Well i'm thinking this is a serious question so let me see if I can shed some light on it for you.

First to answer you quote.
Lower power- on the flex fuel vehicle it doesn't take advantage of the higher octane. If one was so inclined you could actually increase performance in way of a tune/chip (or more timing for older cars with a distributer). Also to be noted the lack of performance was very very little.

Lower mpg- absolutely true and to be expected. The key differenceis 85% of the fuel is made from corn which is produced here in america (keeps money here and pays our farmers which in turn bolsters our economy). If they gear up to really produce e-85 then the cost will drop a good bit which is alot more then can be said for the current oil costs.

Cost- see above and again to mention sending tons of money over to the middle east and to chavez rather then keeping it here in our states. Also in case you didn't know as late as a few years ago (when I lived in Indiana) the government would pay the farmers to not plant certain crops (mainly corn) to help keep supply and demand in check. If we could stop paying people to not do something and get back to paying people to produce more to help keep prices low it makes good sense.


As for why I would like to see us start using more ethanol based fuels it will help out the economy here and hurt it over in places run by people we don't see eye to eye with.
I like the performance that you can get using e-85 and if we had a station here I would use it in my turbo car. It's cheaper then race fuel and has alot more octane then premium pump fuel and is at least 70 cents a gallon cheaper. (based on premium being 3.82 today and e-85 being 2.86 ) In a tuner/muscle car you can take advantage of the octane to the tune. (my car being able to run and extra 6 psi and 4 degrees of timing means another 85rwhp-100 ft/pds dyno proven, as thats how I run on a blend of 93 and 110 being about 100 octane. Might be able to get more as e-85 is 103 octane)

I don't think we should convert to e-85 for the emissions strictly.
I also don't think we should get rid of gas and only use e-85 as if we had a bad crop season we could be in for some problems. I do think we should use it alot more then we do now though.

If nothing else math shows why it makes sense.
On gas the tahoe got 18.5 mpg
On e-85 it got 13.5 mpg
A difference of 26.5%
Premium gas today at 3.82 average
Regular was 3.47 average
e-85 (higher octance then premium) 2.86 average
Thats .96 in difference so even if it gets 26.5 % less fuel milage the e-85 is still less expensive by a bit mile to mile. (35% would make it about the same as premium fuel)
It is a .61 difference over regular means e-85 would cost slightly more to run.

So if you put regular in your driver (if you even can as alot of nicer performance cars require premium from the factory) its a bit cheaper and your money leaves the states to run it. Don't count on this being the case for long as prices continue to go up daily with no end in sight. When the difference crosses 75 cents you might as well buy the e-85 as its the same money.

What was your complaint about e-85 again?


Gas price source - http://www.fuelgaugereport.com/