Inspired by stories in Ethanol Today and elsewhere, and confident in my math skills, I've taken to blending my own ethanol at the pump. I live in Des Moines and their are no blender pumps in the area. But I do have a gas station that offers an E85 pump and a regular pump side-by-side. So what I do is blend my own. This morning, I filled up my 12-gallon Ford Focus tank. I put in one gallon of E85 first, then put in 10 gallons of E10. That's a total of 1.85 gallons of ethanol in an 11-gallon fill, which comes out to E16.8. I try to do the math and keep it at E20 or less.
So far so good. I actually filled up our 2001 Ford Windstar with E20 from a blender pump in Mt. Pleasant on the way home to Des Moines from visiting relatives in Illinois. I've notice no change in performance since going to the higher alcohol brew.
I believe 6 out of 10 vehicles will see equal or slightly higher mileage. I noticed a trend that the Toyota Camry had better than results over regular gas, (4 tested). Honda Accord's on the other hand showed some drop. The cause and affect we deal with is how the 02 sensor responds to higher oxygen content and how all the various engine tuning changes timing or fuel mixture. You should do 3 consecutive fills before you list your result since there will be some people who will argue with you that you should loss mileage. Some will, some won't.
Excellent idea! You're idea totally avoids alot of obstacles in the way of ethanol usage. Anyone can do it with any vehicle and we won't have to wait for political inertia to be overcome for blender pumps to make E20 and E 30. A gas station in Irvington, NY just opened about 5 miles from my house and I am going to try topping off my tank with a few gallons of E85 to get to an E20 blend and test my mph. Thanks for sharing the idea!
The University of Minnesota, Mankato, has done testing for the state and has found that using an E20 blend shows no noticeable difference in performance and also showed no physical impact on the engines or components either metal or rubbers and plastics.
Reading about those studies and others made me decide to blend my own. When I used the blender pump in Mt. Pleasant, Iowa, I noticed that the pumps were labeled with "NOT GASOLINE" and other ominous, ALL-CAP language that made even me pause to wonder if E20 it was safe to put in my car. It would be nice to get rid of those DIRE-sounding warnings OR create a pump topper sign for blender stations with the message that many studies show E20 is perfectly safe for all vehicles that run on E10 (basically every car built since the 1980s for sure). I assume the disclaimers on the pump are some kind of federal requirement, but the stations can put whatever they want on top of their pumps. So something that quickly communicates the safety of E20 would be a good move, IMO.
Week four of this experiment. I'm getting really good at knowing how many gallons will fit in my tank based on where my gas gauge is. I finally figured out it's 1 gallon of E85 four every five of E10 to get you to E20. I just put 1.25 gallons of E85 in with 5.75 of E10 to get E20 (roughly). My high school math teacher, Mr. Read, would be proud that math is helping me stick it to the oil man. My 2001 Ford Focus 2.0 liter got 23 mpg in town with E10. So far it looks like E20 is getting 20 or 21 mpg. It's hard to be sure since I have to pack the tank every now and then to get the right blend, but it appears there has been some drop off.
I am new to this industry. I plan to open a bio-ethanol micro plant in West Point Utah.
And eventually open an ethanol fuel station on a piece of commercial ground that I own.
I am currently looking for the best people to talk to, regarding purchasing equipment.
I want to start with a small experimental permit, for 10,000 gallons per year. Then as demand grows, increase production with additional permits. Do you know who can point me in the right direction to purchase micro stills?
I want about 100 gallon production per day capacity. Can you help?
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