Posted on 05/16/2012 10:42:20 AM PDT by thackney
Automakers and the oil industry released a report today that casts doubt on the safety of gasoline containing 15 percent ethanol and shows that at least some engines running the fuel suffered damage during recent testing.
But ethanol backers and the Obama administration immediately countered that the study was fundamentally flawed, because it used engines with known durability issues” and didn’t include control group testing of the 10 percent ethanol blend that is now the standard at filling stations nationwide.
The dispute is the latest round in a long-running fight over the 15 percent ethanol fuel blend known as E15. A 2007 energy law mandated 36 billion gallons of renewable fuels be used by 2022, and the Environmental Protection Agency in 2010 approved the sale of E15 for model year 2001 and newer cars and light trucks. The agency did not clear E15 for use in older vehicles, boats or other devices, such as lawn and garden equipment.
In the new oil industry and automaker-funded study, the not-for-profit Coordinating Research Council tested eight specific engines (28 in all) from vehicles spanning model years 2001 through 2009. Researchers ran the engines for 500 hours under conditions representing about 100,000 miles of driving while fueling them with ethanol-free gasoline, the E15 blend containing 15 percent ethanol and a variety comprising 20 percent ethanol.
Two of the eight engines showed damage while running on E15, according to the study. Specifically, both of those auto engines showed leaking cylinders. Subsequent analysis by their original manufacturers revealed damage to intake valve seats, possibly causing the leakage.
One of the eight engines running E15 also failed emissions tests.
American Petroleum Institute President Jack Gerard said that the study results reveal millions of cars are at risk of damage from E15.
“Not all vehicles in the CRC tests showed engine damage, but engine types that did are found in millions of cars and light duty trucks now on America’s roads,” Gerard said. “We believe there’s at least as a minimum, 5 million that are subject to damage as a result of this rule, and we believe that is a conservative estimate.”
Automakers said the metallurgy and makeup of the engines that had valve leakage could foreshadow problems with similar vehicle engines, including some just now rolling off the assembly line.
Federal regulators and ethanol boosters panned the study. In a blog post, the Department of Energy, which conducted its own testing before the EPA approved E15 in 2010, provided a laundry list of criticisms:
None of the engines were tested with E10, which would have provided a better baseline for comparison, since it is the “de facto standard” representing more than 90 percent of gasoline available in the U.S. market. Instead, the vehicle engines were run on E20, E15 and an ethanol-free gasoline.
The engine test cycle, which was designed specifically for this study, was specifically designed to stress the engine valve train. Since the test method hasn’t been used in other studies, there’s no clear way to interpret the results, the Energy Department said.
The standard for measuring engine leakdown — and deeming it as having “failed” — is not a standard used by automakers and federal agencies for warranty claims or other uses.
The Energy Department also said the study included “Several engines already known to have durability issues, including one that was subject to a recall involving valve problems” when running on E10 and ethanol-free fuels. “It is no surprise that an engine having problems with traditional fuels might also fail with E15 or E20,” the Energy Department said.
Bob Dinneen, the president of the Renewable Fuels Association, characterized the study as misleading.
“By funding research using questionable testing protocols and illegal fuels, the results of this study are meaningless,” Dinneen said. The study results “only serve to further muddy the waters and shun the overwhelming desire of 75 percent of Americans for greater choice at the pump.”
I am stunned.
I just looked at wiki and they say you are correct. When I was a kid, I used to live next to a guy who owned the neighborhood gas station. He told me ethyl grade gas was called that for “ethyl alcohol” which was the old fashioned chemistry name for ethanol. He told me they got the idea from the old moonshiners who would fill their tanks with moonshine to make their cars go faster to evade the revenuers. Seemed logical to me since there is a whole class of drag racing who burn only alcohol(faster than gasoline but slower than top fuel).
I’ve been re-telling this to people for over 30 years and you are the first person EVER to call me out on it.
Good on ya’ mamel.
Too many people now a days refuse to admit when they are wrong.
FReep on, brother!
“Nothing more than E-10 on your prius gas cap?”
That’s the way I read that. I’ll confirm with the Owner’s Manual. But it’s got that small 1.5L engine so I’m not surprised.
