Flex Fuel: Is E85 the Answer?

While driving behind a Ford vehicle the other day I noticed it was a flex fuel car. I realized I hadn't a clue as to what that meant, so I did some research.

A flex fuel vehicle or FFV, is capable of burning either standard gasoline, or E85. E85 is the combination of 15 percent gasoline and 85 percent ethanol. These vehicles can burn any combination of ethanol to gasoline ratio, but the E85 combination is the standard.

Very little alteration is required for this E85 fuel burning component. Basically the car's onboard computer is programmed to maintain a smooth fuel burning process whether using standard gas or E85. The pipes in the vehicles need a little extra protection due to the corrosive nature of ethanol, but that's about it. The cost of an FFV is basically the same as a standard vehicle.

The reason for flex fuel vehicles is to burn more ethanol and less gasoline. The theory being that ethanol burns cleaner than gas, emits less pollution, and decreases the United States' dependence on foreign oil. This is why the Bush administration is so hot for the topic.

Ethanol is produced using starch crops like corn. Obviously, this is an advantage to farmers who would have a huge market for selling their crops. It all sounds good so far, right? Digging deeper though shows some serious flaws in flex fuel.

The proponents tell us that using E85 will greatly reduce harmful emissions from vehicles. This is true, however the facilities used to produce ethanol are run by either using natural gas, which is expensive, or using cheaper coal.

If the plant uses natural gas, the process to make the ethanol takes more energy and more expense than the ethanol can produce making it a non-viable business proposition. By using coal, the equation flips. However coal is extremely dirty and creates a massive amount of pollution. Now you've cut car emissions but increased coal emissions.

Another drawback is the corn and other crops being used to create E85 are not being used for food production. One acre of corn produces 330 gallons of ethanol. It would take massive amounts of corn to feed this countries thirst for fuel. As a result food quantities would be impacted. This would undoubtedly raise food prices across the board.

Another detractor is in fuel efficiency of cars using flex fuel. Miles per gallon actually drops 20 to 30 percent while using E85. There isn't as much energy in E85 as in standard gasoline, so the same amount of E85 won't take you as far as the same amount of gasoline. This means you need to fill up more often; which brings us to the other major problem with flex fuel.

E85 is extremely hard to find. There are 900 stations out of the 180,000 gas stations that actually sell E85. Most of these stations, not surprisingly, are in the mid-west, the Corn Belt. Seven states have no E85 selling gas stations at all. 24 states have less than 10 stations. This means you'll have to think ahead if you're totally committed to using flex fuel.

The good news is, though that using flex fuel won't hinder your vehicles performance at all. Many tests show no noticeable difference in engine performance or operation. There is some evidence that the cleaner burning E85 will actually add to the life of your car.

Flex fuel is certainly not the answer to global warming, and foreign oil dependence that the government has touted. When I'm in the market for a new car, will I look for the flex fuel option? Probably not, but if the car I like comes with it, sure I'll take it; may never use it, considering my home state has less than ten E85 selling gas stations, but what the heck. However, since the average price of a gallon of E85 is a couple of cents more expensive than standard gasoline, i'll probably stick with unleaded. In the spirit of Edward Abbey's thinking, the quicker we burn the fossil fuels the quicker we'll be forced to move to something better.