Thursday, September 22, 2005
Fuel for thought
In an earlier post, I had posted some comments about alternatives to gasoline, and it has occured to me that I may have been premature.
I did a little research that got me excited. Do you know that almost every major car manufacturer is making vehicles that can run on what they refer to as "flexible fuels"?
E85, in case you are unaware, is a blend of 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline. Legislation supported by Democratic senator Barack Obama "will triple the number of E85 pumps," Obama said in a news release. "This really makes the option of buying a flexible-fuel vehicle realistic when you save significant amounts per gallon of E85 and get substantially better gas mileage."
He's wrong about the mileage. E-85 boosts horsepower which most vehicles waste. The upside, however, is that we will be using more agricultural products and importing less oil from the middle east if this thing catches on. Also, from my conversation with a guy from the ag co-op, it will cost roughly $0.30 a gallon less than regular unleaded.
Here's the thing that really upsets me, though. I went to all the major oil company websites and typed into their search engines "e85", and every one of them came back blank. Finding a station that serves e-85 is nearly impossible. Not Marathon, not Shell, not BP.
I did a little research that got me excited. Do you know that almost every major car manufacturer is making vehicles that can run on what they refer to as "flexible fuels"?
E85, in case you are unaware, is a blend of 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline. Legislation supported by Democratic senator Barack Obama "will triple the number of E85 pumps," Obama said in a news release. "This really makes the option of buying a flexible-fuel vehicle realistic when you save significant amounts per gallon of E85 and get substantially better gas mileage."
He's wrong about the mileage. E-85 boosts horsepower which most vehicles waste. The upside, however, is that we will be using more agricultural products and importing less oil from the middle east if this thing catches on. Also, from my conversation with a guy from the ag co-op, it will cost roughly $0.30 a gallon less than regular unleaded.
Here's the thing that really upsets me, though. I went to all the major oil company websites and typed into their search engines "e85", and every one of them came back blank. Finding a station that serves e-85 is nearly impossible. Not Marathon, not Shell, not BP.
