Is E85 motor fuel a corny way to reduce American's dependence on foreign oil? E85 is being touted as an eco-friendly, alternative fuel that can provide a home-grown solution to reducing our need for imported oil.
E85 is a mixture of 85% ethanol alcohol and 15% gasoline (though during winter months, the percentage of gasoline is usually increased to 30% for easier cold weather starting). The alcohol is made primarily from corn, but it can also be made from a variety of crops including potatoes, sugar cane and beets. In fact, ethanol can be made from anything that contains fermentable sugar, including organic garbage. Gasoline is added to E85 to improve its cold start characteristics and to make the fuel poisonous (otherwise the government would have to tax it the same as drinking alcohol!).
Actually, the government gives fuel alcohol producers and retailers some rather significant tax credits. Gas stations that sell E85 receive a federal income tax credit of 51 cents per gallon. Corn growers receive farm subsidies. Alcohol distilleries also get various tax credits and incentives.
E85 currently sells for about 30 to 50 cents a gallon less than gasoline. That sounds pretty good, but E85 does not contain as much energy as straight gasoline. Alcohol contains only about 80,000 BTUs per gallon compared to about 120,000 for gasoline. Because of this, the fuel economy you get with E85 isn't as good as with gasoline. The fuel economy may be 10 to 30% less depending on driving conditions.
E85 also requires a specially modified fuel injection system that can deliver a richer fuel mixture. Alcohol likes an air/fuel ratio of 9:1 compared to 14.7:1 for gasoline, so higher flow rate fuel injectors are required. The fuel system must also be equipped with a special fuel sensor that uses a dielectric measuring principle to determine the percentage of ethanol to gasoline (ethanol is more conductive than gasoline). The engine computer uses the fuel sensor's input to adjust fuel delivery and spark timing according to the concentration of alcohol in the gas.
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General Motors, Ford and DaimerChrysler have all been building "flex fuel" cars and light trucks capable of running on either gasoline or E85 for a number of years. Currently, there are about 1.5 million of these vehicles on the road. Recent models include flex fuel versions of the Ford Taurus and Explorer, Dodge Caravan and GM's Avalanche (see complete list below of flex-fuel vehicles). In fact, there are nearly five million of these flex fuel vehicles on the road today.
Trouble is, finding E85 to fuel these flex fuel vehicles is a challenge. Currently, there are only about 700 gas stations nationwide (out of 165,000) that sell E85, and most of these are concentrated in the Mid-west where most of the fuel-grade alcohol is made. Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), located in Decatur, Illinois, is the largest U.S. producer. Consequently, many flex fuel vehicles have probably NEVER been driven on E85, just straight gasoline.
The auto makers want to see E85 offered at more service stations so they can build and sell more flex fuel vehicles. In return, they'll receive more alternative fuel credits from the government to offset their gas guzzling models that hurt their Corporate Average Fuel Economy numbers. It's a win-win situation for everybody.
Personally, I am in favor of making all the alcohol fuel we can burn regardless of how much it really costs to produce or what it costs at the pump. The long term costs of renewable home-grown fuels such as ethanol alcohol are far less than what it is costing us now to buy and protect crude oil from Middle East sources. With the economies in China and India booming, the day is coming when there will not going to be enough oil for everyone. We need alternatives and we need them now.
Geologists estimate the world contains at most about three trillion barrels of recoverable crude oil. We have already used more than a quarter of that amount, and are now sucking oil out of the ground at a rate of 75 million barrels a day. Nearly 80% of this is being burned by various modes of transportation.
Here in this country, we use 15.5 million barrels of oil a day. Of this, about 10 million barrels of oil a day are imported (65% of the total!). One barrel of crude oil typically yields a little more than half a barrel of gasoline, so that translates into a burn rate of roughly 9 million barrels (or 495 million gallons) of gasoline a day!
Back in 1980, I wrote a book called "How To Make Your Own Alcohol Fuels." The book was written at a time when Americans were in a panic over rising fuel prices and over dependence on foreign oil (which was less than half of our total need at that time). The book was as much about the need for self-sufficiency and renewable energy as it was about building stills, making mash, brewing and distilling alcohol, and modifying engines to burn ethanol. The book sold surprisingly well, but I think most of the people who bought it were more interested in making moonshine than alcohol fuel.
