The federal government has for the past nearly 50 years amped-up the regulations requiring new vehicles to be ever more “efficient” – that they use less gas. No matter how much this costs us. And for about the past 40 years, the federal government has been making gas less efficient – via federal regulations requiring that gasoline be adulterated with what are styled “oxygenates.”
These “oxygenates” – most notoriously (but not exclusively) ethanol alcohol – were introduced into the gas supply back in the late ’70s as clumsy emissions control measure. The idea was that by leaning out the gas-mix fed to the engines of that era, they would burn more “cleanly” – i.e., emissions of pollution-causing combustion byproducts would be reduced, because they were burning less gas (10 percent less, because “gas” was now only 90 percent gasoline and ten percent ethanol or some other “oxygenate”).
Hence the “E10” fuel that is now what you get when you buy “gas” pretty much anywhere.
But engines burned more of this fuel. Because ethanol-laced “gas” contains less energy than 100 percent gas – because alcohol has a lower BTU content than gasoline. Thus, gas mileage went down – by about 3-5 percent. People who were driving at the time noticed this not-small decrease in gas mileage because they remembered the mileage their cars delivered when they were burning 100 percent gasoline.
But – so it was argued – this decrease in gas mileage was worth the decrease in exhaust emissions. Perhaps it was.
But is it still worth it?
The answer is no – it isn’t. Because “oxygenating” gas is literally worthless now – at least in terms of reducing vehicle exhaust emissions. It has been worthless for almost 40 years, too. They why has to do with the fact that very shortly after the federal government began to require the adulteration of gasoline with “oxygenates” back in the mid-late 1970s, mechanical fuel delivery systems – carburetors – began to be supplanted by electronically controlled fuel delivery systems (i.e., electronic fuel injection). The latter – which had become standard equipment in every new vehicle sold in America by the late 1980s – is capable of adjusting the air-fuel ratio richer (more gas in the mix) or leaner (less gas in the mix) to achieve maximum-possible fuel efficiency and lowest-possible emissions.
Carburetors generally cannot do this.
They are mechanically set to run a certain way – typically via enrichment screws and little orifices called jets. If you feed a carbureted engine a leaner fuel mix – an “oxygenated” fuel mix – it will run leaner. Because the fuel mix is leaner. The carb cannot adjust itself to compensate for the leaner fuel mix.
EFI can.
When the system senses a lean condition – due to leaned-out “oxygenated” fuel – it compensates by richening the air-fuel ratio. Result? More fuel is burned. Gas mileage goes down as a result.
It is easy enough to verify this via performing an experiment that almost anyone can do – because it is still possible to find gasoline not adulterated with “oxygenates” in most areas of the country. It’s just not easy because only a few stations still sell it and you must look for one that does.
Start by filling your vehicle’s tank with adulterated gasoline – what’s styled “E10” or 10 percent ethanol and 90 percent gasoline. Zero your odometer, then drive until the low fuel light comes on and note mileage. Now you can calculate how many miles a full tank – say 15 gallons – of E10 took you.
Then fill the tank with “ethanol free” – or 100 percent gasoline – gas and do the same thing. Drive until the low fuel light comes on again and do the math. See what the difference is, distance-wise, on a tank of ethanol-oxygenated fuel vs. a tank of unadulterated gasoline. You will probably see that your mileage went up by 3-5 percent when you switched to unadulterated gasoline.
That’s not a small difference.
It’s certainly a much greater difference than the “savings” obtained by shutting off the engine every time the vehicle isn’t moving, which almost all new vehicles now do automatically because almost all new vehicles have automatic stop-start (ASS) technology, which “saves” perhaps 1 mile-per-gallon overall or a lot less than 3-5 percent.
Especially when you factor in there’s no cost added to the vehicle when it comes to burning unadulterated gasoline – as opposed to the cost of “technologies” such as ASS that vehicle manufacturers resort to in order to eke out fractional mileage gains. Gains that are imperceptible to the vehicle’s owner but very perceptible in terms of how much cost they add to the price of vehicle and the cost of keeping it up. In the case of ASS, this involves an additional battery – to store power for the ASS system – buried deep in the firewall, where it is next-to-impossible for the non-mechanic to get at when it dies and needs to be replaced. And even 48 volt electrical systems in some cases, to power “mild hybrid” systems with high-torque, belt-driven starter-generators, to make all those stop-start cycles less noticeable.
