Guest Author - William Charles Vetter
Traditionally all cars or generally all combustion engines have been powered by some form of a petroleum based fuel. In these days of greater environmental awareness and political correctness, so called “Green” fuels are all the rage. No actor or politician wants to be "seen" by the public driving anything that will harm the environment and the rest of us star wannabees are then sure to follow their examples. I have noticed that a great deal of confusion and misunderstanding surrounds these politically correct alternatives to traditional “dirty” fuels. There's big money to be made here and you can be absolutely sure that someone has already popped to take as much as you're willing to hand out.
It is ironic that many of these green fuels are not necessarily any greener than their traditional counterparts and some that could be green would be (Dr Seuss?) if handled properly or obtained properly but often they are not. So with all of this in mind, I would like to demystify some of these would be alternatives to dirty, global warming gasoline. I think that what you read here will be very enlightening, especially if you are in some kind of "green fuel" quandary like many car buyers are finding themselves in at this time of year especially now with 2008 models sitting in showrooms as our polar ice caps are disappearing faster than a teenage girls cellphone minutes.
Flex Fuel is probably as a good of a place to start as any. Just what is a “Flex” fuel and is it really flexible? Flex fuel actually refers to vehicles designed to operate on a mixture of alcohol and gasoline and does not actually refer to the fuel itself, which is ironically, rather inflexible. Flex fuel cars have been designed and built since the early 1980s when clean air standards were upped by the US Congress, and simply adding some alcohol to gasoline was a relatively simple way to meet new fuel standards. You may actually own a flex fuel vehicle and not even know it. To find out, have a look inside the fuel door or read your owner’s manual(what’s that?).
Flex fuel which is sometimes also referred to as E85 because of it’s up to 85% Ethanol (alcohol) content, is an interesting and maybe even humorous concept. Flex fuel designed vehicles can actually operate on 100% ethanol but because ethanol is the same stuff that can get you a DUI or DWI, by law, it is not sold without at least 15% gasoline in it. Apparently the government doesn’t want us filling our moonshine jugs at the local gas station. Ethanol can be made from any organic, naturally grown fiber that has a high sugar content, corn being the most economical homegrown source, as most people know growing vegetation removes large amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere which happens to be the most common greenhouse gas, but since distilling and burning it produces large amounts of hydrocarbons and waste, actually it can barely be described as being “green neutral”. Perhaps it’s best and maybe only redeeming quality then is that it is a domestically produceable fuel.
As with any good thing there always seems to be a downside and here then is the bad part. The downside of alcohol besides the possibility of a felony drunk driving arrest after a raging party, is that it is costly to produce, has an energy rating about 30% less than an equivalent amount of gasoline and it is hygroscopic, which means it attracts prodigious amounts of water if left in a humid and warm environment, thereby potentially causing corrosion to any bare metal surfaces that it comes into contact with and it is especially unfriendly to aluminum. I have seen alcohol burning, aluminum racing engines with holes eaten right through them. Alcohol also does not atomize as readily as gasoline in a typical fuel injection system. You can expect gas mileage to drop by about 30%. Even with all of the previous negatives mentioned set aside the biggest downside to E85 is undoubtedly its availability or more accurately I suppose; it’s unavailability.
As of September 2007 The US Department of Energy in a report, finds that E85 is available at only about 1,200 service stations nationwide. Minnesota for some strange reason has the highest concentration of Flex Fuel stations listing about 300, next is Illinois with approx. 100. New York and California, even with 100 million cars, all of the PC movie stars in Hollywood with all of their over hyped political correctness displayed on the front pages of tabloids and websites have less than 10 Flex stations in each state!
NH, NJ, ME, RI, AK and Hawaii are all reported to have one or less E85 stations. If buying a Flex-Fuel car costs more than $10 extra I recommend opting for the optional white sidewall tire lettering instead. Now go figure.
Next week; I continue this with Electric powered cars. Hey electricity has to be totally clean, Right? Uhhh-Well......
