FLEX FUEL GAS MILAGE

[Michael Carlin]

She fell victim to the $3.29 per gallon flex fuel (.50 cheaper than regular gas here in Alabama) yesterday. First tank we have ever used. Took a trip last night 140 miles round trip via interstate and I was shocked at how crappy the gas milage was....It is a 2007 Cheverolet Avalanche that normally gets 18 mpg on the highway but with FLEX FUEL it got 12.7 YES 12.7 mpg !!! She filled up with 28 gallons so with highway driving that would be 355 miles per tank on flex fuel....with regular gas we could have driven 504 miles, 149 additional miles. So we would have to purchase another 11.73 gallons at $38.59......Same miles with regular gas ($3.79) would cost $106.12 but with Flex Fuel it would cost $130.56...$24.44 more per fill up or $4.66 per gallon.

If you have NOT tried Flex Fuel yet I DO NOT RECOMMEND YOU DO as it is WAY more expensive than regular gasoline.....

Randal

Randall, my friend I could not agree more whole heartedly.

You 4.66 a gallon figure is accurate but fails to include the costs of the subsidies to the corn growers and the ethanol producers, plus the tax increment financing that ethanol plant owners have benefited from in building the plants.

Consider this:

12.8/18 = 67.66%

Ethanol 76,000 BTU per US gallon Gasoline 116,000 per US gallon

76000/116000 = 65.51%

This is exactly what thoughtful analysis would predict.

The amount of fuel we burn we can not grow enough corn to convert to ethanol to replace any significant portion of the requirement.

And we compete directly with other food crops for crop land reducing that available to other food crops thus driving up everybody's world wide grocery bill.

This whole idea was a boondoggle from the start, the subsidies we pay for with our taxes are killing us with higher food prices, higher taxes, and greater pollution from the fertilizers and pesticides.

Another US Congressional failure to address the real problem while claiming victory!!

We need 4 things immediately

To build more nuclear power plants

To drill for oil in the continental shelf and in every available oil rich area on this continent.

To build more refineries

To develop the technology to move from petroleum to another cleaner fuel in 20 years

The next ten years if we move now the oil fields will be developed, the nuclear plants designed, permitted and construction will begin, and refineries are built to ease the strain in the following ten years. During these twenty years we are going pay way more than we should have had to because our do nothing real Congress gave us a bunch of platitudinous promises that nothing hard would have to be done.

They delayed the real solutions and now it costs us for both their foolish schemes such as ethanol and bio-diesel, and in increased costs to do the things listed above. The longer we delay the worse it will be.

Can you say: No vision, no plan except to get through the next election!

Edited May 25, 2008 by Michael Carlin

[robomanusa]

Ethanol comes from more than just corn, its a byproduct of fermentation(a renewable resource)

[zhunter]

Good post Michael

I am tempering this to remain un-political, but...

IF we would STOP trying to feed the world, and take care of ourselves....

IF we would STOP our modern-day democratic crusade ( mirroring the religious crusade of the 1095 - 1230 ) and devote our energies at correcting things in our own country....

WE would be in a lot better shape as a country, racially, economically, educationally, and IF the money spent on our CRUSADE was directed towards a fossil fuel substitute, we would not be held hostage to OPEC.

BELIEVE me, THAT was tempered!!!

:blizzard:

[Michael Carlin]

Ethanol comes from more than just corn, its a byproduct of fermentation(a renewable resource)

At present the technology to convert other stuffs is still in development.

[sskp1]

I have had the same problems but with biodiesel except in my case it's has been about 10 cents higher per gallon, plus with the energy difference between bio and reg diesel you mileage suffers about 10% as well as fuel filters seem to clog up sooner with much less warning.

Kevin

:blizzard:

[Dave Gundry]

Ethanol makes great race fuel, but as a foreign oil substitute for daily driving, it is a giant farce that pisses me off to no end.

For folks that think Brazil is doing great things by being oil independent - check out the article The Clean Energy Scam in Time.

[Michael Carlin]

Dave,

I hope everyone reading this thread will take the time to read the four page article you linked for us.

