Featured Emergency e15 authorization on its way

In 2020 we were a net exporter of petroleum products (7.6 million barrels a day). In 2020 that fell to 1.9 million barrels a day, but we are still a net exporter.

 

I would add that it is an oxygenated hydrocarbon that reduces some of the toxic emissions:
Ethanol and the environment - U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)

Ethanol is nontoxic and biodegradable
Unlike gasoline, pure ethanol is nontoxic and biodegradable, and it quickly breaks down into harmless substances if spilled. Chemical denaturants are added to ethanol to make fuel ethanol, and many of the denaturants are toxic. Similar to gasoline, ethanol is a highly flammable liquid and must be transported carefully.

Ethanol can reduce pollution
Ethanol and ethanol-gasoline mixtures burn cleaner and have higher octane levels than pure gasoline, but they also have higher evaporative emissions from fuel tanks and dispensing equipment. These evaporative emissions contribute to the formation of harmful, ground-level ozone and smog. Gasoline requires extra processing to reduce evaporative emissions before blending with ethanol.

Producing and burning ethanol results in emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), a greenhouse gas. However, the combustion of ethanol made from biomass (such as corn and sugarcane) is considered atmospheric carbon neutral because as the biomass grows, it absorbs CO2, which may offset the CO2 produced when the ethanol is burned. Some ethanol producers burn coal and natural gas for heat sources in the fermentation process to make fuel ethanol, while some burn corn stocks or sugar cane stocks.

The effect that increased ethanol use has on net CO2 emissions depends on how ethanol is made and whether or not indirect impacts on land use are included in the calculations. Growing plants for fuel is a controversial topic because some people believe the land, fertilizers, and energy used to grow biofuel crops should be used to grow food crops instead.
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Both Otto and Atkinson cycle engines can use higher compression ratios as the ethanol ratio increases. This means the power stroke can be longer, extracting more energy from the combustion. Happily, modern engine controls can detect the improved octane and 'tune' the engine for more efficiency. But I'm also concerned about the combustion by-products of ethanol.

Gasoline is a complex mix of hydrocarbons which means each is subject to different combustion speed and products. In contrast, ethanol is a uniform hydrocarbon which should reduce the combustion products to more easily managed species. Methanol is even simpler BUT toxic. For safety, ethanol looks to be the 'least bad' approach.

Source: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Dimitrios-Kyritsis/publication/285686972_Emissions_Characteristics_of_Neat_Butanol_Fuel_Using_a_Port_Fuel-Injected_Spark-Ignition_Engine/links/5734be7c08aea45ee83aea8e/Emissions-Characteristics-of-Neat-Butanol-Fuel-Using-a-Port-Fuel-Injected-Spark-Ignition-Engine.pdf

NITROGEN OXIDE EMISSIONS
Figure 7 shows the effect of equivalence ratio on the NOx emissions for gasoline, butanol, and ethanol. NOx emissions which are comprised mostly of NO are dependent directly on the maximum temperature of the fuel-air mixture during combustion and on the excess oxygen in the exhaust gas which depend on equivalence ratio, engine speed, and engine load. The temperature of the fuel-air mixture approaches a maximum at φ ≈ 1.1 however the oxygen concentration in the exhaust gas is low enough that NO cannot form completely [22]. As more fuel is added is to the mixture, there is less excess oxygen to consume so NOx emissions continue to decrease and when fuel is removed from the mixture, there is now more oxygen to consume but peak combustion temperatures are lower. These two factors should offset at approximately φ ≈ 0.9 [22].​

An engine design for optimum, ethanol efficiency should have relatively reduced emissions, especially NOx. This should allow use of simpler, less expensive catalytic converters. Combined with a high-efficiency, hybrid drivetrain, it should have similar cost per mile and purchase costs of today's gasoline powered vehicles.

Bob Wilson

 

makes people act pretty weird though

 

Yet we are not energy independent, and disruption to oil markets, even ones we don't import from or export to, will still result in price shocks here.

Then the ethanol mandate predates our recent fracking boom, which I do not see returning to previous levels. Lower supply means higher profits, which many, now bankrupt, drillers had forgotten.

 

That's assuming inelastic demand. Price and profit are intertwined. If the product costs too much as judged by consumers they will find ways to reduce their consumption and your profits decline. Charge too little and demand is high while your margins are slim. You spend a lot on capital and labor for relatively small returns. Where the balance point is is the $10,000 question.

 

I believe it is cheaper only on a per-gallon basis, generally not on a per-mile basis. They are counting on people noticing the lower price on the readerboard, but not noticing that they are buying slightly more fuel volume of this lower-energy-content fuel, eating up essentially all the 'savings'. Or even more.

I.e. it is political sleight of hand.

