GM: Half of U.S. vehicles will run on ethanol by 2012

Where I live, E85 (ethanol) is often priced somewhere around 2/3-3/4 the cost of a gallon of regular gasoline.

— Shredmo (View Profile)

Posted on 2/7/2008 11:28:31 AM | | Votes: 1   

0to60...there are two different prices for E85. There is the price you see at the pump, which is usually 20 cents ceaper than regular...

Then there is the real price. Which I can't find a good number for to tell you the truth. The real price is the UNSUBSUDIZED price.

You see in the grand scheme of things E85 is not cheaper than gas. It is subsidized to appear that way. So when John Q Public goes to his local gas station he thins..."Hey E85 is cheaper than gas...I should buy an E85 vehicle so I don't spend as much at the pump."

John Q Public would be correct. He wouldn't pay as much at the pump (leaveing out the argument that E85 is 15-30% less efficient than fuel). The problem is as E85 becomes more prevelant, 'who is paying for the subsidization'? answer...John Q Public.

So whereas he wont be spending as much at the pump...he will be spending it when tax time rolls around.

— Spectator (View Profile)

Posted on 2/7/2008 12:47:02 PM | | Votes: 1   

Only $.20 difference?
Wow, the midwest must subsidize this stuff even more than your location. It is $.65 per gallon cheaper than regular. We also have E10 that is $.05 cheaper per gallon on average than regular (no ethanol).

— Shredmo (View Profile)

Posted on 2/7/2008 4:45:22 PM | | Votes: 2   

Shredmo, where do you live? Just curios to see how fast/slow the E85 migration is going.

— KillBot (View Profile)

Posted on 2/7/2008 5:26:44 PM | | Votes: 1   

I live in northeast Iowa. As far as I can tell, a few stations began carrying e85 couple years ago and that was the end of the growth. I don't know anyone who actually uses it.

— Shredmo (View Profile)

Posted on 2/8/2008 9:04:19 AM | | Votes: 1   

Corn is overproduced in the USA thanks to a lobbyist-pushed agricultural subsidy to this product above all other plants. It is practically impossible to find a pre-prepard food in the USA without corn filler in it, or a meat that wasn't raised on corn feed. Corn syrup has replaced sugar as a sweetener in almost all products, despite its lack of flavor.

But a modest cost increase in the price of corn is the least of our worries -- we should be worrying about loss of arable land due to climate change, which is slowly now starting to hit farmers.

There are many studies that offer insights, but obviously the agricultural lobbyists from Archer Daniels Midland, Monsanto, and Cargill will tell you that everything they do will save the world, and that ethanol is the future of energy. It's just too complex to simplify, but let me try:

In countries like Brazil, ethanol can work economically. Warmer climate is better for growing, sugar cane breaks down into ethanol with less energy, and labor is cheap (less emphasis on corporate return on investment).

In Europe and the USA, none of those factors apply. Small, self-sustaining farms are dying rapidly. Moreover, the "breadbasket" of the USA has a rapidly declining water table -- one nasty side effect of global warming. Since corn feedstocks require tremendous amounts of water (corn is not native to the plains; low-water plants like wheat and grass are), many midwestern fields are reliant on irrigation. In addition to the agricultural machinery, this water pumping is becoming a significant factor in the cost of food, and it is certainly harming the long-term health of the land.

But you won't hear that in any E85 commercial advertisement.

— moto (View Profile)

Posted on 2/8/2008 6:13:57 PM | | Votes: 0