I've been real careful to keep ethanol out of my two stroke bikes and older outboard motor, but it has been easy around here because little or no alcohol is actually blended into gasoline (although state law requires >= 2%).. Only once did I even detect a trace (less than 0.5%) using an EAA test kit. Now I purchase from a Conoco chain that advertises on their billboard "No Ethanol" so I don't bother to test.
Of course, most any bike or racing vehicle, two stroke or four, can be jetted to run on straight alcohol. Seals, etc. will have to be replaced with ethanol-safe ones. In some cases the diluting effect on cylinder wall lubrication must be taken into account. Shouldn't be much of a problem on hard-chromed (Nikasil, etc.) cylinder walls. Will run cooler depending on power output.
Diaphragms in older boat pumper carbs can be a real problem, as well as fiberglass gas tanks on boats and bikes.
Hold on though.
Something doesn’t make sense. I distinctly remember BEFORE unleaded gas came out they had two grades...ethyl and regular. Then when unleaded came out they had two grades...leaded and unleaded.
Ethyl was the stuff that made your car go fast. Regular was regular. Both had lead in them.
Then came unleaded gas. what the heck was regular gasoline back in the days before unleaded gasoline?
Something doesnt’ jive.
Just a lower octane blend, as always.
Historically, there have always been three pumps that ran off of two tanks at the station.
There was a high octane tank and a low octane tank.
The three pumps delivered high octane (premium), low octane (regular), or a mid-grade (a blend from the two tanks).
It is still basically done the same way.
Last Sunday, I bought “non-alcohol” gasoline from a “high-test” (premium) pump at a Kroger.
oops, i goofed.
it was like this:
regular or ethyl(both were leaded)
then...
regular or unleaded(regular was leaded)
then...
regular unleaded or hi-grade(both unleaded I think, but not sure)
then...
regular or premium or ethanol(three choices)
Old people could never figure out what to put in their car. The term “regular” was so over used it was nuts. Catalytic converters came out and people were burning them up right and left because they would drive to a small town with old pumps that didn’t specify “leaded or unleaded” If I remember right, Kerr McGee was the last station in my neighborhood to phase out ethyl...or maybe they just didn’t take the “ethyl” label off their pumps.
My daily driver is a 1988 fuel injected F150 that does not like E10 fuel.
My nearest “non-alcohol” gas station is a tank of gas away!
no, that’s not right. In the old days there were only two grades, not three.
I don't remember that at all.
Cars that used unleaded had a smaller fill pipe opening and you couldn't put leaded gas in unless the pump was not legal and had the small probe dispensing leaded gasoline.
And putting leaded gas into a converter car didn't cause anything to "burn up", it just made the converter non-functional - so if you had emissions testing you were in trouble down the road.
When the switch to “non-leaded” gasoline came about,
the manufacturers put smaller openings in the fuel filler on the vehicles.
The larger nozzles at the station pumps would no longer fit into the smaller fuel tank openings on the vehicles.
“...In the old days there were only two grades, not three...”
-
In the really really really old days there was only one grade.
So what is your freaking point?
assuming they put the right gas in the right underground storage tank and the station continued to used two different sized nozzles. Small town people tend to simply things.
the point is we’re talking about pre unleaded gas at the moment. They had 2 grades then.
I am perplexed. What is the error?
Sorry, I don’t do chat.
Ethanol increases your octane rating. When you lose the ethanol, you are left with the low grade non-ethanol-gasoline octane rating(in theory). Nowdays almost all gasoline has some ethanol in it. I don’t pay attention to octane ratings anymore, but before they started adding ethanol to everything, the middle octane rated fuel at the pump was ethanol. The lowest octane rated fuel was non-ethanol, the highest octane rating was premium. The difference between premium and the lowest octane rated fuel was that after filling the underground tanks, the tanker driver(or the station manager/owner) would dump an additive down into the tank of the premium grade fuel. Without doing that, the two non ethanol fuels were identical. At some point(about 5-8 years ago I think) many stations started putting ethanol in ALL grades of fuel even without advertising it at the pump. You still had 3 grades of fuel, but only one of them CLAIMED to be E10. The truth is they all had ethanol in them.
ok whatever that means
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