Advantage of ethanol free fuel?

[ragtoplvr]

The engine runs on BTU content of the gasoline, and the computer adjusts for that. If the gas blends are equal then no ethanol will have a 3% higher BTU content and then give 3% better mileage. It is hard to fill a tank repeatedly within 3%.

But all things are not equal, they start with 84 octane before they add the alcohol. Lower the octane usually the higher the BTU content. So now we are at approx 2 to 2.5%% BTU difference. Brand A of fuel at 87 octane can be 5% higher BTU content than brand B at 87 because of the refinery and the crude type.. So basically you can not tell with any scientific degree of precision. Too much noise in the measurement.

The alcohol is hard on plastic parts, and can corrode some metal parts, it can also separate out and cause issues. And E85 is about 35 to 40% lower BTU content and you can very much see the difference there. So I only avoid it on my outdoor power equipment that does not run all the time.

Rod

 

[DrDanger]

Originally Posted by ragtoplvr
The engine runs on BTU content of the gasoline, and the computer adjusts for that. If the gas blends are equal then no ethanol will have a 3% higher BTU content and then give 3% better mileage. It is hard to fill a tank repeatedly within 3%.

But all things are not equal, they start with 84 octane before they add the alcohol. Lower the octane usually the higher the BTU content. So now we are at approx 2 to 2.5%% BTU difference. Brand A of fuel at 87 octane can be 5% higher BTU content than brand B at 87 because of the refinery and the crude type.. So basically you can not tell with any scientific degree of precision. Too much noise in the measurement.

The alcohol is hard on plastic parts, and can corrode some metal parts, it can also separate out and cause issues. And E85 is about 35 to 40% lower BTU content and you can very much see the difference there. So I only avoid it on my outdoor power equipment that does not run all the time.

Rod


Most plastic have a great/good tolerance to alcohols, according to this:
https://www.plasticsintl.com/chemical-resistance-chart
Alcohols also have a higher flame/burn speed, which helps making the 25-35% efficiency of a gasoline engine a slight bit better:
https://performancetrends.com/Definitions/Burn-Rate.htm

 

[TiredTrucker]

Actually, ethanol has a net 1.24 energy for every 1 input of energy for production. That included the farming, the transportation, the refining, etc. And considering that the crop in growth absorbs carbon from the atmosphere, it also has a net positive on the environment over petroleum based fuels. Bio fuels are not the savior of mankind, but they are not the evil ogre that many like to present.

https://www.ers.usda.gov/webdocs/publications/40673/32459_aer721.pdf?v=0

And Ethanol production uses only slightly more water than petroleum fuel production.

https://web.extension.illinois.edu/ethanol/wateruse.cfm

 

[Skippy722]

I've tried both. Made no noticeable difference. I even run e10 in my OPE, never any issues.

 

[bbhero]

Originally Posted by Astro14
In Packard, I would much prefer ethanol free fuel, because it doesn't go bad as quickly while sitting.

In the S600, Mercedes specifically recommends ethanol free but requires high octane. Hard to find that, and I end up buying 93 octane with ethanol as that's all I can find locally.

But in my Tundra? No real difference.

So, regular car? Don't worry.

High performance or antique car? Different matter.



If you are in the area of Windsor just northwest of Suffolk... Off Rte 460.... The Southern States there sells 93 ethanol free gasoline...

 

[Ws6]

I run 91 octane ethanol free because it's similar in price to other 91 in my area, so...why not?

 

[Hot_Ajax]

E-free in small engines - chainsaws, weed wackers, walk-behind mowers etc, just prolongs the life of the diaphragms in the fuel system. Other benefit is that you don't have to winterize your stuff if you're running a 2-cycle oil that has fuel stabilizers. I just leave my stuff gassed up, and go out a fire it up a few times during the winter season. No problem. And the engine will run much better. If you have a small airport near your house, they might sell you some e-free aviation fuel. Now you'll have a machine that will scream with delight.

 

[TiredTrucker]

What is truly fascinating is that while there is the Renewable Fuels Standard from the EPA, they do not mandate that all fuel sold contain ethanol. Only 7 states mandate fuel be blended with ethanol, and two of those, only require E2 not E10. If folks cannot readily purchase ethanol free fuel if they so choose, then they need to take their state legislators to task. It is not the farm lobby or the Feds.

https://www.greencarreports.com/new...line-only-seven-states-require-e10-blend

And I do use ethanol free for my OPE stuff. But I use high levels of ethanol in my vehicles. Been on E85 exclusively for almost 3 years. And as a veteran, the one thing that really makes using ethanol easy for me is that we have never had to deploy troops to protect a corn field or ethanol plant. Obviously, that cannot be said about petroleum based stuff.

 

[dlundblad]

I would use E0 in OPE or a classic car and/ or anything that will be sitting for any extended amounts of time. Otherwise, there's no benefit.

