E10 is rubbish, they force it on us here in Dallas. I go home to Austin every 3 weeks and get real gas down there. The mileage diffrence is 5 mpg, This is due to the fact that E10 has less BTU per gallon than octane its an unavoidable law of physics. I have over 30000 miles of fuel data on my aftermarket ECU that give real time and rolling average mpg. It doesn't get more accurate than that. I can watch in real time as the last of the E10 leave my fuel lines at highway speeds crusing and real gas enters the avg. mileage starts to climb as soon as i get back to Dallas and pick up a tank of E10 the average starts to drop still crusing at 70 mph on cruse control the only diffrence is the BTU content of the fuels. what stinks is that E10 is also more expensive per gallon than real gas in austin typicaly 20-30 cents as can be tracted by gasprices.com

subsidy = tax welfare, remove the tariff and take away the tax welfare let the free market decide if ethanol can compeate. As a Tax payer a REAL taxpayer as in im in the top 45% and there for pay real taxes as opposed to the bottom 50% who pay no taxes relative to the benifits they receave from the govt. The top 5% pays 50% of the taxes in the country the next 45% pays the rest and the bottom 50% gets a free ride or even paid not to work, this is just sick that people get more money back than they put in that socalism but that for a diffrent day. If obama get in office the wealth stealing will only get worse alas America will be in for a rude awakening if the top %5 who has the means and soon the will to go where the investment grass is greener decides to move on to some other country China comes to mind there 2 country one system plan is working.I would rather move my Company to China than give hard earned money to people who didn't work for it.

Kum: We are not producing 14B gallons of ethanol a year. We seem to be around 11B. I won't dispute what is planned for next year.

Decimal points are always treacherous but that works out to 38M gallons a day.

Gasoline consumption is about 390M gallons a day but I am unsure if that is actual gasoline or pump volumes. (Pump volumes would include additives and ethanol and distort the gasoline amount upward).

Motor fuel sales are probably falling slowly due to better mileage and less driving.

So it sounds like ethanol production is close to 10% of gasoline consumption. Assuming every drop of ethanol is available for blending.

A little light reading indicates ethanol producers are cutting production because corn now costs too much. If this continues we won't see that projected 14B gallons next year and we may not see 11B either.

The recent falling oil price won't be helping ethanol producers. I suspect some planned ethanol plants are being put on hold.

I don't deny anyone a right to 20% blend or 50%. That isn't what the article is about. Legislatures are being asked to handicap the refiners so the ethanol people sell more directly to the stations.

The refiners will be forced to deliver unblended. They can also continue to deliver blended. Any way you look at it delivery will involve more trucks, face more cost, and differing regulation from state to state.

Note how carefully the ethanol people frame their argument. They fear the refiners won't pass the VEETC credit on to stations and consumers.

Yet they express no fear that station owners won't pass the credit to consumers.

Face it: they don't give a hoot about that credit being passed to consumers.

And the gas station owner who can already buy splash pumps and mix a higher blend will lose the choice. He will buy those splash pumps and tanks whether he likes it or not.

Here is the quote:

"Two states (North Carolina and South Carolina) have passed laws requiring terminals to offer an un-blended petroleum product that is suitable for later blending with ethanol—i.e., by the retailer. Sixteen other states are considering similar legislation, Lamberty said."

Look at the charts again. They make it pretty clear. The ethanol association thinks there will be too much ethanol in two years. And the price would therefore fall just as for any other commodity.

Nowhere is the faintest hint that ethanol producers won't be allowed to sell all they make two years from now. They just might not get the profits they want.

Exactly how would offering splash blends as you propose cut into GM flex fuel sales? I don't see that.

K, when the current law was passed we had been consuming about 9.5 million barrels of gasoline/day. The build-out of ethanol refineries was planned with that number in mind. Today, we're down to about 8.7 million barrels/day. We are, quite likely, going to have a "glut" when those refineries under construction (most of them will come online in the next 12 months) are completed.

GM is under the impression that this will be "Good" for them. E85 will be dirt-cheap, thus their flex-fuel cars will be more desirable. What they don't seem to realize, and input from retailers like Renew, in Wisconsin bears this out, is a Lot of flexfuel owners run blends from E20 to E50. (Many automobiles will see a Severe Drop-off in mileage going from E50 to E85.)

On the Other hand, many cars actually see an increase in mileage going from E10 to E20, or E30. In THIS TEST the Chevrolet Impala gets 15% Better mileage on E20 than on straight gasoline.

http://www.rhapsodyingreen.com/rhapsody_in_green/files/optimal_ethanol_blend_level_study.pdf

Anyway, as you correctly surmised, it's a fight to see who gets the "tax credit." Blender Pumps are expensive to install, and ACE wants to make sure the Retailer gets the tax credit to help compensate for the cost of installing the pumps. The oil companies, of course, want to discourage the use of their competitors' product to all extent possible, and retain the tax credit for that ethanol that is blended.

It's simply a matter of picking sides. I AM NOT in the ethanol, or farm business. I have no "Immediate" Dog in this Fight. I just believe that from an average American's point of view I'd rather the "Break" go to the "Little Guy." My sixty two years of history on this mortal coil leaves me to believe my meager pocketbook contents will go farther that way.

