{"id":17409,"date":"2026-05-31T08:18:46","date_gmt":"2026-05-31T15:18:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/?p=17409"},"modified":"2026-05-31T08:18:46","modified_gmt":"2026-05-31T15:18:46","slug":"the-gasohol-pushers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/2026\/05\/31\/the-gasohol-pushers\/","title":{"rendered":"The Gasohol Pushers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This is a good write up on the stupid practice of using ethanol in fuel. I wish I had a local Buc-ee’s, as when we go there in Colorado for a brisket sandwich, I fill the tank up with ethanol free fuel, and I notice a difference in how the Subaru runs as well as how the tank lasts over the E10 Sam’s Club fuel. Anyway, this covers while you should just avoid the E15 fuel, even if you have a newer vehicle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.ericpetersautos.com\/2026\/05\/31\/the-gasohol-pushers\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n

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By eric<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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There\u2019s a term you don\u2019t often hear anymore \u2013 probably because there\u2019s too much truth in it: Gasohol<\/em>. It is \u201cgas\u201d that\u2019s adulterated with alcohol. We put this adulterated fuel in our tanks as a matter of course, since almost all the \u201cgas\u201d that is commonly available is at least 10 percent alcohol. It is sold as \u201cE10,\u201d which translates as \u201cgas\u201d that\u2019s 10 percent ethanol (ethanol is<\/em> alcohol).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

E15 is 15 percent<\/em> alcohol. It is becoming commonly available and people are being wheedled into buying it because it costs less than E10 (and a great deal less than actual gasoline<\/em>, if you can still find it) and $4.10 per gallon sounds great to people who are having to pay $4.50 for E10.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The catch is it\u2019s another grift, the defining characteristic of Stage 5 America.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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It costs more to burn ethanol \u2013 because alcohol isn\u2019t as energy-dense as gasoline. Put another way, you have to burn more alcohol-laced gas to get a car to travel a given distance; this is true of E10 as well as E15, only more so in the case of E15. People don\u2019t generally notice, though \u2013 because they don\u2019t have an easy way of making a direct comparison. The adulteration of the fuel supply began decades ago, back in the 1980s. The idea at first was that this would serve as a kind of pour-in emissions control because alcohol-laced gas leaned out<\/em> the fuel mixture; the problem was this made carbureted engines run hotter and it did nothing to reduce the emissions of fuel-injected engines because their computer controls simply richened up<\/em> the fuel mixture to compensate for the alcohol.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But it was a boon-grift for Big Agra \u2013 aka the corn lobby \u2013 which has been making fat stacks peeing in our gas tanks (so to speak) ever since.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is arguably one of the greatest con jobs ever. For more than 40 years, people have been effectively forced to buy adulterated fuel and getting reduced gas mileage as a result. The cost isn\u2019t trivial.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fuel economy of an engine that burns E10 is reduced by about 3-4 percent<\/a>. Using E15 increases that reduction to 6 percent, if not more. Given a vehicle that averages say 30 miles-per-gallon \u2013 burning gasoline \u2013 you\u2019d lose about 1.2 MPG burning E10. The same vehicle would only go about 28.8 MPG. Given a typical 13 or so gallon gas tank, the loss would be about 16 miles of driving range. If you filled up this car four times a month, the loss would be about 64 miles of driving range per month. Factor that out over a year and the loss comes to about 768 miles of lost driving range, the equivalent (roughly) of two full tanks of gas, which \u2013 at today\u2019s $4.50 or so per gallon \u2013 amounts to a cost to you of (roughly) $117. Factor that out over 20 years and it gets to be a pretty considerable cost doesn\u2019t it? About $2,400, to be precise about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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That sum would pay many people\u2019s gasoline bills for close a year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

E15 increases that cost \u2013 and not just in terms of your car going less far than it used to. \u201cGasoline\u201d with that much alcohol in it \u2013 15 percent, remember \u2013 is too much alcohol to be safely burned in engines not specifically made to burn it because it\u2019s more than just a matter of adjusting the air-fuel ratio to compensate for the high-alcohol-content \u201cgas.\u201d Most vehicles made before the early-mid 2000s were not made to safely use E15 and in many cases, the vehicle\u2019s manufacturer warns not to use E15 \u201cgas\u201d due to potentially catastrophic materials failure caused by the alcohol, which breaks down rubber seals, plastics, gaskets and so on. Regardless of the vehicle\u2019s vintage, if it has steel gas lines and a steel gas tank, the alcohol will tend to egg-on rust inside the lines and the tank, because ethanol absorbs moisture (water) from the the air and water plus steel equals rust. The flakes will then slough off and get sucked down the line into your fuel injectors and engine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Carbureted engines (which almost all modern outdoor power equipment engines still have and almost all cars made before about 1982 also have) are more vulnerable because the fuel system is open to the air and because carbs (in automotive applications) generally predate alcohol-laced gas and were never designed for it. To avoid problems, it is necessary take the carburetor apart and replace all the soft parts \u2013 gaskets, seals and so on \u2013 with ethanol-compatible parts and also to re-jet the carburetor to compensate for the \u201cleaner\u201d fuel. Steel gas tanks and lines should also be replaced with stainless steel parts. This gets into money. It also assumes the replacement parts are available. In many cases, they are not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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It is likely that E15 \u2013 if it becomes the new E10 (replacing E10 as the mass market fuel) \u2013 will accelerate the demise of all vehicles made before about ten years ago and especially vehicles made before about 25 years ago, when few were designed to be able to handle E15 fuel. While this might not be deliberate, it will nonetheless the end result of this pushing of alcohol in ever-higher-concentrations into the fuel supply. Given that there is no longer an \u201cemissions\u201d justification and hasn\u2019t been, for more than 40 years (since the widespread adoption of self-adjusting electronic fuel injection) one wonders why they keep pushing alcohol into the fuel supply.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Especially in view of the fact that we have plenty of gasoline \u2013 because there is more than enough oil right here in the United States to provide for all of our domestic consumption needs. But we don\u2019t actually \u2013 because much of this oil is exported \u2013 which is why Americans are paying $4.50 per gallon for gas adulterated with 10 percent alcohol and are being peddled \u201cgas\u201d adulterated with 15 percent alcohol. It is a cheap way to replace the gas<\/em> that\u2019s been taken out of the fuel supply and fool the rubes into thinking they\u2019re getting less expensive \u201cgas.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ah yes, my little chickadees!<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is a good write up on the stupid practice of using ethanol in fuel. I wish I had a local Buc-ee’s, as when we go there in Colorado for a brisket sandwich, I fill the tank up with ethanol free fuel, and I notice a difference in how the Subaru runs as well as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17409","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-world"],"blocksy_meta":[],"featured_image_src":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"Jason","author_link":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/author\/jturning\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17409","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17409"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17409\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17411,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17409\/revisions\/17411"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}