So why is gasoline still being adulterated with “oxygenates” such as ethanol when there is no longer any benefit – in terms of reducing vehicle exhaust emissions? Probably because there is a benefit – to the producers of “oxygenated” fuels, to the tune of many billions of dollars. Some of these billions are invested in politicians, who are paid well to make sure the federal “oxygenated” fuels requirement that has adulterated most of the country’s gasoline supply is never rescinded.
This probably explains why President Trump – like every president before him going all the way back to the late ’70s – hasn’t rescinded the requirement. He has praised it. Encouraged it. Pushed it. For the same – or at least, similar – reasons he does all in his power to send us as much of our money to Israel as he possibly can. The interests always get what they pay for.
And we always get to pay for that.
. . .
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Love him or hate him, Reagan was right when he said that the nine most dangerous words in the English language was “I’m from the government and I’m here to help”. Since when did any of us want the Feds help with anything? I sure as hell did not ask, but here we are, with forced help, forced regulations, forced safety crap, and half the country cheering their slavery.
I use pure gas in my bike and yard equipment. I did that very experiment in my old Jetta and indeed got substantially more MPG, more than 5%, however in Florida pure gas is for some stupid reason $0.80-$1.00 more per gallon. That blows away any savings.
Leaving aside the stupidity of using food crops toward making car fuel, ethanol production is at least cost-effective in Brazil, where it is produced out of sugar cane, which has much higher sugar content than corn.
Consequently a liter of pure ethanol costs on average less than half the price of gasoline. Even after the approximately 12% lower BTU ethanol has, and consequently lower mileage per gallon, there are some real savings to be had for the driver.
In the USSA, it is a loss/loss proposition and it has always been just about the subsidies.
The corn oil gas works great in two stroke air cooled engines….Nyet. I have had numerous engine failures in the pass three years. With nary a one in the 25 previous years.
Lucky to have a Co-op nearby with 92 alcohol free, the Harley loves it. So do all the local collector car folks! Last bike run in the Fall is to that station, a nip of StaBil and Marvel Mystery Oil then at least 30 minute ride to mix it all in and run the oil up to temp. Steel gas tank on the Harley, no corrosion year seven.
On a trip to S Dakota I stopped for gas in Butte, MT. Grabbed the 89 octane handle for the 2005 Grand Cherokee (the recommended grade for the 5.7 Hemi V8). Wow, it was alcohol free – the Jeep ran like it was on rocket fuel up and over the I90 pass east of Butte. The gas mileage meter on that Jeep was pretty accurate and what was 19 MPG went to 21 MPG.
So, two benefits to real gas – better mileage and if you have an engine capable of better performance that real gas uncorks it’s real potential.
PS: The Co-op gas is top tier, all grades including the alcohol free 87 and 92.
I was recently doing a bit of reading about switching to pure gas. One issue mentioned is that pure gas typically does not have detergents, so it’d be necessary to add some sort of detergent/cleaner to it if used in modern engines to keep them from clogging up. I learned my lesson several years ago about using gasohol in my small engines, I’ve only used pure gas in them ever since. The new mower specifically recommends using pure gas only with an octane of at least 90.
This is why every four years all the presidential candidates go traipsing through the snow in Iowa, kissing the asses of the corn farmers and promising not to remove the ethanol mandate.
Yup. Everybody’s looking to live at the expense of others.
That’s right, Mike. We’re all held hostage by Iowa of all places. What a stupid process is the Rebloodlican Primary. Of course, the ‘Crats just didn’t have one last time. No need for the illusion of choice. At least that’s more honest.
Ethanol is a giant welfare program.
End of the day, if it takes x amount of energy to travel y miles, you either burn less real gas or more fake gas.
Eric – yep, the corn growers lobby is very powerful.
It seems crazy to me that we would deplete our topsoil to make ethanol while we have a large oil and coal reserve. There are many civilizations that went extinct due to mismanagement of their croplands.
Anon
Farmers do vote, yes, but ADM and Cargill LOBBY.
