More than a year ago, the ethanol industry hit the “blend wall”: the difference between what they could produce and what the market wanted to use. This despite billions in tax credits: direct and indirect federal and state subsidies. All enabled by a federal mandate mandating that the ethanol boys brew nine billion gallons of renewable fuels in 2008, rising to 36 billion by 2022. And then the gas price bubble burst and environmental impact studies arrived, revealing corn-for-fuel as a carbon positive endeavor. The ethanol industry pretty much curled-up into the fetal position. The small players went belly-up. The big boys—including Archer Daniel Midlands (whose corporate jet ferried candidate Obama around the Midwest)—put their hopes into E20.
By doubling the federally-required amount of ethanol in gas, well, voi damn la! Only the blend may damage ICE-equipped transportation. Nothing a few bought and paid for dubious studies can’t cure, right? How do I know that one was dubious? Check out this comment on the Minnesota study:
I work on Biofuels Implementation for GM Powertrain and am very interested in these studies. GM is constantly supporting the production and distribution of ethanol and we feel it’s the best solution for our energy needs right now, but we do need to make sure E20 has been thoroughly tested. More long-term testing is still needed to measure things like driveability, tailpipe emissions and emissions control systems. The Minnesota studies only tested the cars for 3000 hours, which is a lot less than what an OEM requires. I encourage them to keep testing and keep learning more about ethanol.
I wrote a blog for GMnext.com addressing these issues. You can check it out here: http://blog.gmnext.com/?p=93 [ED: I can’t find the post in question.]
Coleman Jones
Manger of Biofuels Implementation, GM Powertrain
Anyway, them’s your battle lines. So upon which side of the fence do the automakers’ reside. Yes! More taxpayer-funded testing yes! [see: above] Here’s the letter from the the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers and the Association of International Automobile Manufacturers:
September 25, 2009
To: Conferees on the Energy and Water Appropriations Bill, H.R. 3183
The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers and the Association of International Automobile Manufacturers write to request that you direct the Department of Energy (DOE) to prioritize its spending so that it may complete some very important testing with ethanol fuels, as explained below.
Automakers support the broader use of alternative fuels in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and increase energy security, and we believe the best way to do so is through the use of diverse fuels and technologies. Currently, more than 12 million alternative fuel automobiles are on our roads and highways, including more than 7 million flexible fuel vehicles capable of using blends of up to 85 percent ethanol. We remain committed to finding the right market solutions for sustainable biofuel use.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is now considering a request to allow more than the current limit of 10% ethanol in gasoline, to further increase ethanol consumption. We believe any proposal to raise ethanol levels before adequate data are available is premature, and since EPA has never allowed conventional vehicles to use higher ethanol blends, the research on their potential impacts on vehicles not designed, tested or warranted for their use is incomplete.
To assure the research is adequate and of sufficient quality, automakers have joined with several other stakeholders to create the “Mid-Level Ethanol Blends Research Coordination Group” (Research Coordination Group). Participants include experts from the auto[1], oil, ethanol, small engine, marine, outdoor power equipment and motorcycle industries, along with experts from DOE and EPA. The group is using EPA recommendations to assess numerous test plans.
The Research Coordination Group has now identified critical information gaps, as well as research overlaps, opportunities for collaboration and funding needs. The Group estimates that $17 million beyond existing allocations will be needed to successfully complete vehicle studies that will provide much needed data for evaluating the effects of adding more ethanol to base fuels. This analysis is the basis for our request, namely, that the Conference Report:
* Direct DOE to spend up to $17M in 2010 to complete the necessary vehicle testing to evaluate the effects of mid-level ethanol blends on legacy vehicles; and
* Direct DOE to reprioritize its 2010 Program Spending to provide this $17M to complete the test program.
With the completion of a well-designed and executed test program, EPA and others would be much better able to determine whether the current 10% ethanol limit can be safely increased.
