Advice needed,Would you use ethanol if you had a choice?

Ethanol is used as an oxyginate in gasoline to replace MTBE, a real nasty critter when it gets in the ground water supply. MTBE was banned as a gasoline oxygenate for that reason.

 

I'd be surprised if there were any ethanol free gas stations in NJ.

 

Pure-gas.org my friends check it out, there are some choices out there.

 

Find ethanol free gas near you! is another one.

 

That was the idea, until someone figured out how much oil was being used to make the ethanol. With little or no overall conservation, nobody in this country should have to put up with this political shell game.

 

According to US department of agriculture, the return is pretty good, producing 1.34 BTU of Ethanol for every 1 BTU of natural gas or diesel fuel used to produce it.

http://www.usda.gov/oce/reports/energy/aer-814.pdf

 

The means for every BTU of ethanol burned, we are still burning 0.75 BTU of fossil fuel too, giving us only a quarter of the benefit most of us thought we were getting. Combine that with the corporate welfare and income redistribution of the ethanol subsidies, the FlexFuel credit CAFE shenanigans used to keep many fuel sucking pig SUVs on the road, and the 5-10% mpg reductions that numerous drivers claim, which if accurate means E10 actually increases their fossil fuel consumption.

Together, these are consuming a large amount of our attention to achieve miniscule or no carbon reductions, when we need to aim for much larger steps.

 

My local station sells both E10 and pure unleaded. I have tried E10 in both the gen II Prius and my old Ford Laser. In both cases, I have noticed poorer fuel economy when compared with pure unleaded. My daughter, who is now the principal driver of the Ford, has also noted the difference - she is very aware of the cost of fuel on her salary, but will use E10 when the discount price is offered at 8c per litre. (For non-Australian people, our two major fuel suppliers have linked up with the two major supermarkets to offer a discount on petrol when you buy more that $30 worth of goods from the supermarket. These discounts are generally 4c per litre, but recently they have pushed them up to 8c per litre.)

For my gen III, I notice that the manual recommends premium fuel but goes on to say that as long as the octane rating is 95 or above, this is OK. It also states "Toyota allows the use of ethanol blended gasoline where the ethanol content is up to 10%. Make sure that the ethanol blended gasoline to be used has a Research Octane Number 95 or higher". So far, I have only put in regular unleaded in it, and will continue to do so until my local no longer sells it.

 

I suspect those who clain more than a 3% fuel economy reduction with E10 are either mistaken or have an anti ethanol agenda.

I live in that north / south band of states in the middle of the US where air quality is good enough that Ethanol in fuel is not mandated, we have a choice of gasoline or ethanol / gasoline blends avalible at every fuel station.
I have not seen a mpg reduction with E10 in any modern fuel injected machine and actually see a couple mpg increase with local high quality E10 in my gen 3 Prius.
I have read laboratory research done which indicates anywhere from the possible 3% fuel economy drop, (E10 has 3% les BTU's) to an actual gain in economy with the correct engine design and tune.

This is backed by research done by UND and a Minnesota state university, Check the link.
http://www.ethanol.org/pdf/contentmgmt/Press_Release_12507-1.pdf

 

Well people can call it what they want agenda, mistake etc. I have not run pure gas in my Prius yet to compare. My previous two vehicles a stock 2008 Honda Element and a stock2002 Honda Civic both improved over 7 mpg using pure gas on flat highway with the cruise set . Same highway same weather and consecutive tank fills to and from a trip over 1000 miles on 10 occasions mileage up on pure gas and right back down on ethanol. I charted my mpg for one year on each vehicle using only ethanol and the mpgs only changed 1 or 2 mpg's per tank between BP and Mobil. The pure gas stayed up about 7 also. All i know is what i found in my real world experience maybe the Prius is different not sure.

 

Are they comparing blends with the same octane rating?

If their higher blends are also higher octane, that might be interesting but tells us nothing about performance with the same octane rating but different ethanol content.

 

Here in Iowa, we have a choice of E0-87, E10-89, or E0-91. I've driven my 2011 Prius about 8,000 miles so far and on average (over 18 fill-ups) I notice an 8% difference in MPG between E10 and E0. On average, I've calculated that it takes 2.14 gallons to drive 100 miles using E10 and 1.97 gallons using E0. Ethanol costs about 10 cents less per gallon here, but I pay more for E0 because it ends up costing less for the miles driven. (At $3.50/gallon of E10, it would cost me about $7.49 in gas to drive 100 miles; at $3.60/gallon of E0, the cost is $7.09. In fact, at $3.50/gallon for E10, E0 would have to cost $3.80/gallon to make it a break-even decision.)

 

My calculations are the same as yours, over 20 years of comparisons. My 5 low compression ratio, 87 octane designed cars show E0 MPG versus E10 MPG gains of 8%, 8%, 7%-8%, 7% & 5%.

 

Ethanol is hydroscopic and attracts water.
Not driving your car often and letting E10 gas sit in your car can cause moisture to get into the fuel system via condensation which can damage your fuel system.
I've heard that Australia has Los Angeles Type Weather so it should condensation should not be as a big a problem as it is here in Icy Pennsylvania.
You should never let your tank get less than 1/4 and drive your car often to reduce the chances of damage from moisture in the fuel system.
Ethanol will cause the most damage to small engines without fuel injection such as lawnmowers and weed whackers.