http://content.usatoday.com/communities/...-from-10-now-/1
Quote:
Environmental Protection Agency announced it now will allow up to 15% ethanol to be blended with gasoline in motor fuel -- but only for use in cars and trucks built since 2007.
The current allowable limit is 10%, and remains so for older vehicles, all motorcycles, heavy-duty vehicles and non-road engines (everything from leaf blowers to motorboats).
That sets up potential confusion at the gas pump, since buyers could have choose not octane ratings but also between E-10 and E-15 based end use. And while E-10 now is fairly common, stations are not required to offer it or the new E-15 -- and some already say they are going to sit out E-15 for now.
The move does not affect special E-85 fuel -- an 85% ethanol/gas blend not considered gasoline at all -- that already allowed by the EPA. E-85, sold mostly in the Midwest, can only be used in a vehicle designed as "flex fuel" to take the higher concentration of more-corrosive ethanol without damage.
The EPA is expected to expand the E-15 OK to vehicles built since 2001 when additional testing is finished next month. The Obama administration made the move with elections a month away and political pressure heavy for approval. Most ethanol is made from corn in this country and farm states have strongly pushed for the government to promote more use of it.
But a broad group of otherwise strange bedfellows -- from auto, motorcycle and gas-engine makers (used in everything from leaf blowers to boats) to environmentalists, cattle ranchers, food companies and a broad coalition of others. Why the push back:
Engine makers fear damage. Other opponents argue that growing more corn and using it for ethanol makes animal feed (and thus meat) costly and inflates supermarket prices for the wide range of foods containing corn products.
Environmentalists see it as bad use of land and a promotion of wasteful, energy-intensive agriculture.
But the Obama administration has said it still supports the renewable fuel and the EPA is under a rural state-promoted congressional mandate to increase ethanol use. Congress required fuel refiners to blend 36 billion gallons of biofuels, mostly ethanol, into auto fuel by 2022 and the EPA says it can't be done without allowing at least an E-15 blend.
The ethanol industry group Growth Energy petitioned the EPA earlier this year to allow E-15. The decision has been delayed twice as the EPA and Energy Department did more testing.
The Obama administration's decision to allow E-15 is a win for the ethanol industry as it faces losing its generous government subsidies. A key tax credit is to expire Dec. 31 and there's been opposition in Congress to renewing it.
-- Fred Meier/Drive On
I am not thrilled.
Quote:
Environmental Protection Agency announced it now will allow up to 15% ethanol to be blended with gasoline in motor fuel -- but only for use in cars and trucks built since 2007.
The current allowable limit is 10%, and remains so for older vehicles, all motorcycles, heavy-duty vehicles and non-road engines (everything from leaf blowers to motorboats).
That sets up potential confusion at the gas pump, since buyers could have choose not octane ratings but also between E-10 and E-15 based end use. And while E-10 now is fairly common, stations are not required to offer it or the new E-15 -- and some already say they are going to sit out E-15 for now.
The move does not affect special E-85 fuel -- an 85% ethanol/gas blend not considered gasoline at all -- that already allowed by the EPA. E-85, sold mostly in the Midwest, can only be used in a vehicle designed as "flex fuel" to take the higher concentration of more-corrosive ethanol without damage.
The EPA is expected to expand the E-15 OK to vehicles built since 2001 when additional testing is finished next month. The Obama administration made the move with elections a month away and political pressure heavy for approval. Most ethanol is made from corn in this country and farm states have strongly pushed for the government to promote more use of it.
But a broad group of otherwise strange bedfellows -- from auto, motorcycle and gas-engine makers (used in everything from leaf blowers to boats) to environmentalists, cattle ranchers, food companies and a broad coalition of others. Why the push back:
Engine makers fear damage. Other opponents argue that growing more corn and using it for ethanol makes animal feed (and thus meat) costly and inflates supermarket prices for the wide range of foods containing corn products.
Environmentalists see it as bad use of land and a promotion of wasteful, energy-intensive agriculture.
But the Obama administration has said it still supports the renewable fuel and the EPA is under a rural state-promoted congressional mandate to increase ethanol use. Congress required fuel refiners to blend 36 billion gallons of biofuels, mostly ethanol, into auto fuel by 2022 and the EPA says it can't be done without allowing at least an E-15 blend.
The ethanol industry group Growth Energy petitioned the EPA earlier this year to allow E-15. The decision has been delayed twice as the EPA and Energy Department did more testing.
The Obama administration's decision to allow E-15 is a win for the ethanol industry as it faces losing its generous government subsidies. A key tax credit is to expire Dec. 31 and there's been opposition in Congress to renewing it.
-- Fred Meier/Drive On
I am not thrilled.
Last edited by a moderator: