Daily Caller:
The Biden administration is expected to ease seasonal restrictions on ethanol-gasoline blends but has delayed the change until after the 2024 election to avoid a price spike, according to Reuters.
The rule change stems from a 2022 request from the governors of Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Ohio, South Dakota and Wisconsin to allow the sale of gasoline with 15% ethanol year-round, known as E15 gasoline, lifting current seasonal restrictions that aim to reduce smog in the summer months, according to Reuters. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) had originally set an effective date of April 28, 2024, for the changes when the agency sent the proposal to the White House in December, but that is now expected to be pushed back to 2025. more
That will be great news for us in the small engine repair business. Small engines will destroy themselves with anything over 10% and they really don’t like the 10%.
Lots of overheating issues on air cooled engines and poor burning.
Many of our commercial users avoid ethenol blends altogether by using rec blends or canned fuels(very expensive) plus ethenol blended fuels have very poor storage properties as they tend to absorb moisture from atmosphere.
Lots of people are starting to use electric riders and are disappointed when they find we won’t work on them. We’re mechanics not electricians.
Wouldn’t easing restrictions lead to softening of prices, if anything?
Ethenol is more expensive than gas plus the fact they use a food source when there are so many other alternatives is plain stupid.
Ethanol fuel is one of the biggest scams ever perpetrated on the American public. It takes more energy to produce ethanol than it yields. All to prop up the big ag corn producers. We get screwed again by the politicians, mainly republicans from the states mentioned in the article.
You also get less MPG on ethenol blended fuels than straight gasoline.
Significant MPG loss on E85 blends. Ethenol was in reality just a cave in to the farming lobby.
Older cars are not compatible with E-15 either, but that’s likely seen as a feature and not a bug.
That’s a lot of words just to say “increased corn growers subsidy”.
Fuck Joe Biden!
Thankfully, I live in the coastal SC Lowcountry, so every other C-Store has Marine Gasoline, no ethanol.
Ethanol is one of the many things that if you follow the science, it make no sense. Follow the money, ADM and Cargill pay out $Millions in lobbying money.
One gallon of Ethanol has 34% less energy than a gallon of gasoline.
Ethanol is also hydrophilic, drawing moisture out of the air. If it sits in a gas can/tank 30 60 90 days, it will draw enough water to be useless.
Ethanol burns way slower than gasoline. To properly burn Ethanol in an engine, requires engine modifications. The valve timing in the engine needs to be changed. Many newer vehicles have Variable valve timing (VVT), more complicated, less dependable, higher repair costs. The majority of the Ethanol burns in the catalytic converter, not the engine.
In 1981 Cadillac had the 8-6-4 engine, designed to turn off cylinders that weren’t needed. Small improvement in mileage, but was abandoned after one year.
There are many fuel efficient carburetor patents, that proved they work. All have been bought up by fuel and auto companies. They really don’t want better fuel mileage. The gov’t doesn’t want it either. If all the cars doubled their mileage, it would half their tax revenue.
The most fuel efficient design requires fuel vaporization. Preheating the gas above the flash point, before injecting it into the cylinder. The most famous is Pogue Carburetor, boosting 200 mpg. The story is, he was offered a large sum of money to be quite.
More here.
https://fuel-efficient-vehicles.org/energy-news/?page_id=986/
bureaucratic rules can be cancelled by the president
Cmn¢¢guy – It was introduced to help ease “shortages”… and to help out corn farmers.
When I worked in Brazil in the 80s/90s they ran cars on Alcool (corn alcohol). They also used everything from gasoline, diesel, LNG, propane and horses because fuel was so expensive. Anyway the Brazilian climate helped because alcohol was useless in cold weather, but there were still a lot of pain-in-the-ass problems with water due to the hydroscopic properties of alcohol.
Hygroscopic
Ethanol effectively waters down gasoline, it dilutes its energy density. They couldn’t do it with H2O itself, otherwise they would have.
But rest assured, the ENTIRE membership of the US Senate obscenely enriched themselves by investing “wisely” to take advantage of this EPIC CRIME against the environment and the endeavors of the honest public.
every pump where I live has a Regular(no ethanol) selection. you pay about 25-35 cents a gal more but you have none of the problems of ethanol laiden fuel.