CockerKid009

Dairy, Beef, Fuel... either way you look at it the price of things will go up. The only people that really make more money would be the farmers. Still costs the same for seed but they make much higher profit, whereas dairy and beef producers will have to pay a higher price for feed (higher demand) and then bump prices just to make the same profit. Amazing what the price of one product can affect.

At first i was going to say E85 in a diesel is ridiculous and would kill the engine, but after thinking about it for a bit the high octane of E85 MIGHT eliminate some of the detonation problems you would have associated w/ the high compression of a diesel, I'll go ahead and let someone else try it first though. If diesel had a gasoline equivilant of an octane rating does anyone know what it would be? Just curious. but E85 is not the same as biodiesel (b20 in most cases) One is from corn the other soybean.

deadlift

Ethanol is sham.

it dosnt have the same energy potential per liter as gasoline

this makes it less efficient both for power (unless you are boosted then turn it up) it gets 25% less fuel efficiency.

it does burn cleaner which is what the "green" people are touting but the process to make it creates as much "greenhouse" gas as is saved

our gov is taking $$$$$$$$$$$$ from the corn lobby to push this stuff when its a dead end using food for fuel

ghardester

Ethanol is Eco-Hippie bull. It's a feel good thing. The surge in production is a simple economic response, the government is giving away free money to encourage ethanol production. How much free money do you want? You are going to pay for this with tax money and as already stated, the price of a whole lot of other things is going up too. Cornflation.

Alcohol is hydroscopic, it soaks up moisture like a sponge, and it will end up in your engine. And you get lousy mileage and less power. Oh yeah, race cars use alcohol. That was mandated as a safety rule, not for performance. And they rebuild the engines after every race.

I'll burn the last available tank of gas if no one else wants it.

Sharpe

iTrader: (7)

I'd rather give farmers more of the energy cut than foreign oil barons and domestic tycoons. They're so rich it's insane. Just insane.

By the way, farmers are doing their best to put out as much product as they possibly can regardless of ethanol, so this "more fuel=more corn" argument is worthless. Where we gunna grow this "more corn?" In the air? Buy more land for farming? We're already doing our best at that, and not for ethanol.

Rising fuel costs do WAY more to raise all these things that people say rising corn prices might do. Lower fuel price but raise corn price = still lower prices all around. Unless maybe fuel goes down to like $1/gal and corn goes insane like $8-$9/bu.

Getting sleepy. sorry if none of that made sense.

Dewalt03Cobra

ALL Top Proffesional race teams in all the major race types rebuild there motors whether they run gas, alcohol, or top fuel, whether it's NASCAR, Indy, NHRA, IHRA, Formula One, what ever. Anyone that doesn't can't compete with the ones that do, so in the end they all do. What racing are you thinking of?

And I don't think you have ever used it, because it does produce more power than 91 or 93 octane pump gas. It probably doesn't produce as much power as Race gas, but you also don't need have a special tune on a flex fuel car to run it. The car come with all the special hardware and tunes preprogrammed to run everything from 87 octane gas to 105 octane E85.

And Dam right, I'd rather make 100 AMERICAN farmers rich then hand my hard earned cash over to some terrorist funding Sheik who some day my kids may have to go to War against.

20SS07

E85 is a bunch of crap. It's just a way for the automakers and the government to say they're doing something about the fuel problem while not increasing the fuel economy of a car. It's much cheaper to make a car that's E85 compatible than it is to make it get 10mpg's more. In the long run it's no better on the environment. As people have mentioned, it's already raising the price of corn and stuff since farmers see there is more money to be had by using their land for ethanol production. Obviously that has an effect to many things such as milk which is also on the rise. It's just going to inrease the demand and lower the supply on many food products. E85 isn't going to be the fuel of the future they're going to have to come up with something else when oil can no longer be counted on.

Tamatt27

iTrader: (4)

In a sense...you may be onto something. There is a company that has developed a way to convert/utilize salt water to make biodiesel. In addition, there are several companies that have proved that ethanol can be made from the byproducts of bio-diesel. In a sense, we can have 2 alternative fuels from salt water.
Also, for the uninformed, corn-based ethanol is just the start. Ethanol is in it's infancy, so to speak. There is a huge push for cellulosic ethanol, and plants using this technology will be online as early as 2008! Cellulosic ethanol is made from a variety of things, so the 'save corn for eating/food prices will rise' people have no argument here.
Ethanol is cheaper than premium, and has higher octane...so despite the loss in mileage, it still may be cheaper to run in our cars.
Also, corn is subsidized by the gov't. The gov't mandates how much corn is grown!

zebradz28

e85 may be worth running in vehicles if it is cheaper than regular gas, yeah you use 30% more of it but how much cheaper than regular gas, if its over 30% cheaper then you would be saving money but filling up more often if you understand what i mean

VIP1

Ethanol is not bio-diesel. An example of bio-diesel would be used cooking oil (do a search on it you'll be amazed).

Although Ethanol does have a higher octane which can support a higher compression ratio and a higher forced induction psi, it only has 70% the energy of gasoline so you'll be using 30% more fuel.

WhosNXT

I was woundering when somebody would say that. The government subsidizes the hell out of ethanol. Its really not any cheaper. The reason the government does this is to get in bed with the Iowa caucus for political reasons. If they dont support ethanol the farmers will not vote for them. I really dont see e85 becoming our top fuel.