Yes, I am.

The government didn't tell him to buy a Tahoe. He didn't have to buy a gas hog.

On the other hand, I understand there are government subsidies for people who buy SUV's, so okay, I guess I have to agree with you to some extent...

Harry

 

Yeah, the government subsidies for businesses that buy Hummers is one of the things that really makes me steam. However, it isn't ethanol itself that is the enemy, as worthywads intimated. It's the way we make the ethanol. If we weren't making it out of corn, but were using some of the common sense approaches that have been put forward by conservationists who are hoping to steer the government subsidies and programs in a better direction (switchgrass, for instance), the whole situation would be much more tenable. We don't need to use corn this way. We just don't.

There was an interesting op-ed in the NY Times this week about how huge swaths of agricultural land were about to be turned over to corn production to meet the increases in demand due to the ethanol boom, including a lot of land that was set aside under various conservation programs that have been developed with farmers for many years. Major environmental gains may be swept away for a little short-term profit, and it's a big mistake I'd post the link, but you need registration and the article expires in a couple of days, anyway. The point is that there are about to be some pretty severe environmental consequences as a direct result of this, which is ironic because it's supposed to be an environmental change.

 

One other note about FlexFuel vehicles. The manufacturer is allowed to use the expected E85 mileage for the vehicle when calculating manufacturer fleet CAFE, even if it never burns a single drop of E85 over its useful life. This way they don't have to actually invest in the design and manufacture of more fuel efficient vehicles. They can skirt the intent of the CAFE standards instead. I see FlexFuel SUVs here in the Dallas area every day and there is not an E85 station within 500 miles or more of here. And who knows how many years it will be before E85 is readily available here, if ever? This is one reason among many why American automobile manufacturers are doing so poorly from a PR standpoint and in fact. If they spent half the time and money actually attempting to conform to fleet CAFE that they did thinking this up imagine what could they have accomplished by now?

 

This ticks me off!

First, they toute Hydrogen, and when it came out that that was such a lame brain idea, they had to go for something else. Ethanol.

Once we see the downside and the major negative effects on the world's enocomy with ethanol, they'll be looking for other lame brain ideas to extend our oil addiction for as long as they can lobby!

We should really band all oil and auto lobbies from Washington! Heck, let's band all lobbyist from Washington!

 

It's sad that other biofuels out there have so much more promise but have no voice. Soy offers better return, but Algae seems to offer several orders of magnitude more return then anything else. Why isn't that looked at? Lobbiest and the sheep who follow them blindly. Very sad.

 

UPDATE: E85 is available with-in 500 miles of Dallas at:

Kroger's in Pearland, TX (261 miles away) @ $2.66/gallon.
HEB in Austin, TX (195 miles away)
HEB in Mission, TX (319 miles away) @ $3.09
Kroger's in Sasche, TX (222 miles away)

E85 stations are being added every day. In Watkins, CO. E85 was available on Monday for $2.03/gallon.

Also, while the FlexFuel SUV's are the most visible (big yellow badged) vehicles capable of using E85, they aren't the only ones. However, it's hard to read the 10th digit on the VIN of a car as it flies by you.

It is a bit of a chicken and egg dilemma. Do you build the infrastructure, but have no cars, or build the cars and hope for infrastructure.

I understand E85 is not THE solution, but Hybrids are not THE solution either. And they are not mutually exclusive, are they?

 

To understand more why there is a need to use alternative fuel like E85 ethanol fuel, let's first venture into the reason why gasoline doesn't burn cleanly. Gas is made from pure carbon and hydrogen, and is a liquid substance. It also includes carbon chains of different lengths...

You can check out my Green Car blog for more information...