EPA increasing Alcohol content

The EPA is considering increasing the alcohol content to 15%, up from the current 10%. Even though I'd prefer we convert to 100% alcohol as fuel, our motors aren't set up for that. They need either alcohol or gasoline, and in this case, the alcohol only absorbs water from the system helping to keep it dry, but otherwise doesn't produce the power of gas. Alcohol requires a compression ratio of 14:1 to extract power from it, so in our vehicles with 8:1 or maybe as high as 10:1, it's wasted.

I'd prefer to be given the choice of fuel without alcohol.

Here's a chance to be heard:


EPA Extends the Public Comment Period on E15 Application

Contact: Cathy Milbourn, (202) 564-7849 / 4355 / milbourn.cathy@epa.gov

(Washington, D.C. ÔÇô May 15, 2009) EPA is extending the comment period by 60 days on a waiver application requesting an increase in the amount of ethanol blended into a gallon of gasoline to up to 15 volume percent (E15). The original public comment period was to end on May 21, 2009, and will now end on July 20, 2009.

The current limit on the amount of ethanol that can be blended into a gallon of gasoline is at ten volume percent ethanol (E10) for conventional (non flex-fuel) vehicles. Growth Energy and 54 ethanol manufacturers submitted the E15 waiver application on March 6, 2009. The statutory provision calls for EPA to make a decision within 270 days of receipt, which is December 1, 2009. The comment period extension will not change this timeframe.

More information and instructions for submitting comments: http://www.epa.gov/otaq/additive.htm
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I'm ordering my alchohol resistant floats from Bing before they run out.

Just replaced all my internal and external gas lines of my R1100RS, alot of those lines inside the gas tank. Gas leaking and dripping beneath my bike, it was a fire hazzard. I believe that most of this problem was caused by ethanol added to the gas pumps mandated by government. Alcohol is very corrosive to a normal gas powered internal combustion engine and it's components. An even higher percentage will only excellerate this deterioration.

In Baker City, OR there are several gas stations that dedicate one pump to non-ethanol premium gasoline. In Oregon it is apparently OK to do that provided the gasoline is not pumped directly into anything other than a Motorcycle or off road vehicle tank or simple gas can. I use this fuel in my motorcycles, lawnmower, and rototiller. Wish Washington State had a similar provision.

Go figure.

We have 2 gas stations in town (owned by the same guy) that has Alcohol free gas. 95% of the time I fill the bike up there. It helps that both of them are on the way to work, too. Sad, sad, sad what we are coming to.

Boxerkuh said:

We have 2 gas stations in town (owned by the same guy) that has Alcohol free gas. 95% of the time I fill the bike up there. It helps that both of them are on the way to work, too. Sad, sad, sad what we are coming to.

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My motorcycle friend and gas station owner was the last in the entire area to add ethanol. He said all gas station was mandated by law to convert to ethanol by June 1, 2009. He wasn't happy about it but had to comply. He had the ethanol signs on the pumps a couple of weeks before he actually started selling it.

Thank you, Al Gore and the other global warming idiots. .

This does cause a number of problems for old and not so old bikes. So far, draining the float bowls on my R90S seems to have kept those issues at bay. While this is probably not a realistic solution for a daily driver, it is for a Sunday bike. (FWIW, my R90S starts easier and more quickly than my S3, even when its sat for months).

Agribusiness subsidy

This comes from the EPA, because they regulate allowable fuels, but is actually not a pollution issue. One of the applications for the 15% is from Growth Energy, which is a trade organization/cartel/whatever you want to call it, for ethanol producers. The application is simply from the ethanol industry to allow the sale of this fuel.
Round 2 may well be an attempt to mandate the 15% ethanol in certain jurisdictions, couched as "green power", but actually benefitting the narrow interests of the ethanol agribiz. If the industry then buys the right spokesmodel, anyone opposing 15% ethanol may be painted a carbon guzzling dinosaur who hates the earth.

R80andR100RT said:

Thank you, Al Gore and the other global warming idiots. .

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