Ethanol blends: 10% in "reg." gasoline, 5% in mid-grade, 0% in premium (in Ontario)
 

I read this today - it's the first time I'd ever come across this info:

From "Most gas has enough ethanol to act as gas-line antifreeze" - Toronto Star, Feb 06, 2010 , by Eric Lai

I mean, I knew about the 5% blend law for Ontario. But the rest of it seems somewhat fishy. Has anyone else heard of this blending approach before if there's mandatory ethanol blending where you live?

Considering I only put about 5 or 6 tanks through the Flea each year, if that's true, maybe I'll start springing for the good stuff!

...not Canada, but the state of Arizona uses "...up to 10% oxygenate added..." year-round.

Fed EPA mandates a certain gallon-amount be used in the fuel each year at this point. It's hard to tell without measuring which fuels have it, which ones don't, and how much each one has.

Each pump has a sticker that says "may contain up to 10% ethanol by volume" for this reason. You're never really sure. Of course, they don't tell you how much "water by volume" the fuel now contains because of the ethanol... Imagine, the gas station pays for a thousand gallons of fuel, and sells 1,100 betwen fill ups. :thumbup: Looks great on the books, don't it?

...built-in "water injection" from your local gas pump (ha,ha)!

Metro, looks like that might be correct. Found this online. They reference that the high octane in Canada is clean due to lack of ethanol supplies.

wha?

so-called "premium" has higher octane than the assortment of straight petroleum distillates which make up straight gasoline... as far as I can tell that's the primary distinguishing factor between the 3 typical grades of gasoline at a typical station.

Ethanol's octane rating is also higher than gasoline, and serves to increase the final octane rating of the blended product.

So what else, if not ethanol, are they using to raise the octane rating on "premium"? Xylene? Not like that stuff is good for your fuel pump or the environment...

Hey all you guys who have an anti-ethanol agenda, I have an idea! Give me all your ethanol. My cars run awesome on it!! No idea what everyone else's problem is?

Thanks, Laz.

I also wrote to the author of the article I quoted asking for a source; haven't heard back yet.

Anti-ethanol agenda? :confused:

Some people don't like the fact that with ethanol, you're getting lower energy density ... without the benefit of lower cost.

1 - Gas already contains xylene and toluene, they're considered aromatics.

2 - Ethanol addition is allowing them to blend cheaper fuels, both by the addition of esters, and because of the addition of esters. What this means is that they're getting Ethanol and blending it at a lower cost to themselves, as well as making fuel which compliments the higher octane rating of ethanol (by making a lower octane fuel), which is a cheaper formulation of ingredients, because the ethanol addition just raises the octane back up to a "normal" level.

3 - It's not an agenda, so much as disgust. How about you go buy some 60/40 hamburger meat, and pay $3.00 per pound for it? Nah, you wouldn't want to do that, because you can get 80/20, which has more substance, meat, nutrition, etc... for the same price, right? I bet you'd be kinda pissed if the FDA/USDA said there was too much fat leftovers from food processing, and mandated that all beef products must be produced with at least 40% fat by 2012... but you're still going to pay the same price for it, including upcoming inflation.

Wha? I kinda figure the cost my station pays for its fuel is a part of the cost i pay for my fuel so I'm not overpaying for it, especially considering how much of it is tax anyway. I can go down to the 76 racing fuel shop and buy 100% gasoline if I want to spend $5.50/gallon or I can buy E10 at any pump in town, my cars run awesome on it and it's $2.69 or so, or I can buy E85 at the fuel depot downtown (it's not widely available in Phx unfortunately) for $2.39 and get about 5-10% fewer miles per gallon which is cool since it's 11% less money per gallon. And my cars run super awesome on it! :thumbup:

Or I can go to the CNG station and cram natural gas into my Tempo for $1.97/GGE and drive around with about 40 horsepower... good enough for getting from A-B

When I hear super awesome, I usually think about 5-10% MORE mpg. That 11% cheaper figure probably fluctuates quite a bit depending on where you are too. I thought Christ's analogy was spot on; I don't understand how you wouldn't get it.

Might as well continue the thread drift.
Darin, how much more is the premium fuel that's clean? Curious about the break even point.

