That Cotton-pickin’ Varmint Ethanol vs that Bush Whackin’ Cherry-pickin’ API

by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest) Who’s right, in the fight of their lives over E15 ethanol blending? Whose data’s from Toontown, whose from the real-world?

Yesterday the American Petroleum Institute held a press conference in DC to highlight a new report from the Coordinating Research Council on E15 ethanol blends.

...Use of the ethanol gasoline blend E15 may endanger fuel systems in millions of 2001 and newer vehicles, says API. The Institute’s Group Director of Downstream and Industry Operations Bob Greco said the fuel system failures could lead to vehicle breakdowns, also cited CRC research completed last year that found E15 could damage valve and valve seat engine parts in vehicles.

...The reaction from ethanol trade groups was, as expected, apoplectic — and we’ll get to that in a minute.

EPA and the Department of Energy have not responded to the study, yet — but the DOE did respond to the May 2012 CRC study, and described it as “deeply flawed”.

The issue Ford and GM say that E15 is safe for all of their 2013 model year cars – and are cautionary about earlier models. The auto industry, taken as a whole, would prefer to see higher blends of ethanol in flex-fuel cars, not the entire fleet – for now.

By contrast, the EPA, based on a review of DOE test results, has declared E15 safe for 2001 model year cars, and later. So what we have is a dispute over E15, vs E10, in non flex-fuel cars for model years 2001-2012. Sounds pretty narrow, doesn’t it?

...The results are the results, and no one is saying that CRC faked the data. The cat fight between ethanol groups and anti-ethanol forces centers on whether the CRC designed a real-world test — that is, would any of these problems really be seen in actual autos on actual roads, and if they are seen, would they really be due to E15 ethanol, as opposed to something else.

...Meanwhile, we’ll point out three problems that ought to be troubling to thoughtful people.

1. The “Measure Twice, Cut Once” problem. RFA tells us: “The AVFL-15 project was duplicated by Minnesota State University back in 2008 also using an aggressive E20 test fuel on fuel system components. Conclusions of the report stated “E20 was found to have a similar effect as E10 and gasoline on fuel pumps and sending units.”

2. The sulfur problem. Excessive sulfur can cause fuel sensors to fail – ask CRC, they wrote the book on the topic back in 2009, here. For that and for emissions reasons, it is limited to 30 parts per million in (corporate averaged) gasoline, and 10 PPM in California. We noted that the CRC soak test pitted 10.4 PPM gasoline against 14.4 PPM E15 ethanol. That’s a 40% “juicing” of the sulfur content — and you would need to blend 37 PPM ethanol with 10.4 PPM gasoline to get that sulfur level.

3. The aging problem. Fuel pumps fail, and they are known to do so, starting at 60,000 miles or so in the real world — for a host of reasons. Particularly if, as in this case, you run for 90,000 miles without mentioning a change of fuel filter. Ask Ford – they tell you to change the filter every 15,000 miles in the real world, here. READ MORE and MORE (Renewable Fuels Association)