Anyway, nice chatting with you, and hope you survived the "Ghosts, and Goblins" all right. :)

Hmm, that link isn't working. Let's see if it works This Way.

I've got a blog about my splash blending of ethanol. I've got over 5k miles on my Saab running as much as 50% ethanol in the tank.

E20 is almost a no-brainer. It just isn't different enough from E10 for you to even notice a difference.

Even E30 was pretty seamless.

I got a check engine light on E40. But drivability was pretty good.

50% was getting a little annoying to drive. Hesitation and rough starting.

Check out the blog. I've got a lot of data, graphs, whatnot.

Sorry guys, I linked to my other blog. Crazy political stuff, you definately don't want to go there. ;)

It's www.drunkenswede.blogspot.com

I appologize for the error!

Dear Alan Adler:

You company mostly offers only 5.3 liter flexfuel V-8 engines in huge trucks- so that you can get credit for fuel mileage requirements. The 3.5 liter Impala is the only 6 cylinder your company offers.

GM is missing the market. You SHOULD be offering a 4 cylinder- like the 1.4 liter you have been researching for years, in small cars like the Cobalt's replacement.

Those who want flex-fuel and will happily burn E85 are the same people who want lower CO2 footprints. It's good for the earth- but not with a V-8.

Personally I drive a Dodge Stratus- because at 2.7 liters, it's the smallest production engine out there right now that is flex-fuel capable. I burn E85 exclusively, and have been for over a year, although I would actually prefer to run E60, and that is a better MPG balance for me. I get 28 MPG on straight regular, 26 at E60, but it drops to 22 on E85.

I for one would love blender pumps to offer a choice for E60 where I am, but that still is not happening yet here.

When GM offers a small car- like a Cobalt replacement with a 4 cylinder E85 capable engine, optimized for E85 instead of being optimized for gasoline, your company will have a real winner.

As for mandating straight gasoline available at terminals - I'm all for it- so that gas stations- OR COMPETING E85 distribution companies- can do the blending and pass the tax credit on to consumers.

Consumers will be the big winners when it's not just the oil companies who get the blending credit.

I own a 200 Nissan maxxima. I made a mistake and filled it with regular gas as opposed to a minimum of 92 octane. As a result, my engine light came on. I took it to my mechanic for state inspection, and it failed, because in NY State a car won't pass inspection when the engine light is on. After running it through an engine analysis, two sensors were malfunctioning due to the lower octane gas. Repairs cost $300.00.
I have no idea what an ethanol blend would do, so why take the chance.

Dear Buzzcut,

Alan Adler from GM here. Got you covered on the 4-cylinder E85 application. The Chevrolet HHR small crossover -- regular and panel varieties -- 2.2 and 2.4L models -- are E85 capable for the 2009 model year. And are on sale now. Look for more four-cylinder cars to go E85 in GM's lineup for the '10 model year. GM did heavy up on 5.3L trucks for flex-fuel applications prior to and when the full-size SUVs were redone in 2007. For users of E85, they offered the greatest offset to oil use then and now. The history of FFVs at GM includes the retired four-cylinder Chevrolet S-10 and GMC Sonoma small pickups - 1999 to 2003. They were among our first E85-capable models. As to FFVS being just a CAFE play, if that was true, we should have limited the number we built. Last year, GM got the CAFE credit for about a third of the nearly 600,000 FFVs we produced. And that credit goes away in 2014. Instead of reducing FFVs, we've committed to building 50 percent FFVs by 2012, as long as there is enough infrastructure to support them.

as long as there is enough infrastructure to support them.

This is the kind of disingenuity that leads to a $5.00 share price. Obviously, thousands of small business people cant' spend tens of thousands of dollars, apiece, to add E85 pumpss, in the hope that GM will make a $35.00 improvement in their vehicles.

Kind of like citing a horribly flawed Orbital test conducted five years, ago, in Australia, and ignoring real-world evidence from Brazil (where a 23% blend is required, and virtually all autos are flexfuel.)

You guys need to "wake up." This is the Only area in which you're ahead of the Japanese, but you're squandering the opportunity. Where's the Bio-Power Technology?

Note to self: Don't buy a Nissan Maxima.

I am Coleman Jones, Biofuels Implementation Manager at General Motors. To Kum Dollison's questions/comments on Alan Adler's post: Automakers design to what is in the market and what the regulations are. In the US, certification fuel has no ethanol and never has had ethanol. In Brazil the certification fuel has been E22 since 1984. So the Brazilians have had at least 24 years to work on this.The fuel retailing industry is putting in "blender pumps" that sell mid-level blends at a pretty good clip this year, surprising since these fuels are only legal in FFVs. The petroleum terminal industry has been putting in ethanol storage and blend capability at its terminals at a good clip also, and this is not a trivial expense, On the infrastructure side, GM has assisted more than 300 stations in 15 states with securing state and other grants to help offset the cost of installing E85 pumps. GM also is partnering with the National Governors Association to help 10 states increase their E85 infrastructure, Finally, can you help me understand the flaws you found in the Orbital test procedures? In case you need to look at the report again, here is a link: http://www.deh.gov.au/atmosphere/fuelquality/publications