I’m fine with that , but the point I was addressing was replacing ETOH with a different octane booster. ETOH replaced leaded gas.
Most of the octane boost comes from aromatics in gasoline, not ethanol.
We had sufficient octane without the use of ethanol before the mandate.
Straight-run gasoline has an octane number of about 70. In other words, straight-run gasoline has the same knocking properties as a mixture of 70% isooctane and 30% heptane. Cracking, isomerization, and other refinery processes can be used to increase the octane rating of gasoline to about 90.
http://chemistry.about.com/cs/howthingswork/a/aa070401a.htm