On Wednesday, USEPA approved the use of gasoline containing up to fifteen per cent ethanol in vehicles built in 2007 or later. That’s an increase over the current limit of ten per cent and it is sure to make ethanol producers like agri-giant Archer Daniels Midland very happy indeed. Unfortunately, there’s not much in this decision for the average American consumer to celebrate. The new fuel blend, generically known as E-15, is likely to increase gas prices, increase food prices, and quite possibly to damage vehicles, void warranties, and increase air pollution.
One has to admire the deviousness with which USEPA Administrator Lisa Jackson works the system to further the green agenda. In a press release [1] announcing the E-15 decision, Jackson said: “Thorough testing has now shown that E15 does not harm emissions control equipment in newer cars and light trucks. Wherever sound science and the law support steps to allow more home-grown fuels in America’s vehicles, this administration takes those steps.” Those two seemingly innocuous sentences have deep regulatory meaning. Back in March 2009, Growth Energy [2], a trade organization for the bio-fuels industry, and fifty four ethanol manufacturers, petitioned USEPA to approve the use of E-15. Under the Clean Air Act, USEPA cannot approve the use of a “significantly altered fuel” – which E-15 unquestionably is – unless it can be shown that “the new fuel will not cause or contribute to the failure of the engine parts that ensure compliance with the act’s emissions limits.”
Note the narrowness of the test here: USEPA can use its authority to circumvent otherwise applicable sections of the Clean Air Act and single-handedly approve a new fuel if it believes that “emissions limits” will not be exceeded. Will more ethanol in gasoline affect the performance of the catalytic converter in your car’s exhaust system that destroys air pollutants? It will not. Will more ethanol affect the various sensors that optimize engine performance or the computer that controls it? Not likely. But, might higher ethanol blends prove to be incompatible with a variety of engine parts that in turn will degrade more quickly when exposed to more of this acidic alcohol? That’s absolutely possible and perhaps even likely. As an engine degrades, it runs less efficiently and generates more air pollutants, at some point producing enough that the various control systems that “ensure compliance” with emissions limits simply can’t keep up.
There’s nothing “sound” about this sort of science. Jackson caved into the ethanol industry’s demands by applying the narrowest possible definition to that part of the Clean Air Act that enjoins her agency to ensure that air pollution emissions will not increase as a result of approval of a new fuel. This is rather another example of what has characterized Jackson’s EPA since she took over: selectively using science to further an agenda. Last year, the federal government mandated and provided subsidies for the production of 10.5 billion gallons of ethanol. That requirement will expand to 15 billion gallons by 2015 and 36 billion gallons by 2022. Allowing the use of E15 is an important step toward realizing those goals. By the end of the year, USEPA is expected to decide whether or not to allow the use of E-15 in model years dating back to 2001.
Not that the model-year requirement matters all that much anyway. As E-15 hits the market, the only control that will be put in place to ensure that owners of 2007 and later model vehicles use that particular blend will be an USEPA-designed sticker on the gas pump. Call me a cynic, but are we really expected to believe that motorists driving older cars will avoid filling up on E-15 because a sticker tells them not to? If, thanks to government subsidies and incentives, E-15 is cheaper than “normal” gasoline, few drivers will pay the slightest attention.
From a chemist’s point of view (which I am) any increase in the amount of ethanol in gasoline is cause for concern. In addition to ethanol being weakly acidic on its own, it also attracts water, which is more strongly acidic. By contrast, the hydrocarbons that make up the rest of gasoline tend to repel water. As you introduce more ethanol, you necessarily introduce more water into the fuel system and engine, and water is – as anyone who has owned cast-iron lawn furniture can attest to – quite corrosive. Automobile manufacturers understand this and most have designed, and most importantly warranted, their vehicles on the basis of the owner using fuels that contain no more than ten per cent ethanol. In the face of this recent EPA decision, car makers are faced with a classic Hobson’s Choice: they can pay out on warranty claims that appear to be related to the use of E-15, or they can challenge such claims and incur the considerable, and considerably expensive, wrath of a resurgent federal bureaucracy.
Finally, there is this: the conversion of United States’ cropland from food production (directly, through the production of consumables, or indirectly, through the production of livestock feed) will continue as a result of this decision. Thus, as a direct consequence of Lisa Jackson’s latest edict, food prices in the United States will continue to rise. That particular consequence is not part of the “sound” scientific analysis that she has relied upon, but it is another example of the unintended consequences that Barack Obama’s USEPA doesn’t ever care to consider.
Article printed from FrontPage Magazine: http://frontpagemag.com
URL to article: http://frontpagemag.com/2010/10/15/the-losing-game-of-ethanol/
URLs in this post:
[1] press release: http://yosemite.epa.gov/opa/admpress.nsf/6424ac1caa800aab85257359003f5337/bf822ddbec29c0dc852577bb005bac0f!OpenDocument
[2] Growth Energy: http://www.growthenergy.org/about-growth-energy/structure-members/our-members/
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