Featured Emergency e15 authorization on its way

https://www.eesi.org/articles/view/research-supports-idea-that-mid-level-ethanol-blends-are-the-best-near-term#:~:text=E15%20use%20displaces%20more%20cancer,1.5%20percent%2C%20relative%20to%20E10.

Health concerns are likely to be lower with e15 than e10 since in cars made after 2007 should produce fewer cancer causing emissions.

I would not trust the ghg from this article since it fails to account for the ghg from farming. I would think the amount of smog would not be affected, as regulators are basing smog on a car fleet that is no longer in use. It would be good to see some new studies using the 2022 vehicle mix.

If gas stations still provide e10 I see no real problem with the change. They should also offer e0 ;-) and methanol blends. E15 will likely increase hp in turbo charged engines because of its slightly higher octane.

 

Why did this require an exception to the Clean Air Act?

Biden will ease restrictions on higher-ethanol fuel as inflation hits a 40-year high | WKSU
"15% ethanol blend that is usually banned from sale from June to September — to be sold this summer, a measure intended to help ease gas prices."

What is the summertime ethanol waiver and how will it affect gas prices? - Poynter
"The president directed the Environmental Protection Agency to grant an “emergency waiver” to allow E-15 fuel. E-15 means the blend is 15% ethanol. Most gasoline sold in the U.S. is E-10, which means it is blended with 10% ethanol. The EPA usually does not allow E-15 gasoline to be sold from June to mid-September because of air quality concerns"

Won't this impact Seniors, young children, people who work outside or live in heavy populated areas health?

 

[

The oil and gas industry.....

Science and data.....plus you had "skin in the game" back then.....

I don't trust ghg from ANY article.
The oil lobby lies about the ag numbers....the ag lobby lies about the oil numbers...and the greens lie about all the numbers.....

We grow a lot of corn in the US.
Dot.gov keeps us from growing MORE (because wars never cause food shortages, right? )
https://thecounter.org/biden-administration-farmers-conservation-reserve-crp-usda-vilsack/

As Dr. House (and other really smart people) would say:
Everybody Lies.

However (comma!!!)
You can eat corn.
You cannot eat petrol.

We've gone to war over petrol.
We went to war ONCE over corn.
ALL of these wars resulted in counter-insurgencies.....BUT(!!!) We won the one over corn (and tobacco.)

We've exported oil in the recent past.
We've exported military aged people in the recent past.
We've exported corn every year since before Biden was a Senator (not that long after Reconstruction.)

TWO of these are GOOD things for a country to export.

So...
The E-15 drama is just a shiny bauble to draw the eye away from the inflation/fuel drama.
EVEN fake news is calling out P46 for blaming inflation on Putin so all of this is smoke and mirrors, and dot.gov wanting people to know that they're "doing stuff."
See also:
Strategic Petroleum Reserves.


I think I heard that E15 can cause a 3% reduction in gas prices (depending on whether or not you live on free soil) but the reduced energy density will probably start to be noticeable as well.....


Result:
meh.

Won't help much but unlike most of the current administration's snap-shot "ready-fire-aim!!!" measures it probably will not hurt things that much either.

ACTUAL mileage, of course, WILL vary.

 

Probably not. The epa and California ARB science that banned it from June to mid September is pretty much a political game. To properly know what is happening the current fleet of cars needs to be tested with e15. I pointed to one test which said it is slightly less harmful than e10, and if e15 is so harmful while is e0 not really allowed. The key facts in dispute are ethanol increases RVP (reid vapor pressure) which increases evaporative emissions. E10 got a waver in 1992, E15 was banned because of the RVP during summer in 2011. Ethanol will increase evaporative emissions either at e10 or e15 but these emissions may be less harmful to the environment than e0 since they have different compounds. In 2011 most cars on the road did not comply with 2007 emissions regulations but now they do, basing RVP regulation on the fleet over 20 years ago doesn't make much sense. I don't know the real answer but likely the epa was correct in 2019 give e15 the same waiver as e10.

Not just the lobbies the pandering politicians.
As Trump Touts Ethanol, Scientists Question the Fuel's Climate Claims - Inside Climate News
In 2019 the Ag department stated much lower ghg emissions from ethanol than the GAO did. Remember the AG industry really wants e15 required not just allowed. That really has fights from most consumer advocates as well as the oil industry. Still it would be great in the time of war to be able to substitute a domestic product that the US can displace exports from unfriendly countries.

 

If you are a cow or a pig or an ethanol factory, yes. But humans can't eat this type of corn (field corn, 99% of all corn production), it is indigestible to us. We can eat only sweet and some specialty corns, about 1% of all corn production.

https://texascorn.org/education/corn-types-uses/

 

The worry isn't in whether higher ethanol percentages will run in a car. It is over what potential damage it could cause to component materials with long term use.

That won't change much as the refineries will still switch the petroleum components blend to get rid of butane stored up over the summer in the winter.

 

And?

