Future of 100 LL and ethanol in mogas

[deanbilling]

There have been a number of threads on this forum recently about the future of 100 LL and TEL and problems with ethanol in auto gas and where to find ethanol free mogas for our aircraft. My web site www.e0pc.com was referenced in one of the threads.

TEL is going away, either when the EPA sets the date, which they will set this year by October, or something happens to the one plant in the world where it is made, which is not in the U.S.

Ethanol will be put into all of the auto fuel in the country by the unintended consequences of a federal RFS mandate in EISA 2007. This year more than 85% of all of the auto fuel will have ethanol in it and the amount that is required to be blended must increase in each year until 2022. It was supposed to be E85, but like I said, there have been unintended consequences.

To understand what is happening to G/A fuels and to find references to the problems please visit www.e0pc.com and use the links on the left to find out what is happening and why.

Kent Misegades, a prolific writer for EAA publications, Todd Petersen, Petersen mogas STCs, and I also moderate a blog about the fuel situation on the General Aviation News web site and it has the latest information about what is happening: http://www.generalaviationnews.com/?cat=525 and we presented a forum last year at AirVenture, and recently at Sun'n Fun and will present an update at this years AirVenture.

Regards -- Dean

 

[slowjoe]

One thing that you very seldom see is the fact that Ethanol free gasoline IS available everywhere. Ethanol is blended into the gasoline at the rack, and most distributors will sell you ethanol free gas.

The caveat here is that most will sell you a tanker full, minimum. Assuming you buy a tanker full of straight mogas, how do you store it or get it into the planes? With proper permits you could probably unhitch the tanker and leave it on the field, but you still won't have a distribution system. I suppose you could transfer it to a fuel truck, assuming you got an 8,000 gallon truck.

At any rate, straight mogas is available, but the airports need to get on board with putting in the distribution infrastructure.

 

[deanbilling]

One thing that you very seldom see is the fact that Ethanol free gasoline IS available everywhere. Ethanol is blended into the gasoline at the rack, and most distributors will sell you ethanol free gas.
...

That is increasingly not the case, because when a terminal is completely converted to distributing E10 it doesn't receive finished gasoline anymore. It receives Blendstock for Oxygentated Blending, or BOB. BOB is "suboctane", i.e. has a lowered AKI and has other parameters that have been optimized for making E10, i.e. lower vapor pressure. BOB is not legally finished gasoline and I doubt whether any terminal would sell it to you. Most terminals will not have separate tanks for BOB and finished ethanol free gasoline.

Here in Oregon, a mandatory E10 state, we only have one terminal left in the state that still receives ethanol free finished gasoline and it only receives it by tank truck, railroad tank car or ocean barge. The terminal is in Portland at the end of the Olympic pipeline which comes down from Washington. There are four major refineries in Northern Washington and they only send BOB down the pipeline now and one of the refineries has converted to nothing but BOB production. The other three will probably follow suit as they try to meet the ethanol blending requirements of the federal RFS mandate. Economically they have little choice. The legal demand for ethanol free gasoline is going to decrease unless states protect themselves because they are concerned about their marine and aviation industry and public safety.

This is all covered in the slide presentation that I gave at Sun'nFun on the web site: www.e0pc.com/SNF10.pdf

 

[slowjoe]

The terminal isn't the issue, so much. It's all storage in between. Oxygenated blends are extremely corrosive. The entire distribution network has to be capable of handling the oxygenated blend. If you've got a refinery close to the retail, sure, that might be the case. But places like here in Arizona, where we don't have refineries and we get our gas from California and Texas, it's not going to happen. It will continue to be blended at the rack.

 

[bigred177]

I sure wish I could find some uncontaminated gas here in Austin, or anywhere close by. I've called every distributor in the area and the only distribute E10.

 

[deanbilling]

I sure wish I could find some uncontaminated gas here in Austin, or anywhere close by. I've called every distributor in the area and the only distribute E10.

Your only option now is to contact your state legislative representatives and tell them how ethanol in all gasoline is effecting you and ask them to pass legislation to prohibit blending in premium unleaded. They will probably figure it out when public safety equipment craps because of the ethanol, especially if the EPA lifts the blending limit to E15 as they have been petitioned by the ethanol industry.

 

[Superpilot61]

I was looking at an STC for a c-152 ( to allow 93 octane) recently and read that lead would soon be phased out from av gas... funny part.... it was written in 1981 go figure!

 

[John Baker]

I'm no expert, but I would have sworn I read somewhere that mogas has a relatively short shelf life, something like six months. A tanker can hold a whole lot of mogas that would have to be sold pretty fast.

By the way, 100LL at KMYF is now at $5.00 a gallon off the truck.

John

 

[bigred177]

It used to be longer, until they contaminated it with ethanol. Now the shelf life is painfully short.

The E10 is only for the lower grades right? They haven't put it in 91/93 octane yet have they?

 

[deanbilling]

> ...
The E10 is only for the lower grades right? They haven't put it in 91/93 octane yet have they?

The terminal can make the decision which grades to put ethanol in for now, but it will be in all grades as the producers comply with the ever increasing ethanol quotas in the federal RFS mandate. By 2013 virtually all of the gasoline will have to be E10 to use up the mandated ethanol unless E85 usage picks up significantly.