Kick the Oil Habit Campaign
by Jeff McIntire-Strasburg, St. Louis, MO 
on 05.18.06
The American Progress Action Fund launched its "Kick the Oil Habit" campaign with an announcement by Robert Redford on Larry King Live, and a new website complete with a fairly frightening video that underscored the connections between American oil dependence and global political instability, corporate and political corruption, global warming and, of course, high gas prices. The campaign touts E85 (85% ethanol and 15% gasoline mix) as a viable alternative for the near term, and asks supporters to sign on to a letter asking major oil companies to double the availability of the fuel nationwide. The campaign provides a list of reasons why E85 is the preferable alternative to importing foreign oil:
There are a number of reasons why E85 ethanol is better than gasoline:While I certainly think we can't do enough to both educate Americans on the complex problems that arise from our dependence on foreign oil, and to promote alternatives, I've still got mixed feelings about the heavy promotion of corn-based ethanol that we've seen lately. Yes, it's renewable in the sense that we can always grow more corn, but it's also the most energy-intensive of biofuels, and we have to wonder how diverting much of our corn crop to energy production will affect the fight against hunger in developing parts of the world. Corn-based ethanol is an alternative, but I don't know that we can call it a solution. ::Kick the Oil Habit via Gristmill. See also ::Have You Reduced Your Dependence on Cars?* It is cheaper. With gas prices at their current levels, ethanol typically sells at 60 or 70 cents less per gallon of fuel.
* Lots of cars can use it. Already 5 million American cars on the road can run on E85. It is relatively easy and inexpensive for car-makers to tweak existing models to run on E85. (Source: CBS News, 60 Minutes, May 7, 2006
* E85 is clean. E85 is much cleaner than gasoline, and emits a smaller amount of smog precursors and greenhouse gases for every gallon of fuel consumed.
* E85 is renewable. Getting more homegrown ethanol is simply a matter of planting new crops. The United States has the capacity to produce an enormous amount of ethanol
* E85 is American. Instead of supporting foreign regimes that can hold our foreign policy hostage, E85 promises to help liberate us from foreign energy dependence. At the same time, E85 can help create jobs in the US for farmers and refiners.
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Corn ethanol is a realy bad idea. Just another subsidy for big farmers.
Also E85 is not cheaper than regular in terms of how much energy you are getting.
What about efficiency? What about mass transit? What about walkable communities? There's no mention of that stuff that would really kick our oil addiction.
To paraphrase Jackie Guerra, "Mass transit and walkable communities are to oil addiction what gastric bypass surgery is to obesity." That is to say; only a drastic change will truly get results, and it will solve a lot of problems along the way.
And where are the E85 conversion kits? I'm not going to buy a whole new car just to run E85. Especially because there aren't ANY cars I want that can run E85.
I'll just stick to only driving when I make a trip greater than ten miles.
Why the glaring omitting of biodiesel?
We are focusing on the wrong problem. We need to think seriously about the resources we are consuming with our car-centered lifestyles. Moving our dependence from oil to ethanol only changes the type of problem and buys more time to avoid the real issues. While corn ethanol can be produced domestically, it is at a great cost to the environment and our health.
How about focusing on better urban development and planning so that fewer people feel like they must have cars? Too many of our large cities have terrible public transport and too few good sidewalks and bike lanes.
You could convert your car to E85 quite easily and cheaply.
New fuel lines, uprated pump and injectors and in some casses a few electronic bits and bobs to make sure it doesn't start knocking when on regular.
I agree that there is probably a big market for simple conversion kits. The problem would be having the car certified to run on E85.
Few American cars currently use diesel, which is why there is less talk about biodiesel. Which is too bad. Diesel cars currentlya vailable in Europe get around the same milage as hybrid gasoline cars of the same size. I believe that biodiesel is low-sulfur, so would work well with the newer low-particulate diesel technologies.
That said, biodiesel has the same problem as ethanol - current farming methods require a lot of fossil fuel input into the crop, the crops needed to be grown on land that is currently producing food-grade crops, only a small percentage of the energy absorbed by the crop, from the seeds, is used, and the fuel production itself requires a lot fo energy.
With current techniques, the amount of fuel-out to fuel-in ratio is not great.
When the celluose technologies, which use bacteria and yeasts to convert the celluose to fuel, come on line, this will totally change the equation. But for now, we'd be much better off converting to low-emission diesels and hybrids and smaller cars.
"The problem would be having the car certified to run on E85."
And until it's certified, there's no way it will pass inspection. This is somewhere the government could step in by making it easy to certify a car as E85 capable, and therefore opening the market up to conversion kit makers.
Corn-to-ethanol - doesn't compute favorably. Waste-to-ethanol - enthusiasticly yes, the EROIE is terrific and we rid ourselves of a need for landfills and for disposing of urban, agricultural, and forestry waste through any other way, including combustion. Bioconversion of cellulosic biomass and waste is the way to "Kick the Oil Habit."
the only problem with using corn as a fuel source is most corn is grown with petro based fertilizers, especially nitrogen. We need to grow corn and other crops with more natural sustainable practices like Sustainable Growth company is teaching farmers internationally, not to mention that the average homeowner uses ten times the amount of petro based fertilizers than agriculture. come on people, get with the program.
E85 is good. About 2% of US cars can use it. However, essentially all of our cars can use E10. 49 times as many cars can use E10 as those which can use E85. Collectively, we can use much more ethanol, with its numerous benefits, by mandating E10. The tarriff against imported ethanol should be dropped like a hot potato. Until we can supply our demand for ethanol, we should import what we can't currently produce. Then, as more flex fuel vehicles come online, we can steadily move toward E100. :)
My husband used to work for the department of agriculture and he said there are warehouses of unused grain and corn that just sit and rot because the government controls the prices this way. Because of this, I do not think using corn for ethanol will create a food shortage.
We should definately strive to make ethanol out other sources that are more efficient and easier to break down...like switch grass. However, the only way we're going to get more efficient ethanol products is if the producers of ethanol and other businesses thinking to enter the market, see a demand for ethanol and that Americans are read to buy renewable fuels. E85 is the best alternative to fossil fuels we have right now...I'd rather have cars burn corn based E85 then have them burn regular gasoline for another 20 years before a "perfect" renewable fuel comes along. Corn based E85 is the best place to start.