Seven Reasons Why Testing Mid-level Ethanol Blends Matters
By Coleman Jones
Biofuels Implementation Manager
The question of raising the amount of ethanol blended into gasoline is back in the news with the filing of a petition to allow as much as 15 percent ethanol to be mixed into gasoline. GM is a big supporter of ethanol as an alternative fuel to help reduce petroleum use, but with respect to mid-level blends, there is a lot of testing that needs to happen before such a change is made.
This testing is important for two reasons: mid-level ethanol blends could affect the control systems of all kinds of unsuspecting equipment, and ethanol is more corrosive than gasoline.
Most of the gasoline for sale in the U.S. today is blended with 10 percent ethanol. Some pumps are labeled this way and others are not. That’s ok, because vehicles manufactured since 1980 are engineered to tolerate up to 10 percent ethanol. E10 typically has no impact on the fuel system, its components or how they operate.
We don’t know whether the same will be true for E15. There are seven areas that the auto, oil and small equipment industries agree should be tested before changing composition of the fuel.
- Catalyst durability, which is especially significant because testing in Australia demonstrated catalyst deterioration as a result of prolonged mid-level blend (E20) use in some vehicles.
- Engine and fuel system durability. This is important both because many of these components are upgraded on U.S. and Brazilian vehicles to be compatible with ethanol; and because small engines are particularly vulnerable to fuel changes.
- On-board diagnostics, which are used in many states to monitor emissions compliance.
- Tailpipe emissions. Testing is important to see how mid-level blends will perform under stringent emissions standards required in California and the Northeast states.
- Evaporative emissions system durability.
- Emissions inventory and air quality modeling.
- Operability, which is, again, a particular concern for small engines.
The only full durability testing for mid-level blends was done on E20 six years ago in Australia. The outcome of those tests showed catalyst performance degradation in 40 percent of the vehicles tested on E20. The catalyst is the part of the engine that converts pollutants and keeps them from exiting the tailpipe.
When it comes to meeting the Renewable Fuel Standard that was part of the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act, we think widespread use of E85 is the best and likely the only way to meet the 36 billion gallons of ethanol in 2022.
We really want to see biofuels succeed in the marketplace. And we’re continuing to familiarize people with ethanol’s advantages – fewer greenhouse gas emissions and reduced reliance on petroleum. We know ethanol has lower energy density and that it takes the correct pricing to make up for the 20-25 percent fewer miles per gallon, but it is definitely part of the overall fuel solution.
The best way to ensure that ethanol keeps a good reputation is to execute the comprehensive durability testing and use the data to determine the makeup of tomorrow’s gasoline.
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“We know ethanol has lower energy density and that it takes the correct pricing to make up for the 20-25 percent fewer miles per gallon…”
Mr. Jones,
Why didn’t you so clearly point this out two years ago during your “Live green, go yellow” advertising campaign when you were pushing flex-fuel cars?
At the time, you never said anything about E85 getting substantially less fuel economy than gasoline, even though now it appears your company must have known that all along.
How do we get people to buy Ethanol blends when gas is less than $2.00/gallon? This country has got the most schizophrenic energy policy of any developed nation and can’t even follow an example that has been in place in Europe for 30 years. It’s sad, sick, and it’s contributing to our difficulties as a nation that we have an entire industry that we dominated for nearly 100 years on the brink of collapse primarily because of utter failures of government policy. To compound that a large number of Americans seem to have been fed a line of drivel that these companies brought this on themselves. At least in the case of GM and Ford there does not seem to be any problem with their ability to compete overseas; eastern Europe and China for example where Ford and GM have experienced tremendous success and rapid growth.
“Allowing a higher percentage of ethanol in gasoline is “an ill-considered approach…contrary to scientific integrity and potentially harmful to our environment, public health, and consumers.”
Coalition Stresses Need for Safe, Scientific Approach to Instituting Mid-Level Ethanol Blends
“Corn Ethanol” has a lower density, that you are correct on sport. However “Sugar Cane Ethanol” has a higher density than corn. Write “Clearly” when you bloviate of the Brazilian market because they use “Sugar Cane Ethanol”. Which in turn gets improved (not tremendous) mileage gains over “Corn Ethanol”. Do not spin it to the sheeple. All ethanols are not created equally Mr. Jones. Mr. Jones would you care to explain to the “Sheeple” of the Great U.S.A. why we don’t use “Cane” based ethanol. It is plentiful in Florida and Louisiana just to name a few. Because “Corn” subsidies are higher than sugar cane’s. Subsidies on crops are “Government backed Welfare for Farmers” paid for by you guessed it “Tax Payers”. Does this sound familiar I bet it does. Sugar cane doesn’t effect the food chain as much of the way corn does. When you have a shortage of “Corn”, prices on beef,dairy,sodas that we drink (high fructose corn syrup) and many other consumer items go up. “Corn ethanol” also cost’s more to produce per acre than sugar cane. Now why aren’t you Mr. Jones and “Fritz’ boy” high on “Sugar Cane” ethanol. Mr. Jones I await your rebuttal kind sir!
