E-15 rule to be waived

MTBE is what was used as an oxygenate in this area (EPA non-attainment area so oxygenated gas, also known as RFG, reformulated gas, is required). But MTBE can get into groundwater and a very small amount of MTBE will make water taste bad. The oil companies wanted indemnity from their use of MTBE, the Feds wouldn't give it to them, so we get ethanol instead of MTBE because the oil companies don't want the liability from using MTBE if it spoils someone's well water.

It seemed to me that gasoline with MTBE had a different odor compared to gasoline without it.
MTBE is toxic and would easily mix with groundwater when MTBE containing gasoline leaked from the buried tanks at gas stations. The liability for remediation was in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

I had a short stint with an environmental engineering firm back in the mid 1990's and one of our clients was a MTBE plant in SE Houston (Deer Park, Texas City, Pasadena area). We knew then it was bad stuff. I spent many hours crawling around that plant working with the operators.
 
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What I don't understand is the miss information. E15 burns cleaner. From all the research I have done, ethanol burns cleaner. So why the miss information on it burning dirty? Been using it for over 10 years with no issues in all our vehicles. Oldest was a 2002 Silverado.
 
At a minimum, they will need to add a tank for E15.

I wonder if the rules changed
back in the day we had pumps that had 1 to 3 handles with as little as two tanks in the back
Coupled with a myriad of random ethanol percentages selectable .

If I wasn’t buying e85 I found those pumps frustrating because I figured I was getting a slug of e85 in the line, even when I had selected e20 (for example)

What I don't understand is the miss information. E15 burns cleaner. From all the research I have done, ethanol burns cleaner. So why the miss information on it burning dirty? Been using it for over 10 years with no issues in all our vehicles. Oldest was a 2002 Silverado.

Burns cleaner yes but old cars (that shouldn’t burn e15) make more voc out the open tank to the atmosphere when they aren’t moving.
E15 has higher than expected vapor pressure which is also why it gets much better than expected fuel economy in the summer months.
If you have a goofy Subaru with the partial zero emissions badge it’s got a sealed tank and isn’t affected by this issue, nor is the Prius or a variety of other cars.
 
Burns cleaner yes but old cars (that shouldn’t burn e15) make more voc out the open tank to the atmosphere when they aren’t moving.
Yes exactly. The concern is "photochemical smog" which results from unburned fuel vapors entering the atmosphere. Ethanol is photochemically active and also more volatile than the constituents of typical summer blend gasoline.

Modern cars with a good EVAP system, especially those designed to handle E85, would not be an issue.
 
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In regards to needing to add tanks, etc... the answer is that it depends on the setup of the retailer. I recall discussing this in other threads before, but the basics are this:

In one setup, the retailer has essentially 2 gas tanks - a regular and a premium. The pump may offer three offerings, all from a single hose - regular, midgrade, and premium. The pump blends the regular and premium to deliver the midgrade octane.

That works when the regular and premium are the same - ie: both are E10 or E0, since they aren't blending in ethanol too.

The other setup is dedicated tanks for each product and separate hoses. I know I point to Kwik Trip a lot, but most of their stations were setup this way prior to E15. They had dedicated tanks for Regular (E10), Midgrade (E10), and Premium (E0). They could not blend premium and regular to sell midgrade and meet the requirement of 10% ethanol for non-premium fuel (by law in Minnesota).

When they decided to stop selling midgrade and sell E15, they already had dedicated tanks, etc...

Just depends on the setup - and is why the waiver won't result in a giant expansion of E15 sales overnight.
 
What I don't understand is the miss information. E15 burns cleaner. From all the research I have done, ethanol burns cleaner. So why the miss information on it burning dirty? Been using it for over 10 years with no issues in all our vehicles. Oldest was a 2002 Silverado.
I didnt see a post about it "burning dirty".

With F.I. and lambda sense the ECU will adjust the mixture to near stoich at light throttle cruise.

What happens under load could be ugly as the tables are not loaded for high % oxygenate fuels.
With a wideband lambda thin film sensor on the newest cars it should be able to manage E15 as it reading mixture under at least part load/enrichment.