Thank you for your consideration. We look forward to further discussion with you about, and your support on, this very important issue.
Dave McCurdy Michael Stanton, President & CEO President & CEO
Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers Association of International Automobile Manufacturers
Charles Territo, Senior Director of Communications, Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers
1401 Eye St., NW Suite 900
Washington, DC 20005
202-326-5523
twitter: @charleyterrito
Good article. (I’ll hate to see you go in what, seven weeks now?)
Ethanol has, over the years, shown the dark side of politicians and lobbyists. Looking back at some of the things Bob Dole said as a Kansas senator can disgust one. John McCain’s flip-flop on ethanol before the Iowa primaries also nauseates.
But the worst thing I’ve seen lately is Wesley Clark jumping on the ethanol bandwagon. Like a cheap whore, he’s doing it just for money. I used to respect the man. Not any more.
Ethanol has attracted a lot of sketchy characters around it. Three years ago I was hired to do some work on a potential ethanol investment. It turned out to be a stock fraud by Korean organized crime.
But my conclusions were simple: When commodity prices are low, ethanol can’t compete. When commodity prices are high, ethanol can’t be profitable.
A large Federal study was done of the effects of ethanol-blended gasoline in cars and small engines. They didn’t test cars older than 2001 or so, but the highlights of the findings are pretty revealing: significant loss in fuel economy and small engines ran progressively worse and hotter with increasing ethanol concentration in the fuel. They didn’t see any driveability problems in cars because they didn’t look; they do note no “cold” starting problems when tried as “low” as 50°F. Given those findings, it looks disturbingly like the contradictory conclusion (hooray for ethanol, let’s add more of it to our gasoline!) was prescribed before the “study” was carried out. That’s disappointing, but not terribly surprising.
Daniel, I like the 50 degree Fahrenheit test point. Is that to simulate blizzard conditions in Miami Beach, FL during February?
One side note, the ethanol boondoggle crowds out the planting of other commercial crops. Barley is one such crop. Hence, it affects the price of beer, as barley either has to be imported or some brewers just substitute other grains.
My antique/classic cars long for real, 100% dino fuel. Gasohol, now at 10% ethanol means having to use fuel stabilizers, filling the tank with minimum amounts of fuel and driving the cars more frequently, because gasohol doesn’t store well over time.
Yes Virginia – your mpg will decrease when running gasohol.
One other side note, only 6% of the Flex Fuel Vehicles will ever see a drop of E85 in the fuel tank. It seems even in farm states, most motorist choose not use E85.
Hence, I smell a rat regards to any future mandate allowing for E20. The next mandate will be from the EPA requiring the use of E20.
And you guys cry about cars….Ethanol gasoline & the uncertainty of ethanol was one of my main reasons to stay away from a gas powered lawnmower.
I’ve also been looking at a 250cc bike for commuting and am unsure now due to the goofy fuel stuff if I should drop 2k on a cheap(er) commuter than my 600cc bike (70mpg = 250cc, 43mpg = 600)
John McCain’s flip-flop on ethanol before the Iowa primaries also nauseates.
To be reasonable, McCain switched only from opposing ethanol generally, to opposing ethanol subsidies. I’d take that any day over Obama’s ‘senator from Archer Daniels Midland’ coziness with the ethanol industry. He HAD to know perfectly well that ethanol was a multi-billion dollar waste of money that, in the bargain, raised the cost of food to poor people AND probably increased CO2 emissions on top of everything else. But that kind of honest ‘crazy talk’ doesn’t win the Iowa primary, now does it?
Once again the little guy is going to get screwed by the special interest groups. My 2006 vehicle runs noticeably poorer on E10, and definitely gets less mileage. I can’t imagine the ramifications of using E20 in it.
I represent a coalition of ethanol supporters and feel compelled to respond to the inaccuracies in this post.
A study by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, examining E20 in a variety of older and newer cars for “no operability or driveability issues identified” — no fuel filter plugging symptoms, no cold start problems, no fuel leaks or degradation of the fuel systems.
