Switch to Flex Fuel? Consult the Cornulator!

Maybe hybrid’s the way to go. Or maybe flex-fuel. How about just a small but economical sedan?

Ever since gas crossed over the $3 threshold in mid-August, I’ve been flirting with the idea of a new car. Gas prices are dropping as fast as they rose, so it’s possible the emergency is over.

NOT! We continue to import 47 million barrels of oil a year. The Saudis have us over a barrel. As do the Nigerians and Venezuelans. They count on American gas-hoggery to fuel their regimes. If I knew where to go, I’d buy all my gas from Venezuela, the least obnoxious of all the oil states. It’s enjoyable to see the way Hugo Chavez pulls the chain of George Bush and his cohorts. Citgo, apparently, is the company that uses the most Venezuelan petroleum, but the closest Citgo to my house is 100 miles away in Denver.

The best of the hybrids is the funny-looking Toyota Prius. They do sell the Prius in Cheyenne, although you have to negotiate ranks of big trucks and SUVs to get back to the far corner of the dealer’s lot where they stash the little cars. I believe it was on an episode of "The Simpsons" where one of the characters drove around in a "Pious." A Dem couple I know bought matching Priuses and seem quite happy with the mileage and the teardrop design and do seem to have a slightly pious attitude as they roll noiselessly down the street. Dem or not, I cringe when I imagine me in a Prius. I pull up to A TOUGH FORD TRUCK and get the evil eye from the driver. Sure I could say, "Eat your heart out, you gas-guzzling redneck!" The words would still be ricocheting around the car’s simple Japanese interior as the truck crushed me under its massive wheels on its way to the next gas stop.

Maybe I could trade in my 2000 Dodge Caravan for a nice economical American car, such as my wife's Saturn Ion. All my cars have been American. At least, they were made by American car companies – no telling how many offshore parts went into them. But things aren’t looking real good for Ford and Chrysler and all the rest. I’m sure I could get a good deal of a Focus or a Stratus or Cobalt or whatever. But is this what I really want?

No. I want to sock it to the oil producers, no matter which continent they’re on. I also want to zap all their pals in the U.S. government, especially Wyoming’s own oil baron, Dick Cheney.
So I’ve been studying the so-called flexible fuel vehicles, FFV for short. General Motors has a huge ad campaign, "Live Green, Go Yellow," and boasts it has 1.5 million FFVs on the road. All U.S. carmakers either have FFVs or will have in their 2007 models. One major problem is the lack of gas stations that stock the 85-percent ethanol blend, or E85. Consulting the National Ethanol Vehicle Coalition web site, I found only four Wyoming stations: Cheyenne, Laramie, Torrington, and Mammoth in Yellowstone National Park. I was happy that Cheyenne had at least one outlet, if I did decide to go FFV. Still, what if supplies grew short, maybe some horrible pest decimated the Great Plains corn crop and led to an emergency on the scale of th Irish Potato Famine? Not to worry – FFVs can also run on unleaded gasoline.


I was surprised to learn that my other home state of Florida just opened its first E85 station, this one in the state capital of Tallahassee. According to NEVC, Gov. Jeb Bush attended the dedication and said this: "Securing a diverse and reliable supply of energy will reduce Florida's dependence on imported oil and ensure that a balanced mix of fuel sources and technologies are available for years to come. The tremendous potential of ethanol to become a major source of transportation fuel for Florida's energy future will be spurred with greater public access to ethanol fuelling stations."

Wonder if he could whisper this in his brother’s ear?

While I was pondering my motoring future, I stopped to gas up. Lately, I’ve only been pumping three or four gallons at a time, hoping the prices continue to fall. I popped open the fuel door and happened to notice a sign that read: "UNLEADED GASOLINE OR E85 ONLY: This vehicle is capable of operating on ethanol fuel. See owner’s manual."

Flabbergasted, I pulled out my owner’s manual and there it was. I owned a flex fuel vehicle, one of the first made by Dodge. My vehicle, a "muscle van," had the largest Caravan engine – 3.3 liter – and that’s the only one of this model-year that was equipped for 85 percent ethanol. What a strange revelation. It was as if I just found out that my house was powered by invisible windmills – or that my roof shingles were really solar panels.

The owner’s manual had a few caveats. Never switch fuels on less that a quarter tank – and make sure you ruin the vehicle for at least five minutes after fueling. E85 is not recognized for temperatures below zero degrees Fahrenheit (hey -- I live in Wyoming!). The manual also said I also might experience difficulty starting the van. My mileage could be expected to drop 20-30 percent. And I had to be sure to buy a special oil blend for the crankcase.

Other than that, I was clear to start gassing up with corn-based fuel. Ah, my van, powered by corn from the Iowa soil my gradfather once farmed. We don’t grow much corn in WYO. We don’t grow much of anything. But who cares, as long as it comes from the U.S.A. and not an oil sheikdom in TerroristLand. When I visited the GM web site, they had a cornulator that shows how much oil you save and how many corn cobs you use when switching to E85. They don’t have any FFV minivans, so I calculated savings with a 2006 Chevy Tahoe. The cornulator showed I would save nine barrels of oil annually and use almost 12,000 cobs. New batches of E85 are being brewed from sawdust and grain chaff and other organic byproducts. Ethanol distilleries are just huge stills, after all. You can probably make the stuff with potato peelings, zucchini (mass quantities available from your neighbors every summer), and lawn clippings.

I drove to the only E85 station in Cheyenne. The price on the green pump was $2.63 a gallon, a few cents more than I just paid for 87 octane unleaded at my friendly Loaf ‘n’ Jug store. I didn’t fill up then, as I still had some cogitating to do. But I did know one thing. When I was ready for E85, my van would be too. That’s good to know after five years of tooling around in my Yuppie van, oblivious to its ability to make me feel superior to my gas-guzzling neighbors.