More bad news, ethanol in gas going to 15%

"The Environmental Protection Agency granted a request from ethanol producers to raise the amount of the corn-based additive in gasoline for vehicles made for the 2001 model year and later. Refiners will be permitted to add as much as 15% ethanol, up from 10%, the EPA said in an e-mailed statement. The agency in October allowed the 15% blend for vehicles made for 2007 and later."

This sucks. E10 is bad enough, E15 is worse.

I have been buying ethanal free gas for my scooters for years it is only to be used in motorcycles , any small gas engines collector cars , antique cars , boats, snowmobiles, lawnmowers, scooters . This is just one web site with a list of gas station in the USA and Canada. www.pure-gas.org check it out .

The only gas listed in Canada as ethanol free is Shell Premium 91 octane. I might now use that in my Swing as the last fill-up in the Fall before winterizing.

In Oregon the only ethanol free gas available is 92 octane. There aren't a lot of stations selling it and it's usually about half a buck higher than the 10% crap. I think the pressure to go to 15% is dropping regardless of what the EPA says. There have been several people in the Senate and House saying the ethanol thing was a mistake. Not to mention that great inventor of the internet and oracle of global warming, Al Gore, himself who recently said that ethanol was a mistake. I can hardly wait until he says global warming was a mistake too.

I'm happy that I'm in germany...
Last year they want to introduce E10 but the ADAC (German Automobil Club, i think the 2nd biggest in the World) stopped E10 because most of the cars don't had an approval.
This year, the most of the cars have the approval they introduce the E10 but they also sell the "old" E5. They stop to sell 92 Octane (it costs the same like 95 Octane) and sell instead of this 95 Octane E10 parralel to 95 Octane E5 and the (very pricy) 100 Octane Premium Fuel...

And i think they will never introduce E15 if not enough cars have the approval for this and at the moment i know no car that have this!

E10 is not a good deal for the environment or for consumers. But, it does make the 'feel good' crowd happy because it feels like they are doing something good.

Removes food from the market - guess the starving population of the world likes that.

Requires government subsudies to make it price competitive. Fortunately we're not broke or borrowing money just for day to day operation of our government !

May actually be more carbon emmission heavy to produce a gallon of E10 enhanced fuel than to produce a gallon of E10 free fuel.

Granted it is a very complicated issue, but one thing is certain it does make internal combustion engines less efficient. May also cause deterioration of rubber and plastic bits over time.

From reading the above, it may seem that here in the UK we are lucky for once! According to the font of all knowledge 'Motor Mouth Clarkson' of Top Gear fame, there are only 20 garages in the whole of the UK that sell this muck.......

Our government seems content to screw us all on unleaded fuels, autogas (again if you can find a station) and diesel. It would be a joke if it wasn't so flipping expensive!

I say with all seriousness that in 25-30 years times the rich guys in UK will be riding around on Horses, the rest of us will be walking behind! There is no coherant planning being put in place for the replacement of fossil fuels, except the construction of a few extra nuc powerstations, and even then the tree huggers are up in arms about that to! I wonder what they are going to do when they arrive home from a hard days lobbying outside some distant power plant and discover that there is not hot water in the tap, the phone lines don't work, the TV & Radio is off etc. etc. The cost of calling an ambulance is more than a years wages!

This country and many more like it are heading back to the 19th centuary...... The human race can put a man on the moon but can't even solve such a basic need, ya gotta laugh

wingmann wrote:

I have been buying ethanal free gas for my scooters for years it is only to be used in motorcycles , any small gas engines collector cars , antique cars , boats, snowmobiles, lawnmowers, scooters . This is just one web site with a list of gas station in the USA and Canada. www.pure-gas.org check it out .

I have looked at pure-gas.org before and there is a station near me that purportedly sells non-ethanol gas but when I asked them about it they didn't know anything about it. The state of Missouri requires ALL gas have at least 10% ethanol. Not to say that pure-gas.org is complete bunk, but it is user supplied information and not necessarily 100% reliable.

smorkle wrote:
"but it is user supplied information and not necessarily 100% reliable."
Did you go in and edit it to remove the faulty information

The state of Minnesota all so requires 10% ethanol and the state has a provision for small gas engines and collector cars motorcycles only and it is stated on the ethanol free pump. I only listed one web site . If you do some web searchs you will find more then one web site with ethanol free gas stations we have a lot of stations that offer it here . You just have to look for it . Make a list of them in your area off of the web sites some week end . Use that as an excuse to go for a joy ride on your Silverwing and see for your self the stations on your list that do or do not have it or you could just call all of them but calling them is not as much fun as driving the silverwing two or three hours. Just because the one station in your area on the list does not have it does not mean it is a bogus web site I found some stations in my area this way.