The link to the study, which was updated in February, can be found here:
http://feerc.ornl.gov/publications/Int_blends_Rpt1_Updated.pdf
In fact, every 650hp IndyCar runs on 100 percent fuel-grade ethanol. Why? Because it’s the highest performance, clean-burning fuel available, with a 113 octane. It leaves zero residue behind in the engine, and the problems with fuel economy are identified as problems with the engine designs — not the fuel itself.
On the point of emissions, today’s ethanol produces 59 percent less greenhouse gas emissions than gasoline. The crops grown to produce ethanol consume C02; the C02 released from the burning of ethanol goes back into growing crops. It is entirely renewable.
Let’s face the fact, too, that the 10 percent blend wall is really a mandate that 90 percent of transportation fuel be refined from petroleum, much of that from overseas or from Canadian tar sands (perhaps the dirtiest extraction process possible). Ethanol is the only alternative we have to foreign oil; ethanol creates U.S. jobs (as many as 800,000 possible by 2020), cuts greenhouse gas emissions and reinforces our national and economic security by reducing our dependence on foreign oil.
There are hidden costs to oil, including the transfer of more than a billion dollars a day out of our economy to foreign nations, and the $50 billion annual cost to the Defense Department to protect strategic oil-shipping routes.
Everyone’s entitled to their opinion, but the facts are inarguable: ethanol is the only alternative to oil we have. Ethanol continues to get cleaner and greener each year, while oil gets dirtier and does nothing for our national economy.
Hence, I smell a rat regards to any future mandate allowing for E20. The next mandate will be from the EPA requiring the use of E20.
The other thing is that while this ruling would only allow E20, the federal mandate for the gallons of ethanol that must be used exceeds that that could be supplied by everyone using E10. So either E85 use has to go up, or E20 will be de facto mandated in order to fulfill the overall ethanol mandate.
Robstar :
And you guys cry about cars….Ethanol gasoline & the uncertainty of ethanol was one of my main reasons to stay away from a gas powered lawnmower.
You think that’s bad, consider the effect on piston-engined airplanes. Most run on 100 octane leaded aviation gasoline, which is blended from autogas and cannot have any ethanol. As ethanol-free autogas gets rarer, it will get more expensive to mix avgas.
Also, some planes are modified to run on plain old car gas, but absolutely no alcohol is allowed. It is unsafe to run airplanes on gas that has any alcohol mixed in. Finding alcohol-free cargas to power these planes is getting harder and harder.
@cthorne:
“In fact, every 650hp IndyCar runs on 100 percent fuel-grade ethanol. Why? Because it’s the highest performance, clean-burning fuel available, with a 113 octane.”
“clean-burning” has nothing to do with why they use it for Indy racing. And what’s otherwise good for Indy Racing has little to do with what’s good for Average Joe commuting.
I’ll be giving that study you cite a very thorough reading. But I give you credit (seriously) for identifying who you represent, as opposed to just astro-turfing the thread.
cthorne, your “facts” are little more than PR spin. That’s not surprising, given which side your bread is buttered on — at least you admit it — but this is the truth about cars; calling ethanol “the highest performance fuel” because it has an octane rating of 113 and calling the fact that the engines in most roadgoing vehicles are configured to run on gasoline and not alcohol “engine design problems” is disingenuous handwaving. You want facts? Fine, let’s have some facts:
If we mis-fuel a gasoline car with ethanol, it will show an even greater loss in mileage than can be calculated just from the simple difference in energy content of ethanol vs. gasoline. That’s because the gasoline car’s fuel system and engine are designed, calibrated, and optimized for the energy content and combustion characteristics of gasoline, not ethanol. One example is compression ratio, which can be much higher in a vehicle designed to run on ethanol — this extracts more energy from the fuel, reducing (but usually not eliminating) the mileage deficit.
