The only non-oxygenated fuel sold in Minnesota is premium. The manual says not to use premium.
I wish that the politicians had actually considered how consumers would be affected by the ethanol mandate. I'm producing fewer greenhouse gasses, but I'm burning more fuel to get to that.

 

But they get to race to the media and show how much they are doing for the enviroment! When in fact they are linning the pockets of the refiners. The oxygenate fuels are certainly not sold at a lower cost reflecting their BTU. O fuels = more fuel used = more money = no change or worse enviroment.

 

I thought oxygenated fuels are intended to reduce the production of ozone... not greenhouse gases. Ozone at ground level is a cause of air pollution, and health problems and is a major problem in the summer, thus the 10% ethanol or oxygenated fuels. The effect on gas mileage is secondary to the reduction of ozone and thats the reason for the decision that was made.

 

No they were devised to reduce hc and co (not co2) in ICEs by reducing the available hydrogen and increasing the o2. Remember alcohol is a hydrocarbon with an oxygen molecule.

 

Ozone and NO2 are the primary visable smog componets. These are created in ICEs at high combustion temps (above 1400 deg F) Most modern ICEs have solved this problem through design. EGR valves used to be the control for NO2 in ICEs. I suspect the adkinson cycle engine have VERY low NO2 emissions.

 

Yes, the oxygenated fuel actually increases the main greenhouse gas, CO2. It primarily reduces CO, and to a lesser extent HC and NOx. NOx is the primary ground-level smog producer. Based on the mileage hit that I take with 10% ethanol, I think that it actually produces more emissions....

 

When I was working with exhaust emissions analyzers I noticed the lowest or cleanest ICEs produced the highest CO2.

 

Makes sense...

 

I have an old Sun SGA9000 analyzer, and all of my newer vehicles read near zero CO and HC, and about 14.8% CO2. My 1971 SCJ mach 1 reads about 6% CO2, but HC is around 350ppm and CO around 1.8%. Can't measure NOx, but I bet it's very high for the mach.

 

Burning ethanol is carbon negative.
Each pound of ethanol burned saves 10 pounds of CO2 compared to burning gasoline. Sound impossible? Not if you consider all the green parts of the corn stalk that sucked up C02 all summer, and were never used for fuel.

Plant an acorn that weighs 1 ounce.
Wait 50 years and you have a 100,000 pound oak tree.
Where did all that weight come from?
Soil? Nope. Otherwise you'd have a giant sinkhole in the ground.
Water? Nope. Wood is very dry. Even "green" wood will burn without much difficulty.

Nearly all of the weight of every tree, every plant on earth, comes from carbon dioxide that has been removed from the air. And the air is only 0.04% carbon dioxide, due mostly to the abundant plant life on earth.

Ethanol only ferments ( and you "burn" ) 30% of the kernal. 70% of the kernal goes into food. 90% of the cork stalk is tilled back into the soil, or used for animal food. Thus the process of growing corn and producing ethanol is not close to neutral. It is very tilted towards carbon negative. It takes 9 tons of CO2 out of the air for every 1 ton produced from tailpipes.

Another fast fact: E10 or 10% ethanol reduces tailpipe emissions by 30%.
( so you need to get 30% worse, or about 20 MPG in a FEH for this choice to be worse than pure gas.)
It is NOT a 1:1 ratio!

-John

P.S. The battery power allowed to come out, and go into the battery is reduced in both hot and cold temperatures. Above 100'F you loose 1 amp ( or 330 watts, or half a horsepower ) for each degree. Below 65'F ( or 60'F, I forget now ) you loose 1 amp per degree.

This is both due to chemistry, and the battery software being "gentle" with the HV battery.