 

During the peak production, the fracking operations kept pushing for more barrels drilled, while the price the per barrel was heading to under their extraction cost. That was before they had to discount their product because the the easy to reach customers, the Golf Coast refineries, didn't want it as it was the wrong type of crude from what they were designed for.

I couldn't do daily trip comparisons, but on trips, the lower efficiency was covered by the lower pump price. When E10 is your norm, E15 isn't much of a penalty.

 

Which is precisely the danger producers don't want. If they drive the price too high for too long, people start making decisions that negatively affect the oil producer's profits. People buy more fuel efficient cars, businesses implement more fuel efficiency measures, and so on. Those are long-term things to some extent that will persist even if prices decrease, so a short-term price hike and profit-taking might work, it's not in their financial interest to maintain it for too long.

The big bogey man in this equation is competition for limited oil resources by foreign economies. As economies like India and China increase their demand for oil, the price goes up globally. What one country can afford may be far different than what another can afford. Maybe $7/gallon gas is no big deal to those in China who are using gasoline. That's the problem with global markets in a setting where costs of living vary widely - the nominal price is the same across the planet, but the real cost varies drastically. It prevents the market from functioning optimally because two areas of the planet can be sending producers opposing economic signals simultaneously.

 

Smart businesses are way ahead of the Government in the energy game.

Toyota in the US would negotiate Natural Gas allotments and cost for their factories out 5 years in advance of actual usage. They also negotiated a deal to have a local landfill pump their captured methane from decomposing garbage to the plant to supplement their natural gas as well as help the local electrical utility to build a solar generating field to help supply them electricity.

Another Company near us has the capability to run the boilers on Natural Gas, Propane or Fuel Oil with minor modifications to the boilers. They buy these energy resources based on price, availability and storage capacity.

Many forward thinking companies are light years ahead of the Government on Energy Conservation and Energy alternatives. Energy prices affect their bottom line and if they are smart they have planned and fixed their energy cost far into the future.

 

This recurring theme seems to be the kind of talking point that can have truth in it (the reduced energy per gallon part), but at the same time still mostly serve to either treat people as dumber than they are, or actively make them that way.

People given time to think about it, with no one actively distracting them, will likely agree that what they ultimately care about is how many dollars it costs them to drive how many miles.

You can get that from miles-per-gallon and dollars-per-gallon, by simple division, and when you do that, the gallons cancel and disappear. It's not Jedi sleight of hand, it's the math we taught everybody in school so simple matters like this wouldn't trip them up.

If a gallon of E0 takes you 50 miles, a gallon of E10 takes you 48.3 miles, and a gallon of E15 goes 47.8.

If the E0 per-gallon price is p = $4, then you're breaking even if the E10 is $3.86 (p ✕ 0.965) or the E15 is $3.82 (p ✕ 0.955).

If the E10, E15 are priced below those levels, they're saving you money. If priced above, then you can start asking if you think the infamous "they" are putting something over on you.

Now, it's possible you could look at the break-even pricing and think "there is still some other worthwhile advantage here even though it isn't on price." That gets into other considerations. But as far as the volume energy content and price, the math is easy, and I'd rather say to a person "here's how you do it" than "oo, there's math and somebody's out to trick you."


Now, one class of driver who might still care about the per-gallon details would be somebody very devoted to Wayne-Gerdes-like maximum-miles-on-a-tank stunts. For that, of course, E10 and E15 crimp your style (by 3.5 and 4.5 percent, both compared to E0). But for the rest of the world who stop and put fuel in when the tank is kinda low and do it again when it's kinda low again, the per-gallon details vanish in practice the same way they cancel on the page.

 

There were 2 very good reasons for allowing ethanol historically.
History of Ethanol Production and Policy — Energy
First oil price spikes from opec, brought the country to reduce dependence on unfriendly oil and switch jobs to domestic farms and distileries.

The second was oxygenate which seemed to reduce pollution in carbureted engines at the time.

Later came environmental concerns with resulted in some really poor science and ag politics which ended methanol blending (after successful experiments in california and racing). At the time oil prices were high and rising and the mandate started reasonably but grew huge by 2013. Since then a lot of the poor environmental assumptions have been corrected but not the mandate. Today's engines probably don't require oxygenates, and methanol and electricity seem to be more economical and environmentally sustainable than corn ethanol. There still is a chance for cellulistic ethanol but costs even when highly subsidized are still too high. Methanol can be made biologically from sewage gasses or fermentation of crop waste or e-methanol can be made from co2, water, and electricity. Both are more expensive than methanol from natural gas in the US or coal in china, but a mix would likely be more environmentally advantageous than corn ethanol. Lobbying has stopped the open fuel standard in the US from mandating cars be built to be able to run on methanol blends. China is pushing forward with methanol blends.