‘The federal government [requires] new vehicles to be ever more “efficient”.’ — eric
And that’s a problem. Crude oil has fallen down below $60/bbl and it can’t get up. The awwwwlllindustry (as it’s called in Texas) is hurtin’.
Confronted with this same ‘problem’ of chronically low prices, ol’ Frank Roosevelt knew what to do: Dump milk into ditches. Bury beef carcasses to restrict supply. Prosecute recalcitrant ol’ Roscoe Filburn:
‘Filburn was growing wheat to feed animals on his own farm. The U.S. fedgov had established limits on wheat production to stabilize [sic] wheat prices and supplies. Filburn grew more than was permitted.’ — Wickard vs Filburn (1942)
B-a-a-a-a-d-d-d-d-d sodbuster! Now you will pay for your insolence. We are cutting your tractor fuel ration.
Anyhow, Donnie Fubar needs to REDUCE auto mileage to help our needy ‘friends’ in the middle east — such as those nice Saudi folks who have chopped off over a hundred heads of ‘drug smugglers’ so far this year.
Donnie’s 5D chess is way over my head. It’s not for us to question the Orange Mastermind. No, our job is to help him keep prices high … so we can send more aid to Israel. /sarc
In the master’s own words:
‘ALERT: All purchases of Iranian Oil, or Petrochemical products, must stop, NOW! Any Country or person who buys ANY AMOUNT of OIL or PETROCHEMICALS from Iran will be subject to, immediately, Secondary Sanctions. They will not be allowed to do business with the United States of America in any way, shape, or form. Thank you for your attention to this matter, PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP @realDonaldTrump’
Cut supply; keep prices high! 🙂
10 cents or more secret nuclear proliferation? Here’s an idea, let’s pay the 10 cents and start D,B,Drilling our own. Thanks d̶o̶n̶n̶i̶e̶ ̶f̶u̶b̶a̶r̶ Mr. President!
Absolutely detestable. I abhor FDR. He’s up there with Stalin and Mao and second only to Lincoln as far as worst Presidents.
“No, our job is to help him keep prices high…”
Which is also why deflation is completely verboten. No letting the equilibrium shift in the other direction as would be in a natural market “correction”.
‘deflation is completely verboten.’
Since 2012, the Federal Reserve has had a 2 percent inflation target, defying their statutory mandate of ‘price stability.’ [No ‘guvnor’ has gone to jail, though.]
It goes to show that these counterfeiters with badges fear deflation like vampires fear a silver cross. Why? Because an economy warped and disfigured by debt will crash if their printer go brrrr!!! policy ever stops. Gotta keep peddling the unicycle across the high wire!
But the Fed is not really in the driver’s seat anymore. Donnie Fubar is crashing the economy with tariffs just as Hoover did, and crashing the dollar just like ol’ Frank, who also kicked the gold price higher. The prices of copper and crude oil ($58/bbl today) are our deflationary canaries in the coal mine.
Crude futures went NEGATIVE during the covid insanity. But there’s firm chart support at twenty dollahs a barrel! 🙂
https://www.mrci.com/pdf/cl.pdf
Yes, Wickard vs Filburn makes my blood boil. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wickard_v._Filburn
That was the final nail in federalism’s coffin.
Roscoe Filburn, Criminal Wheat Farmer — headline of a sympathetic article at farmprogress dot com. Filburn ‘stole’ 12 acres of wheat production from his own farm that he wasn’t entitled to, according to Roosevelt’s commissars.
Stalin already had crushed the kulaks. Now it was the American kulaks’ turn, after Frank Roosevelt bludgeoned the hacks in black into line. And it’s happening again:
‘President Trump’s tariffs have sent the US agricultural industry into a “full-blown crisis” as canceled orders from China are forcing farmers to lay off workers or shut down their businesses, according to a trade group.’
https://tinyurl.com/bdfvdp32
Clearly it’s time for the Trump regime to ‘help’ sodbusters with free crutches, after blowing their legs off.
In Texas, in the parlance of our times, the oil prospectors are out chasing sand all hours of the day. They all know the oil is there in those sands, it’s a given. 187,000 oil wells and over a million natural gas wells is the proof in the pudding. Pipeline the stuff, refine the crude at the refineries and truck it all to gas stations. It’s done, why do you think there is Texas?
