I guess I was wrong, because I thought that the only use for Ethanol was in powering those FlexFuel vehicles that have the little E85 stickers on the back – you know the ones that cost about 30% more than a regular car.
Turns out, ethanol is used to replace some nasty additives in gasoline. This article by DarkPalmer (http://darkpalmer.wordpress.com/2008/07/03/the-case-for-ethanol/) provides a pretty detailed analysis of the POSITIVE side of ethanol.
The fact that it costs about 25% LESS than Regular Unleaded is just another bonus to me.
There’s a link to a petition to get Ethanol rolling: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/declare-july-4th-energy-independence-day
Visit the site at www.drivingethanol.org.
Spread the word!
Filed under: politics | Tagged: e85, Energy, Ethanol, flex fuel, fuel
GM ’s sudden stewardship of the environment is simply a way to continue to make gas guzzlers thanks to E85 an extremely inefficient fuel. The CAFE standards call for all car companies to achieve an average MPG for all vehicles. I believe the most recent number is 27 MPG. Well if you make the biggest money off of 10 miles per gallon SUV’s you would hate to say good bye to them wouldn’t you?
The CAFE standards has a loophole, that being that an E85 vehicle operating on E85 miles per gallon are ONLY figured against the actual amount of gasoline in the blend (15%) if you divide 100% fuel by 15% gasoline you get the multiplier to the mpg (666) therefore a gas guzzling 10 MPG SUV is given credit for 66.6 MPG. If you sell one SUV like this you can have 5 vehicles only achieving 20 MPG and this gas guzzling SUV and you average more than 27 MPG overall while not one of their vehicles really met the standard.
GM is not the only one taking advantage of this free ride Ford and Chrysler are too. The big three are heading down the toilet and this is just their hands clinging to the rim
Viva la Flex-Fuel! Omnivore cars are the way to go. If there was a fuel CHOICE (gas or alcohol) OPEC would not be able jack up prices on us like they are right now. We would just buy more ethanol thus forcing down the price of gas. If you want some more info on the benefits of ethanol and energy independence, check out http://blog.alextiller.com.
Post by Alex Tiller