Currently I'm working out of our main office in Silver City, NM. This is a welcome change from Carlsbad, but it does mean instead of staying in a camper trailer a few minutes from the job, I'm making a two hour commute (each way) to and from my house in Las Cruces each day. Yep, I'm "warming the globe". At least I'm in my own house again.
The company would put me up in a hotel while I'm here, but I've worked the math out, and even with the ultra-long commute it's cheaper for everyone if I drive back and forth. Which leads me to into my analysis:
I drive a company truck as one of my job benefits. It happens to be a model with a flex-fuel engine. It also happens there is a service station very close to my house that usually stocks E-85 fuel. Seeing as the E-85 is nearly always about $0.20 a gallon cheaper than regular unleaded, I've been filling up with it to save the company a bit on the fuel costs. This sounds good on paper, but what I've noticed in my experience is the price difference is more than offset by an apparent reduced fuel economy.
I've made the work commute many, many times now, using both regular unleaded and E-85. I've made it with headwinds, tailwinds, crosswinds, and no wind using both fuels. It's a two hour drive on interstates 95% of the way, a 125 mile trip. Using regular unleaded (~86 Octane), my truck averages 1/2 of the 24 gallon tank per round trip (The low fuel warning light comes on about 15 miles before I get to my house on the second trip), so 12 gallons over 250 miles; about 21 MPG.
Using E-85 my truck uses 3/4 of the tank on the same round trip, for 18 gallons over 250 miles; about 14 MPG.
So the commute to and from work, twice, takes ~24 gallons of unleaded, and ~36 gallons of E-85. The most-recent prices for each at the local station were $ 2.95 for E-85 and $ 3.15 for regular unleaded. That equates to $ 53.10 a round trip for E-85, and $ 37.80 a round trip for unleaded gasoline.
So while E-85 looks much better on a per-gallon price basis, we really do not get the same distance per dollar spent as we do with gasoline. Factor in the fact that E-85 prices are only lower than gasoline because of federal (i.e. taxpayer) subsidies, and it's easy to see the American public is being fed a bill of goods on this fuel alternative.
I really support finding an alternative, renewable fuel to power our energy needs, but in order for it to truly work, it needs to be price competitive on its own merits with the fuels we currently use, and without the intentional value obfuscation that has been perpetrated with this fuel.