Would it be worth ones money to run E0 if they owned a landscaping business? Probably not. I had to rent a trencher a few weeks ago when I installed my new propane line.. Refilled the trencher with (fresh) E10 before returning it.

 

[dlundblad]

Originally Posted by TiredTrucker
What is truly fascinating is that while there is the Renewable Fuels Standard from the EPA, they do not mandate that all fuel sold contain ethanol. Only 7 states mandate fuel be blended with ethanol, and two of those, only require E2 not E10. If folks cannot readily purchase ethanol free fuel if they so choose, then they need to take their state legislators to task. It is not the farm lobby or the Feds.

https://www.greencarreports.com/new...line-only-seven-states-require-e10-blend

And I do use ethanol free for my OPE stuff. But I use high levels of ethanol in my vehicles. Been on E85 exclusively for almost 3 years. And as a veteran, the one thing that really makes using ethanol easy for me is that we have never had to deploy troops to protect a corn field or ethanol plant. Obviously, that cannot be said about petroleum based stuff.


I have nothing against ethanol fuel. Just not a fan of the potential upcoming E15. That's 50% more ethanol. If I had a flex fuel vehicle, I'd be running E15/ E20 all the time as I've read there's no MPG decrease between that and E10.

Many new cars specifically say not to run beyond E10 so I hate to guess what it'd do with my old stuff. I realize i could run E0 in everything daily driver wise, but that's a huge price increase in terms of price per gallon.

I am sure there's an equation out there for filling a ~20 gallon tank with an E0 and E15 blend to bring it back to around E10, but until the time comes I won't be figuring that one out anytime soon. Even 5 gallons of E0 would make a difference.

 

[Ded Mazai]

Originally Posted by DrDanger


Most plastic have a great/good tolerance to alcohols, according to this:
https://www.plasticsintl.com/chemical-resistance-chart
Alcohols also have a higher flame/burn speed, which helps making the 25-35% efficiency of a gasoline engine a slight bit better:
https://performancetrends.com/Definitions/Burn-Rate.htm


Does it say that ethanol burns faster?

 

[Y_K]

Originally Posted by TiredTrucker
Actually, ethanol has a net 1.24 energy for every 1 input of energy for production. That included the farming, the transportation, the refining, etc. And considering that the crop in growth absorbs carbon from the atmosphere, it also has a net positive on the environment over petroleum based fuels. Bio fuels are not the savior of mankind, but they are not the evil ogre that many like to present.

https://www.ers.usda.gov/webdocs/publications/40673/32459_aer721.pdf?v=0

And Ethanol production uses only slightly more water than petroleum fuel production.

https://web.extension.illinois.edu/ethanol/wateruse.cfm



https://blog.nwf.org/2019/04/more-corn-ethanol-less-water-for-wildlife/

 

[TiredTrucker]

You do realize, don't you, that only 15% of all farmland is irrigated? And of the 15%, most of it is in places like the Imperial Valley of California which primarily raises produce for human consumption. Very little of the overall U.S. corn crop land is irrigated, even during droughts.

And let's see according to that NWF report... ethanol plants in AZ and ID.... BTW.. don't ya just love how a group with an agenda will cherry pick things! They pick a couple of obscure low production plants in semi arid geographic areas to make a case against ethanol water use.

AZ has one... count it... 1 ethanol plant. Iowa has 46 plants and Iowa is the largest producer of corn in the U.S. (Arizona doesn't even register a blip on the radar compared to Iowa in corn production) and less than 1% of Iowa farms irrigate their land. Indiana has 14 ethanol plants. The only irrigated crop land is by those who are producing seed corn, which again, is only a fraction of the corn crop. Likewise, Illinois, which is usually the 2nd largest corn producing state has about 16 ethanol plants. Again, irrigation is 1% at most of Illinois crop production.

Likewise, Idaho.... again 1 lone ethanol plant. The very same thing applies as the Arizona compared to the rest of the U.S. above.

There are over 200 ethanol plants in the U.S. The NWF chooses 1% of the the group, in the driest areas of the country, and attempts to make a water use is criminal argument. And that is truly sad. They look so ridiculous in their presentation that it causes some to not listen to them when they really do have something substantive to say.

 

[ARB1977]

I can't find E0 anywhere around me. At least in my yard equipment I make my own E0 with 93 E10 and 32 oz of water.

 

[TiredTrucker]

Originally Posted by ARB1977
I can't find E0 anywhere around me. At least in my yard equipment I make my own E0 with 93 E10 and 32 oz of water.


That is pretty bad considering that there is no state mandate for E10 in Texas.

https://www.greencarreports.com/new...line-only-seven-states-require-e10-blend

Maybe you need to have a protest with your hired help in Austin and tell them to make E0 more available to you are going to find new hired help to replace them.

