There are two main reasons why E85 is going nowhere fast: over-production and under-consumption. The U.S. Department of Energy has tackled the latter part of the non-equation with a federally-funded report exhorting gas station owners to get on the corn juice bandwagon. E85 Retail Business Case: When and Why to Sell E85 advises that "E85 offers relief from this [local] competition by differentiating a station as green, cutting edge, patriotic, and pro-farmer." So, greenwashing it is! What about, you know, making money? "E85 projects can be profitable investments. However, their profitability depends on numerous factors… This checklist includes robust local competition in the gasoline market, access to low E85 costs, mid-grade tanks available for conversion, large potential throughput of E85, and state or local incentives for E85 infrastructure." Large throughput as in sales? Good luck with that. Meanwhile, there's lots of agri-prop. My favorite argument: who cares about gas anyway? The money's in snack foods and car washes! And that's good news because "even if E85 drew no new customers but merely converted gasoline customers from the same store, the number of customer visits would increase. This is because a vehicle’s range is reduced by 23% to 28% when operating on E85 because of ethanol’s lower energy content compared to gasoline." The mind boondoggles.
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The obvious solution is more subsidies to build more ethanol plants and restrict drilling or producing and refining oil. Then prevent hydro electric expansion, stop all nuclear plants and don’t allow the burning of coal while all industry is moved offshore. The result will be a severely weakened economy, but it is important that the enviros are happy.
Any chance ethanol can be used in power generating plants and free up the oil for them to use as gas? Just a thought…
Ethanol is for dragsters.
Yes indeed, more subsidies will fix everything!
As for switching power plants from oil to ethanol, then turning that oil into gasoline: I think oil-fired power plants use a low grade of fuel oil, not crude. If that’s the case, when that crude was refined it already yielded its gasoline. Anyone out there who can advise us on this point?
The “enviros” know that E85 is a con job too. It makes no sense to burn food in your car engine or in a power plant.
In response to a challenge by a “know-it-all” on the Edmunds forums, I recently drove 602 miles on a single tank (18.5 gallons) in my ’05 Camry 4-cylinder (no hypermiling either). This wouldn’t be even close to possible with E85.
“even if E85 drew no new customers but merely converted gasoline customers from the same store, the number of customer visits would increase. This is because a vehicle’s range is reduced by 23% to 28% when operating on E85 because of ethanol’s lower energy content compared to gasoline.”
Is that an actual quote? If so, from whom? I mean its honst, but how often do you read open honest statements from the pro-E85 crowd. My experience has been that they will deny to their dieing breath that E85 will reduce gas mileage.
Lumbergh21:
Actual quote. Check out the link.
jolo,
Very little electrical generation in the US comes from oil. Most comes from coal, natural gas, hydro-power, and nuclear power. There are some oil plants in the east, but most oil generation in the country is from auxiliary diesel generators that the power companies usually only kick on for peaking output for a few hours on hot summer days.
+1 210delray
For the most part environmentalists aren’t clamoring for E85 as a way to reduce GHG emissions. The pro-ethanol groups (farmers and those getting re-elected by them, the domestic auto makers that get terrific CAFE numbers from E85-compliant vehicles, and politicians pushing “energy security”) are promoting E85 as a green fuel in an attempt to fool the masses, many of whom can’t be bothered to discover the negatives involved in ethanol and its production.
Hopefully the continued exposure here on TTAC and on other blogs will raise awareness of this massive boondoggle.
“even if E85 drew no new customers but merely converted gasoline customers from the same store, the number of customer visits would increase. This is because a vehicle’s range is reduced by 23% to 28% when operating on E85 because of ethanol’s lower energy content compared to gasoline”
Best. DOE. Quote. Ever.
56 MPG over 750 plus miles in a 5 passenger hybrid car. US, not Imperial MPG. Avoid ethanol (E10) like the plague it is. Even E10 means a significant drop in MPG for most post-1983 cars with oxygen sensor feedback loops. Ethanol is an oxygenator. So 10% ethanol in the fuel tricks the system to run richer, adding yet more oxygenate, so the system enriches again, and this continues until equilibrium. Plus less energy in ethanol (and a too-rich mixture) means less power, more air pollution and 5-20% less real-world MPG with E10.
Besides. Feeding our cars with corn instead of human beings is so uspeakably selfish and morally corrupted that it leaves me near speachless.
Sorry that should read “feeding our cars with corn instead of feeding human beings is so unspeakably shelfish and morally corrupted that it leaves me near speechless.”
