Why you should avoid filling up your gas tank with ethanol-laced fuel

[Staff]

Why you should avoid filling up your gas tank with ethanol-laced fuel
Saturday, March 10, 2012
by: Jonathan Benson, staff writer

Why you should avoid filling up your gas tank with ethanol-laced fuel
excerpt from above:

New guidelines recently put forth by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for automobile fuel could spell disaster for your car's engine. The Environmental Working Group (EWG) reports that the EPA is set to approve E15 automobile fuel, or fuel that contains up to 15 percent ethanol, which is so damaging to car engines that many car manufacturers have put out warnings that using it will void car warranties.

For many years now, the federal government has been incrementally mandating that gas stations around the country sell E10, an up to ten percent ethanol-blended gasoline, for the purpose of supposedly reducing emissions. The theory purports that...

[Staff]

Folly and immorality of E15
EPA’s new ethanol mix will punish taxpayers, the environment and the hungry
By Paul Driessen
Wednesday, May 2, 2012

DRIESSEN: Folly and immorality of E15 - Washington Times
excerpt from above:

As if E10 ethanol mandates aren’t folly enough, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will now permit ethanol manufacturers to register as E15 gasoline suppliers.

They will next work to get E15 (15 percent ethanol) registered as a fuel in individual states and persuade oil companies to offer it at service stations - assisted by Team Obama promotional efforts and taxpayer-financed grants, loans and loan guarantees to help station owners install 10,000 blender pumps over the next five years.

Regular gasoline has already skyrocketed from $1.85 a gallon when President Obama took office to around $4 today. Many motorists will likely seek to reduce their pump pain slightly by filling their cars, trucks and maybe even boats, lawn mowers and other equipment with presumably cheaper E15 blends. That would be a…

[biigblueyes]

All of our garden-type power tools seem to always be in need of having the carbeuretor re-built. I assumed it was due to bad gas - I threw away the gas can with the split in the handle and had declared it to be the culprit.

But even though I bought my own little gas can, and marked it "gas for girls" and DARED hubby to touch it, the problem didn't go away. His hunting buddies have declared ethanol gas to be the culprit. I don't know, but it's been 2 - 3 years that we've had the problem, and about the same time frame that ethanol gas has been in the area.

Does anyone know if avoiding ethanol gas is the answer, or if one of those gas additives such as "sta-bil" would be a better solution?

[Staff]

Renewable Fools Standard
By Jed Babbin on 8.6.12 @ 6:10AM
The drought should mean an end to the ethanol subsidy -- the last thing the EPA and Obama will ever surrender.

The American Spectator : Renewable Fools Standard
excerpt from above:

The arithmetic is simple: the more feed corn is used to produce ethanol, the less is available to feed those chickens, cattle, and turkeys. About 40 percent of our corn crop is used for ethanol, not for feeding livestock or people. Simply put, the ethanol mandate is forcing the prices of protein foods to rise and will continue to do so as long as it exists. And the mandate costs the federal government billions because gasoline blenders are given a reported 45 cents per gallon tax credit for using ethanol in their gasoline.

Last week, a broad coalition of meat and poultry producers petitioned EPA administrator Lisa Jackson to waive the ethanol mandate, saying the Renewable Fuel Standard "directly affected the supply and cost of...

[NEWisc]

Renewable Fools Standard
By Jed Babbin on 8.6.12 @ 6:10AM
The drought should mean an end to the ethanol subsidy -- the last thing the EPA and Obama will ever surrender.

The American Spectator : Renewable Fools Standard
excerpt from above:
Quote:
The arithmetic is simple: the more feed corn is used to produce ethanol, the less is available to feed those chickens, cattle, and turkeys. About 40 percent of our corn crop is used for ethanol, not for feeding livestock or people. Simply put, the ethanol mandate is forcing the prices of protein foods to rise and will continue to do so as long as it exists. And the mandate costs the federal government billions because gasoline blenders are given a reported 45 cents per gallon tax credit for using ethanol in their gasoline.

Last week, a broad coalition of meat and poultry producers petitioned EPA administrator Lisa Jackson to waive the ethanol mandate, saying the Renewable Fuel Standard "directly affected the supply and cost of...

It's unfortunate that the author decided to undermine the rational argument for stopping the use of corn to produce ethanol fuel (it's energy inefficient and it raises food prices) with all that political gibberish and conspiracy theory. This is a simple special interest (ethanol lobby) versus the good of the Country issue. Neither political party is blameless, and this one issue does not define either party.
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[sprucetree]

I've had nothing but problems with my craftsman chainsaw but it is a piece of cheap Chinese plastic. As far as finding ethanol-free fuel in metro Detroit I think all the stations carry the 10 percent. The car engines don't seem to be affected but the lawn equipment sure does. It's really hard to pinpoint who's at fault; Me for buying cheap Chinese plastic or the refiners who are following federal law.

As far as tune-up in a can type products I shy away from the Sta-Bil brand type fuel preservatives at 4 to 8 dollars to treat the gas.

Our Auto-Makers have let us down as well, They give us Flex-Fuel vehicles which are a compromise. An engine that would run and make more power on Ethanol is de-tuned to run on 87 octane gas. The Indy Cars run on Ethanol and the octane of Ethanol is 110.

Of course the Auto-Makers aren't going to build an Ethanol Car until the Oil Companies can supply the fuel nationwide. The costs would be high with Ethanol as it's corrosive properties aren't compatible with the old holding tanks through-out the U.S.A Most of the cars in Brazil run on Sugar Cane Ethanol so it can be done.

If you haven't wondered why we use corn for Ethanol instead of cat-tails and sun chokes it's probably because the seed producers and Monsanto have made sure that 2 native crops haven't been mentioned. Sure both are shall we say nearly un-controllable but that would be a plus for making ethanol.

[Equilibrium]

The author is a dingdong and is suffering from selective memory recall. Granted.... Obama isn't exactly lily white on these ethanol subsidies and mandates but er uh.... wasn't it Mitt Romney supporting em whole heartedly during the '08 caucuses>>>? And lookie who withdrew his amendment with no explanation just last year, Proposal to End Ethanol Pump Subsidies Dies in Senate. Whatever.... it's looking like this current administration is actually gonna do us in even further and to me.... it's just flat out not morally or ecologically responsible because it's displacing food crops.... displacing feed crops.... raising up the cost of food "globally" because of droughts and other weather events but the biggie still is.... it's not even close to being "green"..... "the net energy ratio of corn-based ethanol (i.e., useful energy divided by the energy required to produce a unit of ethanol) is at best 1.25. Some have even calculated a ratio less than one, meaning it takes more energy to produce ethanol from corn than the energy content of the fuel."