E15 ethanol mandates would bring huge benefits – for the few, at the expense of the many. This fleet fueling never stays the same and fuel savings never seem to stay still.
If 10% ethanol in gasoline is good, 15% (E15) will be even better. At least for some folks. Not the folks that like lower fuel saving or lower fleet fueling cost. Certainly not fleet managers or fuel managers who manage large fleet companies.
We’re certainly heading in that direction – thanks to animosity toward oil, natural gas and coal, fear-mongering about global warming, and superlative lobbying for “alternative,” “affordable,” “eco-friendly” biofuels. Whether the trend continues, and what unintended consequences will be unleashed, will depend on Corn Belt versus consumer politics and whether more people recognize the downsides of ethanol. It will change the fueling landscape and fuel savings that most people want.
Federal laws currently require that fueling suppliers blend more and more ethanol into gasoline, until the annual total rises from 9 billion gallons of EtOH in 2008 to 36 billion in 2022. The national Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) also mandates that corn-based ethanol tops out at 15 billion gallons a year, and the rest comes from “advanced biofuels” – fuels produced from switchgrass, forest products and other non-corn feedstocks, and having 50% lower lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions than petroleum.
These “advanced biofuels” thus far exist only on paper or in laboratories and demonstration projects. But Congress apparently believes passing a law will turn wishes into horses and mandates into reality.
Not surprisingly, ethanol activism is resisted by people on the other side of the ledger – those who will pay the tab, and those who worry about the environmental impacts of ethanol production and use.
* Taxpayer and free market advocates point to the billions being transferred from one class of citizens to another, while legislators and regulators lock up billions of barrels of oil, trillions of cubic feet of natural gas, and vast additional energy resources in onshore and offshore America. They note that ethanol costs 3.5 times as much as gasoline to produce, but contains only 65% as much energy per gallon as gasoline. Here is where your fuel savings are lost. Even if you are using a fuel card or fleet card you are paying more.
* Motorists, boaters, snowmobilers and outdoor power equipment users worry about safety and cost. The more ethanol there is in gasoline, the more often consumers have to fill up their tanks, the less value they get, and the more they must deal with repairs, replacements, lost earnings and productivity, and malfunctions that are inconvenient or even dangerous. Fueling companies have a harder time handling the product for the same reasons, which increase fleet fueling costs because of increase transportation costs.
Ethanol burns hotter than gasoline. It collects water and corrodes plastic, rubber and soft metal parts. Older engines and systems may not be able to handle E15 or even E12, which could also increase emissions and adversely affect engine, fuel pump and sensor durability.
All these people have a simple request: test E12 and E15 blends first. Wait until the Department of Energy and private sector assess these risks sufficiently, and issue a clean bill of health, before imposing new fuel standards. Safety first. Working stiff livelihoods second.
* Corn growers will benefit from a higher ethanol RFS. However, government mandates mean higher prices for corn – and other grains, as corn and switchgrass incentives reduce farmland planted in wheat or rye. Thus, beef, pork, poultry and egg producers must pay more for corn-based feed; grocery manufacturers face higher prices for grains, eggs, meat and corn syrup; and folks who simply like affordable food cringe as their grocery bills go higher.
Biotechnology will certainly help, by enabling farmers to produce more biofuel crops per acre, using fewer pesticides and utilizing no-till methods that reduce soil erosion, even under drought conditions. If only Greenpeace and other radical groups would cease battling this technology. However, there are legitimate environmental concerns.
* Oil, gas, coal and uranium extraction produces large quantities of high-density fuel for vehicles, equipment and power plants (to recharge batteries) from relatively small tracts of land. We could produce 670 billion gallons of oil from Arctic land equal to 1/20 of Washington, DC, if ANWR weren’t off limits.
By contrast, 15 billion gallons of corn-based ethanol requires cropland and wildlife habitat the size of Georgia, and for 21 billion gallons of advanced biofuel we’d need South Carolina planted in switchgrass.
* Ethanol has only two-thirds the energy value of gasoline – and it takes 70% more energy to grow and harvest corn and turn it into EtOH than what it yields as a fuel. That just doesn’t make fueling sense to me. Why would any fuel management system want to lose energy, you can’t replace it by cheaper diesel fuel prices or fleet cards, mobile fueling or fuel cards. Your fleet companies, fuel savings go out to the farm.
* Ethanol blends do little to reduce smog, and in fact result in more pollutants evaporating from gas tanks, says the National Academy of Sciences. As to preventing climate change, thousands of scientists doubt the human role, climate “crisis” claims and efficacy of biofuels in addressing the speculative problem
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