"That was sometimes early summer. There is only one station I pass that has it. I will try and remember to check and see if they still have it and see if its still more than E10."
So you gave use fuel prices last Summer? Okay, that's just strange to give us such outdated information. Some Gas stations have price gouged E85 a couple times. Ethanol typically is delivered for $2 a gallon. In comparison the energy content is 2/3 Gasoline that means by energy content it should be the same price per mile as $3 Gasoline. But that's just the highly simplistic number. The energy efficiency is higher for Ethanol and it's sold as a maximum of 85% Ethanol. Summer E85 is 105-109 (R+M)/2 Octane. Premium is usually 93 (R+M)/2 Octane max. And so the numbers differ for the marketed price.
"Ethanol is not cheaper than gasoline. Gasoline is artificially too high and ethanol is artificially too low (heavily subsidized)"
They are both subsidized. Oil exploration is subsidized, refineries get subsidies, Gas station get subsidies. Corn growers get subsidies, Ethanol plants get subsidies, and blenders of Ethanol/Gasoline get subsidies. I'm not impressed by your lack of agreement on that. Either it is cheaper or it's not. Subsidized just means it is competitively sold cheaper than it would normally be worth at market prices. Ethanol production has reduced Corn Grower subsidy payout and while there are now subsidies for the Ethanol industry there has been less money paid for Corn Grower Subsidies. The exact numbers are where the truth is.
Ethanol's 52 cent tax CREDIT for blending with gasoline is a credit against tax expenses. For an Oil company with billions in profit that means a small cash back per gallon. Gasoline is a MUCH larger and much more profitable industry even though Oil companies spend $100billion for $1 Billion in profit. Ethanol is still fairly "new". Ethanol production was less than 1 billion gallons in 2001 and still is not producing enough Ethanol to be profitable. There is a minimum level before they can make enough profit on ethanol to pay off their expenses and have any profit to be taxed. Considering Ethanol is competing with Gasoline which is already a VERY competitive market there isn't much hope for Ethanol becoming profitable besides base line blending with E10/G90.
"maybe more efficient at producing HP but not at producing FE and no they are not running lean QUITE the opposite with ethanol they all seem to want to run RICH hence the lower FE."
Energy efficient means is it better at HP and producing FE but Ethanol has less energy content per gallon so it gets worse fuel economy on a gallon basis. But this doesn't make it less energy efficient just takes up more space/weight to perform the same work.
You don't seem to understand what Rich and Lean are. Electronic fuel injection vehicles don't run Rich when you're in closed loop or cruising mode. It runs Stoichometric which is neither Rich nor Lean. You seem to think running more fuel to air ratio means it's Rich. You are incorrect. Running Rich means instead of Stoich giving your oxygen sensors a Lamda value of 1.0(which means Stoich) you inject more fuel for a given unit of air. Rich is a less than 1.0 Lamda Value. Just because Ethanol has a Stoich number of 9.8:1 doesn't mean it takes 1.42 times more energy to do the same work as Gasoline with it's 14.7:1 Stoich.
Ethanol requires more volume of fuel than Gasoline for Stoichometric value which doesn't say anything about how much energy it needs to meet your daily commute. Most people report 5% more power from using E85 vs Gasoline. But you are having an opposite and exponentially worse effect.
And regarding Energy content. The ICE use the heating value because it runs off heat energy. Energy content including energy from an anti-matter reaction is irrelevant to ICE discussion as the ICE does not use this energy. I read your posts not everyones
.
Have you drained you fuel tanks and examined the fuel? You might have water and therefore phase separation. It can happen. People got water in their gasoline. Modern cars have sealed tanks but none of your vehicles are less than 10 years old. You could try that.