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Is it illegal to put E85 in a non flex-fuel vehicle?
I was at a local meeting and someone said the EPA had issued warning letters. |
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Ask for documentation!
I'll bet a dollar to a doughnut they have none. That'll stop their Fear Mongering in its tracks. If we are being asked to accept Fear of Reprisal without documentation, why can't we accept Personal Freedom and Self-Responsibility without documentation? (Ignoring, of course, the US Constitution, as does our Gov't.) To answer your question, David Blume discussed this during his most recent Coast To Coast AM interview ("C2C" last month). I can only relate what David said, and cannot supply documentation of my own. Naturally I'll toss in my own 2-cents along the way -- most likely more than once! hehehe.... The short answer is, yes, you are correct, it is B.S. And I don't mean a Bachelor of Science degree! heheh.... Basically so many people started using alcohol fuel following Blume's original C2C interview (around June 2008) that usage of ethanol shot way up, and the Big Oil companies got scared. So they sent out a letter to all their gasoline stations saying unspecified 'bad things' may happen, from destruction of vehicles, to station owners maybe being sued over some unspecified reason. Scare tactics in other words. It appears to be a counter-punch thrown by Big Oil to scare people away from using ethanol. Then followed by $50/barrel oil again. But maybe that is only a coincidence, and oil is *not* a manipulated market. In any event, this is why I caution people to only do ethanol on a cash basis. No debt at all. This way you can survive the artificially lowered fuel prices when that is used as a weapon against ethanol producers. If you do a news search I think you'll find a number of ethanol plants (biodiesel too) are in financial trouble, and will remain so long as oil is low in price. Once they are mostly out of business prices will go up again. So work in your (detached) garage, talk to farmers, and if you wanna go big but don't have the cash, form a co-op with others who think as do you. But do *not* go into debt: "the borrower is slave to the lender." And debt = large risk. We are going to have enough troubles getting American to run on ethanol. Having ethanol production plants go belly-up due to large debt isn't going to help any of us. Anyway, enough of that rant.... Consider this... Most gasoline vehicles on the road today can take 10% ethanol all day long, year after year. This was a design requirement because the car manufacturers cannot know where their vehicles will end up, and some places (many in fact) require 10% and more ethanol to be blended into their gasoline. (Now Missouri, for example, will mandate this only when ethanol costs less than gasoline, so relative prices do enter into this subject.) Some states are talking about making this as high as 20% ethanol. So "damage" to vehicles is BS. They are in fact designed *not* to be damaged by ethanol. Older cars can run on ethanol too. Very old fuel pumps --like from the 1970's, old-- may have problems with their seals. But late model parts seem to be just fine. I think this goes back to something like 1986. Anything made after than should be perfectly fine with regard to negative effects from using ethanol. David Blume's "big black book" ("Alcohol Can Be A Gas") has a lot of information on these topics. You may also look at his web site of the same name. He may have some of the supporting documentation there. I would hope so anyway. Now, bare in mind that Big Oil *may* attempt to have laws like that passed. Our gov't --like all gov't's-- are bought and paid for, and you and I don't have nearly enough money to buy them! So it may become illegal in the future. But I sincerely doubt it is today. Also bare in mind, "regulations" are not laws. Large gov't organizations may do whatever they want at any time. *IF* at a later date a judge rules against them things may change, but little people are ground up under the wheels of Big Gov't in the meantime. This is part of the reason our Founding Fathers warned so direly against a strong central gov't. Vote with this in mind, and with every dollar you spend, cast your economic vote too. This may yet change for the better, but it is going to be an uphill battle. Do what you can to spend your money locally and help support your local economy. Do what you can to stop sending money overseas or to Big Business or Big Gov't. None of these are the friend of the Little Guy.
Ever-cheerful,
PS: Being we are under the thumb of Big Gov't the odds are good there is a branch office of the EPA near you. Call them and ask for the documentation for these "laws." I'll bet another dollar to a doughnut they will be unable to comply with that request. But the effort will arm you for the next time that Fear Tactic is used in a meeting you are attending. |
| How do I figure out how much ethanol my engines can take and still work well? |
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First, ethanol is perhaps an even better fuel than gasoline. However, our engines are optimized to burn gasoline not ethanol. Therefore, you cannot just dump 100% ethanol into a gasoline engine and expect it to work perfectly (true flex-fuel vehicles are the exception to this -- they can burn 100% ethanol, 100% gasoline, or anywhere in between).
...Back to the plan of attack... Go to your local E85 dealer and get a 5-gallon jug of 85% ethanol. In Missouri that is certified as being anywhere from 70% to 85% ethanol. Now add one-gallon of E85 just before you fill up you fuel tank next time. If all goes well, next time add two-gallons of E85. At some point your engine may begin misbehaving. It may run rough, sputter, cough, or just lose a lot of power, etc. Congrats! You just found your engines easy-limit! If you want to still burn more ethanol, you will need to make some adjustments. Which can be done, but will require more effort than adding ethanol to your fuel. I have two lawn mowers. This last summer my dad determined one can take straight E85 and run fine, and the other one can only take a 50/50 mix. But every dollar *not* spent on gasoline is another dollar *not* funding people who hate me, so I'm all for it! Others may feel differently, as is their privilege. My dad also found out he can take at least 25% E85 in his minivan. He hasn't found the upper limit yet. My vehicle burns diesel, and that is a much tougher row to hoe in terms of ethanol conversion. In fact, I doubt I'll do it. For my money, biodiesel is a better solution for a diesel engine. That said, I have heard more than one person say their 1980's era Mercedes Benz manuals state they may use up to 30% gasoline (winter blending to counter gelling of the fuel). So I am hopeful there may be some percentage of mixing I may be able to perform. But I haven't tried that yet. So there you go. |