The Environmental Protection Agency will seek public comment for 30 days on a petition by the ethanol industry to raise the limit on ethanol in gasoline to 15 percent.

The agency specifically wants comment on its idea of providing a partial waiver of the E10 limit so that higher blends could be sold only for newer vehicles, a proposal that's been roundly criticized.

The agency says "the issue of misfueling would be challenging in a situation where a conditional waiver is granted" and wants comments on the need for restrictions.
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The agency also is seeking comments and data on whether there is "an appropriate level of scientific and technical information" to tell whether E15 will harm emission control devices on cars and power equipment.

The agency's announcement requesting comments can be found at: http://www.epa.gov/fedrgstr/EP...5.pdf

The federal agency has until Dec. 1 to make a decision on the industry petition.

http://www.desmoinesregister.c...ENT05

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I sent in a comment opposing this as I feel that most cars will run poorly on E15 given that they weren't designed for it. You can comment if you like, but make sure you reference the docket ID number!

Submit your comments, identified by Docket ID No. EPA–HQ– OAR–2009–0211, by one of the following methods:
•http://www.regulations.gov: Follow the on-line instructions for submitting comments.

•E-mail: a-and-r-docket@epa.gov.

•Fax: (202) 566–1741.

•Mail: Air and Radiation Docket, Docket ID No. EPA–HQ–OAR–2009– 0211, Environmental Protection Agency, Mailcode: 6102T, 1200 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW., Washington, DC 20460. Please include a total of two copies.

•Hand Delivery: EPA Docket Center, Public Reading Room, EPA West Building, Room 3334, 1301 Constitution Avenue, NW., Washington, DC 20460.

My buddy worked for a company on Wall Street that invested in the ethanol drive big time. He is now one of the people remaining trying to close shop and sell off everything leftover from the bubble bursting.

Correct, and that's why I commented against this. I did suggest that they require more cars to be E85 capable instead.

bingo, this is the only chance they have to survive.

Quote, originally posted by felixthecat, on why his genitalia are important to him »

Good god, I do have a wang and I just couldn't trade it in for a Prius.

Whether they should be given that chance is, however, open to debate. I am incredibly dubious about ethanol for several reasons, the first one being that you can't get enough ethanol per acre to make a serious dent in US oil consumption.

Quote, originally posted by felixthecat, on why his genitalia are important to him »

Good god, I do have a wang and I just couldn't trade it in for a Prius.

I also poo poo the potential increase in E85 capable cars.

I don't think that the production of E85 is helping our global economy.

Quote, originally posted by felixthecat, on why his genitalia are important to him »

Good god, I do have a wang and I just couldn't trade it in for a Prius.

10% is already at the limit of what manufacturers suggest, and we'll see a slight decrease in fuel economy with 15%.

Are they open to TCL Polls?

Especially if we include that Chinese O-Rely dude?

Ethanol has a lower caloric value per gallon than gasoline, and results in similar tailpipe emissions.

Ethanol's advantage is that it's "grown here, distilled here". No furrin' oil, right?

Lower caloric value = worse mpg = more gallons purchased = higher tax revenues for the gov't.

No thanks. DIAF.

The Constitution for the United States of America

It's not helping when we use corn and fire the boilers at the plant with coal. However, if we get to the point where cellulosic ethanol is commercially viable, it would be great to have a large and ready fleet of E85 capable vehicles that could use it.

The energy content of most cellulosic sources is really low, however - as little as a tenth that of corn. There are some promising sources of cellulose for ethanol, like hemp, duckweed, and such, but I don't have a lot of faith that it will be anything but a token gesture.

Quote, originally posted by felixthecat, on why his genitalia are important to him »

Good god, I do have a wang and I just couldn't trade it in for a Prius.

This is another potentially huge problem. A lot of local air quality agencies are struggling to meet the 8 hour ozone standards and it will only get tougher with the new 0.075 ppm standards. They might require only E15 sales under the presumption that "if E10 is good, E15 must be better at reducing pollution" not considering the fact that it could fowl fuel injectors and actually cause increased pollution as compared to lower EtOH concentrations.

