Why I Want To Burn E85 In My Car

1. Robust fuel competition would improve the economic lives of everyone on earth except the lives of the oil sheiks. Because petroleum has a virtual monopoly on transportation fuel worldwide, OPEC can raise the cost of living across the board, harming people in developing countries most severely and depressing the economy of developed countries. Everyone is poorer (except the sheiks and transnational oil companies).

2. I want to encourage fuel competition, and E85 is the only fuel competing with petroleum, so I want to support the alternative, and encourage its expansion, with the idea of making E85 the thin edge of a big wedge that can open the fuel market to many competing fuels. If enough people use E85, it will be profitable for companies to invest in waste-to-fuel plants like the one in Vero Beach, Florida, eliminating a tremendous amount of landfill mass and greenhouse gases.

3. The fuel is cleaner and better for my engine. Cars in Brazil that have been burning ethanol last three times longer than cars burning gasoline, according to David Blume.

4. The exhaust from burning ethanol is less polluting and less toxic, saving lives and improving the health of everyone and every living thing.

5. I would rather give my fuel dollars to American workers who spend that money in America than Saudi princes who spend that money on the spread of Islamic extremism.

6. Real competition among fuels would lower gas prices. Right now both ethanol and methanol could be sold much cheaper than gasoline if we had enough cars using it. Gas prices would have to come down to compete.

7. Reducing gas prices would reduce the incomes of the repressive governments of Saudi Arabia, Iran, Qatar, among others — governments that severely limit women’s rights. So fuel competition could lead to the overthrow of those regimes and potentially free millions of women who are now living in virtual slavery.

8. I want to recruit others to the cause (creating robust fuel competition in America) and the best way to do it is set an example — to go first and find out how it works so I can share it with friends. When someone puts E85 in their car they become more committed to the cause and are more likely to support an open fuel standard, which would create nationwide fuel competition at the stroke of a pen.

Adam Khan is the co-author with Klassy Evans of Fill Your Tank With Freedom and the author of Slotralogy and Self-Reliance, Translated. Follow his podcast, The Adam Bomb.