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Splash Blending Can Put Too Much Ethanol In Your Fuel Tank
By Mr Ethanol | October 27, 2008
Kansas City Star:
Randy Ledbetter, shop foreman at a General Motors dealership, knows that anything from a bad spark plug to a failing fuel injector can cause engine problems.
But he’s discovering another culprit: too much ethanol.
He’s seen that problem surge this year at Dale Willey Automotive in Lawrence. Even the service manager, complaining of a dip in mileage, found 20 percent ethanol sloshing around in his car’s fuel tank.
That’s double the legal limit but about the average in more than two dozen vehicles the shop has worked on. One customer had 35 percent ethanol.
“It’s getting worse and worse,” Ledbetter said.
Indeed, U.S. motorists have become unwitting players in a game of biofuel roulette.
And when they end up pumping too much ethanol into their tanks, they can likely blame something called splash blending.
It’s a popular method for blending ethanol into fuel. But critics say splash blending is prone to inaccuracy — and vulnerable to manipulation when ethanol becomes cheaper than conventional gasoline, as it has been this year. That makes it enticing to pack more ethanol into a gallon of gasoline and pocket some extra profits.
“There is a temptation,” said Cal Hodges, a chemical engineer and former employee of Amoco Oil who now is a petroleum consultant.
Adding extra ethanol to a wholesale delivery can save hundreds of dollars, he said. Read more.
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