Someone here said the ethanol has to be trucked to the terminal. That's dirty. Next, your gas mileage could be 3mpg less which is significant.

And worse of all, if the underground storage tanks get a little bit of water in it, the Ethanol will grab the water and settle out on the bottom of the tank. It doesn't take much water either to have this phase separation occur.
Then you will have 85 octane or less gasoline. Depending on the service station UST (tank) level you will end up pumping either
low octane gas < or > water and alcohol. Happens around here too often around here - especially given the stank sensors and controls the filling station operators should be monitoring - and the new poly UST (tanks) most stations installed.

Next you are taking corn away from feed and food product and likely running up the cost. Maybe Why a bag of tortilla chips is pushing 4 bucks !

- Ken
 
What I don't understand is the miss information. E15 burns cleaner. From all the research I have done, ethanol burns cleaner. So why the miss information on it burning dirty? Been using it for over 10 years with no issues in all our vehicles. Oldest was a 2002 Silverado.
 
As that article points out, E15 is currently available at less than 2% of the nations fueling stations... That won't change overnight with the waiver.

The concern about water in the gas with ethanol is no different than the concerns with E10.

My honest opinion, and I use E15 regularly (with zero problems), is that the waiver won't do much to actually increase any ethanol usage or consumption. Other than giving people something to fret incesseantly about...
 
I thought we've been using E15 gas for years? That stopped at some point and we were getting straight E0? There are stations that have separate non ethanol pumps for landscapers and enthusiasts like us: https://www.pure-gas.org/

OK just read the article that this is just for the summer, since apparently E15 is sold all other seasons. What's the big deal if we are pumping it 75% of the year already?
 
The same E10 requirements as we've had forever are still around. It never stopped.

E15 has been an option available dating back to 2012 and a decision by the EPA. The EPA has typically prohibited its use in the summer months due to concerns over smog formation from evaporation of the ethanol. However, it sure feels like stations here have been selling it year around for some time...
 
Anywhere that has Casey's has E15, AKA Super 88. Unfortunately they quit selling E0, they were one of the few places you could buy it (other than big $ at marinas). AFAIK they sell E15 in winter too.
 
MTBE is toxic and would easily mix with groundwater when MTBE containing gasoline leaked from the buried tanks at gas stations. The liability for remediation was in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

I had a short stint with an environmental engineering firm back in the mid 1990's and one of our clients was a MTBE plant in SE Houston (Deer Park, Texas City, Pasadena area). We knew then it was bad stuff. I spent many hours crawling around that plant working with the operators.

I heard that MTBE's toxicity isn't really well established, but that it's probably less toxic than gasoline. The amounts of MTBE that were getting into groundwater weren't anywhere near being dangerous, but the effect on how it tasted was the big issue. It's certainly not a great idea to inhale MTBE fumes, but the same is true of almost any solvent. But in tiny quantities where it's going to affect the taste of water, it's not really a health issue.

Methyl tert-butyl ether is used as a gasoline additive. Exposure may occur by breathing air contaminated with auto exhaust or gasoline fumes while refueling autos. Respiratory irritation, dizziness, and disorientation have been reported by some motorists and occupationally exposed workers. Acute (short- term) exposure of humans to methyl tert-butyl ether also has occurred during its use as a medical treatment to dissolve cholesterol gallstones. Chronic (long-term) inhalation exposure to methyl tert-butyl ether has resulted in central nervous system (CNS) effects, respiratory irritation, liver and kidney effects, and decreased body weight gain in animals. Developmental effects have been reported in rats and mice exposed via inhalation. EPA has not classified methyltert-butyl ether with respect to potential carcinogenicity.​
 
IMO its all smoke and mirrors. Theoretically it should be cheaper, but let's be honest will the fuel distributors/stations actually pass it along? Even if it does end up saving lets say .10/gallon that is going to be eaten up by worse fuel economy, its a zero sum game. Fortunately the majority of consumers are not as tuned into their cars fuel economy like the typical BITOGer so they might not notice slightly reduced range but will notice the slightly lower cost to fill their tank.

