[mdoyle]

Don't confuse "power" with mileage, in other words, while E85 and other variants of ethanol are higher octane and will tolerate higher mechanical compression ratios (that's where power comes in), their BTU yield is lower than gasoline.

Without modifying the compression ratio, you'll see less power and lower mileage. If you were to swap pistons to achieve something like a 10:1 ratio, you'd get more power, but the mileage would still suffer from the lower BTU yield of what you were burning.

You can't break the laws of thermodynamics, less BTU's = less total output.

When someone says "we saw a 5% increase in output" without telling the whole story, they're misleading you. Sure, they saw a 5% increase in output but they burned about 28% more fuel to get it.

All the pro-ethanol people should consider what they're doing to the food markets, the price of beef and even beer has already risen due to the shift in crop demand. The impact on the environment from irrigation alone just to support E85 production should be enough to shut up the leaf lickers, but it doesn't.

The E85 bandwagon should have it's wheels knocked off, it yields less, it cost more to produce and still requires subsidation; lastly, it negatively impacts the food supply and environment.

It is not the answer to independence from foreign oil, flex fuel turbine / electric designs are (but they don't have the huge lobby E85 does).