I'm driving 85 in the mini-van this week. Not just on the highway, but in our subdivision too. No, not I-85. Or even 85 mph. I'm actually driving E85. As in Ethanol-85. That means what's in the gas tank is only 15% traditional gasoline and 85% ethanol.
A few weeks ago, Durham got its first E85 pump at a gas station easily between work & home. I'd read the news accounts with curiousity, but not much else until I noticed a sticker on the gas lid of the van, indicating that E85 was an acceptable fuel for it. Cool! So I did some poking around to find out what to expect (this link has a wealth of information) and filled it up. And what's it like to drive 85? Well, not very different. The van seems to be driving pretty normally, with one big caveat. Fuel efficiency is about 20-25% less than with "pure" gasoline. So given that the E85 was only a little cheaper than gas, I'm paying more per mile.
But, looking at it another way, I've reduced the amount of gas used in the US by about 1 barrel's worth over the 2 weeks that it'll take me to go thru the tank. For those keeping score at home, that's about 0.0000004% of the gas used in this country during that time. Give or take.
Ok, its not much, but I suppose its a start.
2 comments:
There are also issues around world food supply reliance on American corn and then the counter arguement about our governments corn subsidies creating and over-reliance on corn products... But for today - go E85 powered minivan :)the more diversified our power alternatives the better
Don't be quite so proud. I checked your math:
- Assuming a 23 gallon gas tank typical of minivans
- Assuming it was FULL of E85 (which it probably wasn't since you didn't have it towed to the station, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt), that is 19.55 gallons of gas saved
- Assuming typical refinery ratios, that works out to 19.5 gallons of gas per 42 gallon barrel of oil, or 1.00 barrels of oil
- Assuming oil consumption in the U.S. of between 20.7 and 21.9 million barrels per day (depending upon the quoted source, and assuming 2006 follows the 2005 trend) which equates to 298.4 million barrels over two weeks
That results in a 0.000000336% reduction in U.S. oil consumed. Close, but not quite.
One geek to another,
Jas'
P.S. Don't worry about the corn issue, there's always BIOMASS E85 (www.generalbiomass.com/renew2.htm)
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