I live right in the middle of corn and ethanol central and I can get E0 at dozens of locations a short distance from my house. Even the corn lobby here can't keep E0 from us.

 

[Nyogtha]

It's as always, due to Federal (all 50 states of the USA) RINs programs, and service stations that have a seperate underground tank for segregating E0 fuel are quite uncommon across most of the 50 states of the USA as evidenced at www.pure-gas.org.

RINs Programs - financially penalize all E0 gasoline fuels vs E10, as shown in the address for the link below, are part of the USA Federal Renewable Fuel Standard Program.

https://www.epa.gov/renewable-fuel-...mbers-rins-under-renewable-fuel-standard

RINs credits are banked, traded, and speculated on just like crude oil and products produced from crude oil in all 50 states if the USA.


List of stations at pure-gas.org

https://www.pure-gas.org

Less than 15K such stations in all the 50 states of the USA is undoubtedly a small fraction of the total retail fuel stations across the 50 states of the USA.

I'd be willing to lead a protest of those that deny and / or avoid such facts anywhere in the 50 states of the USA.

 

[ARB1977]

Originally Posted by TiredTrucker
Originally Posted by ARB1977
I can't find E0 anywhere around me. At least in my yard equipment I make my own E0 with 93 E10 and 32 oz of water.


That is pretty bad considering that there is no state mandate for E10 in Texas.

https://www.greencarreports.com/new...line-only-seven-states-require-e10-blend

Maybe you need to have a protest with your hired help in Austin and tell them to make E0 more available to you are going to find new hired help to replace them.

I live right in the middle of corn and ethanol central and I can get E0 at dozens of locations a short distance from my house. Even the corn lobby here can't keep E0 from us.

Small towns have E0 but I'm not driving out of my way to get it.

 

[kschachn]

Originally Posted by TiredTrucker
That is pretty bad considering that there is no state mandate for E10 in Texas.

You obfuscate the issue with these kinds of posts. There may not be mandates for E10, but there definitely is a mandate for RFG in the EPA nonattainment areas such as here in southeastern Wisconsin. Since nobody uses MTBE any longer then RFG=EtOH.

The entire Houston and Galveston area is required by the EPA to use RFG and all of Dallas and Fort Worth have voluntarily opted-in for RFG as well. So what you have is that two out of the three largest population areas actually do have a mandate for the use of EtOH although indirectly through RFG.

Similar to Texas there are many, many such large population areas throughout the US required to use RFG. Here is the current listing of EPA designated nonattainment areas:

https://www3.epa.gov/airquality/greenbook/ancl.html

 

[TiredTrucker]

Originally Posted by Nyogtha
It's as always, due to Federal (all 50 states of the USA) RINs programs, and service stations that have a seperate underground tank for segregating E0 fuel are quite uncommon across most of the 50 states of the USA as evidenced at www.pure-gas.org.

RINs Programs - financially penalize all E0 gasoline fuels vs E10, as shown in the address for the link below, are part of the USA Federal Renewable Fuel Standard Program.

https://www.epa.gov/renewable-fuel-...mbers-rins-under-renewable-fuel-standard

RINs credits are banked, traded, and speculated on just like crude oil and products produced from crude oil in all 50 states if the USA.


List of stations at pure-gas.org

https://www.pure-gas.org

Less than 15K such stations in all the 50 states of the USA is undoubtedly a small fraction of the total retail fuel stations across the 50 states of the USA.

I'd be willing to lead a protest of those that deny and / or avoid such facts anywhere in the 50 states of the USA.


Well it is partially state directed and retail directed. Many retailers are not going to invest in separate tanks for E10 and E0.

But I live 12 miles from then nearest town. Actually centered between 3 good size towns. And being 12 miles from the nearest one, I can get E0 at a minimum of a dozen stations within 15 miles of me. Each of those towns has at least a half dozen stations that sell E0.

The RFS does not limit if E0 can be sold, It only specifies that a certain number of gallons of ethanol be used in the overall scheme of things. It can be used as E10, E15, E20, E30, E50, or E85. All that matters is that 12 billion gallons of ethanol be used. That alone means that there is not enough ethanol in that mandate to dose every gallon of gasoline sold even if it was only used for E10. Factor out the ethanol used for the higher blends, and that leaves a lot of ethanol free gasoline available. Only 7 states mandate the use of ethanol in all gasoline. That leaves 43 that don't. If ethanol free is not readily available, the is due to either one's state legislature or the local retailers. It is not the EPA, the Corn Lobby, or whatever. It is a problem in one's own state.

 

[kschachn]

Originally Posted by TiredTrucker
Only 7 states mandate the use of ethanol in all gasoline. That leaves 43 that don't. If ethanol free is not readily available, the is due to either one's state legislature or the local retailers. It is not the EPA, the Corn Lobby, or whatever. It is a problem in one's own state.

Do you have me on block or do you just choose to continue to post incorrect information?