New Missouri law requires ethanol in gasoline
December 31, 2007
On January 1st, a new law in Missouri will take effect that requires the use of ethanol blended gasolines. Missouri will be the third state to mandate ethanol use. The other states are Hawaii and Minnesota. Hawaii mandated the distribution of E-10 in April of 2006, and Minnesota did so in 1997.
E-10 is a blend of 90 percent gasoline and 10 percent ethanol. This differs from the E-85 fuel which contains 85 percent ethanol and can not be safely used in many vehicles. While some consumers have concerns about the safe use of E-10, some in the industry claim it will actually help engines last longer.
The idea of running a vehicle on ethanol has a long history. In fact, the first Model T Ford built was designed to run on ethanol.
In 1916, Henry Ford said in a magazine interview, "Gasoline is going - alcohol is coming. It's coming to stay, too, for it's in unlimited supply.”
In the 1920’s Standard Oil began adding ethanol to it’s gasoline to increase octane and reduce engine knocking.
For many years engines have been capable of running on ethanol-blended fuels. Since 1970 all cars built have been compatible with E-10 fuels. Today, all major manufacturers approve the use of E-10 fuels in their vehicles.
Ethanol is a fuel usually made from corn. Since ethanol costs less for stations, many pumps have been selling the E-10 blend for months.
As opposed to E-85 which does not always get as good of fuel mileage as gasoline, E-10 blends have little impact of mileage. An MFA Oil Co. representative has said that it also burns cleaner, is higher octane and is a better product than gasoline. MFA is a large distributor of ethanol.
One study by the EPA has shown that the emissions of toxic substances such as benzene can be reduced by as much as 25 percent with just 10 percent of ethanol added to conventional gasoline.
E-10 fuels have become common across the nation. This is, in part, due to a federal standard for alternative fuels production. Over half the states have begun to offer incentives to retailers of ethanol fuels.
Gasoline containing up to 10 percent ethanol has been available in over 41 states for more than 10 years. Today, over 40 percent of the gasoline in the U.S. contains ethanol, and the percentage is projected to continue to increase.
With the Environmental Protection Agency requiring many large cities to improve air quality, the cleaner-burning ethanol blends are becoming the norm. All gasoline sold in St, Louis has been required to contain at least 10 percent ethanol since 2002.
The National Renewable Fuels Standard requires that 7.5 billion gallons of ethanol to be incorporated into the fuel supply by 2012. Current U.S. use of ethanol fuel is about 4 billion gallons per year.
With a production level of 7.5 billion gallons of ethanol, and a an expected usage of just 7 billion gallons, ethanol-blended gasoline is about 7 cents per gallon less than non-blended gasoline on average.
Many pumps will not reflect E-10 blended fuels being sold. Missouri removed that labeling requirement nearly six years ago. This has resulted in many pumps labeled at an 87 octane of actually dispensing 89 octane E-10 for the past few months.
The new law gives an exemption to the requirement of E-10 if the price of ethanol rises above the price of gasoline.
Copyright 2007 Neighbors About Town
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