Ethanol contains less energy than gasoline so it gives you fewer miles per gallon. I've heard from some viewers who notice a drop in mileage with the ethanol blend. Some tell me the performance of their vehicle drops off. The effect on performance is sometimes subtle, but one viewer told me his early 80's motorcycle is practically useless when he buys the ten percent ethanol fuel because of rough idling and stalling.
I would be interested in hearing from some of you about your experience with the ethanol fuels, both the ten percent blend and the E85 version that is 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline. Any gasoline vehicle can burn the ten percent blend but only purpose built "flex-fuel" vehicles can use the E85. Only a handful of stations in our area even carry the E85. The mileage on a flex-fuel pickup truck I recently reviewed dropped from about 19 miles-per-gallon on regular gasoline to about 14 miles-per-
gallon when I filled up with E85. By the way the only reason that E85 is priced about the same as regular gas is because tax dollars are used to subsidize each gallon sold.
Because of demand for ethanol the price of corn is up and many foods that contain corn or corn products cost more. Growing more corn also creates more water pollution because of increased fertilizer and pesticide use. There is no doubt that ethanol can reduce our dependence on foreign oil but at what cost to consumers?
I notice a lower MPG on my vehicle when using the Ethanol 10% blend. Several weeks ago, my local Giant gas station added the "may contain 10% Ethanol" stickers to their pumps. Today, I filled up there again and noticed that the stickers are now gone. Has Giant switched back to non-Ethanol fuel? I certainly hope so, as I try my best to avoid stations mixing Ethanol in their gas. Any insight you could provide would be greatly appreciated!
Also, thanks for covering this topic. Almost all of the blame for high gas prices goes to OPEC and the oil companies, but look at what our government is doing. For starters, they subsidize Ethanol with our tax dollars (which we comes out of our pocket). Then, they force an Ethanol mix on us, which costs the same as non-Ethanol gas, but requires us to use more as it results in lower gas mileage. In addition to the taxes they already charge per gallon, our own government is as much of a culprit for the high gas prices as the gas companies and OPEC themselves.
Brian