Gasoline contains about 115,000 BTU per U.S. gallon, LHV. Ethanol contains about 75,700 BTU per U.S. gallon, LHV. That means ethanol contains about 66% of the energy that gasoline contains.
Therefore:
E10 — gasoline with 10% ethanol — contains 111,070 BTU per U.S. gallon (3.4% less energy than straight gasoline; 19.3 mpg instead of 20 mpg).
E15 — gasoline with 15% ethanol — contains 109,105 BTU per U.S. gallon (5.1% less energy than straight gasoline; 19 mpg instead of 20 mpg).
E85 — ethanol with 15% gasoline — contains 81,595 BTU per U.S. gallon (29% less energy than straight gasoline; 14.1 mpg instead of 20 mpg).
Let’s plug in some pump prices from last summer and see the effect of E85 upon walletary negative cashflow:
$2.85/gallon for E85 means $2.85 for 81,595 BTU of energy. That’s $3.49 per 100,000 BTU.
$4.10/gallon for gasoline means $4.10 for 115,000 BTU of energy. That’s $3.57 per 100,000 BTU.
The visually enormous difference between $2.85 and $4.10 per gallon, does it actually deliver big savings? No, you’re paying all of six cents less per hundred thousand BTUs by buying E85 instead of gasoline. And that’s without factoring in the cost (in money, time, and nuisance) of the damage being done to a fuel system not designed for high concentrations of alcohol. And don’t forget to add in the additional driving (with attendant exhaust, tire wear, and engine oil consumption) caused by more frequent trips to the gas station — both your trips and the supply trucks’ trips.
And burning ethanol doesn’t even reduce car exhaust toxicity, it just changes which toxic chemicals come out of the exhaust pipe.
Your claim “ethanol is the only alternative to oil” is wrong. Your claim that oil “gets dirtier” is wrong. Your claim that oil “does nothing for our national economy” is wrong. The, um, “study” you link to is the same one I link to, and no operational difficulties were found because none were looked for. Furthermore, I quote, “environmental conditions for this test program were limited to only 50° and 75°F.” Since the operational difficulties when misfuelling a gasoline engine with alcohol tend to occur at ambient temperatures lower than 50°F and higher than 75°F, your smug assurance that there’s no problem is baseless and without merit. So is your dismissal of the ramifications of misfuelling older cars. The “study” looked at a very small group of vehicles, none of which was older than a 1999 model.
There are hidden costs to oil? Yes, there are. There are also hidden costs to ethanol, but I guess when you represent a coalition of ethanol producers, those don’t matter so much.
cthorne, more science and less shill next time please.
And anyways if ethanol gives good mileage why do the Indy cars have to stop for gas all the time? :-D
Algae-based bio diesel makes more sense than a corn (or other crop-based) ethanol process. The third world does not have to starve in order for us to drive our SUV’s. Algae systems work best in sunny, hot climates (e.g. the Nevada desert). They are closed loop systems that conserve most of the water used. One of the important issues not discussed in this post or replies is how much water is required to produce a gallon of ethanol — between three and six gallons of water per gallon of ethanol.
Twotone
40+ senators from corn growing states?
Time for campaign finance reform.
Just because ethanol is great for high compression high output engines (race cars of all kinds, not just Indy), doesn’t mean that it is good for the low compression engines in my Mazda6 or Chevy truck. Quite to the contrary, it is harmful, both in terms of mileage and fuel systemn component life. Ethanol could work great, but only in an engine optimized for ethanol.
One of the important issues not discussed in this post or replies is how much water is required to produce a gallon of ethanol — between three and six gallons of water per gallon of ethanol.
