"Blueskies" wrote in message
...

"Al" wrote in message
. ..
I just happened to see a sticker on a fuel pump today that stated "may
contain up to 10% ethanol" while I was filling my car this morning. Upon
further investigation with my fuel retailer, the local fuel jobber, and
the fuel distributor here in Spokane, Washington that there is a federal
mandate to add 9 billion gallons of ethanol per year to the nationwide
gasoline fuel stream. A new twist is a 5.1 cent per gallon federal fuel
tax break to the oil companies to get this "alternative" fuel into the
market. Tomorrow (April 8) is the first day of the program and the
dealers get their price tonight. According to my sources, there is a
possibility that some retailers may opt out, however if that 5.1 cent
break is passed on to them, it won't be likely.


Worse than that, htere is NO requirement from the feds to mark the gas
pumps with the 'may contain 10%' warning. There may be a local or state
requirement to do so though. I wonder if the gas companies will pass on
the 5.1 cent savings to us (Not!) to compensate for the degraded
performance (read mileage) the contaminated gasoline provides.



There is no savings and the 5.1 cents is only to help offset the petroleum
distributors' increased cost to provide an inferior product. But enev if
there had been any savings: on a purely mathematical basis, presuming the
"closed loop" system is working correct for your computer controlled
automobile engine, based on a pump price of $3.40 USD, 10% ethanol at 60% of
the thermal content of gasolene reduces the value by 13.6 cents for a net
loss to the customer of 8.5 cents--even if they reduced the price by 5.1
cents.

Ignoring all of the compatibility issues; the 60% efficiency figure would
mean that, if "pure" gasolene is worth $3.40, then pute ethanol would be
worth $2.04 per gallon.

There are indeed a lot of people who claim that, in actual use as a motor
fuel, ethanol is actually 80% as efficient as gasolene. However, even if
that was true, a 5.1 cent rebate for the use of E10 would still result in a
net loss of 1.7 cents. So, we are clearly not receiving a good value!

Peter