If 10% ethanol is a bad idea, leave it to your government and Obama’s EPA to make it even worse by raising it to 15%.
The EPA announced last Wednesday that they approved raising the limit on ethanol blends in gasoline to 15%. It would be restricted to vehicles manufactured since 2007. Retail gasoline outlets must label pumps to prevent consumers from putting the higher blend in older cars, off-road equipment, lawn mowers, boats, etc. Basically, the retailer must add a tank($100,000) and at least one new pump($20,000) to sell this blend. Of course, in 10 years or so that investment is no longer needed except for lawn mowers, boats, and off road equipment. Big volume there.
This is the epitome of government stupidity and politics at it’s worst. Environmentalists are up in arms about ethanol. They say it is a bigger pollutant than gasoline. Corn prices will go up with higher usage. The 45 cent per gallon excise tax credit for ethanol expires this year and no one knows what will happen next year. The tariff on foreign ethanol will expire too. No one knows what will happen to that.
Demand for E-10(10% ethanol) has been low. Demand and availability for E-15 may be lower yet. Without the 45 cent tax forgiveness, demand will be nil.
To get farm votes the Democrats have done this expecting almost no end result except the votes.
Ethanol get less miles per gallon. Ethanol can’t be distributed through pipelines. It must be trucked at high costs. It must be blended at a terminal at higher cost. It is a negative energy gain after the fossil fuel consumption to produce the product. It has cost taxpayers billions of dollars in tax forgiveness. Doing any ethanol at all makes no sense. To do more is insane.
But sanity is set-aside for votes.
Aren’t you getting weary of this?