37 E85 stations in Iowa, none are in Johnson County

E85 is a bad dream that needs to be put to rest. Taxpayers monies should be used to support ethanol. Why?? Because of that the Corn growners are not telling you about ethanol. And most glaring fact they don't like to talk about is the fact that is take just as much energy to produce ethanol as you get back from it.. I other words, if you make 100,000,000 unit of ethanol, it took 100,000,000 unit of energy to produce it! Not to mention there are more polutants from an ethanol plants than from a oil refinery. And it take 6 gallons of water to produce one gallon of ethanol. Tax payers should quit support this little get rich scheem for ethanol producers..

Also, E85 will not solve the problem of high gas prices.. High gas prices are here to stay!! They will go even higher as the years pass. WHY?? Because the world is out of cheap oil as Chevron declared and now oil will only get more expensive to produce and find. Not to mention the world only has about a 42 year supply at current consumption rates..

Brazil is running on pure ethanol from sugar cane and has been doing it for over a decade. They got smart after the first time the oil companies ripped us off in the 1970's.
Any fuel other than oil will help to reduce our dependence on the oil companies.

MGL is right. We need to find another sourse of alternative fuel. E85 isn't that but it is a start. Why do we feel threatened by the Middle East. A bunch of countries that is plentiful in a few things: Terrorists Sand and my personal favorite OIL. If we can find another fuel sourse we are getting rid of the terrorists with out bloodshed. I'll put it together for you. NO OIL EXPORTS(in middle east)- NO MONEY - NO FUNDING FOR TERRORISTS. We need to finish up in Iraq and put all of our efforts to finding another fuel sourse. Even if there is an alternative sourse that is the same price I would buy it because it is redusing foriegn dependance. E85 is a start why not take advantage of it?

Henry Fords first cars were designed to run on peanut oil.
Mainly because it was a renewable fuel.
The Oil companies showed up and bought congress and now look what you have.

I think you are involved with the greedy Oil Companies, who are ripping the American public off on a daily basis. They lie to us, regarding why the prices are sooooooo high. The government is equally as guilty due to the fact they could deman OPEC, Oil Companies to lower the prices plus the government could lower their taxes on each gallon of gas. The government and the oil producers are ruining our tourism across America. E85 Ethanol producing farmers will become wealthy again and keep the money here in America, instead of financing the terroist in the Middle East. Thank you.

Wow Reno knows how much oil the earth has left even though the best geologists don't even know. You should share that with them.

Sugar can ethanol is the future, not corn ethanol.

Ethanol does not take 1 unit of energy to produce 1 unit of energy. That is no longer true. Corn is the first crop we use extensively to make ethanol but it is not the most cost effective. Efficiency will improve over time so whatever the current ratio is it will only get better with new technology, techniques and other crops.

omegaman66 wrote:

Ethanol does not take 1 unit of energy to produce 1 unit of energy. That is no longer true. Corn is the first crop we use extensively to make ethanol but it is not the most cost effective. Efficiency will improve over time so whatever the current ratio is it will only get better with new technology, techniques and other crops.

I am finding that switchgrass is supposed to be the most efficient
to produce ethanol with. It's perrenial , a native plant to the prairies and takes very little fertilizer.

You can get a couple of crops a year also. You bale it like hay and send it to the cooker.

omegaman66 wrote:

Ethanol does not take 1 unit of energy to produce 1 unit of energy. That is no longer true. Corn is the first crop we use extensively to make ethanol but it is not the most cost effective. Efficiency will improve over time so whatever the current ratio is it will only get better with new technology, techniques and other crops.

One big problem here. The largest U.S Ethanol producer was bought by and Austrailian company. Many contries and indavidual people have way more money than 100,000 farmers combined. Guess who now has power over much of Iowas's farm land? And where do these seeds come from now? Oh yeah, farmers MUST buy them from our government. God help us all!

In Brazil sugar cane is used for making ethanol. Maybe that's why it works for them.

It seem to me that growing oil crops for bio-diesel whould have a greater impact on petroleum use than ethanol.

Small, low emission diesel engines are coming out in Europe and if we used them here everyone could be getting 50 mpg on a much cleaner fuel than we are burning now.

The facilities needed for turning bean oil into fuel are low tech, require little energy and could be economically located close to their souce of raw material.

This looks, to me, like a valuable and under utilized contribution to solving the problems we will face when petroleum based motor fuels become unaffordable.

It is truly amazing how easily people are confused with so many choices of how we might power our vehicles in the future. There are hybrids and Tri-brids, using a combination of propulsion systems. Some run gasoline and batteries; others run ethanol and gasoline or a combination with batteries. Some also charge those batteries with solar panels on top it is amazing the amount of innovation goes into these cars; everything from new materials to super powerful state-of-the-art and high-tech batteries.

The B30 and B50 are Bio-diesel blends in many people today use these in the Northern Midwestern states in their pick-ups and over the road trucks. E85 Ethanol is 15 percent gasoline and 85 percent ethanol. Of course in the future granddaddy of them all would be running our cars on hydrogen, which just happens to be the most common element on planet Earth. That would be cool wouldn’t it?

Indeed, however each one of these technologies has its advantages, as well as disadvantages. Buying enough hydrogen to take your car 20 miles might cost as much, as a $1.60 although with economies of scale the price would come down. Ethanol and many bio diesel blends mean that we have to grow our own fuel, which is a nifty idea however, what about droughts? Hybrids make a lot of sense however, currently they are quite expensive and there is a waiting list at Toyota and Honda, but there is also a $3400 tax rebate, Hello! That would sure come in handy.

Many believe that the more options possible the greater the competition and this in itself will lower prices which OPEC sells their oil for. As new technologies come into play and more competition in the marketplace exists, then these options will help lower prices. As we know current gasoline prices and diesel prices are affecting American families and our small businesses. Please consider this in 2006.

omegaman66 wrote:

Ethanol does not take 1 unit of energy to produce 1 unit of energy. That is no longer true. Corn is the first crop we use extensively to make ethanol but it is not the most cost effective. Efficiency will improve over time so whatever the current ratio is it will only get better with new technology, techniques and other crops.

A lot of scientists say that bagasse(residual cane) produce more energy than required for making ethanol from sugar cane.
Ethanol from cereals has these problems but its required energy can be taken from wind-sun(storing it with NaCl...:250 kwh/m3) etc...