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Even if you don’t drive a flex-fuel vehicle, your gas tank probably contains some ethanol.
Most gasoline sold at Indiana pumps contains 10 percent ethanol. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is weighing whether fuel refiners should be allowed to increase that concentration to 15 percent.
Boosting gasoline’s ethanol content would help support the alternative fuel industry – including two northeast Indiana ethanol plants that cost more than $100 million each. But opponents are worried that cars, boats and lawn mowers won’t run well on the fuel.
Ethanol industry advocates have asked the EPA to consider increasing regular gasoline’s maximum ethanol content to 15 percent. Otherwise, the industry will not be able to meet the federal mandate requiring the country to blend 36 billion gallons of renewable fuel into gasoline by 2022, said Bryan Christjansen, general manager of the Poet Biofuels LLC ethanol plant in Wabash County.
The law, called the Renewable Fuel Standard, requires fuel blenders to use more biofuels each year or risk being fined. The law is designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and fossil fuel dependence.
But most gas already contains 10 percent ethanol. Ethanol content needs to increase so fuel companies can comply with the law, Christjansen said.
Sales of E85, a mixture of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline that is sold separately, remain too small to meet the law’s requirements, he said.
Drivers use about 140 billion gallons of gas a year, said Wally Tyner, a Purdue University agricultural economics professor. Even if each gallon contained 10 percent ethanol, drivers would be consuming 14 billion gallons of ethanol. Increasing the ethanol content to 15 percent would raise ethanol consumption to 21 billion gallons a year, he said.
Shifting to a 12.5 percent ethanol blend would increase Midwestern ethanol sales about 25 percent, Tyner said.
Ethanol plants produced 9 billion gallons of the alternative fuel last year, according to the Renewable Fuels Association, an industry trade group.
But the 10 percent blending limit restricts the industry’s future growth, Tyner said. As a result, plants have idled about 2.2 billion gallons of production capacity. An estimated 3.4 billion gallons of additional capacity is in jeopardy, he said.
“Everybody’s competing for that limited demand that’s out there,” he said.
Ethanol demand outpaced production last year, according to the Renewable Fuels Association. But the industry is on track to produce 13 billion gallons a year in a few years, said Matt Hartwig, the industry association’s spokesman. Demand will need to grow to keep pace.
If ethanol demand does not increase, it could have a devastating effect on the communities where ethanol developers invested millions of dollars to build plants.
Bankrupt VeraSun Energy postponed construction on a northwest Indiana plant in Reynolds and finally sold the site to another ethanol developer. Poet, which spent $130 million to build its North Manchester plant, is waiting to start other Indiana projects until the fuel blending issue is resolved, Christjansen said.
But increasing gasoline’s ethanol content without adequate testing could create other problems. Current vehicles were designed to run on fuel containing 10 percent ethanol, said Charles Territo, spokesman for the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers. Ethanol burns hotter than gasoline and dissolves some materials.
He said fuel containing more ethanol could corrode fuel lines or damage catalytic converters, which regulate vehicle emissions.
Specially designed flex-fuel vehicles can run on higher ethanol blends such as E85, but only about 3 percent of vehicles have that capability, Territo said. Without more testing, he said, there is no way to know how higher ethanol blends could affect other vehicles.
Preliminary data show vehicles run well on E15 – gasoline blended with 15 percent ethanol, Hartwig said.
The EPA could adopt a weaker ethanol concentration – 12 percent or 12.5 percent – while it continues to test E15 in vehicles, he said.
Not enough testing has been done to determine how E15 would affect cars, boats, lawn mowers and other motorized equipment, said Kris Kiser, executive vice president of the Outdoor Power Equipment Institute industry trade association.
The Department of Energy’s E15 tests covered 28 of the 900 engine families in the landscaping, forestry and utility equipment industries, he said. Many chain saws, lawn mowers and other devices have not been tested.
Ethanol burns hotter than gasoline. Kiser said many equipment manufacturers fear that could cause blades to spin while a tool is in an idle setting.
“This is phenomenally dangerous,” he said.
Equipment warranties only cover fuel blended with 10 percent ethanol, Kiser said. Some equipment manufacturers would need to redesign equipment to run on E15.
The fuel also poses problems for boaters, Kiser said. Ethanol can cause resin parts to break away from fiberglass and stop a boat’s engine.
It would be difficult to sell gasoline containing no ethanol for these limited applications, Kiser said. Gas stations would need to dedicate pumps to selling the fuel. If pure gasoline was more expensive, some consumers would buy ethanol blends and risk damaging equipment or boats, he said.
Christjansen blended E15 fuel for his 2002 Pontiac Grand Prix. The car ran fine, and he saved about $1.50 to $2 each time he refueled because ethanol was less expensive than gasoline.
“I haven’t had any engine issues at all,” he said. Christjansen also has blended his own snowmobile fuel without any trouble.
Making the switch would reduce the nation’s dependence on foreign oil, Hartwig said. Consumers also would save money if ethanol prices remain lower than gas.
Automakers want to reduce oil dependence and encourage renewable fuel use, but Territo said the higher blends need more testing before they should be allowed in cars.
EPA officials are scheduled to accept comments on gasoline’s ethanol content until July 20. A decision is slated to be made by Dec. 1, Hartwig said.
If the EPA allows more ethanol in the fuel supply, there is no way to know what problems consumers could have with vehicles, boats and motorized tools, Tyner said. The testing done so far was short term and looked at few vehicle models.
“So the EPA is in quite a dilemma because there hasn’t been enough testing,” he said.
