Corn Fuel
| May 1st, 2008 by Robert | Word Count: 1237 | Reading Time 4:56 | 2,560 views |
As we all know, with the continual increase of oil prices and as a result, gas prices, the media is pushing alternative fuel as a better way to go. Usually, you will run across this alternative fuel, Ethanol or better called E85, at rare filling stations. Yes, there are more pumps showing up, but they are still few and far between. Why aren’t there more considering we are nearing $4 per gallon nationwide? Is there no demand for it? Are there enough vehicles that can utilize this “new” E85 in the market? Is it cost effective to use E85 or are you better off just paying the price for gas? Those are some of the questions I’ve asked myself and I have a few answers, of course from my point of view. But you didn’t expect anything different right?
First off, I own a Yukon XL (yes, it’s a gas guzzler). The fuel economy on this vehicle tops out at 14 mpg in the city and 18 mpg on the road. Currently, at today’s price in town, $3.539 per gallon, to fill up would be right at $110. That’s insane. So it comes down to a little of a quarter to drive a mile in the city, and about 20 cents per mile on the interstate. How does that compare to E85, is it cost effective for me to switch to alternative fuel in my situation with a gas guzzler? Let’s do some math. E85 gas mileage for my particular vehicle is 10 mpg in the city, and 13 mpg on the highway. The closest place I can get E85 is 15 miles away from me so we will also take that into account. The price of E85 today is $2.799 at this location. This gives me a total cost of a tank of gas at about $87. That’s a pretty nice savings compared to the regular gasoline costs at today’s prices. Let’s look further. E85 costs about 28 cents per mile in the city and about 22 cents on the highway.
Would I really save money if I switched to E85 with my current vehicle? Nope. Yes, the initial price tag makes things look better because hey, a tank of gas is $23 cheaper and the price per gallon is over 70 cents cheaper. Sure does make me think I would be getting a better deal, but I’m not. I am actually paying even more per mile I drive by switching to E85. That doesn’t make much financial sense now does it? The complaint about gas is the price per gallon, nobody seems to complain about the mileage our cars get, we like the power right? Why do we need all this high end power in the first place considering most of our speed limits in this country top out around 70-80 mph? Why do we need a monster sized engine that can drive 110 mpg when that is at best 30 mph over the speed limit? Bigger engines equal more fuel necessary to burn to propel the vehicle forward. Usually, the bigger the engine, the heavier the vehicle also, so that even requires more fuel to burn.
Rather than focusing all of our efforts on alternative fuels, which in the end may actually cost us MORE money to drive, maybe we ought to take a look at making our current fleet of gasoline cars better utilize the gas for mileage considerations. Some car manufacturers are doing this by moving to a “hybrid” engine that cuts cylinders down via the onboard computer to determine power needs. This does help mileage and is the first step in making the current fleet better. However, I think the engineers should develop a more gas efficient engine which will include the current hybrid technology, and keep in mind the necessary top speeds. Develop a lighter engine capable of running about 85-90 mph. Combine that with hybrid technology and lighter vehicle weight and we will increase the mileage we see out of our gasoline. Paying $4 per gallon isn’t as big an issue if we can pull 50 mpg. That gives us a cost of about 8 cents a mile. That’s affordable.
Based on a statement I heard the other day, E85 has added a 15% cost increase to our corn development due to demand and costs associated with this alternative fuel. Not only are we pushing forth an alternative that is most likely not cost effective in most gas guzzler circumstances, we are increasing costs in one of our staple food arenas. Are we helping? You may say well, E85 helps the environment. Maybe it does, but how much? According to research data, the air pollution score for my vehicle doesn’t change when using E85. The carbon footprint is smaller, but still not the greatest. So even environmentally, E85 doesn’t appear to be the solution.
There are more and more vehicles appearing on the market with “Flex Fuel” but is that actually increasing costs of manufacturing? There are 41 E85 filling stations within 200 miles of my location, 18 within 60 miles. Is that enough? No. Driving to get fuel doesn’t save you anything. If I drove 30 miles to get a tank of E85, it costs me roughly $6. To fill up with gasoline, it costs me $2. Until there are enough fuel stations carrying E85 at a lower price per gallon, it just doesn’t make sense financially. As a side note, you may say you have an E85 station in your neighborhood. Well, pricing data shows larger populated areas of course have higher prices, so no, that’s not a good argument.
Since you may think I’m all about disregarding E85, you may ask where we should be looking for alternative fuel. You would be right that I think E85 is a stop gap solution, a solution to make money off the consumer, and I do believe in another direction we should be heading. I think we should be heading to an environmentally safe product, a product that doesn’t increase the source’s industry costs, and also is readily available just like your local gasoline station. What could this be? Hydrogen power. The technology is there, the stations are capable, and the vehicles are made. There is a major lack of production on all products with hydrogen powered vehicles. What we need is more government push for a particular alternative fuel as our primary focus. If we can focus on hydrogen power as our alternative fuel of choice, we could quickly increase capacity in all fronts. We could have more vehicles and filling stations.
You may be a fan of battery power. I’m not. Batteries tend to wear out and then the “waste” left from a dead battery has to be dealt with. Often, high powered batteries are not environmentally safe when disposed of, so that doesn’t fit my criteria for a successful alternative fuel source. Hydrogen power is a real alternative, one that we can move our nation forward with. I invite you to do some research on your own to become more educated on the subject and do some math on your own situation to see how the current E85 product may help (or hurt) you. We can’t jump from gasoline to the end solution of alternative fuel so there must be a bridge. I think that bridge is E85, but it’s broken.
Citation: Various public sites.
on May 2nd, 2008 at 10:47 pm:
Just my 2 cents worth!!
I also believe that hydrogen power should be on the priority list to start manufacturing vehicles and start setting up refueling stations across the United States. If we were not so dependent on OIL,would we be in Iraq fighting for a desert where the temperature is almost unbearable to the average person? I understand that oil is not the only reason that we are there,but I would venture to say that it is probably in the top three reasons. The politicians rely heavily on oil barrons for their support,but don’t tell anyone it’s supposed to be a secret! Sure using corn sounds good,until you see what you actually get for your money. Farmers can sell their corn as fast as they can harvest it, but at what cost to the consumers? A shortage of food,rising prices on all foods that are made from corn products.The list of foods that are affected by corn shortages is probably much larger than most people could even imagine.
When changes are made, most of the time it usually will affect someone or something in a not to positive way.The old saying that,if it sounds to good to be true, then it probably isn’t.I do believe that we have the technology, to at the very least to double the mileage on all of our vehicles at the present time. Until our politicians start helping their people that vote them into office,then things won’t ever change. So it may be time to start voting for some new congresmen with better morals.Once they get elected it seems that they forget who they are supposed to be working for. (You and Me)
on May 3rd, 2008 at 12:38 am:
I agree we need to change our congress men and women. There are too many “lifers” in our political arena and we need some new people to introduce new and progressive ideas within our government. A few here and there is not enough, we need to set reasonable term limits to force our government to change from within. The status quo has become a detriment and we need true change.
Until the kickbacks and lobbyist money gets under control, we will never see a major change in our terms. Would you basically fire yourself from the most well paying job you ever had? Would you force yourself to retire from a job you basically are on vacation the entire time? Would you decide, on purpose, to vote yourself out of office? Nope. We need true change and we need it now. Everyone likes to talk about the President, but the true change in my eyes is in Congress. Change out the Congress and also the Senate and we would have a better opportunity for moving forward.