Real Gasoline, not Ethanol

I use ethanol free gasoline in our Prius year round just because I like the bump in mileage I get, and I do not like ethanol in general. Granted I suppose any little bit of energy independence we can get is crucial I feel that it does nothing but actually increase our oil consumption by lowering mileage. Not to mention in E85 vehicles the decreased maintenance intervals for oil changes. Unfortunately though where we move in Virginia has absolutely no ethanol free gas available, so this will probably be the last tank to go into our Prius for awhile sadly. Hopefully they don't implement the E15 standards.

 

May I welcome you to Virginia?!
We have a lot of Prii here.

 

pure-gas.org lists 173 ethanol-free stations in Virginia. Hope that helps.

 

A friend of mine just found a non-ethanol gas station(OK Gas & Smoke Mart), in Everett, Wash. selling for $3.51 per gallon! Around here, that is lower than lowball 10% cheapo gas & it the first time I've heard of ethanol-free gas selling lower than any 10% ethanol gas product. Look up pure-gas.org for the address & map to the station.

 

49 gas stations sell non-ethanol gas in Illinois. Look up pure-gas.org & click on Illinois. Hope one is near you, but there certainly might not be.

 

I am soon starting on a cross country trip that will total 5000+ miles and I am taking the 2 web sites with my laptop and hope to run some of that pure gas.

 

That may be a lowball price for Everett and parts north, but not for points south. Plenty of places south are dropping to the $3.4x range, and a few in Renton and Kent are down to $3.39. Ethanol-polluted, of course.

 

Where Northern Va, there are a few non-E stations in the NOVA area. Just gotta know and plan your routes to get near them.
Personal best on a tank of non-E was 58.3.

 

Has anyone used 100% ethanol. If so, what were the results in mileage.

 

100% ethanol would have horrible burn energy. Your FE would drop like a rock. It is about a 25% to 30% drop in fuel economy in practice to run E85 (85% ethanol, 15% gas) versus gasohol in the states which is (90% gas, 10% ethanol). And chemically, ethanol contains 34% less energy than gasoline.

So if you are getting 50mpg now, expect something around 33mpg with E100.

Perhaps someone from South America like Brazil will be able to try it for you as they have E100 pumps all over the place.

 

100% would be bad. I'm in Louisiana as well and there is always non ethanol gas around marina's. Boat motors, small engines and anything 2 cycle doesn't do well. It bonds with water and makes a milky looking mixture when water gets mixed in. Even the kits they sell to determine the percentage ethanol have you add a set amount of gasoline to be tested with a set amount of water to a vile. Shake the vile and once it settles the ethanol bonds with the water and separates into a milky layer. I don't know the math but with that information you can figure the percentage of ethanol. From what I've heard the ethanol subsidies have ended as of Jan 1. What has not ended is the ethanol mandates requiring refineries to dilute there gasoline with ethanol. It really is a warped policy as far as energy independence goes. Corn for ethanol should be outlawed. Sugar at least makes sense.

 

...the 200 proof tasted great! but my hypermiling skills fell off.

Just kidding, over on Gen III there is a hot discussion of E85 impact.
One Prius driver measured loss of 10 MPG. Per Toyota, Prius is not designed to run over E15 but some have tried E85.

 

We have all been getting corn holed by ADM and their ilk. If the gumnt manages to shut of the teat that ADM is feeding on, we should get some relief.

 

Corn used for E-XX makes about as much sense as anything else that the US is using corn for these days.
First of all.....we're not what you would call big vegetable eaters here. It's not like there's a huge unanswered cry out there for corn on the cob.
Most of the food grade corn that we harvest gets used for making HFCS. Great for fattening up people, but not what you would call a high grade use for food. Corn oil is probably something else that we could use a little less of in our diets. Also we grind much of the remainder up for really groovy stuff like taco shells and corn chips, and the occasional use in breakfast cereal and adult beverages.

From what I'm hearing, and I don't have a really big axe to grind with the ethanol folks, so I haven't bothered to fact check it yet---the corn that's used in ethanol production is silage grade stuff that is processed by evil Big Corn, and the remainder is used as (you gotta wait for it!)........silage. That tells me that the cows and piggys are getting to eat the stuff anyway, minus some of the starch perhaps.

