E85 misgivings

Ive tried it 3 times, first time I didn't change my driving habits and got horrible millage. Second time i tried my best to modify my driving like very slow acceleration and coast as much as possible, again horrible mileage but slightly better than first tank. Last time I tried it using only half a tank of e85, still reduced my mileage per tank. The mileage I lost was greater than the money I saved per gallon. It was mostly city driving so maybe if it was all highway it might be better, but somehow I doubt it.

E85's real beauty is that is domestically made and reduces the amount of oil needed to make fuel either domestic or imported. Although it has much higher octane (which produces more horsepower in theory, not accounting for an individual flex-fuel vehicles fuel system programming) than gasoline, it carries less energy units for it's mass, so your mileage will be bit less. That is why it is usually priced about 10-30% less than gasoline at the pump.
Making it from corn is a great start, but long-term it's a dead-end, when/if they get the algae growing methods perfected we will really be on to something.

"That is why it is usually priced about 10-30% less than gasoline at the pump."

I thought E85 cost less than regular gasoline because of E85's taxpayer-funded subsidies.

Tidbits from the Corn Ethanol Not A Viable Energy Option article that has aggregated info from various sources :

• In a new report, three environmental and research organizations raise serious questions about the future of corn ethanol, a fuel that Congress has invested subsidies in already, and which is often viewed as a silver bullet solution to the nation’s energy and environmental problems.

• Corn is the single most subsidized crop in the United States, receiving more than $51 billion between 1995 and 2005.

• Gasoline refiners who add ethanol to their product are entitled to a $0.51 per gallon tax credit, amounting to nearly $2.5 billion in subsidies paid to refiners in 2006 alone.

• The U.S. gives oil refiners an excise-tax credit of 51 cents for every gallon of ethanol they blend into gasoline. And even though it's the oil industry that gets this subsidy, the industry dislikes being forced to use a nonpetroleum product. The U.S. ethanol industry is further protected by a 54-cent tariff on every gallon of imported ethanol.

• Let's switch the billions we now spend on ethanol subsidies to development of truly sustainable energy technologies.

• To produce enough corn-based ethanol to meet current U.S. demand for automotive gasoline, we would need to nearly double the amount of land used for harvested crops, plant all of it in corn, year after year, and not eat any of it.

• The Congressional Research Service has estimated that even if 100 percent of the U.S. corn harvest was dedicated to ethanol, it would displace less than 15 percent of national gasoline use.

• The corn and soybeans that make ethanol and bio-diesel take huge quantities of fossil fuel for farm machinery, pesticides, and fertilizer. Much of it comes from foreign sources, including some that may not be dependable, such as Russia and countries in the Middle East.

• Corn and soybean production as practiced in the Midwest is ecologically unsustainable. Its effects include massive topsoil erosion, pollution of surface and groundwater with pesticides, and fertilizer runoff that travels down the Mississippi River to deplete oxygen and life from a New Jersey-size portion of the Gulf of Mexico.

• Improving fuel efficiency in cars by just one mile per gallon - a gain possible with proper tire inflation - would cut fuel consumption equal to the total amount of ethanol federally mandated for production in 2012.

• Corn ethanol has little promise of reducing U.S. fossil fuel emissions.

• corn requires 29 percent more fossil energy than the fuel produced

• Corn, which is the source 95% of ethanol in the U.S., is among the least efficient, least sustainable biofuels.

• Cellulosic ethanol, while not yet ready for market, has more favorable energy ratios than corn and presents more room for productivity gains, making it appealing to investors, farmers, and refiners. Yet, most biofuels policies being debated in Congress would primarily benefit corn ethanol refiners in the near future.

• The most favorable estimates show that corn ethanol could reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 18 percent to 28 percent, while cellulosic ethanol is estimated to offer a reduction of 87 percent compared to gasoline

• Even large-scale development of cellulosic ethanol is plagued by potential environmental problems. Turning cellulose into fuel, for instance, would require a huge expenditure of increasingly scarce water resources and the mass production of cellulosic ethanol would likely impact soil quality and convert land currently in conservation programs.

As usual for a topic like this, I post a link to the hempoline article.

Hemp summary points

• Today, more than 30 industrialized nations grow industrial hemp and export to the US.
• Hemp is the only crop that is both illegal to grow in the U.S. and legal for Americans to import.
• Hemp is the number one biomass producer on planet earth.
• It would only take 6% of our U.S. land to produce enough hemp, for hemp fuel, to make us energy independent from the rest of the world. (I agree, a hard-to-believe stat.)
• The hemp car was an alternative-fuel project car that utilized hemp biodiesel for fuel.
• To date, twenty-eight states have introduced hemp legislation and fifteen have passed legislation; seven (Hawaii, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Montana, North Dakota and West Virginia) have removed barriers to its production or research.
• HR 3037 - Industrial Hemp Farming Act of 2005 introduced by Ron Paul.
• HR 1009 - Industrial Hemp Farming Act of 2007 introduced in February 2007 by Ron Paul (R-TX) and co-sponsored by Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Barney Frank (D-MA), Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ), Maurice Hinchey (D-NY), Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), Jim McDermott (D-WA), George Miller (D-CA), Pete Stark (D-CA), and Lynn Woolsey (D-CA). (Where's Marcy Kaptur on legalizing hemp production?)
• In May 2007, California's Assembly voted in favor of the California Industrial Hemp Farming Act of 2007. The legislation gives farmers the right to grow non-psychoactive Industrial Hemp which is commonly made into everything from food, clothing, paper, body care, bio-fuel and even auto parts.
• Industrial hemp is used in dozens of products.
• In the automotive industry, industrial hemp is used in the natural fiber composites that have rapidly replaced fiberglass as the material of choice for vehicle interiors.
• Hemp grown for biomass makes very poor grade marijuana.
• The THC levels in Industrial Hemp are so low that no one could get high from smoking it.
• In countries where hemp is grown as an agricultural crop, the police are not burdened by additional enforcement.

