Does EPA Fuel Mileage Test Use Ethanol?

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Originally Posted By: http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/info.shtml
EPA's test fuel does not currently contain any ethanol or other oxygenates, but EPA does adjust their estimates to account for the impact of low-level ethanol blends. Ethanol contains about one-third less energy per gallon than gasoline. So, a car operating on 10% ethanol would achieve about 3% lower fuel economy than it would on 100% gasoline. EPA currently reduces all fuel economy test values by about 10% to account for ethanol in gasoline and other factors such as wind, hills, and road conditions.
Later this decade, EPA is phasing-in a requirement to change our federal emissions test fuel to include 10% ethanol by volume.
 
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Stupid not to use E10 gas to begin with.There are almost no E0 pumps left in the country.
 
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Sure! The EPA is the agency that insist on us having ethanol in our gasoline!


You can thank the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007

EPA is just implementing what the lobbiests congressmen seem to think what is best for us

Connecticut has had ethanol for years before the above mentioned mandate, an improvement over mtbe
 
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Originally Posted By: simple_gifts

EPA is just implementing what the lobbiests congressmen seem to think what is best for us



EPA is just implementing what the lobbiests congressmen seem to think what is best for us themselves.

There, fixed that for you.
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Originally Posted By: NHGUY
There are almost no E0 pumps left in the country.


I have to disagree with this, at least in my area. 5 years ago, there were very few E0 pumps in my area, but lately there have been quite a few of them popping up. The real irony is that there are a few ethanol plants nearby. Alcohol-free gas is more expensive, with it being anywhere from $.10 to $.30 a gallon higher. The nearest gas station to me is a mom-and-pop Sinclair and they put in an alcohol-free pump within the last year.
 
I can find E0 in my area. I just can't afford it. Meaning, the ~10% increase in fuel mileage of E0 over E10 doesn't offset the ~20% premium the stations here charge for E0 over E10.

When I drove the Park Avenue, I could find stations hawking E0 at about 5% over E10, so that made sense, or at least I broke even. Not now.
 
I would worry about the gas at a station that has E0 as well as E10. I doubt if it is a fresh as the regular spiked stuff.
 
Originally Posted By: Oro_O
There is a website and apple/android app for finding E0 gas:

http://pure-gas.org/



I question the accuracy of some of the locations this site claims don't sell ethanol gas. I assume these are just submitted by anyone, so they may not be 100% accurate.
 
Originally Posted By: SHOZ
I would worry about the gas at a station that has E0 as well as E10. I doubt if it is a fresh as the regular spiked stuff.


There's a guy in Freedom NH that sells "guns n gas" and his E0 is stilL $3.99/gal.

Makes me wonder how old it is. I'd buy avgas for my OPE before buying that.
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I recall the shift in fuel formulation that happened here in 1995 very clearly. I knew it was coming, and the claim was that the "new oxygenated fuel" would net 3-4% fewer miles per gallon. At the time, my car was a 1989 Honda Accord LXi. My driving was combined city/highway with plenty of time sitting in traffic jams. My average fuel economy was consistently 29 mpg. Immediately after the change to the reformulated gas I was consistently measuring 26 mpg - a loss of nearly 10%. The initial formulation used MTBE, an ingredient no longer used (I think). Formulations that appeared later with "up to 10%" ethanol gave me consistent 27 mpg results. That is what I got out of the car for the remaining 17 years I owned it.

My results are anecdotal, of course. But, in the early years of the reformulated fuel I could still buy E0 gas when visiting relatives in Waco or friends in Corpus Christi. The fuel economy would then return to the old numbers. The difference in pure highway mpg was 32 with "new" gas and 35 with "old" gas.

I sure hope the pollution levels have been reduced because we're burning significantly more gas with the current fuel. There are currently no outlets selling E0 in the immediate DFW area so I can't perform a similar test with my Mazda 3. Perhaps, if I ever take a road trip, I can find a station and see what happens.
 
I live in "ethanol central", Iowa, and I have 46 ethanol plants surrounding me. The ag lobby is a major factor in anything that gets done at the state house. That being said, I can get E0 anytime, in any town around me. Don't have to look up on the internet. Don't have to use an app on my smart phone. E0 is readily available.

The truth is, while the EPA and other interests mandate a set amount of ethanol blended in gasoline, how this is done and whether E0 is also available at the pump is primarily set by each individual state or the retail outlet themselves. There is nothing about any EPA or Federal mandate that requires all gas to contain it. Even the ethanol folks themselves are capped at how much they can produce in a calendar year, presently 15 billion gallons. In 2013, the US consumed about 135 billion gallons of gasoline. 9 times the amount of ethanol produced. Since a lot of that ethanol is blended at E15, E20, E30, and E85 levels along with E10, there is not enough to spike every gallon of gas in the country to E10. So, ethanol free gasoline is available. If not in your area, it is not the Feds fault, but the state or local regulations.
 
The ethanol content will have to go up due to the guidelines of the law. Or the law needs to be scrapped.

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There are several serious macroeconomic problems that need to be addressed before the renewable fuels market becomes even close to a long–term, viable solution.

Now, I know most of you already know that the government really needs to get their act together on many things, but it is especially true when it comes to ethanol mandates.

The government is more than a year behind on setting the required number of RFS gallons that are to be blended. Industry has no idea what the set mandates were supposed to be in 2014, let alone 2015. There are “proposed solutions” and numbers from when the previous RFS was set, but nothing concrete. This causes all sorts of problems for the industry.

First off, without knowing the required blending requirements, both producers and refiners are scratching their heads on total ethanol required for compliance. Second, as made public by the Energy Information Administration (EIA) recently, the secondary market for credits created by producing ethanol are becoming incredibly volatile. The Renewable Identification Number, or RIN for short, is a unique identifier created through the production of each gallon of ethanol.

The RIN provides the verification that the company is blending the correct percentage of ethanol. If the company has already met blending requirements, the RIN can be sold in a secondary market to another company that needs it to meet their own yearly requirement. Therefore the only source of demand for RINs are producers and importers of transportation fuels that need to meet their obligations to use biofuels. To show the EPA that they have met the requirement, the companies give the EPA the RINs that they have accumulated. If demand for RINs is expected to increase in the future, then the current price of RINs rises as buyers try to buy inexpensive RINs today and bank them for use tomorrow. The price of RINs ran up in January from refiners banking RINs in expectation of a mandate. However, no mandate has yet been received.


Big Oil Hates Ethanol
 
The EPA tests mandate the use of a standardized 100 octane gasoline, which is available basically nowhere, racing 100 octane gasoline has additives the EPA fuel does not, and 100LL aviation fuel has lead in it that EPA fuel does not.

The reason given was that of 400 fuel formulations found in the US at any given moment, a reproducible standard was needed.

The EPA will be phasing in Gasoline/Ethanol fuel as part of the upcoming testing standard.

http://www.epa.gov/fueleconomy/documents/420f14015.pdf
 
100 octane? Where do you get the idea that the EPA is using that? That would reduce your mileage on an engine which runs on 87 octane.
 
Hmmm. I distinctly remember this from a TV documentary.

I just searched epa.gov thoroughly and while I can find instances of testing 100 octane in certain studies here and there, I can't find it in any of the fuel economy testing standards.

I may be, once more, the victim of the TV News-Entertainment industry.
 
Lately with the low price of gasoline ethanol is now touted as the cheapest octane booster.
 
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