I pretty much exclusively ran E85 in my flex fuel MB C300 the 2.5 years I had it. Despite being significantly cheaper than premium it was a total wash with the much worse fuel economy. Some tanks during especially bad traffic were in the high single digits (8-9 MPG), more often than not 12-13 MPG was the reality. Even on road trips it was down about 5-6 MPG vs running premium. I kept on with using E85 because the back of my white car stopped getting covered in black exhaust soot and it had better butt dyno performance on E85, not to mention the exhaust had a very unique smell. :ROFLMAO:
 
IMO its all smoke and mirrors. Theoretically it should be cheaper, but let's be honest will the fuel distributors/stations actually pass it along? Even if it does end up saving lets say .10/gallon that is going to be eaten up by worse fuel economy, its a zero sum game. Fortunately the majority of consumers are not as tuned into their cars fuel economy like the typical BITOGer so they might not notice slightly reduced range but will notice the slightly lower cost to fill their tank.

I pretty much exclusively ran E85 in my flex fuel MB C300 the 2.5 years I had it. Despite being significantly cheaper than premium it was a total wash with the much worse fuel economy. Some tanks during especially bad traffic were in the high single digits (8-9 MPG), more often than not 12-13 MPG was the reality. Even on road trips it was down about 5-6 MPG vs running premium. I kept on with using E85 because the back of my white car stopped getting covered in black exhaust soot and it had better butt dyno performance on E85, not to mention the exhaust had a very unique smell. :ROFLMAO:

That's the thing. Quite a few people are OK with E85 loss of MPG as long as the performance is better. And it can be substantially better.
 
Anywhere that has Casey's has E15, AKA Super 88. Unfortunately they quit selling E0, they were one of the few places you could buy it (other than big $ at marinas). AFAIK they sell E15 in winter too.
Some Casey’s (primarily the newer stores) do have E15, but far more have E0 instead in Iowa and Nebraska. Most of the Casey’s here in Omaha/across the river in Iowa sell 87 E10, and then 87 E0 and 91 E0, plus diesel. The Casey’s in my hometown in Minnesota has just diesel and 87 E10, and lots of their older stores sell only 87 in either E10 or E0 options.
 
I heard that MTBE's toxicity isn't really well established, but that it's probably less toxic than gasoline. The amounts of MTBE that were getting into groundwater weren't anywhere near being dangerous, but the effect on how it tasted was the big issue. It's certainly not a great idea to inhale MTBE fumes, but the same is true of almost any solvent. But in tiny quantities where it's going to affect the taste of water, it's not really a health issue.

Methyl tert-butyl ether is used as a gasoline additive. Exposure may occur by breathing air contaminated with auto exhaust or gasoline fumes while refueling autos. Respiratory irritation, dizziness, and disorientation have been reported by some motorists and occupationally exposed workers. Acute (short- term) exposure of humans to methyl tert-butyl ether also has occurred during its use as a medical treatment to dissolve cholesterol gallstones. Chronic (long-term) inhalation exposure to methyl tert-butyl ether has resulted in central nervous system (CNS) effects, respiratory irritation, liver and kidney effects, and decreased body weight gain in animals. Developmental effects have been reported in rats and mice exposed via inhalation. EPA has not classified methyltert-butyl ether with respect to potential carcinogenicity.​
Gasoline doesn't mix with water but MTBE does and back in the 1990's you still had residences on well water with gas stations around them. Groundwater moves albeit the speed depends on the substrate. People shouldn't unknowingly get sick because as mentioned the taste, but it effectively poisons the well for the homeowner hence the liability for the station owner. I only remember this because one day I had to go pull some samples from some monitoring wells at a gas station in an older but busier section of Houston. The station was brand new but a replacement as the old tanks had been leaking for some time. They paid us to drill and monitor test wells in order to determine the concentration of and where the petrochemicals were moving. Back then it took a lot of time to sample a well with one of these because the boss wouldn't spend the money for an electric pump.

The thing with remediation is that in some cases it's the gift that keeps on giving for decades which is a lot of $$$.
 
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I will have to go where I can get at least the E10 at 93 octane for my 70 Chevelle. Can only find 90 non ethanol gas where I live and the BB wants more octane!
 
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