Day 12: Moonshine Truck Ride

Gas Prices Putting It In Park Day 12 of Putting It In Park is riding in a truck fueled by gas and alcohol. You might know this biofuel better as E85.

by Tiffany Craig

Published: Mon, July 21, 2008 - 5:02 pm CST Last Updated: Mon, July 21, 2008 - 8:43 pm CST

We are now up to day 12 of Putting It In Park!

Don Evans sent me an email during the weekend. He invited me to come and and see his alternative fuel station. I agreed to check it out but I told him I needed a ride over! He agreed.

On Monday, Evans picks us up in his Chevy Silverado truck. It's fueled by a mixture of gasoline and ethanol called E85.

Evans describes the mix "E85 is 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline. Ethanol is an alcohol, 100%. Some people might call it moonshine. Some people call it hooch."

Day number 12 of Putting It In Park, riding in a moonshine truck. E85 is already used in some government vehicles and now available at a public pump near you.

Evans opened South Alabama's first flexible fuel station on Airport Boulevard at Cody Road. Click here to learn more about the gas station and plans for an additional station in Mobile.

Evans believes the alternative fuel stations are the wave of the future. "Ethanol is made from switch grass, sugar cane, corn, pine trees and it's mainly produced in the Midwest. It's a renewable resource. So we can grow it year after year and we don't have to be dependent on other countries that have oil."

The local price for E85 is $3.69 a gallon. Evans expects that cost to go down as he brings in more supply. He says it's also better for the environment! "When you use this fuel, what escapes back into the atmosphere is used by plants, trees and grass to produce more fuel."

Only flex fuel approved vehicles can use E85. Check your owner's manual to see if you can use flex fuel or look for a bright yellow gas cap on your car.

If you want to learn more about E85 or check the database to see if your car can use flex fuel, click here

This method of biofuel has its critics. E85 is shown to lower you gas mileage by a mile or two a gallon and is currently expensive to produce. Some believe that E85 will deplete the country's food supply.

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BamaBob Says:

Tue, Jul 22, 2008 at 4:53 am

I think Brazil uses sugar cane as its primary source for ethanol. Maybe that is something to look at. Corn is used in a very, very large portion of the foods we consume each and every day. It is also used to feed the livestock that ends up on our tables. That sets the stage for future conflicts.
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They need to look at other fast growing crops that might have the right ingredients for ethanol.

DEW26M Says:

Tue, Jul 22, 2008 at 4:42 am

BamaBob that’s a great idea, if you can get enough natural sugars from the Kudzu it should work. Lord knows we got enough Kudzu growing around Mobile to make a few thousand gallons!

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Kudzu was introduced from Japan into the United States in 1876 at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition, where it was promoted as a forage crop and an ornamental plant. From 1935 to the early 1950s the Soil Conservation Service encouraged farmers in the southeastern United States to plant kudzu to reduce soil erosion as above, and the Civilian Conservation Corps planted it widely for many years.
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However, it would soon be discovered that the southeastern US has near-perfect conditions for kudzu to grow out of control — hot, humid summers, frequent rainfall, temperate winters with few hard freezes (kudzu cannot tolerate low freezing temperatures that bring the frost line down through its entire root system, a rare occurrence in this region), and no natural predators.

BamaBob Says:

Mon, Jul 21, 2008 at 7:21 pm

Isn’t there a BIG question about ethanol depleting our food supplies, i.e. corn? Why can’t they use kudzu to make this stuff, if all it has to do is ferment long enough to make grain alcohol?