Also curious, though I don't live in Canadia or have the opportunity to obtain ethanol fuels (short of washing, which Nerys hasn't reported back on, yet, and I assume will be a waste of time.)

Feel like doin' some math, eh?

Recent prices at one station: $0.921 / L for regular, and $1.066 / L for premium.

$.92+$.092 = $1.012 cost for regular per liter if 10% ethanol is "washed" from it.

Edited because I forgot a "0".

it is a weakling little fuel. does great in cold for initial starts, and that is about it.

I wondered about maines version...

fermented wood. Great. I wonder where the diesel additive comes into play...

No I thought you would. :p

Thanks

That's 1.012. It's not cost effective.

Haven't heard back from the author of the Star piece, so I wrote to Shell Canada. They confirmed that premium is ethanol free:

I wonder if we'll be seeing a marketing campaign in the future promoting the fuel economy benefits of their premium blend. It would dovetail nicely into existing positive urban myths about premium gasolines.

LOL. I still do that once in awhile. That's probably why I'm not an engineer. Can you imagine missing a 0 in the tens place on a blueprint for... say... a building?

Anyway, if you add in another 3% for the fuel economy that you're no longer losing compared to the gasoline/ethanol blend, it brings it up to 1.04, which is close enough that it probably will at least break even in most cases.

Although, I may have that backwards... do you subtract another 3% from the cost because you're getting 3% better FE?

I measure "super awesome" in more than one dimension dude :thumbup:

If I handed you a car that gets 10 miles per gallon you'd be all sore right? But then if I told you it was 10 miles per gallon of your used household greywater you'd say WOOHOO!! ... because gallons ain't gallons. A gallon of molten gold is more precious than a gallon of whale dung. I don't understand why so many people on here seem not to comprehend that.

If I can pay 11% less, get 5-10% less miles per gallon, have more available horsepower, produce a less harmful emission, support domestic agriculture, support a renewable fuel, and not have any of the problems that people on here complain about, what's not to like?

And people who say that producing ethanol consumes fuel probably think that foreign oil ships itself halfway around the planet without using fuel or something.. :rolleyes: :thumbup:

No, people who use your argument are the same type of people who think an electric motor can turn a generator to charge it's own battery.

Of course it takes fuel to ship fuel. It takes far less fuel to ship a tanker full of fuel halfway around the world than it does to produce and ship and mix and distribute a similar amount of ethanol.

The best analogy for the production process is basically that you're pumping quarters into a change machine that only gives back dimes, and it only takes quarters one at a time.

Put in $0.25, get back $0.20.
Put in $0.25, get back $0.20.
Put in $0.25, get back $0.20.
Put in $0.25, get back $0.20.
Put in $0.25, get back $0.20.

How many quarters do you have?

right because somehow that is less desirable than 100 million year old rotted algae?

unless you subscribe to abiogenesis theory, which despite the kerogen marker problem has not been outright proven false yet.

every day my girlfriend eats a pill made partially of horse pee and every time you eat a fig product you're very likely eating wasp wings, eggs, and carcasses... well, everything is made out of something isn't it? :thumbup:

Let's not have this thread turn into a debate about ethanol pros/cons, please.

Yeah people who hate ethanol always say these words, all the time.

But then there are actual businesses that put actual money on the table every day making and selling ethanol. They keep having enough quarters.

BP.... a petrol company, has invested over $100m into Verenium, a cellulosic ethanol company. Compared to a lot of naysayers typing words into internets, $100 million dollars is pretty significant. And since BP has the word "Petroleum" in their name, the fact that they are investing actual money into a fuel that competes with petroleum makes me go "hmm"

There are several companies, such as Genahol, investigating schemes to produce ethanol from municipal waste, reducing the net ingress of trash into landfills - a secondary benefit which cannot be ignored.

Sorry, with due respect given to individuals, I continue to absolutely disagree with the ethanol bashing at almost every level. While I do not in any way stand to benefit financially from ethanol or its production and don't think it is the ultimate solution to our energy needs, I see it as a bridge away from fossil fuels - something we sorely need and something we will never get as long as we continue resisting it.