In 1980, Jimmy Carter was President and Congress passed the Synthetics Fuel Bill that earmarked $1.45 billion dollars (peanuts by today's standards) for alternative fuels development. For awhile it looked like we were actually going to do something to reduce our dependency on foreign oil. But when the price of crude oil came back down, the alternative fuels movement withered on the vine. So here we are 25 years later facing the same issues.
The big picture has not changed. In fact, we are more dependent on foreign oil today then we were 25 years ago. But we have also made some moves in the right direction. Alcohol production has grown significantly in recent years, and is now close to 1.8 billion gallons per year (one bushel of corn yields about three gallons of ethanol). Most of this is being used as an octane booster and oxygenate in "reformulated" gasoline and premium grade fuels.
If E85 can be made widely available, some say it might offset up to 30% of our current use of gasoline in another 25 years. It is certainly a step in the right direction, but it is only a small part of the overall solution to reducing our dependence on foreign oil.
President George W. Bush has wants the U.S. to produce 35 billion gallons of renewable fuels per year within 10 years, enough to replace 15% of our demand for gasoline. Congress is considering measures that would require 60 billion gallons by 2030. The Europeans are also moving in the same direction with plans to replace 5.75% of the diesel fuel they use with biodiesel by 2010.
FOOD VERSUS FUEL?
The use of ethanol made from corn has been rapidly growing rapidly. As more and more new distilleries are being built, production capacity has been expanding. In 1998, about 5 percent of the U.S. corn harvest (526 million bushels) was used to make ethanol according to the National Corn Growers Association. In 2006, that figure had grown to over two billion bushels (nearly 20 percent of the crop). In 2008, U.S ethanol production was pumping out an estimated 23 million gallons of ethanol a day, with a capacity to produce 8 billion gallons of ethanol by year's end.
The growing demand for corn to produce ethanol has been fueling a debate of "food versus fuel." As corn prices have doubled, many have blamed soaring food prices on diverting too much corn to fuel production. Many say this is totally false, as current food prices are being driven by an increase in world demand, lower yields in some other grain-producing countries, and the effect of high fuel prices on transportation, manufacturing and packaging costs. Profiteering by middlemen and speculators have had a far greater impact on food prices at the consumer level than using corn to produce ethanol. After all, there's probably less than 10 cents worth of corn in a $4 box of cereal. If the price of corn jumped 50%, that should only add 5 cents to the cost of the end product. But it doesn't work that way. As the price of the commodity gets marked up at each step in the production and distribution process, even a small increase in the price of the raw materials is multiplied many times to inflate the end price of the product. So don't blame ethanol production for rising food prices.
To reduce our dependence on foreign oil, we also need more fuel efficient vehicles, including more hybrids which are coming (GM is offering hybrid versions of its fullsize SUV Yukon in 2008, with more new models on the way). Higher fuel prices are killing the sales of gas-guzzling SUVs and fullsize trucks as buyers return to smaller, more fuel-efficient cars. ( Click Here for a list of the 25 most fuel-efficient cars for model year 2008).
We also need smarter traffic controls to reduce urban gridlock.
And most importantly, we need smarter urban planning to reduce the negative effects of urban sprawl. Suburbia needs to become more pedestrian friendly, and public transportation needs to be more practical and affordable.
Flex fuel vehicles have a yellow gas capMORE CORN-POWERED VEHICLES TO COME
Carmakers are in favor of using E85 because it gives them "green credentials" by allowing vehicles to run on home-grown fuel. DaimlerChrysler says it sold nearly 250,000 E85 flex-fuel vehicles in 2007, and hopes to sell twice that number in 2008. Models with a flex-fuel option include:
* Jeep Commander 4.7LNot to be left behind, Toyota has announced it too will begin selling E85 flex-fuel version of its Tundra pickup truck in 2008.
For a list of 2007 GM flex fuel vehicles, Click Here . GM will indicate which of its vehicles are flex fuel capable by using a YELLOW gas cap.
We will keep you posted.
E85 Flex Fuel Vehicle Application List
Trucks with an E85 Flex-Fuel Option:
1999-2003 Ford 3.0L Ranger Supercab 2WDMinivans with an E85 Flex-Fuel Option:
: 1998-2003 Chrysler 3.3L Town & Country minivansPassenger Cars with an E85 Flex-Fuel Option:
1999-2001 Ford 3.0L Taurus LX, SE, and SES sedansSports Utility Vehicles with an E85 Flex-Fuel Option:
2001-2002 Ford 4.0L Explorer, 2-door (early 2002)
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