What's your fuel???

Chip - The EPA has proposed reducing the amount of ethanol, along with other renewable fuels, for 2014. It will now go through a 60-day comment period and then they will ultimately set the volume requirements for 2014. I don't know what that will be at this point, nor does anyone else. If the proposed holds true, it will translate to roughly every gallon being 10% ethanol. If the law holds as written, you will see the traditional 10% blends, but also the option of E15 & E85 grow. Ethanol is much cheaper than gas, and those independent retailers (over 90,000 gas stations are owned by single station owners) need the lower cost product to survive against the big box retailers. Ethanol will not disappear. Right now the Detroit 3 are looking at using higher ethanol blends to meet their fuel economy standards of the future with small engines, higher compression and maybe turbochargers. If that comes to fruition, the new base fuel could be between 20-30% and have an octane near 100. Stay tuned!


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My Motorcycle ..... HATES IT !!!

What?s to like about ethanol? It can ruin car engines, it?s bad for the environment, and it raises taxes, gas and food prices | AEIdeas


What’s to like about ethanol? It can ruin car engines, it’s bad for the environment, and it raises taxes, gas and food prices

Mark J. Perry | January 16, 2013, 5:41 pm


Except for a small minority of corn growers and ethanol producers, corn ethanol is a bad deal for everybody else: it damages automobile engines and fuel systems, it’s bad for the environment, it requires billions of dollars extracted from US taxpayers, and it raises fuel and food prices for consumers.

That’s my basic argument in my editorial today in Michigan papers, here’s a slice:

Corn ethanol is clearly inferior to gasoline as a fuel source for automobiles. Despite a 51-cent-per-gallon tax credit to companies that blend ethanol into gasoline (now expired), ethanol costs about 70 cents a gallon more than gasoline on an energy-equivalent basis. Instead of helping consumers, ethanol provides 27% lower fuel economy than gasoline.

Realistically, you have to burn a lot more ethanol-based fuel to create the same amount of energy to power your car, which has unnecessarily driven up the cost of operating a vehicle. And there are serious long-term adverse environmental implications from using corn ethanol. Growing corn to make fuel requires significant amounts of fertilizer and pesticides that pollute the soil, underground aquifers and waterways. The National Research Council has determined that corn ethanol uses significantly more water in its production cycle than gasoline.

So far, neither the Administration nor Congress has confronted the fact that 40% of the U.S. corn crop is used to produce ethanol, which has increased retail food prices and strained family budgets in their never-ending struggle to put food on the table.

The first step to adopting a more sensible ethanol policy is to halt the production of E15, since it is caustic and can ruin car engines, while doing nothing to moderate gasoline prices or improve the environment. The Renewable Fuel Standard requires escalating the production of ethanol, ramping up from 13 billion gallons this year to 36 billion gallons by 2022. Unless cellulosic ethanol becomes available, that level of production would require switching the nation’s entire corn crop to the production of corn ethanol.

That would be a recipe for disaster. Congress needs to roll back its mandate. It’s time to stop throwing our tax dollars at ethanol.

Hmm .... GM is partially owned by the US Government and when the C7 motor was in development they owned a larger share of GM. It's in their best interest to force ethanol on consumers.
While there are several new engines that will run fine on ethanol, they won't be in the marketplace for a few years.

I won't be using 10% or higher ethanol blends in my C7 or my motorcycle if I can help it. Ethanol is more CORROSIVE than gasoline.
What you run in your C7 is your choice.

The CRC Engine Durability study took duplicates of eight different vehicle model engines spanning 2001-2009 model years. All 16 vehicles were tested over a 500-hour durability cycle corresponding to about 100,000 miles of vehicle usage. A range of engine operating parameters was monitored during the test, including cylinder compression, valve wear, valve leakage, emissions and emissions control system diagnostics. Two of the engines tested on E15 had mechanical damage. Another engine showed increased tailpipe emissions beyond the allowable limit.

This study adds to the body of knowledge on the effects of higher blends of ethanol. Ten research papers have been published on the effects of increasing the ethanol blend ratio to E15 from the current E10. In a study by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory on the impact on fuel dispensers, all gaskets, seals and O-rings swelled and showed effects that can result in leaks. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) tested samples of service station equipment, and found that, on average, about half of the equipment failed the compatibility tests. Another NREL study found severe damage to marine engines run on E15.

Automakers advise consumers to continue to follow the guidance on fuel selection in their vehicle owner's manuals. While automakers do market certain vehicles called Flex Fuel Vehicles (FFV) that can use up to 85 percent ethanol, these vehicles have been designed to tolerate the more corrosive ethanol, including changes to fuel pumps, fuel tanks, fuel injectors, engines, control systems, various calibration capacities, emissions systems and materials used.


DC Insider: E15 boosters attempt to mischaracterize the AMA’s ethanol position
Posted by: Rick Podliska on Wednesday, August 21, 2013


You have heard the old adage before: When you don’t have the facts that support your position, you attack the messenger.

