Almost every station I go to has ethanol (up to 10%) added to gas. For a long time I had the option in my area to buy non ethanol gas but now it’s harder to find.
If a gallon of ethanol gets less mileage per volume than gasoline, then how is it better for the environment if I have to fill that much sooner on gas because the ethanol component lowers my tank range?
In: 101
Engineering Explained on youtube did a really interesting video on ethanol added to gasoline about a week and a half ago. You can look it up on your own, but it is very not ELI5. The tl;dr though is that E10 is basically worthless, while E20 and higher is actually capable of slightly improving fuel economy despite being less energy dense. This is due to various other characteristics and effects ethanol has, which EE’s video explains.
Worth noting, however, is that part of getting more efficiency out of ethanol involves higher compression ratios.
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