Thanks Rudy, I caught the 60 minutes segment and also during the same hour Dateline had a similar presentation on ethanol. From what I got from both shows was that the 85% ethanol formula is the car killer unless the engine was modified or is one of the "flex fuel" models. My local WAWA did have the 10% formula yesterday so when I filled up I made note to check the odometer on the next fill-up to calculate the milage, that'll be 2 weeks until my next fill-up to judge, will let you know.

Interesting enough, the Dateline version had one of the ethanol researchers being given a veiled threat from an Oil executive who told him that they can and will lower the price of gasoline to undercut ethanol's price if it poses a threat to their profits. Seems there's a war brewing between the oil and corn lobbiests in DC.

You'll never get the mileage from ethanol that you get from gasoline, but a 25% reduction seems to be extreme.

My vehicle manual states specifically "Do not use fuels containing ethanol." I believe they found ethanol was causing rusting of fuel tanks and lines.

I remember about 15 years ago when I was still working at an oil refinery and operating the gasoline blenders, the big industrial farmers such as ADM were talking up the benefits of corn-based ethanol. It would be cheaper they said. Now a gallon of ethanol is just about the same price as a gallon of gasoline and it has to be blended in with petroleum components to be burned in engines. We've been told that one of the reasons for recent high gasoline prices
is a shortage of ethanol.

Tetraethyl lead was found to be harmful to health, so we replaced it in the gasoline blend with MMT, which was some sort of formulation using manganese. Turned out it was almost as harmful as lead, so it was dropped too. Reformate was then used in greater percentages in the blends to get the octane up. Turned out that reformate was causing certain plastic parts in Chrysler carburetors to dissolve and the cars were stalling out in traffic and causing beaucoup problems.

Butane is used to cause gasoline to vaporize more readily, especially in cold weather. Environmentalists complained that butane escaping into the atmosphere was causing problems, so butane percentages were reduced in blends. Pretty soon drivers were complaining of hard-starting engines.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s oxygenates were the big thing. These were supposed to result in cleaner burning fuels. One of the oxygenates was MTBE, which mixes freely with water. It was soon found that MTBE was contaminating ground water and MTBE has finally been eliminated from blends.

Will we ever find an environmentally acceptable fuel at a reasonable price? Stay tuned.

I didn't know they had WAWA in Virginia!!

I sure hope we find a safe and clean alternative to petroleum.

You know, a little hard work on a bicycle is nearly completely environmentally friendly, and in most cases healthy too.