“Some pumps are labeled this way and others are not. That’s ok, because vehicles manufactured since 1980 are engineered to tolerate up to 10 percent ethanol”
Well, it’s not OK with anyone trying to preserve, maintain, and enjoy a vehicle built prior to 1980 and I can assure you there still are plently of them.
Ethanol got plenty of publicity when gasoline was $4-$5 per gallon. But the same economics that now can get you $4000 off the price of a Prius are even more at play when the price differential between an E-fuel and ordinary pump gas is not enough to offset the loss of mpg from alcohol combustion. E-85 has been shown to return a drop of anywhere from 15% to 20% from gasoline so the price of E85 has to be better than gas by 15% to pay off. Today the average nationwide spread is 13.7% and only 4 Plains states plus WA have a E85 price better than the 15% spread. E20-E30-whatever blends will each have to be priced better than the mpg loss spread to get us onboard. As the demand for non-foodstuff organic fuel increases to the point it disappears surely prices will go higher in response. I still would rather see the emphasis placed on diesel, and biodiesel blends, which require extremnely little in changes to current fuel systems design for zero-sulphur diesel. Even John Deere and Kubota embrace Bio-diesel in all their existing products, not just new. West Virginia is a perfect example of a place where diesel does not have to cost more at the pump than regular gas.
Jason Smith said: “Corn Ethanol” has a lower density, that you are correct on sport. However “Sugar Cane Ethanol” has a higher density than corn.”
Jason,
Sorry but that is incorrect. Ethanol is ethanol (C2H5OH) whether made from corn, sugar, potatoes, rice, rye, wheat, or cellulose. Ethyl alcohol is the same chemical compound no matter what it was made from, and a gallon of ethanol made from corn has exactly the same energy density as a gallon of ethanol made from sugar. (Ethanol ~ 75,700 Btu/gallon. As a comparison, gasoline has ~ 115,000 Btu/gallon, while E85 has ~ 83,260 Btu/gallon.)
Perhaps you meant it takes a larger energy investment to make ethanol from corn than from sugar. If that’s what you meant, that would be correct.
Best regards -
Ethanol isn’t viable if it’s made from corn. It never has been. It just robs from Peter to pay Paul by driving cost into the food chain. Ethanol won’t be viable as a renewable source of energy until there’s some way to make it from biomass, cellulose, or algae or a combination of them.
You are right Dave, corn ethanol has never been viable, and what’s worse, it is not even a renewable fuel. There would be no corn ethanol if not for Corn Belt politics.
Corn ethanol is nothing more than recycled natural gas. NG is used to make the synthetic nitrogen fertilizer corn farmers must use, and also used to distill the alcohol. Without the energy inputs from natural gas, there could be no corn ethanol.
In a perfect world without politics and where technicians and scientists decided things, we would use that natural gas directly as a transportation fuel, instead of inefficiently using natural gas to grow corn and turn it into ethanol — a fuel with a lower energy density than gasoline.
E85 energy density was well known back a few years ago, but it’s not an item you want to highlight with the consumers. Furthermore, there was evidence that Ethanol production in some of the corn belt and western states consumes twice as much water as originally thought, which places this energy source under much more scrutiny. Given the choice of having drinking AND irrigation water for food crops, or water for fuel crops the governement wil most likely lean towards keeping it’s citizens alive. In the meantime, ethanol from cellulosic decomposition has a brighter future. It would not have the same stigma as Corn since we won’t have to subsidize it as much. Transporting ethanol will still be a concern since the distilleries are currently co-located near the raw materials sources. Electric car programs will influence our energy mix as well, so we can look forward to a pretty crazy decade as we move from one platform to the others (whatever they may be).
GM has overlooked a possible solution such as CNG, which as a nation we have vast reserves we can tap into if we develop our fields. I would probably buy a CNG vehicle if we had one, but as far as I know only Honda offers one. I looked at converting my current vehicle to use E85 as well (cost was $500), but gas prices have since come down to a more acceptable level. I suspect they will climb again once our economy starts humming along.
