With high gas prices making alternative fuels increasingly attractive, no alternative fuel has received as much attention as ethanol, highly prized because it is renewable, domestically produced, and burns cleaner than gas with a higher octane rating.
A Man Ahead of His Time
Way back in 1916, Henry Ford said in a magazine interview, "Gasoline is going - alcohol is coming. It's coming to stay, too, for it's in unlimited supply. And we might as well get ready for it now. All the world is waiting for a substitute to gasoline. When that is gone, there will be no more gasoline, and long before that time, the price of gasoline will have risen to a point where it will be too expensive to burn as a motor fuel. The day is not far distant when, for every one of those barrels of gasoline, a barrel of alcohol must be substituted." Ford was definitely a man ahead of his time. He was even ahead of our time, but we're beginning to catch on.
The first Ford Model T was designed to run purely on ethanol!
Indy 500 Revs Up With Corn
For the first time in the race’s 95-year history, cars in the 2006 Indy 500 burned a fuel that is 10 percent ethanol and 90 percent methanol. In 2007, the league plans to switch permanently to
100 percent ethanol.
Learn more
E10 & E85
Ethanol is mixed with unleaded gasoline to boost its octane rating and reduce emissions. The most common blends are E10 (10% ethanol/90% gasoline) approved for any make or model sold in the U.S., or E85 (85% ethanol/15% gasoline), known as E-85 and used in specially made flexible fuel vehicles. E85 is not gasoline, but rather an alternative fuel comprised of 85% ethanol / 15% unleaded gasoline for use in Flexible Fuel Vehicles (FFVs). These vehicles are truly “flexible” in that their owners have a choice whether to use E85, any blend of ethanol up to that 85% level, or straight unleaded gasoline.
Environmentally Friendly
Ethanol helps to clean up our environment by reducing: tailpipe carbon monoxide emissions by up to 30%; exhaust volatile organic compounds (VOC) emissions by 12%; particulate matter (PM) emissions by at least 25%. Ethanol is biodegradable without harmful effects on the environment.
The Stamp of Approval
All cars built since the 1970s are fully compatible with up to 10% ethanol in the mixture. Every major automaker in the world approves the use of E-10 Unleaded in their vehicles
How Many Are Out There?
There are approximately 5 million vehicles in the U.S. that can run on
E85.
Octane Rating
The most important characteristic of gasoline is its octane rating — in general the higher a fuel’s octane rating, the better the engine will perform. Pure ethanol made from renewable plant sources has less energy content than gasoline, which means more trips to the pump, but it has an octane rating of 113, compared with 107 for methanol and about 91 to 95 for gasoline.
It's The Real Thing
Pure ethanol is drinkable alcohol, the intoxicating kind. If you know how to ferment beer, you know how to make ethanol. So that people won't drink it, a small amount of gasoline is added in at the end of processing to make it unfit to ingest.
How Far Will An Acre Get You?
Each bushel of corn (56 lbs.) can produce up to 2.5 gallons of ethanol fuel. One acre of land planted with corn can yield enough ethanol to take a car 5,000 miles, getting 17.5 miles to the gallon. Sugarcane will take you 15,000 miles.
Sharing the Wealth
Only the starch from the corn is used to make ethanol. Most of the substance of the corn kernel remains, leaving the protein for the production of food for people and livestock. Other by-products are used in numerous ways.