With the ethanol mandate, why would farmers switch now to less profitable crops. Now maybe if they drop it to something reasonable then farmers would switch. Animal products have had the most inflation and beef uses feed corn the same as ethanol. The land is not proper to grow oranges and coffee, the produce that has inflated the most.

It is more likely farmers switch to more corn given current government incentives instead of other vegetable or fruit crops. Is this an intended consequence of the ethanol lobby and iowa first primary? Or an unintended consequence. You decide.

 

From a source I've previously used, if E0 gives 50 mpg, then E10 gives 48.16 +/- 0.22 mpg, and E15 gives 47.33 +/- 0.27 mpg. 95% confidence limits, though the test mix includes older vehicles than now normal on the road. (Factors are 0.9632 for E10, 0.9466 for E15.)

At least in my state, $4 for E0 is a pipedream.

Average in my state the since the emergency authorization came up is about p10 = $4.65 for (apparently) E10. That would make break-even points of p0 = (p10 / 0.9632) = $4.828, and p15 = (p10 X 0.9466 / 0.9632) = $4.570. The E15 should be 8 cents cheaper then E10 to break even. I seem to remember a news report hoping to get 10 cents cheaper.

Here is that source's table:

Other sources likely give different figures.

Yes, the math is easy. But I'd have to say that a majority of people around me -- especially now that I've retired from the engineering office -- never do the math.

 

When I tested E85 in a former Prius, I got a check engine light and harmless code indicating the injectors were open too long. Using partial fractions, I found ~E50 appears to operate without the check engine light. Given our Prius have a substantial engine start mode, it worked fine in near freezing temperatures.

Bob Wilson

 

My participation in the farm topic is over the comment that this E15 authorization will keep farmers from growing food to cover the current production loss in the Ukraine.

The reality in that regard is more likely that ethanol for this authorization will come from plants using corn, or barley, from last season.

The few times I filled up with E15 in North Carolina and Virginia, the E15 was 10 to 20 cents cheaper, and that was at least a year ago with lower base prices.

Studies in Germany and Japan have shown that the water in hydrous ethanol protects aluminum parts from the alcohol. Hydrous is also cheaper to make, as getting that last ~5% of water out takes extra effort than the first ~80%.

Hydrous E15 was once available in Norway.

 

We have a couple of things going on here. First the emergency authorization will not by itself increase corn prices or shift farm land to corn. Remember the epa did this in 2019, but a court struck it down in july 2021. There is likely no environmental reason for the ban, and they have not done testing to see if it does indeed cause smog. The ideas behind the ban had to do with cars without the pollution control that is in most of the fleet.
https://ethanolrfa.org/file/2213/RFA%20E15%20Fact%20Check%20Apr%202022.pdf
I disagree with some things in that link, but there was no real science behind the original restriction.

The thing that makes corn land use so high is the mandate. Scale that back and allowing e15 year round would allow for more e0 to be sold, blender pumps to be installed at more stations and other benefits. Classic cars and motorcycles and lawn equipment don't really like e10. With the high mandate and higher fertilizer costs farmers will plant even more feed corn this year than last because they have a more guaranteed profit. The mandate already is above 10% if it rises to 12% or 13% even less e0 will be available and more land will be converted to feed corn.

 

Which is the refutation I was trying to make; this recent authorization isn't changing what farmers were going to plant.

"I disagree with some things in that link, but there was no real science behind the original restriction."
This appears to be a case of the regulation not being changed with increased scientific knowledge.

Hydrocarbon vapors will lead to smog formation. Reid vapor pressure(RVP) is a measure of how readily a liquid will evaporate; the higher, the more readily it will. For summer blend gasoline, the EPA has the RVP capped at 7.8 to 9 psi, depending on region. Pure ethanol has a RVP of 2psi, but when mixed with gasoline, it can become more volatile. E10 increases the base gas's RVP by 1, so it was granted a wavier to the RVP cap that lets a refiner ignore that 1psi increase for regulatory purposes.

The RVP changes from ethanol to gasoline varies with the ethanol concentration. It hadn't be studied when the E10 waiver was granted though. When the alcohol amount goes above 10%, its increase effect of the gas blend starts dropping until the blend's RVP is lower than the base gasoline's at 50%.

E15's increase to RVP is about the same as E10's, but because of how the law is written E15 has to meet an RVP of nine in the summer while E10's can go up to ten.

All this emergency waiver does is give E15 the same leeway as E10 for the same environmental impact.
https://www.eesi.org/papers/view/fact-sheet-the-consumer-and-fuel-retailer-choice-act
https://sgp.fas.org/crs/misc/IN10703.pdf

While modern cars have systems in place to handle evaporative emissions, the power tools, and many toys, that get fired up in the summer do not.