E85 @ MindSay

Updated June 18, 2007

Ah the wonder of it all. The push for ethanol has an interesting side bar: The fuel is 10-15 percent cheaper than gasoline.

You actually save cash money on each tankful of ethanol that replaces the equivalent amount of gasoline. YEA! You are going to hear a lot about that. Ethanol is Cheaper ... and politicians never lie.

Seems there is a catch; well, several. The ethanol needs special engines; flex-fuel engines; the alcohol will probably fry your regular engine. WOW! Now, to save money, you need to spend money on a brand new car.

OH right, and there is another great thing about ethanol; it is less efficient than gasoline. Seems ethanol E85 is fifteen percent less efficient, you get worse milage, need to fill the gas tank more.

Hum, I wonder? If you did the math. Would you be buying more, or less, gasoline when you adjust for the fuel efficiency factor?

If I get fifteen percent less efficiency, I need to buy fifteen percent more fuel; but the additional fuel is fifteen percent less efficient; so does that mean I need to compensate for the inefficiencies by buying twenty percent more fuel?

On a milage basis, I pay the same whether I use gasoline or ethanol; that is, it costs me the same number of dollars to drive a given number of miles. Does not matter in the least which fuel I use, the per mile cost remains the same.

On top of that, I needed to buy a new car. But that car had to be manufactured; and the cost of manufacture consumed fuel, or energy from some form of fuel. The materials, unless they were recycled, had to be mined, so that cost more energy.

The most harm to the most people doctrine has now kicked in with a vengeance. In order not to put a gallon of gasoline into my car when I fill the tank, I need to burn multiple gallons to produce and transport a new car, and I need to fill my tank more often to compensate for the new, or alternative, fuel inefficiency.

Every gallon of ethanol used, therefore, increases the real amount of gasoline used. The difference is that I see less gasoline pumped at each visit to the service station.

OH! Almost forgot, it takes special pumps to pump the E85, and, until every vehicle is E85 compatible, there will be a need for separate storage tanks. These will also need to be manufactured, transported and installed. More fuel wasted in the drive to lower fuel efficiency by fifteen percent.

To compensate, new car fuel efficiency requirements will need to be raised by EIGHTEEN PERCENT. Yep, all those E85 flex fuel cars will need to get not 30 mpg, but 35 mpg just to keep to where we are in terms of gasoline consumption.

AH! Now! Do you love how "The most harm to the most people" really works, and understand why George Bush has gotten aboard?

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FOOTNOTE: In case you had not noticed, the E85, which is 15 percent less efficient than gasoline, costs fifteen percent less per gallon than gasoline. So, effectively, on a per gallon basis, the gasoline costs the same and the ethanol is free?

Can that be right?