And it DOES run awesome in my lightly modified, cheap, normal cars. :D

Cheers :thumbup:

then.. um, what is it?

it's not "GASOLINE GRADES CONTAIN 1% NAPHTHA" or "wheat thins contain riboflavin" ?

Well the thread started out with "In Canada the premium gasoline has no ethanol". Which seemed kind of strange so the OP wanted to know if that was the norm anywhere else.

Seems pretty straight forward.

When did this shift in ethanol content took place in Canada? Looking and my Hyundai's gas log got my wondering...

Martin: it may not in fact be Canada-wide. Ontario has its own 5% average ethanol content rule.

Heard back from another gasoline retailer - Ultramar.

In response to me asking about finding a non-ethanol fuel for certain marine engine applications, they say:

Its been 10% here for years for all grades.

The last time I actually bought a tank of mid grade without ethanol my mileage went up 10%.

It would be nice to see a direct comparison of the mileage of the 3 grades available with 0-5-10% ethanol content.

My single example is not enough for any definitive claim of improvement in non ethanol fuel, but it would seem like the much lower energy content of ethanol would have a significant negative effect.

EPA for a Nissan Titan was 13 on gas and 9 on E85. That follows the btu energy content of the two fuels fairly closely.

I would like to do a comparison in one of my cars but the closest no ethanol gas is in DC (I think) and I am not driving 180 miles to that cesspool for a tank of gas.

regards
Mech

Darin,

I just did a bit of research and this is a Federal law.

Bill C-33 passed June 26th 2008 "allow the federal government to implement regulations requiring 5% average renewable content in gasoline by 2010."

I guess I will start writing to gasoline retailers in Quebec to see where their grades stand at the moment.

...in Arizona, it's "...up to 10% alcohol..." but I understand it's currently only about 5-5.5%.

I got the following response from Shell.

Your post is factually correct but the key here is average. Renewable content will be comming to diesel as well, but we will see a higher % in the summer than the winter due to gelling issues.

Yes, I've read an article about that: fuel retailers can add ethanol in whichever market(s) they like, as long as their average is 5%. So for example, they may blend more ethanol in places that are closer to supplies, and none where it's not readily available.

And, as we're also seeing: ethanol in regular & mid-grade fuels, none in premium.

----

FYI, Canadian Tire Petroleum says:

Crud I almost extended this discussion.

If you're willing to pennypinch this much that you will take premium unleaded over G90/E10 Regular I think you should consider this carefully. I don't know the year of your Flea but if you believe that the poor mileage is due to your vehicle's incompatibility with ethanol than you probably know by now you need to run (Premium) 100% Gasoline. The common phrase parroted is that Post 96 vehicles can "tolerate" ethanol upto 10%, but they're not designed for ethanol use. E85 flexfuel vehicles are not designed for 85% Ethanol vs E98(the highest blend) they're Gasoline cars designed to run good on everyday G90/E10 and run exactly the same on E85 but with less mileage. The vehicles designed to tolerate Ethanol fuel are almost all made after 2001 and most definitely not Imports until much later than that. It was just a couple years ago Lexus/Toyota and VW had a recall for Ethanol incompatibility. Ford on the other hand has been using ethanol friendly components since at least '94. That's just an example. When Ethanol was introduced in the 70's-80's there were problems on many cars.

The social benefits of Ethanol have been proven, but have not been the popular opinion. Ethanol is more expensive here on an energy basis when Gasoline is less than $3 a gallon but I'm willing to pay that higher price based on the social benefits, it shouldn't be a requirement mandated by law. If they can't make you pledge allegiance to your Country's flag and they can't make you acknowledge God in schools then they shouldn't make you support a fuel that you believe is morally wrong. That's my opinion, and I'm also of the opinion that if you educate yourself of it's merits, facts, traits, and look at upto date and accurate not just "unbiased" information you'll at least see why I support Ethanol as a fuel. /End Ranting. I tried to keep it simple and to the point :D.

You're reading too much into this and making assumptions that aren't true.

Nowhere have I said that my car is getting "poor" mileage due to ethanol, nor have I mentioned financial reasons being a motivation for investigating the fuel blends where I live.

But thanks for bumping the thread.

I have since heard back from Petro-Canada / Suncor, and they're doing the same thing as the other companies who have replied:

I know what will be in your tank comes may ;)