Where’s that number from? That is probably the lowest estimate I have heard. Are you including irrigation water for the corn or is that just process water at the ethanol plant?
the bad news is that f*#(# corn is grown everywhere now with a decent growing season, not just in the corn belt.
so with e20 you might get a bizarre coalition of psuedo-greenies, big Agro and the no foreign oil crowd.
where’s big oil when we need them? lol.
again wikipedia has more information (that has the presumption of factuality) that you probably wanted to know.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol_fuel_in_Brazil#Comparison_with_the_United_States
I’ve written it before, but just in case some of you haven’t yet read it, here goes.
My 2008 Prius GASOLINE hybrid used to get 48 to 52 mpg (and went down to about 44 in the severe winters in northern Michigan – with full blown snow tires)
Now, with E10, my Prius is obtaining 42 to 44 mpg and last winter, it obtained 33 mpg.
That is a 25% MPG reduction in the winter, and about 14% in the summer/spring/fall.
My wife’s Hyundai Sonata “only” loses about 6% MPG on E10, approximately the best I’ve seen in testing over two dozen owned cars since 1979 on “gasohol” (aka E10).
Reductions in real world MPG ranges from 25% to 6%, most cars being in the 12% to 8% range.
Taking into account that the fuel is 10% ethanol, and that ethanol must be trucked to be mixed with gasoline (using diesel oil and trucks and tires and time and wages for drivers), it doesn’t make any sense. Which (along with the Archer Daniel Midland gig for Prezident Zero) is why the current administration loves it.
Best argument against ethanol I ever saw was one given by someone in the know who calculated out the natural gas used to make ethanol in the still for automotive use; it exceeded the energy of the ethanol.
In fact, a gallon of ethanol used to fire a still won’t make another gallon of ethanol.
Then, there is the 20 to 400 gallons of water needed PER GALLON of ethanol, mostly coming up from an under-midwest aquafer which is dropping and has been for decades (due to bad decision making on the parts of agriculture, largely).
Not to mention the massive dead-area in the gulf of mexico from bad and excessive crops grown in the American midwest, latterly to fuel SUV’s with ethanol.
Boondoggle, indeed.
Oh yes, I forgot to mention one other salient little fact.
Read your owner’s manual (upon which your new car warranty is based).
What does it say about fuelling your vehicle?
Unless the car is a disel or flex-fuel vehicle, it’ll say “do not use fuels with more than 10% ethanol”.
So, once engines start blowing up and manufacturers (quite rightly) refuse to honor the warrantees because the vehicles have been intentionally MIS-FUELLED, can we send the bills for $5000 to $8000 for new engines to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and expect a check?
(You can stop laughing hysterically now – we all know the answer is “NO”)
John McCain’s flip-flop on ethanol before the Iowa primaries also nauseates.
To be reasonable, McCain switched only from opposing ethanol generally, to opposing ethanol subsidies.
That’s interesting. I did not know that. Certainly, though, the fact that Iowa holds its caucuses so early has had a very positive effect on the ethanol industry. In fact, absent those early Iowa caucuses, some think there would be no ethanol industry.
@cthorne:
I don’t care what your study says. I know how my car ran before using ethanol, and I know how it runs now. Less mileage, less power. It only has 13,000 miles on it, so mechanical wear or problems do not enter into the equation. I suggest you stop drinking the Koolaid.
Both of my Illinois senators recieved emails from me several years ago about the foolhardyness of corn ethanol, and both responded that they would indeed encourage other alternative fuels also.
Ethanol is NOT the only alternative to imported oil. A HUGE alternative is smaller engines in general, more diesel engines burning biodiesel, even more hybrids. Theres also less suburban sprawl, more bicycles, more light-rail…the list goes on and on.
Then theres all the shipping of fuel from one spot on the globe to another and the requisite load for the backhaul. It would make Rube Goldberg proud.
Im also an ADM stockholder, and just to show how Fdup things can get, go to their website at admworld.com and compare the US page with the EU page. Money, subsidies and politics make for extremely strange bedfellows in global supply and demand.
Not a word about Peak Oil in any of the above comments. It is happening and the implications for those who love cars are profound.
