<VV> Gas Mileage

[FrankCB at aol.com]

In a message dated 9/8/2006 3:01:18 AM Eastern Standard Time,  
brentcovey at hotmail.com writes:

This is  on 1970's-1980's fuels, I would expect them to drop ~15% in areas
using  heavily oxygenated fuels today.



Brent,
    Since our gasoline is changing to 10% ethanol,  you're correct that there 
would be a drop in fuel mileage from the lower energy  value of ethanol 
compared to straight gasoline.  However, ethanol has about  70% of the heating 
value of gasoline so with 10% ethanol in the fuel, the  OVERALL heating value 
would be expected to drop only about 3%.  Likewise,  while the octane rating of 
ethanol is a good bit higher than gasoline, with only  10% in the fuel, the 
increase in octane rating is not really significant.
    Frank "crunching numbers"  Burkhard