I need to go to the website and see if there are any stations in California without the 10% ethanol. But California is about as strict as they come when it comes to gas. Thanks for the link Wingmann..and if the site says there are some close by but don't have it, I won't think that the site is bogus. It seems that when riders go up to Oregon and fill up they always get about 5 mpg more or even better.

Ethanol is not widely used in Oz at the moment.
We have Unleaded 91, 95 and BP has 98 as well. I run 91 in the TS, and the Swing and 95 0r 98 in the MuZ which runs better on the higher stuff.
The Swing does not seem to benefit one way or the other, so I save a few bucks running it on 91.

The 91 is the bread and butter stuff under constant price scrutiny and varies greatly daily whereas the petrochem basta errr suppliers use the 95 and 98 for their profiteering ventures.

We also run LPG in the cars which is cheap and available nearly everywhere.

KurtPerthWA wrote:

We have Unleaded 91, 95 and BP has 98 as well. I run 91 in the TS, and the Swing and 95 0r 98 in the MuZ which runs better on the higher stuff.
The Swing does not seem to benefit one way or the other, so I save a few bucks running it on 91.

The 91 is the bread and butter stuff

I wonder if your octane rating system in Oz is different than in N.America? Our bread and butter gasoline is 87 octane, and our premium is 91. This is in Canada. One company here has been using ethanol for years before it was gov't mandated. Their premium is 93 due to the higher ethanol content. BTW, we're sitting at $1.09 Cdn per litre as we speak for 87. Ouch!

I think if you Google OCTANE it'll show the different systems used in various parts of the world, Bigbird.

As for the price, in the Telegraph today they're predicting £1.50pl shortly in the UK - that's 2.38 Canadian dollars.

In some out-lying places it's already reached that.

60% of the price is tax.

3.78541178 litres per gallon, so that's $4.12 Cdn which = $4.14 USD Ouch. We are at $2.92 USD for 87 Octane E10 gas here. The national average is $3.15 I think.

Well, Tennessee has plenty of ethanol-free gas stations(if you can believe the signs,) but alas, they all have absolutely FILTHY restrooms.

I don't like the 10% ethanol gas because it gives worse gas mileage. I know it's only 34% less energy stored so it's only 3.4% worse gas mileage per gallon of E10, but as someone who tracks his mileage it's aggravating to have different standards. And if those stations go to 15% ethanol, the MPG difference will be 5.1%. Ugh.

Since E10 gas is 3.4% less expensive than Ethanol free, I guess it's a wash.

Edit: Mike O jumped in with the UK info:
£1.5 per litre = £5.67811767 per Gallon. That's $9.09 USD per gallon.

Just for price comparison purposes.

OK, I got the octane thing sorted out. The Ozzies use RON (Research Octane Number). In the civilized world (Canada), ha-ha-ha, we use the average of Research Octane Number and Motor Octane Number, which we refer to as just the "Octane Number".

87 ON = 91 RON

So we are comparing apples to apples, or in the case of our friends down under, kiwis to kiwis.

BTW, how's the cleanliness of public bathrooms in Oz?

The February 2011 issue of Popular Mechanics has an article on ethanol fuel and it isn't positive - like we need more issues. I believe this article is also available on the Popular Mechanics website.

I know at least one of my scoots has the recommendation to fill the tank for winter storage - if you can't get non-ethanol fuel - may want to re-think this. Being in MN and close to a station that sells non-ethanol premium, I haven't had to worry yet but MN has had a law on the books to go to E15 - not sure if the exception for classic cars and small engines continues.

Rick V

I'm not sure this is going to happen. There's a lot of push back against ethanol in Congress right now. I really expect the advent of the 15% stuff to be delayed and eventually dropped. At worse they aren't likely to make it the only available gas.