Here is an excerpt of that article citing my alma mater, the University of Minnesota, as liberal institution as exists in this country regarding this bio-fuel folly:

A study by University of Minnesota ecologist David Tilman concluded that it will take more than 400 years of biodiesel use to "pay back" the carbon emitted by directly clearing peat lands to grow palm oil; clearing grasslands to grow corn for ethanol has a payback period of 93 years. The result is that biofuels increase demand for crops, which boosts prices, which drives agricultural expansion, which eats forests. Searchinger's study concluded that overall, corn ethanol has a payback period of about 167 years because of the deforestation it triggers.

Edited to add that in my post advising the correct course of action I should have listed FIVEthings we need to do immediately:

Abandon government mandates for ethanol and bio-fuel production.

Edited May 25, 2008 by Michael Carlin

[Mark K]

I figure at 85% ethanol, I'm getting 106 miles per gallon of mideast oil.

Yeah the rest of the story blows, but if the incentive is there (see: Brazil), great things can be done.

Eh, E85 is 85% gas and 15% ethenol.

Mark

[Greg Bell]

Eh, E85 is 85% gas and 15% ethenol.

Mark

Wrong

[johnhurd]

Abandon government mandates for ethanol and bio-fuel production.

Finally a voice in the wilderness, good luck Micheal ......

[Vlad]

You should be very careful with your math when you buy a new vehicle to save money on gas. Remember that the new one also uses gas. And it will use more as the car ages. Its not that you won't save money on the monthly gas bill, but how much interest are you going to pay on that car? If you want to bet that gas will go to $10/gal then it makes more sense. If it stops at $5 or goes back down .. You may not be saving the money you think you are saving.

On the other hand, if you just want a new car, go for it. They are better commuter vehicles and it never made sense to me to see people drive their F350's to they daily office job.

Also, while I agree we should stop throwing corn at ethanol and the subsidies with it, we are going to need something other then oil sooner or later and it may take subsidies or tax breaks to get going. Being on the early adopter and early producer list for whatever that something ends up being is worth throwing money at. I'm voting for electric because we can make it from multiple sources, without having to change our car's engine whenever the price of fuels shifts, but electric has its own problems (range, recharge rate, AC/heat power draw, etc) but those are things which are quickly improving.

Edited May 26, 2008 by Vlad

[johnhurd]

Have you been watching this process http://www.changingworldtech.com/ Big oil and the PTB do not what to hear about this...........

[Michael Carlin]

Have you been watching this process http://www.changingworldtech.com/ Big oil and the PTB do not what to hear about this...........

John,

"The focus of the company has been to deploy this technology, which utilizes renewable feedstock sources and provides a partial solution to environmental management problems."

Anything using "feedstock" to make any bio-fuel is headed in the wrong direction in my opinion.

Maybe algae or another organic item can be used with out hurting us. We were headed to reduce the number starving in the world to 625 million, if we drive on converting feedstock to fuel that number has been revised to about 1.25 billion.

The oil companies, like any other big company can either adapt or go under. I would think that some will adapt the new technology.

The oil companies are operating at lower profit margins than in the past. The volume of sales is up, that is from where the profits are coming.

Petroleum exporting countries are currently pumping at rates that they have decided are enough. They are not stupid, as the price rises in response to Indian, Chinese and other developing markets, they are content to sell what they are pumping for more money.

We can lower demand here, but the world market is not a direct reflection of our demand. Other nations are buying, and in the aggregate they outweigh us.

We could increase production here. Hell, when I went back to school to finish my BA in the early eighties it was often said that more oil was available to drill here when the price rose enough to make it a paying proposition. Is $130 a barrel enough? Costs have risen too, but I think oil wells would have been drilled had the environmentalists not had their way.

I spent a year as an equipment mechanic in an open pit (actually more like a huge migrating trench) mine. The company's reclamation policies and the coal fired electric plant we fed were as clean and environmentally friendly as the most modern technology then available allowed.

We used have a bumper sticker:

Don't like mining? Fine, freeze to death in the dark!