There is not going to be enough cheap oil to fuel all the vehicles in the world in a few years, especially with the rapid growth in China and India as well as in oil exporting countries.
Opposing ethanol hastens the consumption of oil which is a finite depleting resource causing its decline to arive sooner and to be steeper. If that is what you want keep up fighting ethanol. Some of us think the smart thing to do is prepare an alternative to oil even if it is limited and not perfect.
The auto collapse of 2008 will look like a picnic if we continue to depend on oil to power cars. And the only viable alternative at the moment is ethanol.
So dream on ethanol opponents, when you wake up the world will have changed but not for the better. You will be driving with more ethanol in your tank or not driving at all. Get use to it.
I ain’t worried about no peek oilz, the flu gonna kill us all – right before the floods.
Ethanol is the least viable long term. Stop it now and work on a real solution. Stop allowing politicians to lead us down dead end roads. Business as usual is not good enough now.
So many myths and half-truths here I felt I needed to get another point of view in here.
1st, What the hell has the Dept. of Energy been doing since 1973? Why don’t we already have an EPA study on high ethanol blends?
2nd, regarding E85 use in the US. Look at what cars are made as flex-fuel, only big suv’s and trucks. Do we really expect anybody who believes in peak oil or the green movement to drive a Chevy Avalanche? Let us tell the truth. Automakers only make flex-fuel cars for the CAFE credit the EPA gives. I am still waiting for the Ford Focus flex-fuel. I have cash Ford and I am waiting. I keep eyeing the Brazil spec model. I bet it would look good in my garage.
3rd, It is not unsafe to run ethanol in airplanes. It is just not certified by the FAA yet. It might be a nice replacement at $2.50/gallon when 100 octane avgas is now $4-5 a gallon. Look up AGE-85, impressive results above 13,000ft.
4th, CORN ETHANOL SUCKS. We all know this, but we have lots of farmers still growing the stuff. Sugar beats as a feedstock make twice as much ethanol per acre and require 1/2 the natural gas fertilizers. There are plenty of other feed stocks that produce more ethanol per acre and can be set up in an organic crop rotation system, eliminating the use of natural gas pesticides. The feds just need to adjust the subsidies away from corn and we can match the energy efficiency of Brazil.
5th, food vs. fuel is a joke. If we were serious about feeding the world we would make sure cows were not being fed corn, but being fed dried distiller grains. Since we feed 80% of our corn to animals, we might at least feed them something they can digest. They grow 17% larger on a bushel of corn run through the ethanol process than from a bushel of plain corn alone.
6th, to optimize for ethanol an ice needs to compensate for 3 things, air fuel mixture, ignition timing, and compression ratio. Older cars adjust for none of these. Most fuel injected cars can adjust the air/fuel ratio to accommodate E-20. Some newer cars can even adjust timing based on the anti-knock sensors to adjust for the higher octane of E-20. But it takes a flex-fuel Saab with a turbo charged engine to adjust to all three. Anything less is fuel efficiency left on the table.
7th, 95% of corn is not irrigated. Please compare the water used to make a gallon of ethanol with the water it takes to refine a gallon of gasoline. And how was that oil spill this week in Houston?
8th, Please learn about ethanol and the other alternative fuels, and not from internet blogs, but from books. There are lots of good books out there on alternative fuels. My favorite on ethanol is “Alcohol Can Be a Gas”
Daniel Stern: That’s not the only study out there. Rochester Institute of Technology has an ongoing study. Here’s an abstract, with a link.
Having lived in upstate New York, I can tell you it gets cold. Yet the Monroe County vehicle fleet, running on E20, showed no problems with vehicles. They even started the study in February.