Well, this is exactly what the boosters of the untested-for-motorcycles E15 fuel blend (15 percent ethanol by volume) are doing. They are trying to mischaracterize the American Motorcyclist Association’s position as blanket opposition to ethanol.

For example, a group promoting ethanol recently gave away free E10 gasoline to motorcyclists at Sturgis with a sign that read “Why is the American Motorcyclist Association (AMA) calling out just one [E15 fuel]? Read what else is wrong with AMA’s claims on E15.”

The latest attempt is to use the motorcycle racing community to further their agenda to get E15 into retailers across the country. The pro-E15 website provides an example of how a racing team uses E85 (85 percent ethanol by volume) in a “stock” motorcycle with a modified fueling system and that, everything works fine – which we applaud. After all, the top-speed bike was designed to operate on a high-percentage ethanol blend – and alcohol-burning racing motorcycles have been around for a long time.

The suggestion -- that if race bikes can run on E85, why worry about E15? – is quite disingenuous because competition machines are purpose-built and do not have to conform to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency emissions standards or satisfy the durability demands of everyday riders. Certainly an engine's internals and cooling and fuel systems can be designed to operate on high(er) levels of ethanol. But that really misses the criticism coming from the motorcycling community.

Which is this: 100 percent of the 22 million motorcycles and all-terrain vehicles on the road and trail in the U.S. today are not designed to run ethanol blends higher than 10 percent, and many older machines favored by vintage enthusiasts have problems with any ethanol in the fuel. And yet the opportunity to misfuel and damage an engine with higher ethanol blends such as E15 is very real.

It is time to set the record straight.

1) The AMA recognizes ethanol is one of many possible fuels. The key is that when our engines and fuel systems are designed for one type of fuel, we can't just put anything in the tank and expect there will be no problems. There has to be a ready supply of safe fuels for all motorcycles and ATVs.
2) The EPA has not tested E15 on motorcycle and ATV engines and does not approve of E15 for their use.
3) Use of E15 can void a manufacturer’s warranty.
4) The AMA wants an independent, scientific study on the effects of E15 on motorcycle and ATVs engines.
5) The AMA’s concerns has always been that riders might unintentionally put E15 in their fuel tanks due to confusing and/or unmonitored implementation of the EPA Misfueling Mitigation Plan and the possibility of residual E15 fuel left in a fuel hose, which could be as much as one-third of a gallon.

The bottom line for the AMA is this: Motorcyclists simply want safe fuels available at all fuel retailers and measures employed by retailers to ensure they cannot inadvertently put unsafe fuels in their tanks.

Get the facts on this important issue with the AMA’s E15 and Motorcycles Q&A.

Please be sure to share this with your fellow motorcyclists to counter the spin coming from the E15 lobby group that does not have your best interests at heart. The AMA is your voice.

Put Corn on my table, Not in my Fuel!!!

The fact that your conspiracy theory is that the federal government made GM warrant the use of E15 in the C7 is comical and simply amazing. The fact that over 80% of all MY14 vehicles from all manufacturers are E15 approved makes it even more amazing.

If you can eat the corn used for ethanol, go for it. Make sure you have a dental appointment first though. There is a difference between sweet corn, field corn and popcorn. Only field corn is used for ethanol, and only the starch of the kernel is used to produce it. The rest is returned as livestock feed.

Again, if your only source of information is biased groups supported by or directly funded by the American Petroleum Institute, I won't waste my time arguing, but I will share the facts for those that do. Feel free to read these two responses for the CRC and AMA links shared:

CRC Rebuttal from National Renewable Energy Lab: http://ethanolrfa.org/page/-/rfa-as...iew and Evaluation of E15 Studies.pdf?nocdn=1

AMA: Since they were talking about my efforts at Sturgis, here was my response posted in the comments section of the article:

"Since I hosted the promotion in Sturgis, I thought I would fill-in what you left out about our event. The sign that is quoted was for two purposes. First, to show the 6 fuels that were available around Sturgis that are not approved for use in motorcycles and to make sure riders knew what fuel they could and couldn't use, which included E15. Second, AMA's position is to stop E15 so it can be tested in motorcycles. Why? Even if the tests revealed that it was good or bad for motorcycles, it would still remain illegal for them to use it. We at the Renewable Fuels Association (RFA) decided it was better to spend our time educating riders on what they can and cannot use versus scaring them on all things ethanol when sometimes they simply will not have a choice but to use ethanol-blended fuels. Why not make sure they use the right one in that situation?! We did that at Sturgis this year, and the previous four years. The comments on E85 in a motorcycle were not by a racing team, it is my personal 2009 Harley Road King. It is not to show that E15 is good for motorcycles, nor have we ever said that. It is to show the manufacturers that the capability is there for future models. As always, we remain open to working with organizations like AMA."




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