This is from the Department of Energy’s “Energy Efficiency and Renewables” site. It’s a good overview of ethanol:
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I live in western Pennsylvania. In the summer months we are forced to use gasoline with some ethanol mixed in. Supposedly it makes the gasoline burn "cleaner," although I don't really know what is cleaner about it. In the Fall we start getting straight gasoline again, and my gas mileage quickly goes from 20 mpg to about 24 mpg in my 2002 Honda Accord. I see a similar improvement in my 1996 Plymouth Voyager's gas mileage.
Ethanol has about half the BTU's of straight gasoline, so I calculate that the summer mix must be about 15% ethanol and 85% gasoline. I doubt that the summer mix does so much good for the environment that it is worth the substantial gas mileage penalty that we pay for it. In fact I doubt that it does any good at all.
Posted by: Dan Rogers | 16 January 2007 at 09:33 PM
Ethanol/gasoline mixtures also promote condensation and water problems in fuel lines, and have been causing deterioration in fiberglass fuel tanks. Still, the point of the stuff is to replace a meaningful percentage of petrofuel with a renewable, less toxic, home-grown fuel. It fulfills tat role pretty well, and we're probably just going to have to learn to take the bad along with the good.
Posted by: Logan | 17 January 2007 at 08:34 AM