Technology needs to put us on to something else besides petroleum for tranportation. While we are doing that, for the next 20 or 30 years what do you want to do?

The five things I listed in my posts are not the final answer, they are a way of getting to that petroleum free transportation network without freezing to death in the dark starving in the interim.

Burning feedstocks to run our cars is wrong headed, and should be halted as quickly as possible.

While I am at it, let me comment on the hybrid cars presently available. They may run cleaner but to make a Prius the environmental damage is so great that you would have to drive the damn thing many hundreds of thousands of miles to reach the environmental impact level of a conventional car for 200K miles, and they do not last even 100K.

Electric cars batteries are presently horribly poisonous in chemical and elemental make up, plus the energy consumed in mining, and producing the nickel, cadmium and other poisonous stuff is huge. But the "greens" will not be denied a huge subsidy to push us to that folly too.

Five things:

drill, here, now!

more refineries, now!

more nuclear power plants, starting now!

cease mandating ethanol and bio-diesel immediately!

develop alternative transportation technologies (hydrogen is my choice) as quickly as possible!

(the last could be funded by abandoning the stupidity of subsidizing the fourth listed above)

I am taking a sabbatical from this for the next seven days. You all have fun.

Edited May 26, 2008 by Michael Carlin

[johnhurd]

Beg to differ this uses remnants from the poultry packing industry......... can decarbon anything ....

But I do agree with your Drill, Refine NOW.............

we have capped wells at Gull island that would pump for 30 years without outside energy

Edited May 26, 2008 by johnhurd

[Michael Carlin]

John,

If the raw product is truly waste, as the chicken remants might be, then I am with you. But isn't this what we see listed as "chicken meal" on dog food bags? With what will we replace that?

If it currently goes to landfill then lets convert it and drive on it by all means, but if human or animal can eat it, I have already stated my case.

[johnhurd]

Feeding a animal doesn't rate high with me if I have to walk the 4 miles to town for Beers.........

[johnhurd]

I believe Miami is going to install a Depolymer for waste that up to now resides in landfills......

here is what they are refering to as feedstock

Food Processing / Agricultural

Poultry (Offal, Feathers, Bones, Litter, Manure, Protein Meal); Beef (Offal, MDM, Paunch, Bone Meal); Pork (Offal, Manure, Grease); Fish; Hay and other Natural Grasses; Corn Sludge; Spent Hens; Egg Waste; Mushroom Substrate; Onion Skins; Soybean Oil Soapstock

Industrial

Shredder Residue, Tires, Mixed Plastics

Municipal

Municipal Solid Waste (MSW), Dissolved Air Floatation (DAF) Sludge

Edited May 26, 2008 by johnhurd

[Mark K]

Basically, using corn based ethanol to replace a like amount of gas, is like spending a $1.25 to save a $1.00. Besides folks, we get most of our oil from Canada and Mexico.

I say we buy Mexico - the gov't is so corrupt we could do it for the cost of one day in Iraq, with the side benifit of having ALL their oil, all the great resorts, and all the resturant, farm and motel workers we could ever want.

THEN, we just take over Canada. Most of them want to be Americans (look how close 90% of Canada's population lives to the U.S.), and after 20 years of Treudou-esqe goverments up there, the military isn't worth a darn (as a whole, though individually great folks, I used to work with some great Canadian units in the late 70s).

Just my thoughts on the subject.

(almost totally tongue in cheek)

Mark

[Mark K]

Eh, E85 is 85% gas and 15% ethenol.

Mark

Wrong

You are correct - I was working on some bad information. I shall now withdraw and try to get my foot out of my mouth.

Mark

[BigDave]

1) Build nuclear power plants.

2) Get those plants to split water into O2 and H2

3) Use the H2 to fuel autos/farm mach/etc

4) Burn H2 + O2 = H20

5) repeat steps 2-4

[38superman]

You should be very careful with your math when you buy a new vehicle to save money on gas. Remember that the new one also uses gas. And it will use more as the car ages. Its not that you won't save money on the monthly gas bill, but how much interest are you going to pay on that car? If you want to bet that gas will go to $10/gal then it makes more sense. If it stops at $5 or goes back down .. You may not be saving the money you think you are saving.

