With regular gas prices spiking towards the $3 level, the time to discuss using E85 fuel is obviously now. There are simply too many good reasons to use more and more domestic-based renewable fuels to power the United States economy.
It has to be pointed out, however, that a 40-cent price differential is simply not enough to grab area motorists' attention to buy E85 vehicles.
This is hard for me to say, but any moron can see that such a price difference is nothing to get excited about, because of the slight loss in fuel economy. I firmly believe that this loss is smaller than the talking heads say, but that is for another argument.
What's most troubling about this whole discussion is the fact that when you get west of I-29 in South Dakota (as close as 100 miles of this area), the price of E85 at every gas station is between 80 and 90 cents less than regular gasoline! I was shocked with disbelief when I heard it but then a friend sent me pictures of the stations' signs from his camera phone. That is a price difference to be excited about.
With corn running around $2 a bushel (cheap), ethanol costs a little over $1 per gallon to produce, according to Congressman Collin Peterson, a huge ethanol supporter. Eighth-grade math tells me that E85 is a complete rip-off at close to $2.50 per gallon. Such discrepancy in the E85 markets must be fully explained to the public in our area before sales of E85 will take off, and that obligation directly falls on local leaders in the ethanol industry.
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Randy Olson
Sunburg