Having to deal with local air agencies on a daily basis for my job, I can tell you that most of them are not the brightest crayons in the box. A few are great but I could totally see an E15 requirement in someplace like Louisville or the SCAQMD area (Los Angeles).

I can bang out a draft of some comments for the environmental side of things, but I'm not expert in emissions controls. Want me to?

My feeling here is that they're gonna be considering an exemption for certain vehicles, which is next to useless and insane to boot - what, you're gonna have E15 for Chevrolets, Hyundais, the Ford Taurus and Escape but nothing else, and a few Chryslers (just by way of example) and E10 for everything else? And then you're gonna expect a general public that forgets to refuel with diesel to remember to put the right percentage of ethanol? And then, when people put E15 in their car, it ****s up the injectors, the catalytic converter, and the fuel-handling system...resulting in worse emissions than before. Idiocy.

It's a naked ploy to justify ethanol's continued existence, and a misuse of government regulatory power in an attempt to protect an industry that bet poorly and lost. It's economically inefficient and environmentally damaging.

Modified by Turbiodiesel! at 10:55 AM 4-23-2009

Quote, originally posted by felixthecat, on why his genitalia are important to him »

Good god, I do have a wang and I just couldn't trade it in for a Prius.

Yes, please do.

A primary concern with the use of ethanol as a fuel, at least as currently produced, is the reliance on nitrogenous fertilizers for the production of its feedstock - which tends to be commodity-grade field corn. The relatively inexpensive nature of such fertilizers belies the extremely greenhouse gas-intensive nature of their production and use.

The production of nitrogenous fertilizer involves the synthetic fixation of atmospheric nitrogen into nitrates, an endergonic reaction which requires an enormous input of energy to take place. That energy may or may not be derived from fossil fuels, and as such the production of nitrogenous fertilizer may result in significant greenhouse emissions.

When used in an agricultural setting, nitrogenous fertilizers are typically broadcast onto fields in quantities far in excess of what growing corn plants generally need. Only a small proportion of applied fertilizer is actually metabolized by plants; the rest is incorporated into soil moisture and groundwater, where it is generally metabolized by microorganisms. A principal byproduct of microbial nitrate metabolism is the greenhouse gas nitrous oxide, which is significantly more potent a greenhouse gas per mole than carbon dioxide. Nobel Laureate Paul Crutzen, a chemist, estimates that the greenhouse impact of growing corn to produce a volume of ethanol may actually exceed the greenhouse impact of simply burning the same volume of fossil fuel.

When subjected to a life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions analysis, incorporating production, transport, and use, nitrogenous fertilizers represent a significant and non-negligible source of greenhouse emissions. As such, measures to promote or stimulate the use of ethanol through the granting of a full or partial waiver for 15% ethanol in fuel may directly contradict the Environmental Protection Agency's obligations to regulate greenhouse emissions.

Agricultural runoff is also implicated in declines in the quality of ground- and surface water, both in terrestrial and marine environments. Its stimulation of microbial metabolism increases the probability of the development of hypoxic conditions in bodies of water, suppressing biological activity and biodiversity and decreasing water quality. Again, the Agency's obligations to protect surface- and groundwater quality may not be best served by promoting the production and use of ethanol through the granting of a full or partial waiver for E15.

Quote, originally posted by felixthecat, on why his genitalia are important to him »

Good god, I do have a wang and I just couldn't trade it in for a Prius.

oh i know, which is why i think it is a terrible idea, and they should go away.

Quote, originally posted by Turbiodiesel! »

And it's sure not helping the environment - green it is not.

Growing 'food' to fuel vehicles is NOT the answer.

Modified by W. Sobchak at 2:00 PM 4-23-2009

Quote, originally posted by felixthecat, on why his genitalia are important to him »

Good god, I do have a wang and I just couldn't trade it in for a Prius.

great

now the price of fresh produce will go up

00 GTI GLS 1.8T
92 Corrado SLC
94 Jetta GL

My Civic seems pretty indifferent, but I see a similar dip in mileage in the Sonata.

X2; we shouldn't be growing corn in North Dakota for starters. Our kids won't really need those aquifers, right?

This or the stuff Du Pont is working on biobutanol which is supposed to be directly replace gas.

I just wish we would pump money into algae research to get a better solution.