Ok just did a little road trip where we calculated our mileage using a GPS. This started as a debate between me and an old college bud. I was talking about how much BS ethanol is as it has roughly 55,000 btu's less per gallon. He thought that was far fetched so we decided to use this opportunity to find out. Went through two tanks of regular 87 octane and two tanks of E85. This was in a 2008 Jeep commander 4x4 with 4.7L v8.

During the two tanks of gas we averaged around 18.3 mpg all highway. We drove speed limits and cruise control. We then filled up on E85. On two tanks of E85 we averaged 12.1mpg.

So we basically saw roughly a 30% decrease in mpg. After doing a little searching we found out we were almost dead on the EPA mpg. They stated 18 and 12 respectively. His has a couple mods which might have helped mpg.

Based on 15k miles a year, now using EPA numbers, the gas would cost you $1778. The E85 would run you $4230. The amount of pollution for the gas would be 13.1 ton and 11.1 tons for the E85. So essentially for a 30%-40% reduction in MPG, a 240% increase in cost, you get around 15% reduction in green house emissions.

What's the point of this junk? You can focus on increasing the utilized power of gas and easily get that 15% back.