re: Fuel test: 10 gallons of E85 today in my Tahoe..

The carbon footprint of ethanol is much larger than petroleum based fuels (when you account for all the energy involved in producing both) and it’s not close to being cost effective without the mandates and huge subsidies. And squeezing corn into our fuel tanks has driven up the cost of everything from tacos to ribeyes. For all the talk about the political muscle of Big Oil, they are dwarfed by the Ag industry.

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If the power from that plug came from thin air I might agree with you.

Unfortunately, the electric power used for charging has a cost (economic and environmental) associated with it also.

It remains to be seen what the environmental effects and sustainability are for large scale vehicle battery systems.

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Even if the US electrical grid was 100% FF driven EVs are still more efficient at moving a car from point A to point B than using ICE engines. This is taking into account generation, transmission, charging and motor losses. Simply less FF used per mile.

The large scale mining and production of the minerals used in batteries have seen a logarithmic decrease in environmental impact over the last decade. Battery technology has also been moving away from the most difficult to extract minerals and huge deposits like ocean nodules have been found and are getting close to economically feasible mining. The reclamation of these minerals are in infancy but aren't nearly insurmountable once the economics of scale are present.

congrats on putting tow truck drivers daughter through college and the near future replacement of every single component in you vehicle that gas runs through from tank to engine.

PAS you will most likely burn out you valves in the heads as well.

but hey, you will save money buying e85 as your gas mileage drops 40% lower to burn up all those savings while you lose engine power and torque

e85 was designed to destroy engines and it does that very well

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The large scale mining and production of the minerals used in batteries have seen a logarithmic decrease in environmental impact over the last decade. Battery technology has also been moving away from the most difficult to extract minerals and huge deposits like ocean nodules have been found and are getting close to economically feasible mining. The reclamation of these minerals are in infancy but aren't nearly insurmountable once the economics of scale are present.

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All of this may be true.

However, the one company tied to this technology (Tesla) can’t seem to make a profit since they started.

There could be many reasons for that but if I had to guess the batteries are certainly a part of it.

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The carbon footprint of ethanol is much larger than petroleum based fuels (when you account for all the energy involved in producing both) and it’s not close to being cost effective without the mandates and huge subsidies.

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Not just energy. Less chemicals like pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers that end up in our water systems. More forests or grasslands and natural areas because we don't need all these corn and sugar cane fields.

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Please enlighten the group how you are going to self farm sugar cane and power your vehicles self sustainably with the results of said crops.

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I put together all the research and numbers years ago so I'm going off the top of my head here.

Sugarcane was selected because of the area I live in. For our family size and fuel usage I had estimated a 4-acre plot of sugarcane necessary to meet our yearly consumption.

I have plans set aside for construction of the still and other equipment. There's also a manufacturer out of India that sells a fairly affordable sugarcane processor.

Start up cost for small-scale production isn't prohibitive and it's recouped fairly quickly.

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No diesel tractors involved?

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I get the sense that y'all are thinking large-scale, still. We're talkin about family-farm level production. Do you not realize this occurred on farms all over America for quite a while prior to the death of the family farm?

I already own a tractor and its carbureted and gasoline powered.

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Are you also modifying all your ICE engines to run on 100% ethanol?

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All the vehicles and equipment I purchased were purchased with this in mind. I have since abandoned my original plans due to wife but everything I own can still be converted to run E100 or E85. Even blending to E85 saves a ton of money.

I DIY everything so this isn't a problem for someone like me. It's always a matter of, how much time do you have and how many sons do you have.

Check my post above.

Like I said, it's been a while and I would have to dig through my folder. I originally looked at biodiesel but it wasn't nearly as cost-effective unless you want to rely on restaurant grease and you live in an area where you can't grow sugarcane.

Farming and refining can be very labor intensive or time-consuming. If you have a full-time job no way in hell I would attempt this.

This was just one point of a multi-point plan to go 'off grid'. We took a few steps forward and then the wife put a halt to it when we had kids.

farming 4 acres of sugar cane to save $400/month ,which i don't believe is anywhere near accurate, but even if it was, seems pretty dumb, but who am i to tell someone else what to do.
You do you.

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Biggest joke ever. I get tired of hearing "poor" farmers crying when they were gifted this by the US Government

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Many of you, nearly all of you, are conflating the 'political ethanol' with mine and Obtuse1 argument for ethanol as a viable fuel source in and of itself.

In a survival situation I can't, no one individual can, produce gasoline.

You can however, produce ethanol and diesel and do so in perpetuity. You can't even say that for electric vehicles.

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dude, if the economy collapses and you actually end up producing ethanol, someone is just going to shoot you in the kneecaps and take it from you. we will wait until you are done though

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Cute. Not going to do you much good when most engines arent designed to run on it.

And that wasn't really the point anyway. It was mostly to reduce our families overhead to as near zero as possible and have control over the products we consume.

Eventually trade in our full-time jobs for life on a homestead.