Since there are some really smart people on here....what engine's will burn this?  Regular gas engines?  Will it make your engine go Ping, Ping, Ping?

http://money.cnn.com/2006/08/08/news/companies/pluggedin_gunther.fortune/index.htm?cnn=yes

Thanks Flush for the E85 web site.  Really interesting.  I think that in the coming year's, there will be plenty of E85.  If the auto maker's and government will allow it.

My car isn't on the list.  I'm not about to get rid of it.  It's paid for and has less than 35,000 miles on it.  I think if E85 becomes available in my area, I'll be looking into converting. 

I would encourage you to do some research before you make that switch. Currently in many areas E85 is already more expensive than gasoline and that is BEFORE you factor in you are going to get ~30% less mileage. So it may actually cost you more.

In addition, it is really not 100% better for the environment if you look at the big picture. What comes out your tailpipe may be cleaner, but it takes a lot of energy (like the tractor emmisions for example) to create Ethanol from corn. Not to mention the biggest issue which is when you put the HUGE areas of land needed into corn production you will be doing a lot of environmental damage. Corn fields may be green and pretty at first glance, but they are NOT good for all of the native plants and animals that used to live there. Some people could care less about that stuff, but to me it is a pretty important. I have no problem with farming, but if we do it on the scale required to support even half the current gasoline need, you will need to completely change the face of much of our great country. Like most things, there needs to be some sort of balance.

Overall I am very much on the fence about corn based E85. Unfortunately it is a very political issue, so much of the "data" you find is coming from a biases source and it is a slightly difficult to get the straight facts.

-Flush

I'm no expert on anything, but if you balance the growing of corn with the pumping/refining of oil I would bet it balances out fairly well.  What would you prefer to look at, acres and acres of oil wells or corn fields?  If a tanker of corn tips over there would be lots of happy fish/birds instead of lots of dead ones.  Corn may not be the be all to end all, but I think it is a good start and since prices are high either way,  I would rather pay for the corn than to send my money overseas for oil. 

I wish walmart would start carrying bio-deisel.  No one around here sells it.

In addition, it is really not 100% better for the environment if you look at the big picture. What comes out your tailpipe may be cleaner, but it takes a lot of energy (like the tractor emmisions for example) to create Ethanol from corn. Not to mention the biggest issue which is when you put the HUGE areas of land needed into corn production you will be doing a lot of environmental damage. Corn fields may be green and pretty at first glance, but they are NOT good for all of the native plants and animals that used to live there. Some people could care less about that stuff, but to me it is a pretty important. I have no problem with farming, but if we do it on the scale required to support even half the current gasoline need, you will need to completely change the face of much of our great country. Like most things, there needs to be some sort of balance.

-Flush

I can't believe that any clear thinking AMERICAN, can say that buying oil from the ragheads is better than using this great lands resources for growing corn to make E85.

 That you are worried about the native plants and animals that would be affected by large areas of corn concerns me. I say if we can wean ourselves from buying any oil from the mid-east we need to do so. We don't need to buy oil from folks that would just as soon see us dead.

I say bring on the vast corn fields to make all the E85 and Biodiesel that we can possible make, it puts the farmers back in the fields and hopefully the military kids back in our homes.

Nothing but good can come from us trying to use our own resources to eliminate the need for overseas oil. If that misplaces a rabbit or two than so be it.

Well, like I said this is a very political issue. If you would read my posts I never once said I think it is a better choice to buy foreign oil than to produce E85.

What I did say is that E85 from corn is not completely environmentally friendly. Being better for the environment (in terms of emmissions) is one of the big claims of E85 supportors, but they often forget to tell the whole story.

Whether or not the environment is more important than being dependant on foreign oil is not a topic I brought up. It is too complex and politically charged.  Further, it appears there may be much more effecient approaches to E85 than corn, one is switchgrass. If we you can get off foreign oil AND make a much smaller impact on the land, that is what I am in favor of. I won't blindly agree to turning most of our un-populated land into corn fields because the corn growers convienently forget to mention how ineffecient corn is compared to other sources.  

HWBar,

    The fact that you refer to all people from all of our oil producing sources as "ragheads", and that you think converting 50% of this countries land area into cornfields will only "displace a rabbit or two" tells me all I need to know about you sir. Your "comments" will no longer be dignified by a response from me.

-Flush

Terri, the difference is that it takes much much less switchgrass in terms of acreage to get same same gallons of E85. So in other words instead of having to switch every square inch of farmable land in the country (which obviously isn't feasible anyway) to corn, you would only need to have some smaller percentage in swithcgrass, which means you can still produce FOOD. I am not making this up, do some research, if we tried to cover all our oil needs with corn, we would need to outsourch produce because all suitable ag lands would have to be in Corn. Not to mention corn is way less cost effective. The environmental aspect is only one little aspect about corn based E85 that makes it less than ideal. Please do some research on this. Corn based E85 is great in some moderate levels, but it simply will never work as a complete replacement for all of our oil needs, that is all I am trying to saying.

I do find it funny being accused of being liberal. I guess you can't give a hoot about the environment with out being a liberal, or maybe if you live in CA you must be a liberal? I love stereotypes. The irony is that I moved to Colorado because I am a hunting maniac and couldn't stand the liberal nature of CA's laws. I have been accused of being a redneck, but never liberal, my hunting buddies willl love that. Interestingly I spend a whole lot of time hunting pheasants, which usually thrive were there is corn. Funny, I still don't think corn based E85 is the perfect solution, but what do I know, I don't think it's cool to be racist, must be the lefty PC stuff I picked up in CA.

Oh, I really don't think we'll have to tear up every acre of flat land to grow corn.  Just put quota's on export's.  The countries that corn is exported to will just have to find an alternative sugar, oil and animal feed. 

I'm also have faith that there are research center's looking for different material's to make E85. 

As for the cost, well, what's the difference between paying $5 a gallon for E85 or gasoline/diesel.  At least my dollar's will be staying in the US and maybe, just maybe, won't see ADM posting billion dollar per quarter profit's.

I'm also in favor of wind farm's and solar panel's.

Besides that if we don't grow corn and make the money off the crops there will be more houses built on the farm land and we will be even more dependant on forign oil.

Fill er up!!

A couple of thoughts . . .

1)  So everyone wants Wal-Mart to jump on this and if and when they do they will be the largest seller of any product they choose to sell.  Then everyone will start complaining about big bad Wal-Mart and how they don't pay a living wage, no health benefits, etc.  They buy products from China (see other generator posts), etc. etc. and someone will call for a boycott.  We want cheap easy access to products we want when we want them but then we speak out the other side of our mouths when we get way we pay for.  PS. I un-ashamedly shop at Wal-Mart when it suits me.

2)  Ethanol. I am involved in the ag industry and there is a cost to everything.  Ethanol is not as simplistic as it seems.  Corn production in the US requries massive inputs such as much water, energy to pump the water, fertilizer which is all petro based, equipment to plant, harvest, and transport - it takes energy to produce these items, plus fuel to operate them.  Farmed land is an aggressive use (but necessary) of the world surface but wind erosion, etc does occur.  In short there are many studies that suggest that the total petro input costs of growing ethanol is about equal to the output energy.  In additon, corn is a government subsidized crop, many ethanol plants are govt (state and local)subsidized, and ethanol plants may encourage increased corn production in areas where corn is not being produced thus resulting in not using surplus corn but creating surplus corn which the govt pays crop supports.  It is easy to say this is a sustainable fuel source but a little more difficult to prove.

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2006/08/21/8383659/index.htm?cnn=yes

Interesting article about the use of corn for fuel and the impact on supply and cost.