Rock oil is there, just have to dig for it, Petro-Hunt and all of those rock oil hunters know how to get stuff done.
The Moron-in-Chief has no clue. The idiot has no clothes.
Just another meddlesome trouble-maker, nothing else.
Gas mileage would increase exponentially if the jets with bombs would stop flying and bombing everything into submission.
The only way to tame dotgov is to use the lash of the whip to make it happen. Figuratively, not literally.
Mitch and Lindsay would cower in fear.
Hogtie Kristy and give her some of her own medicine.
The stupid is on fire more than the forest fires in Israel. Even the eucalyptus trees there hate the Jews.
Dr. Fauci wants to dog collar Donald Trump, sever his vocal chords then dump fleas on his exposed head. Why not?
A worthwhile experiment, if you ask me. It’ll be the dumb leading the stupid.
From a baby to a megalomaniac to a crybaby, Trump is just plain goofy.
Farmers do vote, yes, but ADM and Cargill LOBBY.
Here’s an odd one. I have a 97 Tacoma that started dying on the road, just like one had turned off the ignition. At that time most fuel was NOT polluted with alcohol. I discovered that when I used such polluted fuel, the problem disappeared. I concluded that there was a lot of water in the tank, and the alcohol absorbed and “burned” it. after 6 months or so, I could run unpolluted gas again.
When it was hot outside in the old days and your gasoline was too volatile, cutting out, you could add a cup of diesel fuel to the tank to reduce the volatility, the engine would run smoothly.
Also, Trump is not cool. Gaff the fool.
I’ve had a similar trouble with the “Clear Gas” they began putting out at some of the Maverick gas stations, Mr. Kable.
It seemed that everytime I put some in my truck, it would periodically “hiccup” or momentarily lose power, especially during high RPMs or loads. I was wondering if it was trash in the gasoline or perhaps condensation or the like, as it probably is purchased with much less frequency than the 10% ethanol fuel.
I copied this from google AI. I searched “ethanol free gas sales by volume”
While precise, real-time sales volume data for ethanol-free gas is difficult to pinpoint due to varying data sources and reporting, a general estimate is that approximately 200 million gallons per year of E0 gasoline is available for sale. However, some estimates suggest much higher availability, with one source indicating 5.3 billion gallons per year.
Factors Influencing Ethanol-Free Gas Availability:
Federal Regulations:
Federal law mandates that fuel ethanol contain a minimum of 2% denaturant, making ethanol-free gas less common.
Pricing:
Ethanol-free gas often sells at a premium price compared to conventional gasoline blends, which can impact demand.
Blending Practices:
Refineries produce a mix of sub-octane gas that needs ethanol blending, impacting the availability of pure gas.
Ethanol’s Role in Blending:
Ethanol is blended into gasoline to achieve the standard 87 octane rating, which can reduce the availability of ethanol-free options
Kind of confirms that oil refiners like the ethanol mandates as well. Maybe.
That could depend on whether it costs more to refine the ethanol or whether it would cost more to have refiners stop producing the slag gasoline that they mix with ethanol to come up with 87 octane.
Gasohol is garbage.
Conservatives seem to approve of this welfare program – as long as white corn farmers in Nebraska are the ones collecting the freebies.
For those perhaps not aware, this website assists in locating actual gasoline;
https://www.pure-gas.org/
Pure Oil, Ohio Cities Gas Company, 1914, began in 1920 as Pure Oil.
An old friend walked a snowy path to an old warehouse in my hometown, broke into the warehouse, found a pile of Pure Oil metal signs with oiled brown packing paper between each one, trucked them home, stole them, it was a snowstorm, ergo, all of his footprints in the snow were covered by new snow.
Must have made a contact to sell the mint condition signs after that.
I guess the old friend was curious as to what was inside the old warehouse.
Something I wouldn’t think of doing, I’m not a burglar.
A lot of things like emissions inspections, oxygenated fuel, and the like have been rendered moot with the advent of EFI.
Which brings me to this: EFI technology goes back to 1958 with the Bendix Electrojector system first introduced on the Chrysler 300D. In
fact, fuel injection in cars goes back to the 1957 Corvette and Bonneville, and the 1955 Mercedes 300 SL. I read a Popular Mechanics article from that time saying that fuel injection would replace carburetors by 1965. Why didn’t that happen?
