Isn't the idea behind E85 is it is a renewable resource and burns cleaner than fossil fuels? So the mileage may suck but you are polluting less and helping to ween us off fossil fuels, is that not worth the extra cost?

 

Absolutely.....so why is it not $.99 per gallon. Our corrupt, oil backed goverment needs to never elect a President or vice wrapped in bed sheets with big oil. He maybe my command in chief, but so was slick Willie that guilty lying scub bag! Secondary, underlying agendas is what killing this country. Ron White needs to run for President...the only secondary agenda he has is the brand of Scotch in stock..hahahaha!!!!!

 

I know this post is old but I just wanted to clear up some things. The reason it's not .99 cents a gallon is because it cost alot to make it and it expensive to transport. No one said it was going to be cheap just eco-friendly.

 

if you want E85, then be content to pay over 5$ for a gallon or milk and over 2$ for grain products. The downside of ethanol fuel is the secondary effect it has on the ecosystem and secondary and tertiary consumers of said grain.

 

Let's see - corn was going under contract for over $4 / bushel here over the summer. One bushel yields 2.5 gallons ethanol (man, would that be a cheap drunk!).

Then there's the conversion cost (operating the plant), offset a bit by the tax or whatever credit ($0.50 / gallon???). So, ethanol is probably somewhere in the $2/gallon range when leaving the plant. When this is mixed in a ratio of 85% ethanol to 15% gasoline that is probably wholesaling for not much more than $2 / gallon, plus motor fuel taxes added, yields not a great deal of difference in the pump prices, about $0.20/gallon here.

Based on heat energy content, E85 would have to be about 3/4 (75%) of the price of straight unleaded (not the 10% ethanol mix) to provide the same heat per dollar.

This doesn't include any benefits of alcohol, like higher octane, etc. This comparison stuff gets fuzzy real quick.

It kind of gets down to what user ddgarcia05 suggested - environmentally friendly is not cheap on the first pass/look. Former Chrysler chairman, Lee Iacocca (sp?), once said, "just how much clean air do we need?". The difficult part is figuring out how to assign a cost to the effects of "environmentally unfriendly" methods (additional health care costs, loss of wildlife, etc.) so that a true comparison can be made.

Unfortunately, this argument gets unbelievably deep, convoluted, and biased - depending on which side you're arguing for. But for the average Joe at the pump with his Flex-Fuel vehicle, he is able to know what's going to take the biggest chomp out of his wallet, at least for today.

 

The bottom line is, the only benefit to E85 is it is better for the environment. It is not cheaper, it does not yield better mileage, and if the entire area of the United States were corn fields it would still not be enough corn to fuel our needs if every vehicle were running E85. Eventually we will get so dependant on corn to fuel our vehicles, the arabs will use their massive sprawls of desert to grow a hybrid corn, that will undercut the corn prices in the US, put all of the US farmers out of business, a box of Corn Pops will be $26.00 on ebay (if you win the bid), and our future President will be involved in corn corruption .
How long you think I have been waiting to get that off my chest?

 

eh, I think there are several of us looking to vent.

Ethanol wouldn't even be in the ballgame if it weren't for tax credits and legislation. Same for wind-generated electricity and other environmental energy measures.

It gets back to the observation, 'name me one thing the government has gotten involved in that free enterprise couldn't have done better'.

And, IIRC, today's vehicles emit only about 3% of the emissions of a 1970 vintage vehicle?

 

It's honorable that there are so many different companies and individuals looking at so many different alternatives (Hybrid, Fuel Cell, Hydrogen, Natural Gas etc...). But what is really scary is that we are still no closer to having the silver bullet that will solve our problems. E85 has it's benefits, but I think by the time we are rolling full steam on E85 it will be considered "fossil thinking". I still believe that most, if not all, automakers view the research as a means to get kickbacks and tax breaks with no real long term commitments to helping our dependancy issues.

 

But E85 is not that much better than unleaded. I asked the same thing when I joined the board. There was an article back in April or so showing the difference between the two.

 

Here is the previous posts

https://www.f150forum.com/f4/ethanol-vs-unleaded-863/