Ethanol in diesel

RonA said:

A bushel of corn can (supposedly) make 2.8 gallons of ethanol and takes about 9.8 gallons of water to process.

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$3.55/2.8gal = $1.27 per gal in corn cost. Add a little in for facilities and tax and it's a viable option.

I personally despise E10. They are selling us complete garbage that they boost the octane with 10% ethanol.

Now E85 on the other hand, I fully support as I can build an engine to utilize E85 and run better than an engine setup for "pump gas". That, and it makes me want a shot of tequila every time I fuel up.

Sadly, E85 stations are non existent in Montana.

doing the math, to supply the state of california with ethanol instead of gasoline would take 30609243 acres of corn(about 1/3 of US output assuming 170 bushel to the acre). It would also take 18,212,499,999.8 gallons of water to process. That's equal to 2.5 hours worth of the average flow of the Ohio river. Chris can do the math on costs to plant and harvest.

Factor in the production costs of ethanol plus the corn costs and then you'll see why the government are putting in the subsidies to flip the bill to keep it in production. You can thank ethanol for most of the reason for all these new engineered seeds to get the higher yields. They had to do something to get production up since farmers and farm land keeps decreasing each year.

And to the original poster's topic................. I've seen the 10% ethanol on diesel pumps here in Iowa too. My understanding on that is the state requires the sticker to be on the pump to let the consumer know they are getting ethanol and not straight gasoline. Who ever applies the sticker must not care if it goes on the diesel pumps or not.