Hi Bryce,
Yup. As to why FI didn’t happen by ’65… it sort-of did. Chevy offered an injected version of the 327 in the early ’60s Corvette but it was an expensive option and for that reason, few bought it. It took another 20 years to being down the cost such that it became affordable. Also, the early mechanical FI systems were balky and not especially reliable.
Fuel Injection had been in use by aircraft engines since 1935. Had the advantage of engine would cut out while inverted, a problem for fighters. Also didn’t ice up. But they were trouble-prone amd expensive. Carbs were retained for bombers and transports because they flew mostly level and .typically at a steady cruise.
Aircraft engines were regularly serviced and quickly replaced. Performance was king, simply because “second best” meant DEAD. But save for a few “money is no concern” specialized cars, it just wasn’t ready for mass production. Even something like the Corvette required so much sprained equipment amd training that it simply disnt pan out.
Same happened in the late 1970s. something that worked great in the LAB. Get them out to dealers, they didn’t know how to service them, and the factory support was abysmal. While the tech wasn’t mature, the REAL problem was that the computer couldn’t deal with that Carter Thermoquad or BBD being even slightly our of whack. The Lean Burn just about KILLED any loyalty left to Mopar’s RWD cars by 1980.
Hi, Bryce,
To add to what Eric said, there were also some drag racing cars from that era which used fuel injection systems. There were several manufacturers, IIRC. in fact, one of my brothers once owned a gasoline (not fuel) powered “Altered” which used fuel injection (I cannot remember the name of the manufacturer).
The FI drag racing cars were definitely “high end” and not suitable for street use. Being specialized, low production machinery, they were $$$. Speed costs money. How fast do you want to go?
Trump did loosen the rules about refineries adding oxygenates to the gasoline early in his first term. I believe how it works is that the refineries have to *ship* a certain gallon amount of the additives, but that doesn’t necessarily have to be as part of “E10” or, God help us, “E15”.
Lots of places around here (Austin) have unadulterated gasoline since 2017. Biden did not restore the strict interpretation of the rules requiring the refineries to ship the addititions *in* the gasoline.
I know that I can get 600 miles of range out of my 2018 Camry LE with Ethanol-free gas from Buc-ee’s, Wal-Mart, QuikTrip, etc. One of those places is often the first stop before we hit the road heading out of town.
@Eric – Ya gotta get out of The Woods. Anymore, that place is filled with execs “working” from home for that “Too Big To Fail” bankster organization down in Charlotte.
“I know that I can get 600 miles of range out of my 2018 Camry LE with Ethanol-free gas”
How much does that gas cost vs ethanol 10% gas? I have filled up with ethanol free gas whne I was driving on interstate 80. The cost if I remember correctly was about 20 or 30 cents a gallon more. Time to get out my calculator or not.
The difference is ~ 90 cents a gallon, but the convenience of getting another 40 miles out of a tank on a long drive is worth the cost to me.
If I fill up with ethanol-free gas at the Buc-ee’s in Baytown, I can go all the way to New Orleans on a single tank, bypassing the creepy gas stations west of Baton Rouge out to the state line.
Last time we went to New Orleans, on the way back, we stopped at the Geico Gecko’s own Pilot to fill the tank for the return trip.
The capital spending at Pilot/Flying-J hasn’t started yet so the place was nasty.
The Gecko did have a new Clayton Homes lot on one corner of the property in case you wanted to shop for a new double wide after stopping for gas.
The increase in “fool economy” might just break even. Your car will drive better and LAST LONGER. Not easy to quantify, but the savings are there!
There is one benefit to E10, which is a higher octane rating which allows for an increased compression ratio, which in turn allows for better thermodynamic efficiency.
That said, there are many downsides: I believe it takes more energy to create ethanol than it actually provides, it destroys rubber and plastic, it attracts water into your fuel, it takes away from food production thereby raising the cost of food, it adds additional cost to fuel from transporting and blending into the fuel, etc. Having gas powered equipment is such a pain in the ass now.
It’s a big grift. Welcome to America.
Yes, but if the pump octane level is say, still the same, at 87, it allows refiners to boost the octane of crap gasoline. In other words, it allows refiners to cut corners refining the fuel product while maintaining prior octane levels.
