E15 Holly Crap Batman

[nemo]

Estimated $.10 savings at the pump! Will it represent a savings at the wallet, lower mileage vs purchase price?

[hayden55]

There's around 2% less energy in it than E10 so multiply the price by 1.02 to get the E10 GGE equivalent.

[me and my metro]

I can’t wait! Less miles per gallon again. Now it will get a rock solid 29. 🤮

[Tahoe_Hybrid]

Originally Posted by me and my metro

I can’t wait! Less miles per gallon again. Now it will get a rock solid 29. ��

how will that decrease fuel consumption if i'm using way more

#smooth-brained president

100% gas would gain mpg ... this could explain the testing they did over the winter to see if anyone would notice...

I mean getting 9-13mpg was not even normal what so ever.. most likely testing higher Ethanol to see if people would notice

most likely testing E30 to E50

[nemo]

Originally Posted by Tahoe_Hybrid

how will that decrease fuel consumption if i'm using way more

It's not about usage, it about (theoretically) increasing the fuels supply so the price goes down. It seems there a whole lot of people complaining about high gas prices.

[Tahoe_Hybrid]

Originally Posted by nemo

It's not about usage, it about (theoretically) increasing the fuels supply so the price goes down. It seems there a whole lot of people complaining about high gas prices.

after counting in repairs or retrofiting that would be quickly cancel out any savings

[Drifter]

Originally Posted by Tahoe_Hybrid

how will that decrease fuel consumption if i'm using way more

The goal is to decrease oil use, not fuel consumption. You're replacing ~15% of oil-based gasoline with plant-based ethanol (which should lower mpg ~7% compared to pure gasoline).

If I'm doing my math correctly, the net result should be America using ~9% less oil to drive the same amount (but paying more to do so)

[freebeard]

I went looking to see if there is info on how much oil is burnt to produce the ethanol, but I didn't find it here: e360.yale.edu: The Case Against More Ethanol: It’s Simply Bad for Environmentt

[Tahoe_Hybrid]

Originally Posted by Drifter

The goal is to decrease oil use, not fuel consumption. You're replacing ~15% of oil-based gasoline with plant-based ethanol (which should lower mpg ~7% compared to pure gasoline).

If I'm doing my math correctly, the net result should be America using ~9% less oil to drive the same amount (but paying more to do so)

that is canceled out by lowering the mpg Net savings is zero possibly negative depending on how the car reacts to it


if i get 3mpg less because of it then i'd drop down to about 16 instead of 22 with real 100% gas

[Drifter]

Again, you will burn more gallons of fuel to go the same distance but in doing so you should, in theory, use less oil.

1 gallon of pure gasoline - E0 - has ~115,000 btus
1 gallon of pure ethanol - E100 - has ~76,000 btus
1 gallon of E10 has ~111,000 btus (~3.5% less than gas)
1 gallon of E15 has ~109,000 btus (~5.2% less than gas)

So you should be getting ~5% (not 7% as I said earlier) worse mpg on E15 while, in theory, consuming ~15% less oil.

As Freebeard mentions, it does take considerable energy to produce ethanol (~35,000 btus worth of energy are needed to get ~76,000 btus worth of ethanol) so it isn't a "green" source of energy like the corn industry would like us to believe. But ethanol can be produced 100% domestically so your money stays in America rather than going to hostile leaders like Vladimir Putin, Saddam Hussein, Osama Bin Laden, etc.


Edit: And to be fair, it takes a lot of energy to produce 1 gallon of gasoline too - especially if the crude oil has to be transported half way around the globe.