Facts are stubborn things. And it’s probably a fact that even science like this won’t change a mind that is closed.
http://journals.pepublishing.com/content/a8803gj211545g1k/
B Hilton1, D Brian1
1 Center for Integrated Manufacturing Studies, Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, NY, USA
Abstract
E20 fuel research conducted by the Rochester Institute of Technology has focused on vehicle exhaust, vehicle drivability and vehicle maintenance. Beginning in February 2008, 10 older gasoline vehicles owned and operated by Monroe County, New York State, were evaluated using E20 fuel. Criteria pollutant tailpipe emissions from running E20 versus gasoline were tested using the FTP-75 Federal Test Procedure in an independent vehicle emissions laboratory. Initial results demonstrated significant fleet tailpipe emissions reductions in carbon monoxide and total hydrocarbons when running E20 versus gasoline. The fleet has currently operated a total of more than 100 000 miles on E20, with individual vehicles having been driven at least 2400 miles each on E20 at the time of testing. Drivability and maintenance have been unaffected. Driver comments were strongly positive. Research continues, with future work to include repeat tailpipe emissions testing for degradation and expanding E20 fuel usage to the entire Monroe County vehicle fleet. This paper presents the initial results for the vehicle tailpipe emissions testing on gasoline versus E20.
PabloKoh:
You make excellent points. In fact, dried distiller’s grain is a byproduct of ethanol production, so it’s a byproduct that displaces the need to plant other row crops.
And in fact 90 percent of the arable land in the U.S. is devoted to “feed” production, not “food” production. The issue is really “beef versus barrels” and not “food versus fuel.” The US is looking at a historic corn crop this year; more corn than we know what to do with. And General Mills is posting a 51 percent profit for Q3 … yet General Mills still thinks they can blame corn ethanol with high grocery prices.
The only issue I’d take about your post on corn ethanol is this: today’s ethanol technology is far advanced over what it was 30 years ago when EPA set a 10 percent blend limit. We get far more corn out of each acre, and we can extract far more energy from the starch of each kernel. The research is continuing; the biggest investors in cellulosic ethanol are the corn ethanol makers. Hence my point earlier that ethanol keeps getting greener, and oil (particularly that from Canadian tar sands) gets dirtier and dirtier.
@cthorne:
Gosh, wow, up to 2400 whole miles travelled by each of these nonspecifically “older” cars on E20. Get back to us when you’ve got something showing long-term effects on fuel system integrity, driveability, and fuel economy of cars more than ten years old, including carbureted models. Meanwhile, perhaps you can give us some detail on the “strongly positive” comments drivers of E20-misfuelled cars are alleged to have made.
Me, I’ve got a few decades’ worth of experience with ethanol-blended fuels in vehicles ranging in age from 3 to 40+ years. This experience tells me you’re wrong. And judging by some of the other experiences elucidated in this thread, I’m not the only one. But perhaps we’re wrong; after all, we’re just people who own, drive, monitor, and maintain vehicles…not ethanol industry shills.
cthorne, beating up on Canada’s oil sands is exactly the type of red herring I’d expect from the subsidy-sucking, hydra-headed ethanol lobby.
@97escort:
Not a word about Peak Oil in any of the above comments. It is happening
I’m not a petroleum geologist, and I’ll bet you aren’t either, so it’s likely neither of us is qualified to assert authoritatively whether peak oil is happening. Maybe ’tis and maybe ’tisn’t — link goes to a Scientific American article; sorry if you were assuming it was Fox or Beck or Limbaugh or somesuch.
(Oil keeps the author in groceries, you say? True. Much as ethanol does for cthorne.)
@ Daniel J. Stern
…. neither of us is qualified to assert authoritatively whether peak oil is happening.
Errr, unless you’re a “Christian Scientist” or a Sarah Palin conservative and believe the Earth is 6,000 years old then you’re going to be dead wrong about that.
I deal with a great many petro geologists and there has not been disagreement about “Peak Oil” for some 20 years.
Lots of oil company execs hope a magical technology will arrive to help them extract the last 5% out of a declining reserve. Even then, extraction costs will continue going up (they are now) and the rate of extraction will continue to decline (as it is now).