be converting a "Food" resource to fuel. There is also a lot of debate that it requires nearly as much electrical energy to produce ethynol as it produces. If we are using oil, gas or coal to generate the electricity, are we really making an improvement??



Recently, and oil executive from Shell said that we are only utilizing about 15% of the available offshore oil that is available. If the governement would allow them to increase that to about 85% we could eliminate our dependence on foreign oil. That would/could give us the necessary time to develope cleaner, renewable energy.



...Rich







 
Here in Kansas, we have always fallen under the national average in the pasy. Not this time around. Regular unlead is $3.29 pg and the E85 I have been burning has pretty much caught up with it. E85 was running around $.60 cheaper pg but guess what? Took a $.40 jump over night to be only $.20 cheaper now.

And yes, I finally stabilized an E85 tank and got about 300 miles out of a full tank compared to 400+ on 87 unleaded. Guess what I'm doing.....87 octane petrol is what I'm sayin!!!



SUX!!!!!!!!!!



 
Redtrac- it is the FastTrac on South street. Coming from Rockford, stay on Business Rt20, go past Bocker Chevrolet, Fast Trac station is an unmanned station on the right side of the road. Used to be the Crestwood gas station if that helps.
 
In my opinion ethanol is only a farm subsidy. The total energy used to grow the corn, distill it, ship it via truck ( doesn't lend itself to pipeline transmission very well) and finally producing less gas mileage and polluting more than gasoline doesn't seem like a great idea. I'm in favor of alternate fuels, but I think ethanol is the answer. IMHO
 
John Stossel did a story recently on ABC's 20/20 about the myths of Ethanol. He presented some good points, which led me to believe that it's not as great as it's hyped to be. Basically without gov't subsidies, it wouldn't be produced. It would be too cost-prohibitive. Stossel published this story today online.



May 23, 2007



The Many Myths of Ethanol



By John Stossel



No doubt about it, if there were a Miss Energy Pageant, Miss Ethanol would win hands down. Everyone loves ethanol.



"Ramp up the availability of ethanol," says Hillary Clinton.



"Ethanol makes a lot of sense," says John McCain.



"The economics of ethanol make more and more sense," says Mitt Romney.



"We've got to get serious about ethanol," says Rudolph Giuliani.



And the media love ethanol. "60 Minutes" called it "the solution."



Clinton, Romney, Barack Obama and John Edwards not only believe ethanol is the elixir that will give us cheap energy, end our dependence on Middle East oil sheiks, and reverse global warming, they also want you and me -- as taxpayers -- to subsidize it.



When everyone in politics jumps on a bandwagon like ethanol, I start to wonder if there's something wrong with it. And there is. Except for that fact that ethanol comes from corn, nothing you're told about it is true. As the Cato Institute's energy expert Jerry Taylor said on a recent "Myths" edition of "20/20," the case for ethanol is based on a baker's dozen myths.



A simple question first. If ethanol's so good, why does it need government subsidies? Shouldn't producers be eager to make it, knowing that thrilled consumers will reward them with profits?



But consumers won't reward them, because without subsidies, ethanol would cost much more than gasoline.



The claim that using ethanol will save energy is another myth. Studies show that the amount of energy ethanol produces and the amount needed to make it are roughly the same. "It takes a lot of fossil fuels to make the fertilizer, to run the tractor, to build the silo, to get that corn to a processing plant, to run the processing plant," Taylor says.



And because ethanol degrades, it can't be moved in pipelines the way that gasoline is. So many more big, polluting trucks will be needed to haul it.



More bad news: The increased push for ethanol has already led to a sharp increase in corn growing -- which means much more land must be plowed. That means much more fertilizer, more water used on farms and more pesticides.



This makes ethanol the "solution"?



But won't it at least get us unhooked from Middle East oil? Wouldn't that be worth the other costs? Another myth. A University of Minnesota study [http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/103/30/11206] shows that even turning all of America's corn into ethanol would meet only 12 percent of our gasoline demand. As Taylor told an energy conference last March, "For corn ethanol to completely displace gasoline consumption in this country, we would need to appropriate all cropland in the United States, turn it completely over to corn-ethanol production, and then find 20 percent more land on top of that for cultivation."



OK, but it will cut down on air pollution, right? Wrong again. Studies indicate that the standard mixture of 90 percent ethanol and 10 percent gasoline pollutes worse than gasoline.



Well, then, the ethanol champs must be right when they say it will reduce greenhouse gases and reverse global warming.



Nope. "Virtually all studies show that the greenhouse gases associated with ethanol are about the same as those associated with conventional gasoline once we examine the entire life cycle of the two fuels," Taylor says.



Surely, ethanol must be good for something. And here we finally have a fact. It (SET ITAL) is (END ITAL) good for something -- or at least someone: corn farmers and proce
Click to expand...
 
Oh, better stock up on corn flakes and meat...
Click to expand...



Why? The "increased" price of feed corn will raise the cost of raising pork a whopping $.16 per hog. Wow.



Cattle? About the same since cattle are usually fed about 50/50 corn/alfalfa.



Corn flakes? Corn flakes are made from sweet corn. Ethanol is produced by using field corn. Field corn is very rarey used for human consumption. Why? Ever taste it?



There are a lot of pieces of bad information in that Myths of Ethanol piece.



First off, why on earth are we expected to belive that the tractors will only be using standard diesal instead of biodiesal? The processing plants? Most capture the methane off ethanol production and use that along with incinerators to power the facilities.



The article also neglects one MAJOR piece of the puzzle.... the left over slop that is not converted is used for cattle feed. It is much better for cattle than corn in and of itself. Ethanol is produced from the sugars locked in the corn. The rest of the biomass is not used. The fiber is left alone.



Cattle cannot process the sugars in corn. It either ferments in the digestive tract and becomes methane (a larger protion of the greenhouse gas comes from cattle than most other sources) or is left over in the droppings.



By feeding the cattle the remants of ethanol production, we can reduce the waste of sugars in the corn, increase the general health of the cattle and reduce methane emissions. All the cattle can use from corn is fiber and minerals found in the kernals.



Should ethanol be subsidized? Nope. Course, neither should anything else (milk, corn, wheat, sugar, rice, etc).



 
Seems they keep bringing up the cost aspect when, in fact, cost is not really the issue. At present, gasoline is the lowest cost automotive fuel available. If there were a lower cost alternative we'd already be using it. Fact is, when gasoline becomes too expensive, alternate fuels will be deployed; but, they will cost more than what we pay now for gasoline. Same is true with nearly every other commodity.
 
I heard the magic number was $70/barrel of crude oil. Above that, and ethanol becomes cost effective....below that, it's not.



Ethanol will take an investment to become more cost effective. Research, refit, distribution infrastructure, production facilities, you name it. But that's an investment which would have to show a return. Once invested, it's a sunk cost that makes ethanol's price go down, in the long run.



But as Bill-E said, crude has to go through the roof before the numbers work for alternative fuels.



We seem to like to totally suck the profit dry from one thing before moving to another....it's just business.



TJR
 

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