At least that's what we've been told. The way I see it, adding oxygenators to the fuel is not a bad thing for the oil companies. Do the math.

1. The oil company changed the formulation for YOUR benefit. New formulation means it's going to cost more.

2. That additive increases consumption because it dilutes the fuel and reduces mileage for the end user. The oil company sells more.

Selling more of a more expensive product is always good for the entity doing the selling.



Dino you've touched on the problem with ethanol perhaps without realizing it. Ethanol is an inferior fuel for my application -- a gasoline burning engine. An engine CAN be built to better use ethanol. But mine isn't built that way. I don't need to rebuild it right now either. SO we can convert to E-85, but will need to buy more of it because our mileage is going down OR we can rebuild our engines at several thousand $$$$ a pop to make up for the mileage loss. No thanks.

 

Well, the message I was pointing out was that btu was important in the efficiency scope. The OP in his/her outline seemed to bring out the aspect of it but went about denouncing it whilst drawing attention to some other issue in the process. This seemed somewhat confusing to me.

Btu is btu. While I was in the military, we tracked efficiency at Diego Garcia's powerplants, and one of the identifying factors to the higher efficiency peaks was crude out of Iraq, at least the shipments we could tag as being from there. The only difference in comparison btween the fuels was the btu and ash contents being higher out of that Iraqi fuel than others. It was noticable. This was JP-5 fuel we tracked.

So yea, btu does have a factor in the efficiency and if E85 has a considerably lower btu count, then it will noticeably impact the usage required.

 

That's true on paper and in power plants (they work very differently than IC engines!) but if you try to increase the efficiency of an IC engine by raising the max temperature and pressure of the combustion chamber (which is one of the best way to increase efficiency), you'll also get lots of NOx, which is highly undesirable.

I don't doubt this, but with vehicles, it's a lot more complicated than that.


Well, this was mandated by the feds, so I'm fairly certain that the oil companies would be happier by selling the same blends instead of many region specific ones. And I don't think it has much effect on their profits either.

 

My wife has a 2001 S10 that uses E-85 fuel and it does not get as good a gas mileage as with straight gasoline the only time we use it is when the price is lower by 10% to offset the mileage drop I considered the new Honda that runs on CNG however you can't find stations to sell it to fill up you have to have the pump that hooks up to your home gas supply $$$$$

 

So what are your mpg numbers with E85 and gasoline?

 

about 20 to 21 on gas 17 to 18 on E85 I've gotten a best of 23 on the interstate highway but my wife averages the numbers above driving 25 miles to work highway and urban crap nothing to jump up and down and dance about hence her latest purchase 2000 honda civic coupe 35 to 39 mpg no more chevys