It’s a giant grift and we are paying the freight. In europe the minimum octane rating is 91. (95 research) and 94 (98 research octane) as I remember it.
Over in Azerbaijan, Yanardag (Burning Mountain) is a natural gas fire that has burned for centuries.
A complete waste of natural gas and nobody can do a thing about it.
Baku White is one desirable crude oil, along with Louisiana Sweet, you will sell it at a premium.
Just keep refining 100,000,000 barrels each day and go have a blast.
Trump is FOS, forget that BS.
Cars don’t drink alcohol, people do, and lots of it.
It’s crazy how this country is controlled by special interests. When I was a kid the liberals were the ones all shrieking about the “special interests.”
Forgive me for sounding like Bernie Sanders but it’s true — the banking lobby, the Wall Street lobby, the ethanol lobby, the Israel lobby, the Ukraine lobby, the free trade lobby, etc. etc.
“Rule of the people” my ass. The reason they were so freaked out about Trump is that at least he paid lip service to the average middle-American voter who has been shit on by the powers-that-be for decades.
A byproduct of the federalization of everything. If not for the corn lobby we’d probably be running 100% gas, or alcohol from sugar, or CNG. The state of Iowa might promote ethanol locally, or even fund national “awareness” campaigns to promote the use of it as a fuel. But Iowa’s legislature wouldn’t be able to force alcohol down the filling tubes of anyone in Texas.
And if Iowa’s marketing campaign convinced a few station owners to switch to their corn-based fuel, maybe it would be successful. For sure there’d be a price difference to account for the reduced performance, and for many people that might be enough to justify the purchase.
But instead we get the corn lobby. Easier (and cheaper) to convince 250 or so house members and 51 senators to make everyone buy the product at whatever price is deemed appropriate (if not, then there’s always subsides).
I dont remember where I read this, but even so called ethanol free gasoline contains oxygenates. This is because the reformulate gasoline mandate is virtually a nationwide requirement.
Therefore we don’t get all the gasmileage benefits by switching to ethanol free. The benefit we do get is a slightly better running engine because there won’t be as much residual moisture in gas.
Switching to ethanol free does make my car run better and there is a slight boost in mileage.
As far as reducing driving cars go, drivers could benefit from removing the summer fuelnrequirements which center around fuel evaporation. The special summer oxygenate costs 25 to 50 cents more tha winter blend to refine. In a day when 100 percentnof fuel systems have a an evaporative fuel emissions system installed, we worry about fuel evaporation from gas tanks. What a joke.
I work on small engines as a hobby and as ethanol attracts moisture; I’ve found that steel gas tanks left long term with ethanol in them are severely rusted and their carburetors are heavily corroded internally. Ethanol free gas left for many years are rust free and after a quick trip through the ultrasonic parts cleaner their carburetors are generally usable once again.
As for the benefits to the politicians of campaign contributions is well known perhaps the worst side effect of ethanol gas is lower fuel economy allowing GovCo to get higher tax revenue whilst you get lower fuel economy. A surefire win for GovCo and their donors!!!!!!
Ethanol gas’s shorter shelf life compared to ethanol free gas and depending on humidity levels and how good the seal is the gas could be going bad in a couple months. On the “Taryl Fixes All” YouTube channel he tested multiple gas stabilizers with ethanol gas of various octanes and found there was little difference in results whether the fuel was treated or not.
In another test he tried mixing Pri G with bad gas and when he used at higher concentrations the gas was capable of running an engine smoothly again without surging.
This is more of a problem of course if you own cars and equipment used only seasonally that sits much of the time.
Amen, Landru –
I always run my power equipment – including my generator – until the carb runs out of gas. If there isn’t a shut-off valve (for the fuel) as with push mowers and so on i just drain the gas before long-term storage.
Hi Eric:
If your float bowl has a drain plug it doesn’t hurt to drain the bowl also as water tends to accumulate there.
You can also put Sta-Bil in the fuel. I’ve found that it does reduce issues with the carbs on my generator and plow truck.
I agree Tyler, I use Sea Foam religiously and have never had a problem
Eric,
Same-same with my classic motorcycles, always turn the gas cocks and let them run dry before I put them away. (68 BSA, 74 Norton)