Any defense of U.S. ethanol policy must embrace a series of fallacies which include: that ethanol produced from corn makes the U.S. less dependent on fossil fuels, that ethanol lowers the price of gasoline, that an increase in the percentage of ethanol blended into gasoline boosts the overall supply of gasoline, and that ethanol is environmentally friendly and lowers global carbon dioxide emissions.
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In fact, the federal government mandated in the 1990s that MTBE be blended into gasoline to increase octane and improve combustion.
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Butane, which has an RVP of 52 psi, can be blended into gasoline in higher proportions in the winter because the vapor pressure allowance is higher.
The percentage of biofuels blended into gasoline is projected to account for 4.3% of the total gasoline pool by volume in 2007, 7.5% in 2012 and 7.6% in 2030.
The renewable fuels standard (RFS), originally established in the Energy Act of 2005, requires an increasing amount of biofuel to be blended into gasoline sold in the United States over the coming years.
In April, Texas Governor Rick Perry asked the EPA to reduce the total number of gallons of ethanol required to be blended into gasoline sold in the United States until 2010, arguing that biofuels production had increased the price of grain by diverting a huge share of the nation's corn harvest to ethanol production.
Despite these mounting issues, RFS2 currently demands even greater percentages of biofuels whether derived from corn or non-food sources to be blended with traditional gasoline every year.
The food-to-fuel mandate is known as the Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS) and requires 13.2 billion gallons of ethanol to be blended into the gasoline supply this year and 36 billion gallons by 2022.
Ethanol, added to motor fuel, is a great oxygenate and can stretch gasoline supplies blended from 10 to 85 percent by volume.
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Congress has mandated that ethanol blended into U.S. gasoline will increase to 35 billion gallons per year by 2022.
Congressional mandates, moreover, have decreed that by 2022, biofuels blended into the U.S. gasoline stock will increase to 35 billion gallons per year.
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That breaks down to 2.5 million bpd of ethanol blended with 0.4 million bpd of gasoline (which would be an 82% reduction in gasoline consumption).
Finally, adding ethanol actually raises the price of blended fuel because ethanol is more expensive to transport and handle than gasoline.
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