This site has almost everything you need to know about E85 fuel

[LTR]

Believe it or not, there is an alternative fuel technology that is more abundant than hybrid, biodiesel or any other kind of alternative fuel technology. Over 4.5 million vehicles on the road today can already use this fuel, without any alterations. It is an option offered by many of the big automobile manufacturers with no additional cost to the consumer.

This fuel is made in the USA, and mostly consists of domestic natural resources, which are renewable.

This mystery fuel is called E85, or Ethanol 85. Many of you have heard of it, but it is something that isn't widely reported in the media. Or at least not as much as hybrid technologies are.

For those of you not familiar with it, you may be asking, what is E85?

E85 is the term for motor fuel blends of 85 percent ethanol and just 15 percent gasoline. E85 is an alternative fuel as defined by the U.S. Department of Energy. Besides its superior performance characteristics, ethanol burns cleaner than gasoline; it is a completely renewable, domestic, environmentally friendly fuel that enhances the nation's economy and energy independence.

The negatives? Not enough gas stations offer E85, and you will experience a decline in MPG with E85 due to ethanol's burning characteristics. But it is cheaper per gallon than regular gasoline, and it's high octane content (105-110) will give your vehicle a little horsepower boost.

You can find out which vehicles are made with flex-fuel capability here:

http://www.e85fuel.com/e85101/flexfuelvehicles.php

You can find out more about E85 here, including a listing of stations that sell it:

http://www.e85fuel.com/index.php

Unfortunately, not every station has E85, due to the infrastructure, lack of refineries, the oil industry, and general politics. But it is a simple alternative fuel that many vehicles can already run on, and I think it definitely has a lot of potential.

E85 may grow in the next few years, especially due to the efforts of some in both parties of Congress, particularly Barack Obama of Illinois. This is something that everyone should get behind.

[Viking12]

1. Wow, sounds great. Oh wait nevermind, there's that pesky EROEI problem

Ethanol is an energy loser especially when derived from corn.

[LTR]

2. Yes, but...

...how does it compare to the power used to refine petroleum? Or other products?

[Viking12]

3. Compared to oil....

In physics and energy economics, EROEI (energy returned on energy invested) is the ratio between the amount of energy expended to obtain a resource, compared with the amount of energy obtained from that resource. When the EROEI of a resource becomes 1 or less, that energy source becomes an energy sink and can no longer be used as a primary source of energy.

For example, when oil was originally discovered, it took on average one barrel of oil to find, extract, and process about 100 barrels of oil. That ratio has declined steadily over the last century to about 3 in the US (and about 10 in Saudi Arabia) - ultimately this ratio will fall under one, necessitating the modern world to switch to other forms of energy to power civilization.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EROEI

I can't find a decent link for end products, IIRC the genrally accepted figure is > 10% energy loss in oil refining.