Our National Energy policy (or lack of) is in need of an update so we may produce more energy here in our own country. More fuel efficient vehicles that can offset the mileage losses for E85 fuels will help, so will conservation efforts like Ride Sharing, telecommuting and modified work-weeks. There are many more options we can use, but so far have not due to policies. By reducing demand on one of our primary fuel sources, we should be able to reduce prices as well (that supply-demand thing from econ 101) and buy our domestic auto companies some time to figure out where we need to go next. By lowering our demand at a national level we can influence supplies and prices globally. The oil producing countries could cut back production, but all that means is that crude oil will stay put in the ground for a little while longer. It won’t spoil, and best of all – we know where to find it when we need it.
Laramie,
The main problem with Natural Gas as transportation fuel is delivery infrastructure to the point of sale. Ethanol is attractive because it needs no new pumps, nozzles, etc. Production of Natural Gas as a fuel for transportation requires that it be compressed which is an energy input as well as shipping etc. It’s all got some level of energy input. The main problem with corn ethanol is that after you factor in all of the energy inputs it’s either basically a wash or even a small sink.
Blaming government for failed energy policies is pointless. We had a President, Vice-President and Secretary of State (and who knows who else; we’re not supposed to know) for nearly a decade who were all clearly in bed with big oil companies — and proud of it — while being short on devotion to anyone other than themselves and their cronies. We elected them because we wanted to believe what they said, and we got torched and left on the side of the road in a ditch. Let’s hope the next crew gets it right.
It’s also refreshing to see that one writer made a concise, clear, convincing statement about the chemistry involved, and another writer came along and stated he was totally, completely wrong (unless you’re counting all the details). Who knows? Do you know? I don’t know. Ain’t debate great? It’s too easy these days to just believe everything we read on the Internet. Do your own research, and question that, too. Lots of sacred cows have turned out to be dead wrong; we executed Ethel Rosenberg even though she was not a spy (the Soviets never used a spy’s real name), the founding fathers did not believe in a laissez-faire government (history was re-written during Andrew Jackson’s presidency — read Frank Bourgin or Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.), J. Edgar Hoover blackmailed many of our important leaders for his own gain (duh), and Republican U.S. Senator Trent Lott was not boo’ed at Democratic Senator Paul Wellstone’s memorial service (you can listen to the actual recording) — we were all played as fools on every one of these and many more.
As for the original article, I’m convinced that proper testing makes a lot of sense. Will it be expensive? Yes. Will that be much cheaper than fixing all the stuff we’ll break? Eight times out of ten, yes. People seem to want to believe that major changes will only affect “one” thing, and they are always wrong. Later, we wake up to find a lot of people have made a ton of money on the deal and the rest of us are left holding the bag. If you doubt this, you need to read more history.
And I certainly agree with chiefpontiac’s suggestion about bio-diesel. It makes more sense than most of us can even understand at this point. CO2 in, CO2 out, with a little sunshine and some chemistry we don’t understand (photosynthesis) thrown into the mix. It’s a no-brainer.
My guess is that we need cheap electricity and cars that can commute on that stored electricity with a small engine for long distances.
I’ll leave the details to the engineers and the marketplace, but the Chevy Volt looks pretty good from here. I hope they get it right (price, features, availability, etc), and I hope everybody gets one. Soon.
The question we all want to know – GM; Why don’t you make 100% of your vehicles flex-fuel capable so that you finally stand out as a company that is pro-environment? Are you waiting for toyota or honda to do it first?
I am a big GM fan, and an even bigger fan of cellulosic ethanol, but I don’t understand why GM, or any other car maker for that matter, would not make 100% of their vehicles flexfuel starting next year. Unlike electric, or hybrid products, it isn’t even expensive technology.
GM: SHOW LEADERSHIP – MAKE 100% OF YOUR VEHICLES FLEXFUEL!!
Benefits of Cellulosic Ethanol Over Other Energy Sources
The U.S. Department of Commerce predicts that if cellulosic ethanol reaches 49.5 billion gallons by 2020:
Domestic U.S. fuel prices would fall by 5.2%.
World oil prices would decline by 3.1%.
U.S. oil import would decline by 10.7% or by 1.2 million barrels per day.
U.S agriculture would gain 54,000 jobs.
