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| Your city friends were partially correct.
Mileage is reduced as E85 has 62.94% the energy of gasoline; 75.75 MJ/gal compared to 120.27 MJ/gal.
Ethyl alcohol is a solvent, so it will degrade rubber on vehicles not manurfactured for its use; E10 is the same. Ethyl alcohol is hydroscopic, meaning it will adsorb water, reducing shelf life. It won't be unusable "after two days" as one poster suggested but it certianly does pose issues wit long term storage.
Ethanol produced from corn also has a net negative energy balance. It takes more energy to plant, harvest, truck, and distill a given unit of ethanol that it contains.
Whether you all like it or not, corn ethanol consumes a third of the total corn crop because of government intervention. 15 billion gallons of ethanol must be blended into gasoline each year because of a government mandate, not because the free market chose to.
It amazes me that a board full of people that are fundamentally opposed to government intervention in other areas of life will rise to arms in defense of big government when it benefits them.
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Mentioned to some city folk friends....