BTW...I'm not calling your numbers into question but there's a difference between "won't eat" and "can't eat" and the one percent probably represents sweet corn instead of the HFCS, corn chip, popcorn, and other non-indigestible corn.
AND....corn and other bios (such as rice husks) are also being made into other things that WERE being made from petrol.com stuff.

ONCE AGAIN....this is just a bone for media and hyperactivists to fight over to draw the eye away from what's going on (or more appropriately NOT going on behind the curtain.....)

 

More flexibility is good. I agree with this change for now. The problem is the corn lobby does want an ever increasing portion of fuel used in this country to be ethanol.

Exclusive: Biden weighing cuts to 2022 ethanol blending mandate proposal | Reuters

That 15 billion gallon mandate needs to be rolled back. If the country takes the price signal from oil, less gasoline should be used in this country, but the mandate requires much more ethanol blended than last year.

 

The cure for high gas prices is……high gas prices.

 

It's funny that a "fuel shortage" keeps being mentioned. Yet I haven't seen a single gas station with a sign that says "we're empty" or even a single pump turned off due to a tank being empty......granted, that's within a 50 mile range of Cola SC, but I haven't heard of any "empties" either...must be a shortage with the inventory at the higher range of what is considered a shortage

 

me neither. i'm sure they are paying more, based on crude pricing being bid up on wall street.

and i have no doubt big oil is turning a nice profit as well. congressional hearings are a farce, why don't they bring in the supermarket ceo's as well.

 

The mandate for this year is at over 10%, it is over 11% if the US consumes 134 billions gallons of gasoline that it did last year. The government reduced the mandate to keep it feasable in past years, but the AG industry lobbiests wanted us all to use more ethanol and fought it. When oil is cheap why should everyone need to pay more for e10 and not allow e0? With Iowa being the first primary the ag industry wins. Companies that sold enough ethanol last year sold credits at over $1/gallon to meet the mandate and its higher this year. Credits fell in anticipation of more gas sales but they will rise again if the mandate is not reduced.

Where did you get that number? The numbers I have read are much lower. Was it based on the bad projection of falling gasoline prices?
EIA expects gasoline and diesel prices to fall in 2022 and 2023 as demand growth slows - Today in Energy - U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)
Of course the EIA and AG lobby could not have known that Russia would invade and OPEC would not increase output but prefer higher oil prices. No analyst I read now expects gasoline at the 146 billion barrels it peaked at pre pandemic. The US fleet is more efficient than in 2019 and gas prices are much higher. You would expect that it would be just a little over last years consumption.

Again this is a reason to lower the mandate from the very high 15 billion barrels of ethanol, not keep it that high. Why not make it 9% of gasoline sales instead of raising it every year, then lowering it when the consumer doesn't buy enough e85 to hit the mandate.

Have you bought beef lately? Price of feed is sky high so are beef prices. Lowering the mandate would lower meat prices but some environmentalist want these high too. Many environmentalists think the ethanol mandate is bad for the environment. Why not allow bio methanol to be used in the mix? The AG lobby.

 

But why do we want gasoline users to pay a tax (RIN mandate) to lower E85 prices enough that the few that want it will switch. If we want higher gas prices a federal tax is a better way. If we want cheaper e85 prices (and environmentalists don't) then why not subisidize it like the country does hydrogen (also not really helping the environment). The mandate has been lowered every time.

Here is a brief history until 2013 at which time the mandate had to be curtailed because of harm it was doing.
A timeline of recent ethanol events | AP News
Feinstein, Toomey, Menendez, Collins Introduce Bipartisan Bill to Repeal Ethanol Mandate - Press Releases - United States Senator for California

The original mandate was for 36 billion gallons of biofuels this year. The mandate is not magic. It keeps failing and there is not an environmental reason to keep it in place. At least the government has lowered the mandate consistently so that we don't do a lot more damage.

Most trucking uses diesel, planes use aviation fuel and avgas, neither of which are not part of the ethanol mandate.

As seen in what I referenced earlier, oil demand growth has slowed and it is lower than in 2019 pre pandemic.

Check in when the numbers come in. The EIA when projecting lower gas prices estimated demand would rise less than 4 billion barrels, but prices are much higher than projection. This is far bellow 2019.

Again do you have a source for these rosy projections for big oil? It is much higher than eia projected even with much lower gasoline prices.

 

There were empties earlier this year in the UK.

The disruption caused by Russia doesn't directly do much to US petroleum supply, but it does much to others. Those markets are looking for oil supplies from from elsewhere. Doesn't matter if that elsewhere is the US or not, the resulting price increases from other people's shortages will increase the pump price here.

Then we are coming to the seasonal blend change over. Petroleum fractions that go into summer gas are of value on their own. If refineries can make more profit selling them separately, they will.

 

Gas has dropped 70 cents here over the last month. Good political move. But market forces are controlling prices.

 

down ten cents here from $4.60

 

Market forces?
You mean OPEC and Russia and sanctions are controlling oil prices, and the release from the reserve slowed that down? Or that the huge profit margins from the few remaining oil companies are still there because lower supply.

Monopoly and government forces, not the market.