With the (up to) 10% ethynol in our gas I went from 16.5 to 15.5 mile per gallon. I average about 15.5 gallons per fill up. With this loss (only 1 mile per gallon) at $3.00 per gallon, I lose about $2.79 or 0.93 gallons per fill up. Looking at it another way I could say I am paying $3.18 per gallon.
So is this helping us or not?
2006-06-15 04:24:03 · 6 answers · asked by justaskn 4 in Cars & Transportation ➔ Maintenance & Repairs
I stand corrected on my spelling. It is indeed Ethanol. Thanks for catching my error.
2006-06-15 04:33:13 · update #1
It is definitely costing you. In more ways than one. Ethanol is not really as cheap as people think.
Currently Ethanol is heavily subsidized by the government. So the government is paying money to farmers to produce the ethanol, and paying automotive companies to produce vehicles that can burn ethanol and paying distributors to set up ethanol stations. This mean they are TAXING you for it.
It's coming out of your pay check on a daily basis to support ethanol. Ethanol subsidizes are suppose to run out in 2007 and are due up for renewal. It will be interesting to see if renewal occurs, and if it doesn't what effect it will have on Ethanol prices.
Now here's the more interesting part. Gasoline is HEAVILY taxed. About 30% of your cost for gasoline is actually tax. The government is making a bundle off of high gasoline prices.
2006-06-15 04:43:24 · answer #1 · answered by hsueh001 5 · 1⤊ 0⤋
No it's not really helping, especially since what you say is true. I didn't think that gas mileage would be affected that much, but I suspect it'd be even worse on some cars. I think there would be a loss of some HP as well, but I haven't seen much research done on that. I think there would be in their interest to keep that low.
In any case, it takes fossil fuel to produce ethanol!!! Only like 1-5% of the product is "new gas", or resulting fuel that didn't cost us fossil fuels when producing. So that hardly makes us independent as only a very small percentage of gasoline used in the market is actually being replaced by ethanol. If it could be produced without using fossil fuels, or at least the process could be made more efficient than there would actually be some gain. Currently this is all mostly politics to make it seem like the gov. is doing something since they boasted so much about it, and Bush called everyone oil addicts in the State of the Union Address, now they can't just ignore the problem... lol
The way they're approaching the issue is basically taxes, which is pretty stupid, as it all becomes a vicious cycle. We pay high costs for gas, so gov. says, it'll reduce it by using ethanol, but since nobody really benefits from growing the crop as there is no market for it, the gov. has to subsidize. The gains from the final product product are pretty scanty, and with the drop in mileage, as well as performance the public is definitely loosing out. So, yeah, this is basically a bunch of politicians seeking approval ratings.
Ethanol does have a future, and is used now, but I think they should invest in the technology first, before trying to integrated the product in the general market.
2006-06-15 11:40:50 · answer #2 · answered by DmanLT21 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The long term solution to replacing gasoline is Bio Diesel. It is basically vegetable oil mixed with a small percentage of ethanol.
In the short run, ethanol will cost more because the BIG OIL companies were not excused from the liability from MTBE which caused disease. MTBE is an octane booster. To replace MTBE, ethanol is used. It is clean, safe and easy to switch to. But supply was outstripped by demand and its price skyrocketed.
When all the new Ethanol plants come on line, its price will fall.
2006-06-15 11:33:56 · answer #3 · answered by mykidsRmylife 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Ethanol ( E85)
Causes MPG to drop 20-30 %.Ethanol has less energy ( in BTU's) then gasoline. Plain law of physics.
Absorbs water and is corrosive. This creates massive storage and transportation issues.( Although E85 cars are designed for this).
Is very difficult to produce much more so then gasoline.
All of the above apply to Bio-diesel. In addition bio-diesel turns to molasses when it gets cold.
2006-06-15 11:48:18 · answer #4 · answered by rjm96 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
It's spelled Ethanol, not ethynol
2006-06-15 11:27:27 · answer #5 · answered by Adriana 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
i heard "ethynol" is hurting not helping the economy
2006-06-15 11:28:59 · answer #6 · answered by ♥Charmed One♥ 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