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Ethanol as fuel has pros and cons
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If you’re not careful, ethanol could eat your car.
Ethanol breaks down natural rubber and corrodes aluminum – two materials that can be used to create hoses and gas tanks.
Don’t get too worried yet.
When it comes to fuel options there are two different types of cars.
The first type of car is the run-of-the-mill vehicle. These should run on no more than a 10 or 15 percent mix of ethanol into gasoline.
According to Boise State Building Facility Specialist Pat Carlson, there should be no problems with rubber or aluminum at this ratio because manufacturers began designing cars in 1979 to run on a 90/10 mixture of gasoline/ethanol.
The other type is a flex fuel car. A flex fuel car is designed to take a mixture of up to 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline. This is called E85.
“When you have a vehicle that runs E85 it can have varying amounts,” Carlson said. “You can run gasoline in that car as well as E85.”
Ethanol, in essence, is whiskey. The only difference is it’s distilled for longer. Since sugar is needed for this process to work, anything with high sugar content can be used to make ethanol.
“Ethanol is made from organic material . you can make it from corn,” Carlson said. “That’s what the biggest thing right now is.”
This “big thing” could change soon. Carlson said the weed known as “switch grass,” which has high sugar content, is now in the research stage to see if it can be used to make ethanol.
And that’s not all. General Motors and the University of Illinois are experimenting with turning garbage into ethanol, Carlson said.
One advantage to mixing ethanol with gasoline is reduced gas prices at the pump.
However, the government Website fueleconomy.gov compares the prices of gasoline versus an E85 mixture on certain flex fuel vehicles. It shows that more money is spent on E85 in a year than on gasoline.
Ethanol does not have as much power per ounce as gasoline does, according to Carlson. Mileage can drop as a result, causing the need to buy more E85 mixture than gasoline.
On the other hand, Carlson pointed out an important economic factor to consider.
“For every billion dollars that we do not spend for overseas import of overseas oil and we replace [.] with ethanol that’s made in the United States, we make 10,000 new jobs,” Carlson said.
Lastly, ethanol is environmental.
“The E85, because it burns better, actually reduces pollution,” Carlson said.
John Gardner, associate vice president for Energy Research, Policy and Campus Sustainability, suggests that cleaner fuel sources are not the answer to the problem.
“We need to totally rethink our relationship with the automobile,” he said. “The convenience that cars provide is a precious resource, yet we use it frivolously
[.] If it were up to me, I’d save the gas to do the important things in life like camping trips and other recreational, life-improving activities.ˇOn a day-to-day basis, I’d much rather use a bicycle or bus to get to work, which I normally do.”
The easiest way to find out more about ethanol is to do an Internet search. However, be careful about the sites you look up. The most accurate sites are always going to be government sites.
These end in “.gov.”
fueleconomy.gov is an official government site.
Colby Stream