Your information is correct. My statement was aimed simply at the at the end consumers pocket book reasoning, as in "I'm not paying the same price for something that only takes me 7/10's as far as regular gasoline" not how that price was achieved.

I think we are in basic agreement here.
Regardless, everyone should see the documentary KING CORN for an interesting point of view on agriculture and specifically corn in the U.S.

Well if I pay only 40 cents less but have to burn 80 cents more gas to achieve the same mileage, then how is that saving me anything. I would like to see them change to switch grass, I heard it has a lot of potential and don't drive up food costs, Algae sounds cheap too. Theoretically any biomass has potential from all I have read.

The govt-driven ethanol program is an enormous scam. Thanks for the info, jr.

Ohio State has been conducting research on switchgrass. From the switchgrass section of the hempoline article :

SavegeFred is hip to the algaculture.
It looks very promising.

Probably ever bit as cool as hemp, perhaps better. There's no marijuana related stigmas. Chlorella and spirulina are considered "miracle" foods.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algaculture

And D on your lovely drawing happens everyday via the sun, wind, water, and agriculture.

Such a defeatist attitude...

Char, Jr's perhaps unwittingly making the point that that's how energy rolls when you use corporations to obtain and distribute it. Under a corporatized system, D is indeed impossible.

It's even worse than that, too. If no manufacturer (i.e. corporation) will make equipment that draws energy from sunlight, wind, water movement and agricultural sources, then D is truly impossible even though you can find the sources as close as your home roof. (Or, instead of rationing the equipment by availability, it's rationed by price (so that only another corporation can afford to buy it). Either way, the corporations are keeping such equipment out of the hands of the end users.)

The lack of viable alternative and renewable energy sources in America (and the world) is one of the most clear signs that Capitalism is a fundamental failure.

Defeatist? No way. I'm pro-Amish.

Hemp car or horse and buggy?

The Amish keep it real. I think they're into solar pretty heavily as well.

I always wanted to visit an Amish town. Any suggestions? I know there's a few around here.

Charlatan, I spent some time in Berlin Ohio a few years back, and found it quite fascinating - plenty of Amish, and great shopping in and around Berlin, Wooster and that general area. Not too very far away either.

Amish exist in central Michigan. In Ohio, Holmes County is big Amish country. The Dandelion Festival is May 2 & 3 in neighboring Tuscarawas County. Have to try dandelion wine some day. I believe the Amish harvest dandelions.

The lowly dandelion is not a native plant to our country. Americans spend a lot of money each year trying to kill dandelions or prevent dandelions from growing. But apparently, the dandelion is one of the healthiest plants humans can eat. Recently, I saw someone at the Phoenix Earth Food Co-op buying dandelion greens. I asked her about them, and she said she uses them in her juice machine.

Interesting. Some or many people drive a gas-guzzling vehicle 20 mph over the speed limit, complain about the approaching $4.00 per gallon gasoline price, and chemical-bomb their precious lawns to rid their yards of dandelions, clover, and whatever else. But the Amish consume dandelions and drive a horse and buggy. I wonder which group is more "advanced?"

Its not a question of being advanced its the idea of stopping where something works. Computers and technology were supposed to free us from time consuming tasks, instead they added more work.
I have always gone on the assumption that when your boss says hey can you give a little more effort this once and get X mission accomplished all it does is give him ammunition to the arguement that if you can do it once you can do it all the time.
Worker A can produce 15 units by busting his balls, everyone should work as hard as worker A all the time the new quota is 15 units. Where as everyone else could do 10 units and not be over stressed or cutting corners.
What happened to the family going away for 2-3 weeks on vacation? What happened to having weekends off. The corporations are godless and want more work from less people. It saves them money in the long run to have fewer workers to pay benefits for. They want their workers to work 24/7 and perform at top levels at all times, till they replace them with automation.

Excerpts from an Apr 23, 2008 NaturalNews.com opinion titled The Corn Ethanol Biofuels Sham :

Thanks for the input. I’m taking an auto trip this summer that may cover about 5,000 miles. At $4.00 per gallon it should cost a couple hundred dollars more than it would have last summer and therefore will not be prohibitive because the experience is worth more to me than the money. At what point does driving become prohibitive for you?

I didn't realize they were so close, the Amish villages.

I never understood putting crap on your grass that is dangerous to humans and animals. It's so neighborly. I might have read somewhere that some cities are banning lawn chemicals.

But then again we've been systematically divorced from the earth. Some people attribute it to evolution and development. Others to conniving social engineering.
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With hyperinflation (double-digit)and wage stagnation... maybe that's the way this economy was designed to dysfunction.