Day 2: Lincoln, NE to Wheaton, IL

Image of the day: This is me after a full day of sweating in the car. My shirt would go well with a lime and a shot of tequila.

Trip meter at start of day: 505.2 miles
Gas: $2.879/gal

Claire and I made good time today, leaving Lincoln at 8:45 a.m. and arriving in Wheaton, IL, a Chicago suburb, at 5:30 p.m. The biggest thing slowing us down was having to repeatedly fill up the U-Haul's tank. The truck gets about nine miles per gallon, compared to the Sentra's 25. In an attempt to get better mileage and to pay less for gas, I tried out a fuel that is fairly unique to the Midwest: ethanol fuel.

Ethanol 10 has been getting more publicity in the news, but I had never put any in my car. I decided to try it in the truck today for two reasons. First, it had a higher octane rating, which presumably would give me better performance. Second, it was cheaper than regular gas; while 87 octane unleaded gas cost $2.879, gas with 89 octane and 10 percent ethanol cost $2.659.

I tried out the ethanol gas, and while I didn't calculate my exact mileage with the fuel, it appeared that I got worse performance with ethanol than without it. When we arrived in Wheaton at my cousins' house, I asked my uncle Bill some questions about the cheaper fuel. Bill, who works at a chemical company, told me that ethanol fuels actually deliver fewer miles to the gallon than regular gasoline.

"But it's cheaper," I said. "So maybe it doesn't give better miles to the gallon, but does it give better miles to the dollar?"

"Nope," Bill said.

"So the only real benefit is political," I said.

"Yes." It turns out, Bill said, that ethanol-mixed fuels have been available in the Midwest for years. They are big in the Midwest because they're made from corn, and they're mostly unavailable in other parts of the country because of the cost of shipping ethanol across the nation, which is high because ethanol cannot be transported in pipelines. However, American farmers benefit from ethanol because of the increased demand for corn, and America as a whole benefits from being slightly less dependent on imported oil from the Middle East, Venezuela and Russia. Supporting ethanol-based fuel (and placing high tariffs on the same product imported from Brazil and China) is a political win-win, even if the benefits outside the political realm are minimal.

Later in the trip, I'll try to calculate whether or not E-10 is actually any good for the consumer in terms of miles per dollar. In the meantime, it seems to only be good for a small-scale political statement.