Another benefit of using cellulosic ethanol is the amount of water used in comparison to other energy sources. Water usage in the production process for cellulosic ethanol is less than one gallon of water versus three to eight gallons for other sources.
Comparing the BTU (British Thermal Units) of using cellulosic ethanol in place of other energy sources, evidence shows that the BTU return for each BTU of fossil fuel used in production processes shows that cellulosic ethanol gives more than seven times the return for the BTU input. This is a positive net energy balance, meaning that there is a greater energy return than the energy required to make it. The comparisons are as follows:20
.45 BTU’s for electricity.
.81 BTU’s for gasoline.
.98 BTU’s for coal.
.98 – 1.36 BTU’s for corn ethanol.
7.7 to 10.31 BTU’s for cellulosic ethanol.
It’s frustrating (but not surprising) that a blog entry which started by asking folks to consider the engineering impact and scientific aspects of increasing ethanol content in “gasoline” has spun into a political diatribe. Where’s the tipping point? I remember the “shortage” of ‘73/’74. People swore they’d never pay $.50 a gallon and the domestic fuel companies held barges outside the refineries to support the “big” companies that got their oil from overseas. Now folks say the fuel “needs” to be above $4.00/gallon to change behavior; we’ll see. Domestic oil reserves may very well stand us in good stead when the fields finally go dry in the middle east.
If any fuel is going to be sustainable it must provide more energy to the user than it takes to create. E85 isn’t there yet. Plug ins aren’t pollution free, they just change where the pollution is created. Infrastructure needs to be built to support any significant change to what we’re using today but who’s going to pay for it?
We’ve only been arguing about this for the last 40 years or so that I can recall, guess we may have a few more before we “solve” the issue.
Michael
your statement : GM has overlooked a possible solution such as CNG, is totally incorrect.
GM has considered vehicles that run on CNG but they have shyed away from CNG because of the lacking infrastructure to support refilling the vehicles. T. Boone Pickens has had conversation with GM on providing these vehicles to the public. Honda does offer the GX model. However
sales of the GX have been running 800 to 1,000 a year, mainly because of the difficulty of finding fuel away from home. Clean Energy Fuels, a natural gas company owned by T. Boone Pickens, has offered to buy Fuelmaker from Honda, but they never could get to a bottom line. Honda let subsidiary Fuelmaker Corporation, author of the Phill, a home natural gas compressor system used to fuel its Civic GX sedan, go into bankruptcy, giving a reasonably clear indicator that its support for the car itself may be waning. (some context taken from “The Japan Automotive Digest”)
Today is a tough day here at GM in engineering as we see our peers being seperated from the company. When I see articles here or in the media that is misleading by accident or design it frustrates us all. It’s easy to set at a key board and blog your thoughts or write a piece in the local papers but before you do please make sure what can be read by thousands of viewers is accurate.
Employees are loosing their jobs that affect whole families. None of these employees did anything wrong. They are all great loyal employees to a company they believe in. They are caught up in special circumstances. Some of that by our own doings but most done by unfair, inaccurate, bias media reporting. GM does make some of the very best affordable vehicles on the market. If you don’t believe it then I’d challenge you to test drive one for yourself. You’d be surprised how good it feels to drive and support an American owned vehicle.
Good luck to us all and our families,
I AM GM
“The question we all want to know – GM; Why don’t you make 100% of your vehicles flex-fuel capable so that you finally stand out as a company that is pro-environment?”
That’s an easy one to answer Dsuupr. The reason GM makes any flex-fuel vehicles at all is to take advantage of the E85 loophole that was built into the way CAFE is computed. When they convert a heavy SUV or truck into a FFV, they get a huge return on investment when the CAFE mileage rating of a Tahoe jumps from 15 mpg to over 30 mpg, even though the fuel mileage burning E85 actually drops.
If they turn a lightweight car that already gets 32 mpg on gasoline into an FFV, there is very little benefit to the CAFE numbers for the cost of the conversion.
It’s a matter of bang for buck, not any desire to be pro-environment. They get a huge CAFE benefit from turning heavy SUVs and trucks into FFVs, and very little CAFE benefit by converting already efficient cars into FFVs.
“The main problem with Natural Gas as transportation fuel is delivery infrastructure to the point of sale. ”
Actually, in my city, as in many others, there are a dozen CNG outlets within a 20 minute drive from my house. Four of them take credit or debit cards 24/7, so filling up, for me, would not be a hardship. As demand increases, there may be a problem, but when CNG retailers recognize the increase in demand they’ll invest in more outlets; and CNG outlets, which don’t necessarily require expensive underground storage tanks, can be set up and running in a very short time. Lack of retail infrastructure is a relatively minor problem, easily corrected.
