It bothers me in that it's more political rhetoric, selling the stupid people false hope on the future of energy. There's no way we'll be converting to expensive energy -- ethanol, hydrogen, or even solar -- until we've used up all the cheap energy -- oil, coal, and tar sands. I say don't hold your breath waiting for ethanol, because it might take another 50 years before we need it.

 

so screw it right? why even try to get cheaper fuel. You keep bending over for OPEC, il keep my hopes up for something better down the road. Also once we get to where E85 is available everywhere you will be be able to Tune for it and up the boost in your car to get the mpg to where they are now.

 

I'd rather we spend money drilling the shit out of the Gulf, Alaska, and from any other domestic source for oil along with increasing domestic refinery capacity. And I'm also for more nuclear or other non-petroleum or gas fired power plants while we're at it.

Besides, with more oil rigs in the gulf, I could get better fishing results.

 

people just need to look at it as an option and not an end all be all solution. If we could produce it and distribute it so that it was an alternative to gas/oil then people would have a choice as to what they wanted to use. E85 is not a complete solution and it's not the perfect solution, but it is the most viable one that is out there right now as compared to hydrogen, electric cars, etc. The USA needs to start being smarter in how they apply the technology that is available to them currently.

i.e. in smog laden areas such as Denver or dense city populations such as NY. start replacing the gas powered vehicles with electric or e85 powered, etc (start with city vehicles, bio-diesel for city busses, etc). There are so many ways that we could start to help reduce the oil dependency, but there isn't one "big one", that will come from a cumulation of small advances/changes.

 

and whom would those stupid people be? Nobody toted that it would be the fuel of the future, just like it as an alternative. If you dont like it..fine dont use it. Nobody said it would be the end all of fuels. It would be nice to have atleast a percentage of the country using it, so we do not end up relying that heavily on oil.

Right now, it is not that efficient to produce, as it would take alot of crops and farmland just to support or needs.

But there is more technology being developed out there as we speak.

if it wasnt a good alternative then why is gm/ford producing so many flexfuel vehicles compatible with it?

even if the goverment did drill for more oil, what do you think theyll do with it?

fucking sell it to other countries like they are doing right now.

dont call people stupid because you cant grasp the idea of of anything else out there becuase you are narrow minded .

this is not a pissing match. was not a debate either, i was simply asking when will we get it, as some parts of the country already are.

so what if it doesnt work out..hey atleast some of us tried.

 

Fuel of the future is water.

 

Sad but you are most likely correct and it isn't the politician's fault or big oil's fault, it's our own fault. If people could save .01 buying Walmart gas instead of E85 they'd buy the Walmart gas.

(Walmart appropriately used for an example since everybody bitches about them but they still shop there)

 

Most of Fords vehicles come flex fuel ready. Downside is using it solely cuts the life of your car by half, heard it on an enterview with the guys in Brazil that make it from sugar cane.

 

Question: I thought the manufacturers were making their vehicles compatible because they were required to by law? I thought GM was just beating everyone to the advertising punch by coming out with all of these flex fuel commercials.

 

The "stupid people" include anyone who believes anything that the media tell them in a 3-minute story as gospel. People who say they are too busy with their jobs, cars, houses, and families to research the truth behind current events, yet have the time to watch shit like American Idol. People who think that we go to war to bring freedom to foreign countries.

Have any idea how many acres of arable land would be needed to make nationwide E85 a reality? Over 18 million acres. And we don't rotate crops any more, so all that corn has to be grown using chemical fertilizers, which require natural gas to produce, as do our nation's ethanol plants.

GM and Ford produce so many E85 compatible vehicles because it's easy and cheap to do, and there are many large government vehicle fleets that run their cars on ethanol. The car companies are both improving their image before the public and taking advantage of scale to lower their E85 compatibilty costs. Most E85 cars are shit we wouldn't buy anyway.

As far as my being narrow minded, nothing could be further from the truth. I have researched energy dependence quite thoroughly for the past year and a half. I know there are no real alternatives to fossil fuels, as much as people would like to think there are. I suggest you start learning by reading "the end of oil" -- a good piece of research on energy dependence. Then research "peak oil" a bit.