I’ve been to the gas station three times this week. Maybe you have too?
The prices seem like they’ve been going down, but I feel like I’ve been spending a lot more time filling up. It just doesn’t seem like a tank goes as far any more.
Actually, I expected this to happen, just not so soon.
I might have mentioned that ethanol has less energy potential than gasoline. They’ve been adding ethanol to gas for a couple of reasons. To start with, it allows gas makers to remove a chemical from the gas that can cause more toxic pollution. But I think the big push is to get more environmentally-friendly fuel in the market.
But ethanol is a joke.
It takes twice as much ethanol to produce the same power as gasoline. The bottom line is that if your gas at the pump is 10% ethanol (which is what most stations are supposed to be pumping), and you can normally fill up and go 200 miles on regular gasoline, then you will only go 190 miles on 10% ethanol. If your whole tank was ethanol, you’d only go 100 miles before you needed to refuel.
What I suspect is that gas stations, to take advantage of up-chain corn and ethanol production subsidies, have increased their usage of ethanol without telling anyone. It’s an interesting way for the government to look good by giving away tax money to agriculture used for alternative fuels (that are less efficient than fossil fuels) and lowering the gas price down the line. They might do better to spend those subsidies directly on gas or lowering the taxes on gas that can add $.40 per gallon to your pricing.
As a result of using ethanol, they can keep their gas prices low, and still sell the same liquid volume of gas.
Note that there is no sign on a pump anywhere that tells you how much power a station’s gas will have when used in your car. Perhaps there should be.
I’ve noticed that when I fill my tank at stations with a particularly low price (low around here is $2.07), I am unable to get that tank to last as long as when I fill up at a higher priced station (up to $2.20).
I wonder if there is an easy and safe way to test fuel for percentage of ethanol content. It would be interesting to see if that’s actually what’s going on.
Have you noticed a decrease in car performance lately, too? Anyone else remember when you could put $5 in your car and have it last for a week?
