The Dunn County News reports that ethanol boosters have re-energized their alliance with the American Lung Association. "From food to fuel, corn serves many purposes these days," scribe Bruce Dybvik writes. "When processed as ethanol and added to our gasoline, it seems to benefit our breathing, too. According to Bob Moffitt, communications director of the American Lung Association, 'Every flex-fuel vehicle that uses E85 instead of gasoline for a year saves four tons of air pollutants from going into the air, including a lot of greenhouse gasses. Here in Wisconsin, one of the leading sources of air pollution is tail pipe emissions.'" The reduced greenhouse gas claim is the most obvious obfuscation, as E85 gets less mpg than normal gas. But the idea that E85 is "cleaner" than garden-variety (or not) unleaded needs some serious debunking. In 2007, Environmental Science & Technology [via Scientific American] offered one such an analysis by Stanford University's Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering. "Due to its ozone effects, future E85 may be a greater overall public health risk than gasoline," Mark Jacobson's study stated. "It can be concluded with confidence only that E85 is unlikely to improve air quality over future gasoline vehicles."
8 Comments on “E85 Boosters Switch Gears: Corn-Juice Reduces Lung Cancer...”
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I love how they always point to tons of this gas or the other thing they save, without admitting the tons of water, fertilizer, fuel and other necessities required to bring moonshine to your E85 hummer.
what’s next, E85 will bring will cure cancer in late stages?
A minute supposed (and unproved) reduction in carcinogens vs. starvation of potentially millions in the rest of the world due to planting of corn instead of food to export?
No question for me.
It’s inexcusible that we Americans are allowing our representatives to force ethanol down our throats (or fuel intakes, more precisely).
Besides, every single car I’ve owned and tried E10 in since 1979 obtained at least 7% fewer MPG while using 10% ethanol, and most lost 10% or more. I’ve tried at least 12 cars on E10, of all shapes, sizes and eras, even including a 1967 Chrysler.
Therefore, if this is accurate for we’re actually importing more oil than we would be had we never gone down this foolish ethanol route.
At least it enriches companies such as ADM as well as further enriching the oil companies.
Oh wait, that’s a bad thing…
The E85 boosters are just George Jones fans: “Mighty, mighty pleasin, pappy’s corn squeezin’
Whshhhoooh . . . white lightnin’ “
Our Shell stations are still using E-zero…while everyone else seems to use E10. I called a couple of stations to inquire, and made sure they knew that they were getting my business specifically because they don’t use ethanol blend.
Not sure how long this will last, though. Yes, I wrote my congresspeople over a year ago about this.
Well, the water table will be shot, but at least my lungs are clean.
shades of Iraq war justification
so if we go all E85, that would take the wind out of the argument for most anti-car jihadists, right?
Ash78, what state are you in? I want some of that E-zero