I lost 3 miles per gallon when I started using 10% Ethanol fuel.

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Sign Petition - Ethanol-Free E0 Fuel Choice


Just wait until its 15% Ethanol .............................

 

The final date to submit your signature on the petition was December 31, 2012....

 

I think they put a hold on roll out of E15, I think its a state to state requirement and living in the Chicago area E15 does not meet summer RFG regulations so I am hoping it does not show up. E10 has been here for 40 years and that is why I use premium especially BP because its better than the E10 regular fuel.

 

If your state happens to be like mine and does not require the fuel stations to post the ethanol % start writing to the Government now.

I just know they will try to slip in E15 on us without saying a word . . . . .

 

I thought the same thing when I heard E15 was coming out anyways, but E15 does not meet the RFG requirements set here. There is to many people that would test the fuel and it would be a big story here because we are paying a lot more for the RFG gas that we are forced to use.

Maybe the BP mess up was E15 but that cost them customers and rose the price for a few months with no premium for weeks and then raised the price 50 cents more compared to regular.

 

Say what you will about E10, but right now there isn't much on the table to replace ethanol as an oxygenate additive to cut down on smog. MTBE has been pretty much banned because of problems with groundwater contamination, so looks like ethanol will be the cheapest alternative for some time to come.

E15 is an entirely different story. The EPA has not expressed any intent to mandate 15% ethanol blends. The E15 story is about a waiver to allow stations to sell E15 *if* they choose to. *But* all stations choosing to do so are mandated to have an E10 pump, and must *only* sell E15 for use in cars of model year 2001 and newer (or was it 2006 and newer?).

There are quite a few other restrictions and rules in place for any stations that want to sell E15, but the EPA waiver simply makes it legal for them to do so. It does *not* mandate E15.

I couldn't care less what anyone else wants to put in their car, but there's a lot of misinformation about this whole thing.

 

Huh so ethanol is for pollution reasons? I always though it was to water the gas down to make it cheaper?

 

It is to water the gas down ! It's a way to give you/me less BTUs for the same buck. British thermal units (the meassure of energy per volume) cost money. That the way it is. I have a Geo Metro that lost an honest 3 miles per US gallon once gas went to E10. Another guy with same model lost the exact same here in the lower southeast US. Him in SC , and me in north central FL. . We know each other from Ecomodder. Thats were I learned about fitfreak.net too.

 

The problem with your complaint is the "for the same buck" part. The e0 isn't going to cost the same in practice. If e0 is available bt more expensive are you going to buy it?

 

So your saying no ethanol fuel should cost the same as e10 or e15? I dont think so. The whole point to adding that stuff, that if im not mistaken is made of american corn, is so that IT IS cheaper which is good for the economy.

 

The argument that ethanol is used to "water down" fuel is spurious at best, and outright lies at worst. Both sides of the debate spread information that may not be completely accurate, and lobbyists on both sides are guilty of borderline-bribery and lying.

Ethanol, per gallon, contains about 30% less heat energy than "pure" gasoline (depending on the quality of the gasoline). Therefore, shifting to E10 should, on a properly tuned and well-functioning car, result in about 3% worse fuel mileage.

On the other hand, if the refinery blends the ethanol with lower-quality fuel (which is extremely common), you could see even worse trends. For this reason and others, I typically fill up with 93 octane fuel. I have yet to see a 3 MPG drop since switching to 93. As a bonus, my torque and response are slightly improved, so the car is more fun to drive. My cost per mile is almost identical with 87 octane, so the extra $3.30 per tank is totally worth it to me.

 

I kinda get what you are saying, But, All I know is when you change a go cart to an alcohol racer (useing same engine)you have to double the main jet diameter,telling me that you need almost twice as much to do almost the same job. That tells me alcohol has about half the bang per meassure gasoline does. For what ever reason they are telling us they are doing it it makes us buy more fuel to go the same distance as we used to go pre E days. Just think how a couple of %age points adds up when your talking the entire world and or country. I could be wrong but it seems to add up to just that in the end. No ? Small changes make big profit margin differences to oil companies. And they have some of the best spin doctors to sell us this dream with some popular sounding eco explaination. So don't be embarrassed if you feel like you've been tricked. I know it sounds paranoid. But you better be paranoid in todays business environment.

 

um, it's not the oil companies this time.

It's all of Iowa and the heartland of america and the corn farmers. Then the conspiracy goes from there if you want to hook in agri-business like Monsanto.
If you've got political leanings, you can probably also hook in why marijuana is outlawed as part of the conspiracy too.

Point is, if you're going to point out who's to blame for ethanol, at least get in the general ballpark.

 

Ever think of how much petroleum products are used just to make ethanol? Fertilizer, diesel for the farm equipment, processing and diesel to transport it. Doesn't seem to really fix any of our problems.

 

OK, compare this.
GT racing.
Pro road racing series has a "Green Racing" Corvette team.
They are allowed a 120 liter fuel tank.
The other race cars in that class have a 90 liter fuel tank.
This allows the "same" run time/distance as calculated by the sanctioning body.
Check it out, Paul

 

The only good use for the stuff (if its made out of biomass instead of corn) is for making electricity.

 

Lots of good points.

If you're talking about a low-tech go-kart engine, of course you'll have to double the jet size, because you're not bothering to optimize compression ratio or ignition timing. If you want to do an alcohol conversion right, you need to do more than just switch out the jets.

I've read more on ethanol than you might think, and I've crunched some very interesting numbers. There is merit in using ethanol instead of gasoline, but there are about 50 other factors that make this whole discussion more complicated than most people realize.

For example, yes. Alcohol burns incredibly cleanly. You don't even need a catalyst in the exhaust, which increases power delivery and reduces pollution by removing the need to manufacture the catalyst.

For another, yes. Oil products are being used in this country to grow the corn. Yes, much--but not all--of the alcohol in the USA is taken from cornstarch, which is much less efficient than from, say sugarcane.

For another, yes. The oil and corn lobbyists are both trying to make money off the whole thing. Oil companies have and agenda. Corn companies have an agenda.

Another point: you cannot make oil in your backyard (without specialized equipment and, say, a Ph.D. in chemistry). You *can* make alcohol in your backyard with a little bit of stuff you grow in your garden and a little bit of plumbing.

What will you burn in your car when "pure" gasoline is $9.00 a gallon? And it *will*come to that. It's already that much in Europe.

My favorite point of all this is:

no matter what you like to fill up with, you're wasting nearly all of it, because nearly every car on the planet is horribly inefficient. 100 MPG is the low end of what we should be getting in cars the size of the Fit.

Basic math and physics.

 

I really think there should be more range extended vehicles until the infrastructure for electric vehicles is in place. It would be awesome to have 300+ range in a vehicle that uses only electric motors for propulsion. At that point I wouldn't care if my .5L Atkinson cycle engine used exclusively to recharge the batteries ran on E10.

 

Ha, well if we're going to get idealistic, we need to get off the gssoline high horse and go for diesel.

As a counter argument, a lot of owners and cars in china have converted their cars to compressed lng which is even less energy dense. Why? Because its cheaper per mile. That's the final number people care sbout.

 

Better yet, go CNG!
Honda have a CNG Civic.
One dealer is Houston handles that line.
Snotty, self-assured, take-it-or-leave-it sales jerk at that dealership, not willing to come off his high horse, and they "add" custom unwanted junk to inflate the costs.

Doesn't Ford have dual fuel vehicles?
Mainly commercial, I'm sure.

Paul