On the other hand, if you just want a new car, go for it. They are better commuter vehicles and it never made sense to me to see people drive their F350's to they daily office job.

A new car may not make sense for a lot of folks but for me it did.

I have to do a lot of travel and last year I put 25,000 miles on my truck.

On days I am not traveling I am commuting locally.

I own a Ford Expedition.

I make good use of it and need a large vehicle from time to time for people and cargo.

I'm not going to sell it and take a beating.

However, it doesn't make sense to drive it daily when I don't need the space.

The financial side works out like this.

Since most of my driving is on the road I will use hwy mileage for my calculations.

The truck gets about 19 mpg, the Focus about 35.

25000mi / 20 mpg = roughly 1315 gal x $3.70 = $4,868 year fuel cost.

25000mi / 35 mpg = roughly 714 gal x 3.70 = $2643 year fuel cost.

The fuel savings is $2225 / year.

The car payment is $3600 / year.

The net result is I get a new car that costs me an extra $1,375 year.

Thats a new car for $114 month.

Exxon subsidizes the rest.

This is calculated at current prices, if gas goes higher the savings goes higher.

Once the car is paid for I can sell it and recoup all my money.

I also get to do the world a favor by not burning an extra 600 gals of fuel every year.

Eat your heart out, OPEC.

Tls

[Nik Habicht]

Yup --- and in your case that new car purchase may make sense ---- even though you left out the other expenses in adding a car, from insurance to maintenance......

I find myself parking the Tahoe as much as possible --- since it averages 12-13 mpg in the kind of mixed driving I do, versus the car's 19 mpg for the same driving. It's netting about $100 a month at this point....

[Carlos]

The point behind "flex fuel" has never been to save money and if that is why anyone bought a vehicle that is capable of burning it they weren't paying attention. The point behind it is to reduce our dependence on foreign oil and at that it does to some extent. Alcohol doesn't have anywhere near the energy that gas does. In racing we burn alcohol at twice the rate we burn gas.

Those milage figures suck - thanks for the info.

Personally (maybe this is just me) I'd pay more to know my fuel $$$ were going to a US farmer (I believe in buying USA-made products) - even a subsidy-fattened, pork-barrel addicted farmer instead of into the pocket of most OPEC despots. Not a rebuttle at all - I'm just sayin thats all. Sounds like the "flex-fuel" technology comming out of Detroit needs some work!

[johnhurd]

Those milage figures suck - thanks for the info.

Personally (maybe this is just me) I'd pay more to know my fuel $$$ were going to a US farmer (I believe in buying USA-made products) - even a subsidy-fattened, pork-barrel addicted farmer instead of into the pocket of most OPEC despots. Not a rebuttle at all - I'm just sayin thats all. Sounds like the "flex-fuel" technology comming out of Detroit needs some work!

But at least the Arabs only pump ya once, here you are paying at the pump and through your hard earned taxes in subsidizes..............

[38superman]

Yup --- and in your case that new car purchase may make sense ---- even though you left out the other expenses in adding a car, from insurance to maintenance......

I find myself parking the Tahoe as much as possible --- since it averages 12-13 mpg in the kind of mixed driving I do, versus the car's 19 mpg for the same driving. It's netting about $100 a month at this point....

You're right Nik, I did leave out some other costs.

I added the third vehicle to my insurance, and by raising my deductable from $250 to $500 the net increase was only about $200 / year.

The car has a 100,000 mi warranty so the only maintenance should be incedentals such as oil change. etc.

I'd have to change the oil anyway if I was putting those miles on my truck so I don't think that's really an increase.

When you weigh all the considerations, I still think it makes sense.

Besides, somebody has to conserve gas for those guys in the F350's that blow by me on the interstate doing 90 mph.

Tls

Oh, just one other thought.

When it comes to paying tax dollars to farmers for subsidies, I'd rather do that than spend those tax dollars (billions) to send soldiers to defend oil fields in Kuwait.

Just my $.02

Edited May 26, 2008 by 38superman