Don’t get me wrong, gasoline sure has that addicting smell. However, pumping ethanol fuel into my SUV smells like gold, at least our nation’s farmers think so. Grown in the heartland of the U.S., ethanol seems to be a blessing in disguise to replace the ever so expensive and depleting crude oil reserves. We are told that ethanol is the picture perfect answer being renewable, cheap, domestically produced and readily available for sale.

So is it the “Picture Perfect” answer?

Since ethanol fuel, “e85″, became available in my local area, I save about $10-12 by filling half of my 26 gallon tank with e85 ethanol fuel and the other half with 87 octane unleaded gasoline. Typically, with e85 I receive el12-13 miles per gallon compared to 14-16 m.p.g with regular unleaded gas. So why would Cameron ever use ethanol? It’s simple, really.

E85 is 105 octane which is great for my high performance SUV engine and delivers an extra 10 horsepower. Also, the fiscal benefit is that on average, e85 fuel costs roughly $0.30-0.50 per gallon less than 87 regular unleaded. Its pure economic sense! And to be completely honest, I am completely enthusiastic that only 15% of the e85 gallon of fuel is unleaded gasoline and is imported, therefore, 85% hence “e85″ is ethanol which is grown in the United States, talk about empowering an economy.

Ethanol sounds great, but why isn’t everyone buying?

Everyone is trying to promote ethanol to improve our economy’s dependence on foreign oil. Within the past 3 years, a ton of ethanol producers have taken their company public including Panda Ethanol, Pacific Ethanol, and Verasun. These are just a few. President Bush has pushed various alternative fuel initiatives through congress to send earmarks to ethanol producing companies as well as governmental entities. Ford and General Motors are producing millions of ethanol flex-fuel vehicles every year. The money and investment is there, so what else is stopping ethanol?

One major roadblock is the cost of a single gas station to purchase an ethanol pump. According to e85fuel.com, it costs between $10,000-20,000 for a station to purchase an ethanol specialized pump. However, federal government tax rebates and grants are provided to any station to purchase an ethanol gas pump.

And finally, ethanol is made from corn(corn stalks). Corn stalks are used to make corn, tortillas, and some other products. With tons of farmers turning their farmland and farming equipment into ethanol production. This shows the economic opportunity cost of producing ethanol instead of corn derived products.

Bottom Line- I’ll stop eating corn and save myself $10-12 a week!

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Filed under: Frugal, Green