Ethanol-free fuel

Yup, corn farmers around here are now plowing fence row to fence row, and in many cases taking out fences and brush to create massive monoculture fields. This results in habitat fragmentation, and makes it much easier for predators such as fox, raccoon and coyotes to find upland-nesting birds (including pheasants and ducks, among many others). Hunters and Ducks Unlimited should be fully up in arms over ethanol. But they have to walk a fine line with the primary landowners, who are farmers.

You can see increased erosion around here, too, as farmers have broken ground on steep hillsides that should never be broken. Drive by after a good rain and you can see the mud trails leaving the fields and going into the ditches.

I have two brothers who still farm. They are small-time, though, and they believe in leaving some habitat for wildlife. They leave steep hills for pasture and run livestock on them, and don't over-rated them.

Too many farms have become large corporate operations. Kids don't want to take over the family farm, so the farm gets sold to the nearest corporate neighbor. Sad times indeed.

Wrascal said:

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What I do question is all that corn being diverted to become a gas additive has greatly added to the cost of edible beef (cows ate a lot of corn before e-gas became popular).

YMMV.

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Don't forget that dairy cows eat corn, too. Price of feed goes up, price of milk goes up, price of cheese goes up.

Now, when corn prices are high, like five years ago, then more land gets planted into corn, and less into other crops such as soybeans, alfalfa, oats and wheat. So then the price of those crops goes up, also. It's a vicious cycle, and only the middle man gets rich, and some corporate farms. The little farmers don't see any profits.

The price of wheat hit record highs a few year ago. Au contraire, you say...wheat and corn don't typically grow in the same climates/areas. That used to be the case, but they now have corn hybrids that do well in wheat country. You may have heard the term GMO (genetically-modified organism)....it's big in the corn industry.

Additionally, you used to have to rotate crops every year. Now they have corn hybrids that you only have to rotate every third year.

Again, who's making money off of ethanol? Middle men mostly (seed industry, fertilizer industry, pesticide industry, machinery (tractors/implements) industry, ethanol plants/corporations, corn lobbyists and some large corporate farms. It isn't helping the small family farmer that they like to portray in the commercials. That's just feel-good politics.

Ethanol is typically $0.25 per gallon cheaper in my neck of the woods. I will only purchase ethanol-free as long as I can. Yes, it costs me more $$, but I am not supporting a false economy, I purchase based on principles, and I can sleep well at night.

Ethanol free does save on gas however the correct figure is 3% difference in economy when it comes to E10/ethanol free. Around here they sell regular gas with 10% ethanol content, mid grade with 5% and super is ethanol free. If you are wanting a saving then this does not work out as the expense of super compared to regular washes out any mpg economy that would have been gained and does end up costing you more at the end of the day. The 3% translates to at most 1 mpg savings on a good day, not much but welcome if ethanol free regular is available to you.

EPA testing has always been done with non ethanol gas however starting with all 2017 model year vehicles, they finally started using E10 which better reflects what 95% of of us actually use. I find it rather amusing on how long it takes for government to make changes in this case probably 10+ years over due! To be fair, they did mathematically correct the outcome to compensate for not using E10 so figures prior were still relatively correct.