How about no ethanol gas at all!

Small engines say hi

AlaskanAg99 said:

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doubledog said:

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A side benefit of E15 is that it will take the pre-2000 cars off the road. Classic car lovers and lawnmowers will need to find source of ethanol free gas, I am sure the market will provide.

We need to switch from corn to sugar cane as the source of ethanol. Houston would be an ideal place to refine ethanol from sugar cane with the Gulf of America nations (states) suppling the sugar cane. A free Cuba and a reformed Haiti would be ideal nations for cane production.

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No, cane sugar should go into food and corn sugar should not.

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There is a form of sugar cane called energy cane that isn't as good for sugar production, but is extremely efficient for ethanol production. 100 sq miles of the stuff in Louisiana could supply enough ethanol for the entire country.

We don't need subsidized ethanol in our gas regardless, but if ethanol production is needed, we should at least use a high density crop that is tailored for it and won't cause increased food prices as a side effect.

ts5641 said:

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Government can **** up a free lunch.

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And they could demolish an anvil with a rubber hammer.

eric76 said:

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ts5641 said:

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Government can **** up a free lunch.

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And they could demolish an anvil with a rubber hammer.

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$50,000 rubber hammer no less.

If you wanted to fully live up to your name, you would have also discussed RON vs MON and how we average the two to get octane.

PS. Great summary of octane and why most drivers don't need to pay for premium gas but those in the industry love it when you do thanks to higher margins on it.

But them some extremist group will block I-80, preventing the free flow of corn out of the state of Iowa.

Ethanol sucks

Fightin_Aggie said:

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ts5641 said:

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Government can **** up a free lunch.

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There is no such thing as a free lunch

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Correct:


"No free lunch" (often expanded to "there ain't no such thing as a free lunch" or TANSTAAFL) originated from 19th-century American saloon culture, where "free" lunches were offered to patrons who purchased drinks. The phrase highlights that the cost of the food was hidden in the price of the drinks, meaning nothing is truly free

Kansas Kid said:

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If you wanted to fully live up to your name, you would have also discussed RON vs MON and how we average the two to get octane.

PS. Great summary of octane and why most drivers don't need to pay for premium gas but those in the industry love it when you do thanks to higher margins on it.

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Huh, I actually did write up a paragraph on that, but guess I deleted it because it didn't seem relevant.

Anyhow, for those who don't know: There are two standard test suites for measuring octane numbers, Research Octane Number (RON) and Motor Octane Number (MON). They both work by running a variable-compression test engine with the fuel and turning up the compression ratio until the engine starts knocking. But MON uses pre-heated fuel, a higher engine speed, and different ignition timing.

The MON test stresses the engine more, so MON tends to be about 10 points lower than RON for the same gasoline blend.

The average of (RON+MON)/2 is sometimes called the Anti Knock Index, or AKI.

In North America, the octane number is AKI, on the grounds that it more accurately reflects real-world performance than RON or MON alone. But in Europe, they just use RON, because it's the older method, and they didn't see a reason to change. This can cause confusion if you import a European car into the United States and, for example, the gas flap has a label telling you to use 91 RON. Because you can actually just use regular 87 AKI, which is the same thing, just measured differently.

As a final nerdy note, the whole octane thing doesn't apply to diesel engines. Because the whole point of a diesel engine is that it's compression-ignition. That is, it works by compressing the hell out of the air in a cylinder, which increases its temperature (thanks to Charles' Law) until the fuel ignites. So you want a fuel that ignites easily without requiring a spark plug. Diesel fuel has an "anti-octane" number called the cetane number, where 100 is hexadecane (aka cetane, C16H34), 0 is 2,2,4,4,6,8,8-heptamethylnonane (which is also C16H34, but a branched chain instead of straight). In the US, 40 cetane is the bare minimum allowed, but the Texas Low Emission Diesel (TxLED) program requires 48 cetane, the EU requires 51, and California requires 53. "Premium" diesel fuels can have 60 cetane. However, since most US gas stations only sell one grade of diesel (compared to 3 or 4 grades of gasoline), cetane number isn't emphasized as much as octane number is for gasoline.

Kansas Kid said:

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Over_ed said:

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https://www.newsmax.com/us/gas-iran-donald-trump/2026/05/13/id/1256215/

More of the same - buying votes.

House just passed a measure allowing E15 (higher ethanol gasoline) year-round

• Great for farmers - corn is perhaps our highest (federally) subsidized crops.
• Great for the environment - as long as you don't care about increased ozone in the summer.
• Great for big refiners - they get to sell more requires (and expensive) RINs (renewable credits) to smaller, independent refiners.

What a load of fertilizer.

End E10 and E15 now. We have plenty of real gasoline; no need or reason to add ANY ethanol.

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You forgot to add the tax credits for higher blends of ethanol as well.

Another hidden cost is around 40% of the US corn crop goes into ethanol meaning the acres, water, diesel, fertilizer, etc aren't available to grow other crops which would reduce the price of those crops.

