Mo. drivers reporting lower mileage with ethanol blend

COLUMBIA, Mo. -- A month after a new state law required Missouri petroleum dealers to begin selling ethanol-blended E-10 fuel, reactions to the new fuel's economy and gas mileage are mixed.

"I think it's idiotic," Boone County resident Brett Burns said Saturday as he filled up his Chevrolet hatchback. "My car runs worse with it. I don't like it. It's not nearly as good."

Jim Lane, editor of Biofuels Digest, an electronic newsletter that reports on the industry, said ethanol has 30 percent to 35 percent less energy density than regular unleaded gas, but it counteracts some of that loss by providing greater torque.

"It depends on what you're using the engine for, but over time it will be a little worse for most drivers," he said.

Leon Schumacher, a University of Missouri professor of agricultural systems management and a biodiesel expert, said no two drivers will experience the same results from using E-10 because of differences in engines and how vehicles are used.

Although there is less energy in an ethanol blend, ethanol's added oxygen improves combustion, he said.

"The two cannot counterbalance each other unless the engine fuel system is truly optimized for ethanol [flex fuel]," Schumacher wrote in an e-mail to the Columbia Tribune. "As such, you will see some cars that do not perform any differently than before. You will also see cars that do not perform as well as before."

Fuel economy tests back up Schumacher's view, with results varying widely depending on a vehicle's make or model. Some studies found a negligible drop in miles per gallon with E-10; others see as much as a 5 percent drop.

Ron Leone, executive director of the Midwest Petroleum Marketers and Convenience Store Association, said research shows clear evidence of a fuel economy drop.

"Essentially, the science is all over the place, but it seems to say that E-10 has 2 to 5 percent less energy, so it will give 2 to 5 percent fewer miles per gallon," he said. "I don't see how anybody can get around that. It's the sheer physics of it."

Still, Leone said he has not heard Missouri motorists or gas station owners complain about ethanol. Consumers in Missouri are protected by a price trigger that requires ethanol to be offered at gas stations when it is less expensive than regular unleaded gasoline, he said.

"Here in Mid-Missouri we have some of the lowest fuel prices in the country," Leone said, adding that blending ethanol keeps prices slightly lower than they would be otherwise. "It may be only 2 or 3 cents below what it would be, so people miss it."

E-85 fuel, which offers blends that are 85 percent ethanol, has proliferated in Missouri.

MFA Oil spokesman Tom May said the Columbia-based company sells E-85 at 44 Missouri gas stations and sales in the last five months have increased 40 percent. Last year, MFA customers used more than 2 million gallons of the blend.

"The higher the price of regular gasoline goes, the more people look for alternatives," he said.

E-85 sells for about 55 cents less per gallon than E-10 at stations where it is available, a price difference that analysts say is a great equalizer.

"We've got to stop thinking in terms of miles per gallon. We've got to think about cost per mile," Lane said.