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What octane do you use?

Started by JuniperBoss, January 20, 2013, 09:13:56 PM

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JohnG28

Marty hit it pretty well. Without getting into politics, I believe it is mostly a smoke screen of sorts to give people the feeling that using it is better for the environment. As was said, it actually creates more overall greenhouse gasses to produce than it saves. Also, ethanol has less energy per unit than gasoline. This means that you actually get less energy from a gallon of E10 than gallon of pure gas. So in the long run it doesn't really help. If you search here for this you can find previous threads with plenty of ethanol facts. JohnMc here had a lot of good information and statistics to back it up as I recall. Check them out.
Stihl MS361, 460 & 200T, Jonsered 490, Jonsereds 90, Husky 350 & 142, Homelite XL and Super XL

beenthere

I consistently get 10% better gas mileage using non-ethanol gas. It costs me about 4% more per gallon. Its a no-brainer what to try to buy.
Ends up that ethanol is just a filler, and not saving any gas. But the mandates are that the supply has to be a ethanol laden, which here is usually about 10%. The farmers don't burn the stuff, as they burn diesel.  ::) ::)
south central Wisconsin
It may be that my sole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others

HiTech

Ethanol treated gas knocked the gas mileage on my Jeep Cherokee Sport from 20+ miles to the gallon down to 14 to 16 if lucky. They say it helps with the pollution problem but if you burn more gas who benefits? The Big Oil Companies and Corn Brokers. You can't beat the CEO's and their quest for Billions in profits and their Unholy Salaries and benefits. We have a 91 octane un-ethanol gas in my area but you can't buy 5 gallons for $20. It's $.50 plus a gallon more. Use it in the chainsaws though.

John Mc

One of the reasons ethanol was added to gas is that it's and oxygenated fuel. Certain areas of the US that had air quality problems were mandated to use oxygenated fuel.  One of the popular oxygenate additives was MTBE (if I've got the acronym right... and don't ask me what it stands for).  A big problem surfaced with this "good for the air quality" additive.  When it managed to leach into the ground, it wrought serious havoc on water quality.  Ethanol came in to play as a substitute for MTBE.

The second reason for ethanol was to "reduce our dependance on foreign oil".  Sounds great, doesn't it? A home-grown energy source that burns cleaner than gas... what's not to like?  In their infinite wisdom, our government mandated the use of at least a certain number of gallons of ethanol each year.  The number automatically bumps up a bit each year. 

There was NO mandate that fuel contain 10% ethanol (except some regions of the country where it was one possible additive to help with air quality issues as noted above).  In fact, the thought at the time was that this would help promote E85 (basically, straight ethanol with enough gas added so people wouldn't try to drink it).  E85 just hasn't taken off -- how many pumps have any of us run across in our travels?  With the increasing gallons of mandated ethanol each year, combined with more fuel efficient cars and the recession (people driving less) there were fewer and fewer places for the industry to use the ethanol.  It's finally to the point where just about every gallon of gas sold needs to have 10% ethanol to meet the mandated gallons to be used each year.  In fact, it was the bumping up against this limit that prompted the lobbying to approve E15 gas.

Ironically, though E85 has a bit less energy density than gas, it has significantly fewer problems as a fuel than E10 or E15 (eating up rubber fuel lines, o-rings and diaphragms is one problem it does still have).  T

he only advantage I can see to having E15 become more of a standard is that it will cause so many problems (especially with small engines and older cars) that (1) maybe the powers that be will wake up and correct this fiasco and/or (2) it will force the wider spread availability of non-ethanol options (like maybe mandating the availability of non-ethanol premium??)
If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.   - Abraham Maslow

Dave VH

around here I bet 60% of the stations carry e85.  It is only a little bit cheaper than regular and you get  much less fuel economy with it.  I just don't understand the point.  Even though my tahoe could use it, it just doesn't make good sense
I cut it twice and it's still too short

John Mc

Quote from: Dave VH on January 30, 2013, 06:21:22 PM
around here I bet 60% of the stations carry e85.

It's been 12 years since I lived out your way (I was in NW Ohio).  They must have cropped up since then. In my entire life, I've seen two E85 pumps (not that I've really been looking).
If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.   - Abraham Maslow

gspren

   Yesterday I was running some erands about 40 miles north of my normal area and saw a station with a big no ethanol sign out front, thats the first ethanol free gas I've seen in a long time. Luckily I had an empty 2 gal container along and wish I would have had a couple of 5 gal cans. I filled my 2 gal and topped off my Subaru with 89 oct ethanol free! It was 30 cents higher.
Stihl 041, 044 & 261, Kubota 400 RTV, Kubota BX 2670, Ferris Zero turn

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