Let the market decide. Remove all mandatory blending of ethanol annd tax advantages and if people still want it, let them pay the full price of ethanol.

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Ethanol is used to provide more oxygen to the combustion of gasoline to reduce air pollution. I don't think you can completely go to zero ethanol because of current air pollution regulations. Credible sources show that E10 has only 97% of the usable energy as pure gasoline. E15 would be even less efficient.

malibucharles said:

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Kansas Kid said:

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Over_ed said:

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https://www.newsmax.com/us/gas-iran-donald-trump/2026/05/13/id/1256215/

More of the same - buying votes.

House just passed a measure allowing E15 (higher ethanol gasoline) year-round

• Great for farmers - corn is perhaps our highest (federally) subsidized crops.
• Great for the environment - as long as you don't care about increased ozone in the summer.
• Great for big refiners - they get to sell more requires (and expensive) RINs (renewable credits) to smaller, independent refiners.

What a load of fertilizer.

End E10 and E15 now. We have plenty of real gasoline; no need or reason to add ANY ethanol.

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You forgot to add the tax credits for higher blends of ethanol as well.

Another hidden cost is around 40% of the US corn crop goes into ethanol meaning the acres, water, diesel, fertilizer, etc aren't available to grow other crops which would reduce the price of those crops.

Let the market decide. Remove all mandatory blending of ethanol annd tax advantages and if people still want it, let them pay the full price of ethanol.

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Ethanol is used to provide more oxygen to the combustion of gasoline to reduce air pollution. I don't think you can completely go to zero ethanol because of current air pollution regulations. Credible sources show that E10 has only 97% of the usable energy as pure gasoline. E15 would be even less efficient.

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In Texas you can buy ethanol free gas. A station 10 min from me has it.

Its not about pollution any more, since we know its WORSE for the environment, its about subsidizing our farmers so they don't have to compete against the world.

malibucharles said:

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Kansas Kid said:

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Over_ed said:

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https://www.newsmax.com/us/gas-iran-donald-trump/2026/05/13/id/1256215/

More of the same - buying votes.

House just passed a measure allowing E15 (higher ethanol gasoline) year-round

• Great for farmers - corn is perhaps our highest (federally) subsidized crops.
• Great for the environment - as long as you don't care about increased ozone in the summer.
• Great for big refiners - they get to sell more requires (and expensive) RINs (renewable credits) to smaller, independent refiners.

What a load of fertilizer.

End E10 and E15 now. We have plenty of real gasoline; no need or reason to add ANY ethanol.

---

You forgot to add the tax credits for higher blends of ethanol as well.

Another hidden cost is around 40% of the US corn crop goes into ethanol meaning the acres, water, diesel, fertilizer, etc aren't available to grow other crops which would reduce the price of those crops.

Let the market decide. Remove all mandatory blending of ethanol annd tax advantages and if people still want it, let them pay the full price of ethanol.

---

Ethanol is used to provide more oxygen to the combustion of gasoline to reduce air pollution. I don't think you can completely go to zero ethanol because of current air pollution regulations. Credible sources show that E10 has only 97% of the usable energy as pure gasoline. E15 would be even less efficient.

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Except that zero-ethanol gasoline does exist. However, it needs other additives to replace the octane-boosting and oxygenation effects that ethanol provides, and those are more expensive to produce (and not government-subsidized like ethanol is).

Seems like E15 has always been for sale year round at the gas station I go to. and I thought it was only supposed to be used in flexible fuel engines.

EFR said:

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You should care, it reduces you mileage.

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Yep… ethanol is junk when it comes to energy / btu content… absolutely kills your miles per gallon

Ethanol 76,000 btu's / gallon

Gasoline 114,000 to 125,000 btu's / gallon

all they are doing is killing your gas mileage running this crap product. Now if it was some type of corn based pentanol or hexanol you're talking 105,000 to 120,000 btu's per gallon, a lot closer to gasoline.

E15 will be some mileage killing junk product… I will not buy that unless it's all that's available. Hell I my need to drive around with a few gallons of toluene in the truck just so I can make a blend and up the gas mileage

Does the 100 octane gas at the racetrack have ethanol? Might be worth filling up my generator for the tire warmers with it since it sits a lot when not in use.

Edit: ChatGPT said the two most likely blends used at my tracks still have ethanol. Oh well

There's AvGas. I've run that in inboard boats and not had problems. I've heard that you can fry your valves with it, I don't know. Sure runs well.

doubledog said:

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A side benefit of E15 is that it will take the pre-2000 cars off the road. Classic car lovers and lawnmowers will need to find source of ethanol free gas, I am sure the market will provide.

We need to switch from corn to sugar cane as the source of ethanol. Houston would be an ideal place to refine ethanol from sugar cane with the Gulf of America nations (states) suppling the sugar cane. A free Cuba and a reformed Haiti would be ideal nations for cane production.

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Ban ethanol.

Don't feed my car what I need to eat. Half the world is starving and we feeding food to our cars.

Trump promised cheap gas not gimmicks with corn syrup that still cost over 4 bucks a gallon.