No, I Don't Want Corn In My Gas Tank

My wife and I were returning from Charlotte to visit my folks a few nights ago and about 30 miles from home noticed we had dropped down below a quarter of a tank of gas. I don't like to run the cars that low, so I took the next exit.

$3.77. Looks good to me. Pulled in and drove to the pump - but before I got out I noticed the sticker. Contains up to 15% ethanol. So we went on to the station next door. Contains up to 10% ethanol. Next station please. Contains up to 15% ethanol.

I'm not going to the Citgo next door. Citgo is owned by the national oil company of Venezuela. I am not about to put any of my money in Hugo Chavez's hands. He's one of the silent partners in the Axis of Evil.

Went down to the next exit -- and, ironically at a restaurant that I used to frequent while working at a job site during a summer job between my Freshman and Sophomore years of college, found a gas station that was selling non-ethanol blend gas. For the same exact price as the first station I had gone to.

I made the decision awhile ago to not put ethanol in my gas tank - in either car.

This is getting more and more difficult to do as more and more gas stations around here are starting to sell ethanol-blend gas. One of the biggest offenders is Stewart Spinks, also a silent partner in the AoE.

A good friend of ours is a service tech at the local Saturn dealership. He's told me some interesting stories about problems that more and more of their customers are running into after putting ethanol-blend gas in their tanks. We haven't had to have any major vehicle repairs in several years now. And I don't want to start by screwing up my fuel system.

If you look around on the Internet, you can find all kinds of interesting discussions about this.

The ethanol industry doesn't seem to want to acknowledge that there are valid concerns the vehicle owners have and are running into because of their own ignorance about ethanol.

• The Problem With Ethanol - Tampa Bay Online

Some facts about ethanol (you can decide for yourself whether each is a pro or con):

• Ethanol burns cleaner and reduces the amount of toxic emissions.
• Ethanol production is providing an economic boom for corn-farmers in the midwest
  
• Per gallon, ethanol produces 34 percent less energy than a gallon of gasoline and thus reduces your mileage. So you may not necessarily be getting more bang for you buck by purchasing ethanol-blend gas.
• To distill ethanol takes a 3:1 ratio of water to ethanol. It is very water intensive. A lot of states are facing severe drought and need to conserve the water that they currently have.
  
• Ethanol attracts water. When it mixes with water, ethanol separates from the gas and settles to the bottom of the tank with the water.
• Ethanol is corrosive. It eats through fiberglass. This is one reason boaters are having increasing problems with ethanol-blend fuel. There is currently a class-action suit in California against nine major oil companies (Ethanol-Blended Fuel Blamed for Boaters' Problems - ConsumerAffairs.com) because of this.
• Some manufacturers will void your vehicle's warranty if ethanol blends higher than 10 percent are used in its fuel system.
  
• In older model cars, ethanol will eat through rubber components in the fuel system and can loosen fuel tanks.
• More pros and cons..... and more
  

Flex-fuel vehicles are designed to run on up to 85 percent ethanol-15 percent gas and don't have a problem taking the E-10(10 percent mix) or E15(15 percent mix) that the stations I was trying to get gas at on our trip home sell. But flex fuel vehicles are relatively new and not all vehicle models are available as flex-fuel. FFVs really didn't take off until 2003 and after. And neither of our vehicles are FFVs.

• Check here to see if you have a flex fuel vehicle

My two favorite gas stations, Ingles Supermarket (based in Black Mountain, NC) and Murphy Gas (owned by Wal-Mart), do not sell ethanol-blend fuel. This is why unless I am not near one at the time I need to gas my car, I always go to one of the two. And they consistently have the lowest gas prices in this area.

So as long as I have a car with an engine that burns gasoline (whether a fully gasoline engine or a hybrid), I am going to frequent the gas stations without ethanol-based gas. I just wish that they would advertise in big-bold letters on their primary roadside price signs whether their fuel is ethanol-blend so I don't have to waste my time pulling up to the pump to find out.

I'm kind of torn on the The Open Fuel Standard Act proposed this week by Sam Brownback (R-KS), Ken Salazar (D-CO) and Joseph Lieberman (I-CT). It would require that, starting in 2012, 50 percent of all new vehicles be flex fuel and able to burn gasoline, ethanol and methanol, or biodiesel. By 2015, that requirement would go up to 80 percent. Yes, it does help get us away from our dependency on oil, whether foreign or domestic. But that still doesn't address the main issue we're facing by having non-renewable fuel sources still on the market as an option to make our cars move down the road.

Honestly though I think we need to direct our primary efforts toward hydrogen and/or 100 percent elctric vehicles. I think ethanol is basically the go-between from where we are right now to where we could and should be in the near future. And it pisses me off -- not only that I can't go to the pump and find the type of gas that I want every time, but that the companies selling this crap are snowing people with it.

I could go on and on about what's wrong with the energy policies in this country and what we could and should do to make things better for the environment and our own pocketbooks, but that's a post for another time. I could go on and on about blaming this person or that person, or the people who insist on driving gas-sucking SUVs and minivans (are these really necessary? -- is the status quo in the PTA just that important to you? This gets back to analogy of your friends jumping off a bridge...) For the record, I will never purchase an SUV or a minivan.

And I could go on and on about our government's lack of initiative in adequately addressing the issues. It's taken $4 a gallon gas for people to jump up and take notice.

To his credit, and although probably motivated by his own selfishness, oilman George W. Bush lifted the federal moratorium on offshore drilling last week that his dad put in place. Now we just have to wait and see if our liberally-lopsided Congress will allow drilling on the outer continental shelf. Not that that is really going to solve anything at this moment in time, but within the next decade it should provide us some valuable benefits. I don't think any Congress is going to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and I think that's a good thing. But with Bush's last minute drive to actually do something about our dependency on foreign oil, I think that's a step in the right direction. He may not be the sharpest tool in the shed, but I think this may help redeem his image.

McCain and Obama are at least putting in some effort required so that they can advertise that they each have an energy plan. I think McCain's Lexington Project is better and more realistic, but he's still an idiot. And I'm going to vote for the guy because I do not want a democrat in office along with a democratic congress. That would be really, really bad.

My father and I tend to diverge (not drastically, but enough to provide for some interesting discussions) on a lot of political issues. But we're pretty much both on the same page on our opinion of T. Boone Pickens' plan for foreign oil and U.S. energy consumption and policies. So if you're up for a good read, check out FoxNews' article today on Pickens' plan or my dad's series on energy policies over at his blog.

I'll probably follow up with more on this later.