Pressure Builds on EPA to Back down on Ethanol Emissions, as Society of Automotive Engineers Issues Stunning Rebuke

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November 6, 2014

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by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest) In Washington, what has been described within the industry as “The growing movement to call out the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for its ethanol emissions testing procedures” picked up support today as a new study from the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) called the agency’s approach flawed.
In the paper “Issues with T50 and T90 as Match Criteria for Ethanol-Gasoline Blends,” authors James E. Anderson, Timothy J. Wallington (both of Ford Motor Company), Robert A. Stein (AVL Powertrain Engineering), and William M. Studzinski (General Motors) write that: “The purpose of this paper is to illustrate that exclusive use of a match blending approach has fundamental flaws.”
The authors add:
“For ethanol-gasoline blends, higher boiling-point hydrocarbons must be added to match T50 and T90 with fuels having less ethanol. The degradation of emissions which can result is primarily due to the added hydrocarbons, but has often been incorrectly attributed to the ethanol. Studies to evaluate the effects of ethanol should be conducted by adjusting the blendstock only as necessary to satisfy ASTM D4814 requirements. Blending ethanol at up to 30%v with an E10 blendstock should generally require only minimal changes in composition to meet ASTM D4814.”
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Steven VanderGriend, Director of the Urban Air Initiative Technical Committee, observed: “SAE Papers are technical in nature and are highly regarded and peer reviewed. According to this is critical to the argument UAI has made that splash blending higher volumes of ethanol on to finished E10 not only fails to raise any emissions but serves to improve emissions by diluting sulfur and aromatics, along with the current non-regulated ultrafine particulates. Also, by using ethanol’s octane potential, the greatest CO2 and mileage benefits can be achieved by the auto industry.
“This paper can serve as an important tool to correct the MOVES (Motor Vehicle Emissions Simulator) model that EPA requires states to use when estimating air quality impacts of fuels,” said VanderGriend. “As an independent source, the auto industry experts who were involved in this study are validating the concerns we have had for quite some time now.” READ MORE and MORE (Urban Air Initiative) Abstract

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