GreenEnergyForEarth.com – Alternative Energy News and Green Products

Mar 11, 2009 – Clifford Krauss discusses this issue in The New York Times article, “Bigger Share of Ethanol Is Sought in Gasoline” of Mar 6, 2009.  “Burdened by falling gasoline consumption and excess production capacity, ethanol producers appealed to the government on Friday to raise the 10% limit on ethanol in most gasoline blends to as high as 15%.”  What effect will this have on your engine performance or engine life?  Please let us have your comments.

 ”Energy Secretary Steven Chu has said he would favor some increase in ethanol levels as long as it would not hurt autos.”  Will that be determined before new regulations or after the cars have deteriorated?

“Ethanol plants are closing across the country and some ethanol producers are declaring bankruptcy.  The appeal will require the Obama administration to decide whether to increase federal support for the industry, which has already benefited from an array of subsidies, tax credits and Congressional production mandates.”

“Approving the use of ethanol blends up to 15% is a necessary and positive step,” said Bob Dinneen, president of the Renewable Fuels Association, an industry lobbying group, “to ensure the full potential of a robust domestic ethanol industry.”  This is certainly a biased view and without any concern for the tens of millions of cars on the road.

“The Environmental Protection Agency and the Energy Department have been testing higher ethanol blends.  The E.P.A. has 9 months to review the request, but it could decide before that to increase the blend cap slightly, to 12 or 13%.”  Why would the EPA increase the cap before the data are available?

“Energy Secretary Steven Chu has indicated that he would favor at least a small increase in ethanol levels unless auto companies said there was a risk the change would damage their products.

Wesley Clark, the retired general and co-chairman of the pro-ethanol group Growth Energy, said tests thus far had shown that “there is no technically significant difference” between blends of gasoline with 10% ethanol and 15% ethanol.

“It’s important for American national security to be less dependent on foreign fuels and to create jobs and to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions,” he said in an interview, arguing that producing more ethanol would do all those things. “For every billion gallons of ethanol we produce, that’s a billion and a half dollars we don’t spend on foreign oil.”

However, as we saw last year there is probably an extra billion $ spent on food derived from corn.

“Some automakers have asserted that the use of the higher blends over time could cause corrosion and damage auto emission systems, particularly in older vehicles.

In a recent letter to the 2 Senate leaders, Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, and Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers joined refiners and several environmental groups in warning that a higher blend level of ethanol in gasoline would “lead to increased air emissions from gasoline-powered engines and potentially endanger consumers using these engines.”

Food producers are also lobbying against raising the blend limit.  They say any increase in domestic production of ethanol will divert corn from use as food and animal feed, raising food prices for consumers.

Should current gasoline consumption levels persist and the blend level remain at 10%, demand at the nation’s gas pumps would be inadequate to absorb the 15 billion gallons of ethanol that refiners are required to blend.

The industry has a capacity of 12.5 billion gallons a year, but so many plants have been idled that production is expected to reach only about 10 billion gallons this year.”

Please read the full article at The New York Times and then leave your comments here.