Sheesh, sorry gang. I’m really awake, I promise.
Would it be possible to reprogram the ECU for E10 to lean out the mix, or would that possibly lead eventually to other performance or durability issues? The drop in MPG from E10 is just about equal to the % of alcohol in the fuel. And, would that mean that E100 could give -100% = 0 MPG?
menno –
At first I thought you were advocating running cars on soylent green…
x2 on your comments. I’m very pro-ag, but E85 hurts EVERYBODY but the crop farmers, and hits the extremely poor the hardest in our efforts to feel good about our newfound “energy independence.”
As far as fuel mixes go, I noticed in the report that engines can be optimized if they are built to solely run on E85, which seems to mean other mixes could be optimized as well. The DOE report says that an engine optimized to run solely on E85 could actually obtain 24% better fuel economy than a flex-fuel engine. Thankfully, infrastructure issues should prevent that from ever becoming a reality.
One other interesting point in the report: In the winter, E85 is actually reduced to 70% ethanol in the winter to improve cold-weather performance. So, E85 reduces its ethanol content while the rest of us get to increase it for the sake of cleaner air, all while the government swears it doesn’t affect car performance. Ya gotta love it…
So nobody here expects efficiencies to rise over the next few years as the industry fine tunes itself?
I’d hate to think that nothing but Arab oil and the gasoline refined from it will work for the readers here b/c any alternative will at first have some rough edges to it. That’s technology.
Cellphones, computers, latops, the Tesla, televisions, telephones, etc. Everything was a primitive version of what we have now in its earliest versions.
I think we ought to stick with Ethanol for a while and see if the massive investment made will pay off. Sure we have higher corn prices now but give it 10 years. I’ll bet done right we’ll be burning the E85 in the tractors that plant and harvest the E85 and making a profit and growing more than it takes to run the equipment.
What are we supposed to do? Tear down a bunch of 5 year old ethanol plants and declare it impossible?
That’s why I want to see all of these new “green” technologies reach the market – even with limited appeal (like 50 mile range EVs) b/c technology evolves. The battery is evolving.
We have technologies now that consumer never even had close to 20 years ago – an LED flashlight that will run on AAA batteries for two days or more? A tiny phone with a camera, video and music that will run most of the day continuously and a week on standby? Video cameras the size of a big hamburger that will film in digital quality with stereo sound for hours and hours from a battery smaller than a pack of cards? These are devices that were limited to sci-fi movies 30 years ago and now our gadgets are better than those movie devices.
Put an EV on the market now. Apparently Stanford has developed battery technology that gives a battery 10 times more capacity. How about a Tesla that has a 2000 mile range on a charge? (10 times the ~200 mile current range).
Instead of computer upgrades folks will be doing motor and battery upgrades to their cars.
Let’s keep going with the E85 but let’s manage it wisely and sustainably. If in 10 years it can’t meet useful expectations then tear down the tax credits that have helped create it.
http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2008/january9/nanowire-010908.html
Can someone confirm something I heard (or thought I heard) on NPR this morning.
They were talking to someone filling up on E85 in a filling station in Iowa who said it was over $5 a gallon.
So it is about 40-50% more expensive than gas and range is reduced by 23-25%.
My math isn’t up to it but that seems to be getting close to double the price of gas. Can this be right? Why is there even a conversation still going on?
So I would not be able to afford to fill up the car or to eat. Breathing won’t be that much fun after that.
At least it will be warm.
http://driving.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/driving/used_car_reviews/article3552994.ece
On a related topic …
This is an account of how a BMW 520d went from London to Switzerland on less fuel than a Prius, including some deliberate diversions off the highway to even up the score.
(And the Prius even turned off the A/C)
As far as fuel mixes go, I noticed in the report that engines can be optimized if they are built to solely run on E85, which seems to mean other mixes could be optimized as well. The DOE report says that an engine optimized to run solely on E85 could actually obtain 24% better fuel economy than a flex-fuel engine. Thankfully, infrastructure issues should prevent that from ever becoming a reality.
Yes, by using smaller higher compression, higher output (per liter of displacement) engines. Take advantage of the high octane offered by alcohols. The problem is you wouldn’t be able to operate using currently common fuels. The problem I have is that we are ignoring the environmental effects (some of us anyway) in the name of the environment and independence from foriegn oil. On top of it all, the government is shoveling our money into propping up ethanol production.