Larry,
You’ve been reading way too much left wingnut propaganda.
Laramie,
GM makes more flex fuel cars than any other company by at least a factor of two so your suggestion that it’s just trucks is false. There are flex fuel versions of the HHR, Impala, and Lucerne – the reason that all vehicles are not flex fuel is simply a matter of cost. It costs several hundred dollars per vehicle to make one that is capable of using E85.
“It costs several hundred dollars per vehicle to make one that is capable of using E85.”
True Dave, and GM would get little return for that investment in terms of a better Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) if they used it to convert a car that already gets pretty good mileage to a FFV. They do get a lot of bang for the buck when they convert a SUV or pickup to FFV.
Energy Density: Ethanol has more energy density than lithium ion batteries.
My focus is in what Mr Jones stated Quote
“Most of the gasoline for sale in the U.S. today is blended with 10 percent ethanol. Some pumps are labeled this way and others are not. That’s ok, because vehicles manufactured since 1980 are engineered to tolerate up to 10 percent ethanol. E10 typically has no impact on the fuel system, its components or how they operate.”
This is appalling as saying “That’s OK:and No impact”
I’ll reduce this down to just one GM nameplate the Corvette.
As working on Corvettes for years now common failures seen, including several GM TSBs where due to the MIX of so called E10 has caused fuel pump failures, incorrect gas gauges so bad that the tank can be filled yet guage warns driver that tank is empty.
Ever have this driving late at night in bad weather on a highway when the next gas station is 40 miles away ?
How about a gauge that one minute says full and the next half empty ?
Some real facts from us GM owners.
Many sellers of gas do not make E10 gas so they buy from resellers who buy and mix from different makers who use different compounds to make E10 that the total of those compound ( including cleaners) corrupt the gas causing engine to run very badly.
Try this on a 400 HP Corvette driving in elevations of 4,000 plus feet and end results is cars having to be towed to dealer or service stations and having gas tanks drained to sneaky repair men stating fuel pumps have to be replaced for hundreds of dollars.
Problem is so bad in talking with testlabs even GM dealers have lost money as they sold a car or light truck, to be nice they filled the gas tanks to then give the car to the new owner. 2 Days later owners demanding their money back as car running very bad.
Testing has shown E10 as the cause and testlabs saying this has been common for some years now yet to this day brand new C6 Corvettes have the same fuel tank and gas gauge failures so please do not say it is OK and how happy GM is about the use of E10 as the problem gets worse adding another 5% of ethanol and your product still has has failures from use of it.
When someone in GM says “there is no impact” to fuel system either they are hiding under a rock or does not look at the high warranty costs just in one nameplate as the Corvette and to spend $45,000 for one that cannot even report fuel tank volume or badly running engines I suggest you review the failure rates before making such statements but I personally have seen at least 200 Corvettes with E10 related failures with countless others reporting this on our forum.
In the state I live in one major gasoline maker was forced to close all stations and get out of the state due to the poor quality of the E10 they were selling and countless complaints from car owners to failure rates.
And GM wonders why we do not want to buy your products anymore ?
“E85 energy density was well known back a few years ago, but it’s not an item you want to highlight with the consumers.”
Michael,
Now why would an automaker not want to be honest with, or attempt to keep something from consumers? I would think everyone should be in favor of consumers having the most complete information possible so they can make sound, well-informed decisions.
It would have been refreshing two years ago during GM’s “Live green, go yellow” marketing campaign had they also been upfront and told consumers their fuel mileage when burning E85 would be substantially less than with gasoline.
regarding the feedstock for ethanol production:
Just a year ago (my, how time flies) two firms were in the spotlight for innovative processes that produce ethanol from a variety of biomass (Mascoma) and any carbon based item (Cokaska). General Motors teamed up with them amid much fanfare and then things got strangely quiet.
I suggested the possibility of co-locating Cokaska plants with landfills.
1 – Real estate prices adjacent to a landfill are probably really low.
2 – Noise, odors, and truck traffic are already expected from landfills; an ethanol plant would be easily tolerated.
3 – Every populated area has a landfill within reach by a garbage truck. The populated area would also be within reach by an ethanol tank truck. This would prevent point source interruptions (hurricanes in the gulf) from spiking fuel prices nation wide.
