To what extent does ethanol reduce fuel consumption in vehicles and how?

Question

To what extent does ethanol reduce fuel consumption in vehicles and how?

Answer 1

IT DOES NOT reduce fuel consumption it will decrease your mileage by 20%, costs subsidized around 10% less, but you are paying for it, driving up food costs, and per several studies uses a total of 1500 gallons of water to produce one gallon of this joke!

Answer 2

All these nimrods are correct, it does reduce your mileage, and it also takes a tremendous amount of energy to produce. Add that to the fact that in order to see any reduction in our foreign oil imports, there would need to be a coast-to-coast cornfield that was dedicated to ethanol production. Ethanol is a feel-good product that has no positive effects on the petroleum economy. The best way to reduce our fuel consumption as a nation is to reduce our fuel consumption as individuals. But for every person who drives an economy car, there's someone who insists on buying a gas guzzler. My question is, whose side are the auto makers on? In fact, I will ask that. Stay tuned to Yahoo! Answers.

Answer 3

The whole idea behind ethanol is that it can be grown. It comes from Corn mainly. It is a renewable fuel source. It reduces "OIL" consumption and our countries dependence on foreign oil. The fuel economey is the same, however, it evaporates faster so it looks like your getting worse fuel economey. You will get fewer miles to a tank fuel because, like alcohol, it will evaporate when exposed to air. That is one of the major issues being addressed. The other issue is what some people say is sort of true. It takes oil etc to run the plant that makes the Ethanol. The point is, it's a start. It takes oil to run a regular gasoline plant too. As engineering advances plants will become self sufficient. People are trying Solar, wind and ethanol generators to power the plants. The point is at the rate the world, mainly the US and now China are buring fosil fuel it will run out and more wars will happen over it. I have seen the price of fuel go from 15C a gallon to 3.15 a gallon in just 40 years. What would happen if due to a freak of nature or war the US or any other oil dependent country was cut off from the rest of the world. Where would it be? Would it not be nice someday to have a small patch of corn or some other crop. In your back yard to power and heat your home and have fuel for your car. Thats just one of the future thoughts. Like old moon shiners.. Home made stills for fuel.  Right now , yes because of the demand on corn, live stock feed has gone up. So meat, poltury, and milk cost more.  That will soon correct itself. So many corn farmers gave up farming because they could not make a living. Now many are dusting off their equipment and planting larger crops. I would rather see a rich Mid-west farmer then a Rich middle eastern oil barron any day h**l all through Texas you see oil pumps in peoples back yards. I would much rather see an acre of corn. In a pinch you can eat it as well. Try and do that with an oil pump. All kinds of products can be made from the husks as well. It's clean renewable fuel and we should have been doing it years ago.

Answer 4

EHTANOL DOES NOT REDUCE FUEL CONSUMPTION. A VEHICLE ON ETHANOL GETS WORSE FUEL MILEAGE THAN REGULAR FUEL. ABOUT 5-6 MPG WORSE OR SOMETIMES MORE. ALL ETHANOL DOES IS BURN CLEANER CAUSING LOWER EMISSIONS. SO IF YOU WANT BETTER FUEL MILEAGE, DO NOT USE ETHANOL.

Answer 5

Ethanol actually increases fuel consumption in vehicles, due to it's lower energy value.  You need approximately 1.5 gallons of ethanol to yield the same energy as 1 gallon of gasoline.  As a result, flex fuel vehicles have lower mpg and shorter full tank mileages.  This is actually why mostly trucks and SUV's are the flex fuel offerings from Detroit.  The mileage doesn't drop as noticeably and their tanks are large enough that you can still drive a reasonable distance.

I work for one of the largest oil companies in the world and I've come to the researched decision that ethanol does not hold promise as a long term, sustainable alternative to imported petroleum.  It's only due to national and regional subsidies that ethanol continues to be considered a potential alternative fuel supply.  As costs rise for food grade corn and sugar, folks will continue to cool on ethanol production.