Well, my relatives are farmers and finally they are making some dough. The reason for ethanol push is to stretch out fuel reserves. That should make the conservatives happy more money for the working rich...
My experience with 10% ethanol is it reduced my gas mileage a solid 20%. I just got my Versa so I'm not sure what the impact would be with this car.
Based on that; it logically follows that I'm burning more pure gasoline per mile when using the ethanol blend. For example:
10 gal pure gas @ 24mpg will take me 240 mi.
11 gal 10% ethanol fuel (10 gal gas + 1 gal pure ethanol) @ 20 mpg takes me 220 mi
To add insult to injury - I've found the ethanol fuel typically costs the same or more than pure gas. So, even at the same price (using $4/gal for easy calc.) I spend $40 for 10 gal of pure gas and $44 for 11 gal. of the blend. That works out to:
$40 to travel 240 miles = $0.17/mile
$44 to travel 220 miles = $0.20/mile
Therefore, I'm spending more money for each mile I travel and I'm using more of our natural resources (oil/gas) in the process.
Maybe there is an air quality component that's not factored into this? It certainly benefits "Big Corn". I can't seem to make it work financially.