4 – The mountains of garbage would be reduced.
5 – Landfill owners would get rich (No, I do not own landfill stock. My landfill stock is GM.)
6 – All of the money made and spent would remain in the United States.
If we’re going to use ethanol, where’s the downside to this proposal?
Best wishes,
Val
Valid reason wanna tried to once
[...] on the topic – GM’s Biofuels Implementation Manager, Coleman Jones, has found “Seven Reasons Why Testing Mid-level Ethanol Blends Matters.” The short version: E10 is working well, and we’d like to see more biofuels used, so [...]
I appreciate these stories from GM. Makes me appreciate my FMC vehicles much, much more.
How do you justify your comments when your own industry reports (SAE) dating back to the early 1990’s prescribed M15 (methanol) as the test fuel for materials, compatibility and durability? So, you’re saying you didn’t update your vehicles as your tests suggested? How about those really interesting reports on catalytic converters that say FFV’s and non-FFV’s are the same? Or, maybe that U.S. FFV regs prescribe E10 as the ‘worst case’ fuel for emissions testing – which by default makes higher blends of ethanol superior to even E10? Do tell.
Also, I think it’s hi…lareous that you can discount DOE, CRC, state tests & others on over 100 vehicles and yet hold up your bogus, foreign “4 pairs of cars” Australia test as justification. So, Brazil must hold as much weight as Australia, yes? I mean, Brazil has been burning E100 and E25 for 30 years or so. What’s your excuse for that one?
Your scientific argument is weak and it seems that you’re blaming GM’s lack of interest in 85% oil based gasoline, er E15, on the aussie’s when maybe the real story is you forgot to abide by your own studies?
Me smells a rat. Come clean.
Countless tests in the upper midwest, many people including myself running GMs from 1994 to the present on E30 and E20 all the time. GMs only interest is selling someone a new flex fuel car. They don’t care about any of their cars that are out there or past the warranty, they just want to push scare propaganda regarding higher ethanol blends. Get over it they work fine and don’t harm anything!
Admitted, corn is not the best feedstock for ethanol; price-wise, with respect to efficiency and other valid reasons. The Obama Administration has clearly said that corn ethanol is a transitional fuel in the nation’s quest to get away from so much crude oil.
Given this as ACCEPTED, how can anyone oppose increasing its blend in gasoline to 20 percent (or greater) as a substitute for all of the crude oil the United States now must import?
The next time someone says, “I am opposed to adding more ethanol to gasoline,” ask them, “Did you use a car, a bus, a truck, etc., or benefit from any products or services in the past 24 hours that used a car, bus, truck, etc.?”
“Given this as ACCEPTED, how can anyone oppose increasing its blend in gasoline to 20 percent (or greater)”
Mr Flinta,
That’s easy ~ corn ethanol is a bad idea, even if it is transitional. Until we have a better way of making ethanol, an increase to 20% in the percentage of CORN ethanol would certainly cause the following:
1. A further depletion of vital aquifers such as the Ogallala which is now under serious stress in Nebraska, Kansas, South Dakota, eastern Wyoming and Colorado, and the Texas Panhandle.
2. An increase in the runoff of nitrogen fertilizer and ag chemicals which pollute the Mississippi River and Gulf of Mexico.
3. A decrease in the fertility of the soil in the Corn Belt due to the factory monoculture of corn without crop rotation. The only solution to that is a continually larger and larger use of synthetic fertilizers and ag chemicals ~ all made from natural gas or petrochemicals.
An increase in the percentage of corn ethanol would likely cause the following:
1. An increase in the cost of food as a larger percentage of the corn crop is diverted from feeding hogs, cattle, poultry, and people to making fuel.
Despite what Big Corn, Big Ethanol, and Corn Belt politicians like to tell us, corn ethanol is neither renewable nor environmentally friendly. It is not a sustainable fuel, and requires a continuous and extensive fossil fuel input.
The fact is we need E20 or E25 as the baseline gas at the pump to make Flex Fuel cars that can take advantage of the 105+ octane of E85 & higher blends!
Right now our Flex Fuel cars/trucks are optimized to run on gasoline of only 87 octane because that is what is available at every gas station… if we bring the ethanol content of regular gas to E20 or higher then the minimum octane level would be around 93 and therefore allow GM and all auto manufactures to make engines with high compression ratios. Equaling higher power outputs (8 cylinder performance from a 6 or 4 cylinder engine) plus fuel efficiency equal to if not greater than today’s gasoline only engines.