It seems to me that if the US can use zillions of acres for tobacco production, then we shouldn't look down our noses at farmers selling field grade corn to some folks that want to turn it into ethanol.
The last time I checked, farmers weren't hijacking planes and flying them into buildings.

Just sayin’....

 

I am no farmer, but just to add some extras that my aunt and uncle who are farmers have passed on:

Corn is used as feed for lots of things. So the more corn that is not going to feed, the higher the price of feed. One specific example would be when feeding your chickens gets more expensive, you charge more for their eggs and meat.

Also, when you can get lots of money for growing corn you grow corn. But even SimFarm has shown that not rotating your fields and planting corn is bad. Corn is one of the most nutrient robbing crops there is. Most people used to do a rotation of 1 year corn, 1 year soybean, then 1 year corn, and so on. Now the new "normal" is 2 years of corn and then the next year with some cheap product. Some farmers are actually not even harvesting the cheap crap, and just tilling it back into the soil, and then claiming tax losses. And when you plant corn twice in a row, expect a 20%+ decrease in usable crop just because the soil can't take the abuse.

So there is a lot of waste to make corn, and the corn that is made is going to really silly uses. Getting rid of the ethanol subsidy was a great first step. Now hopefully the cycle can complete.

 

You're right about the upward inflation on food pricing, but it shakes both ways. Right now, gas is about 3.60. If upward pressures continue, real or legit, this is also going to have an inflationary effect on the price of everything, not just the cracked corn that you're feeding your hens.
Sooner or later gas is going to go up a lot more. Personally, I think it's going to be sooner. There are a LOT of Chinese folks out there that are getting new learner's permits...and guess what? There are a LOT of them to begin with!
China has a little more proactive energy policy than the US does. That's not really a big news flash, almost every other nation does, but I'm seeing stories out there that suggest that our gas prices are going to continue to climb because of demand, not just because of what's going on in the sand box these days.
OK...so this means that sooner or later it's going to be a little bit cheaper to make ethanol than it is to yank oil out of the ground, refine it, transport it, and pump it into your car.
Consider this:
Year 2013 (Unless the Mayans were right)
E85...$3.50
E85..."Converter" (??? <$500)
E-10....$6.00
Tell me how you're going to stop it...

Yeah....I know. We're all supposed to be driving electric by then, but lets just say that I'm a little skeptical about the ability of my beloved government to pick winners and losers in this arena, AND you're still going to have to figure out how to get trucks, trains, planes, and ships over the electric hurtle.
Solar and wind look promising as well, but the clock is ticking NOW.

Like I said before. We're using soil to do some pretty worth while stuff. Some of it.....maybe not so worthwhile. Some of the hemp advocates out there would suggest that MJ is our number one cash crop right now, but hey...they're hemp advocates, if you know what I mean....
I just don't have any heartburn with using ethanol as a stop gap until EV's (or whatever technology supplants the dino-ICE duo) emerges from it's loooooooooooooooooooong gestation period.

I'm against all subsidies....so I applaud the notion that new technologies will either stand or fail in the arena of the fair market system. That goes for Volts, Solar, E-anything, corn, everything.

As always....
YMMV

 

The U.S. has about 94 million acres of corn this year.

The best quick figure I could find for tobacco was 0.43 million acres in 2002. Compared to corn, that is just a rounding error.

 

Tobacco is looking like the next big fuel crop. GM tobacco can directly create hydrocarbons, bypassing the need for fermentation and other costly steps. Tobacco use in this manner is just getting started, but it looks promising.

Tom

 

If only one in twenty acres of corn is used for ethanol instead of silage, HFCS, breakfast cereal, corn oil, etc....then it's the same rounding error isn't it?
What percentage of corn in the US goes into ethanol?
Right, nobody knows. That's because if you log into www.ethanolsux.com, you'll get one number, and if you log into www.ethanolrocks.com, you get another.
My best number is about 18-percent. Granted....it's not really a rounding error, but I think that we can sustain that useage given some of the other stuff that we're using corn for.
JMHO.

Remember, you can still use post sullied-by-the-ethanol process corn for silage, so a lot of folks out there with agendas are counting some of the kernels twice.

Corn for ethanol means that food prices rise.
High gas costs means ALL prices rise.

Personally? With one in three Americans clinically obese, I think we can shrug off paying 50 cents extra for corn-sweetened junk food, or corn fed beef.

Just sayin....