Using Ethanol Blended Gasoline: Does it Make Sense?

Here in South Dakota, as well as some other mid-western states, "silver" grade gasoline is blended with 10% ethanol. Although ethanol is more expensive to produce than gasoline, you actually pay about 10 cents less per gallon for E10 gasoline because of government subsidies. Although the price appears to be easier on the wallet, burning E10 gasoline is a little bit less efficient than straight gasoline.

It turns out that E10 gasoline, or gasoline blended with 10% ethanol, is 97% as efficient as regular gasoline. My 2001 Dodge Stratus SE averages about 27 MPH with straight gasoline, and 26.2 miles per gallon with E10 ethanol. It comes down to losing about 1 MPG to save about 10 cents per gallon. Strictly considering the effect on one's pocket book, it's pretty much a wash. Gasoline is currently selling for $2.99 a gallon here, or $2.89 for E10 gasoline. That's 11.04 cents per mile for regular gasoline, or 11.03 cents per mile for ethanol blended gasoline. In nearly all situations, there's no cost reason to choose one or the other.

There are some mechanical concerns that one should take into concern. Ethanol burns hotter, and some vehicles just aren't designed to un E10 well. A lot of the older Ford Tarsus's has issues burning E10 gasoline. You'll want to check the owners manual of your vehicle before putting any in. Most modern vehicles have no issues running it. Conversely, if water made its way into your tank, ethanol blended gasoline would eliminate the unwanted water, much in the same way that those little additive bottles of methanol do.

The environmental impact of E10 is just about the same as regular gasoline. It's a little bit better for the environment on a gallon-to-gallon basis, but when you factor in the decreased efficiency of burning E10 gasoline, it's really negligible between the two. It is possible that if and when E85 ethanol becomes used commonplace in all new vehicles, the environmental impact of using our vehicles could be decreased dramatically, but for the time being, it's not the case.

You might consider running E10 as part of the political and economic movement to move away from dependence on middle eastern oil. You slightly decreasing your dependence on foreign oil isn't even a drop in the bucket, however if you, me, and everyone else in the country were to do it, we could dramatically decrease our dependence on using foreign produced oil.

If you have a typical vehicle, there's really no difference between running ethanol-blended gasoline and regular gasoline in terms of economic, automotive, and environmental benefits. It might be a good idea to use it once in a while to get any unwanted water out of your gas tank, but in the end, it's mostly a wash.