The non-elected officials at Obama’s EPA are again trying to mandate the use of E15 gasoline. This means that instead of 10% ethanol they will now start selling gasoline that will contain 15% ethanol. While this sounds green we feel the reality is there are many bad issues in doing this and no good ones. We also strongly suspicion the outcome the EPA really wants is nefarious and is entirely different from what they appear to claim.
The EPA’s goals appear on the surface to merely be a) reduce pollution and b) reduce dependence on oil via using more ethanol. As ethanol is made from crops such as corn, they consider it a renewable (aka green) resource. They claim that E15 is safe in cars manufactured after 2001 and that it’s the most tested fuel…ever. On the face of it, this sounds just terrific. A green win-win situation if there ever was one. In our opinion the reality of using E15 may be far different from claimed.
Like global warming, it appears to us that the EPA and Obama administration are using some good old-fashioned faux science to arrive at pre-conceived conclusions. They then put them out to the general public, who, for the most part, seem eager soak up any green BS the government spouts, true or not.
According to the article from The Hill, the automakers and AAA (the American Auto Club) take issue with E15 being safe for vehicles not originally designed it like the ones you see running around with “Flex Fuel” on the body. Those are vehicles specifically designed to run on the regular gas we use or E15.
But automakers say EPA is only considering the fuel’s impact on emissions control systems while disregarding the impact on the rest of the vehicle.
“It is clear that millions of Americans are unfamiliar with E15, which means there is a strong possibility that many motorists may improperly fill up using this gasoline and damage their vehicle. Bringing E15 to the market without adequate safeguards does not responsibly meet the needs of consumers,” AAA President and CEO Robert Darbelnet said in a Friday statement.
In a nutshell, they’re claiming the EPA only cares that if it doesn’t whack a car’s emission control system it’s deemed “safe.” Never you mind if engine or other problems may arise from using it, we’re the government, we never lie!
It’s evident they could also care less if people in even older pre-2001 autos, unaware of the potential problems, inadvertently fill their cars up from an E15 pump and destroy their engines. You will note the article from The Hill also makes it known you may not have a warranty from the manufacturer on newer cars if any E15 related damage occurs. Knowing the auto manufacturers just ‘love’ to pay warranty claims, you can probably make a safe bet that many more problems will suddenly be deemed E15 related so they can make more profit at your expense by making you pay for the damage.
So, what can happen if an automobile is not specifically designed for E15 fuel? Apparently quite a bit. First, it can attack rubber hoses, gaskets, seals and o-rings that are not specifically designed to withstand it. This means hoses like the one that goes from the fuel filler to the tank and the ones that go to the engine from the tank. The fuel injection units have gaskets, seals and o-rings it could attack. They also have things made from plastic such as throttle position sensors, fuel temperature sensors and idle air control valves that may not be made to withstand E15. On even older cars using carburetors, it can attack all the seals and 0-rings inside the carburetor.
E15 can also cause corrosion problems with metals like aluminum. It can corrode the aluminum fuel lines to the fuel injectors on some cars and even corrode aluminum intake manifolds. If you look at a flex-fuel car, it will have all fuel related parts made of materials designed to withstand the corrosion effects of the higher ethanol content. Got an older car with a carburetor? It’s most likely that the body of the carburetor is aluminum.
Can you imagine what will happen to an older car that starts leaking fuel into a hot engine compartment ? Most likely the fuel will spray out someplace and sooner or later leak on to the hot exhaust manifold and catch the car on fire. Same if the fuel line from the gas tank leaks onto the hot exhaust pipe or muffler. All possibilities using E15 in cars not designed for it. You can darn well bet that the government will find a way to deny any and all claims related to cars burning to the ground caused by using their mandated E15 gasoline. Same with auto manufacturers who will deny your claim due to you using E15 or tell you to sue the government because they mandated it, not us. Sounds like it will end up being circular to us.
All the aforementioned makes us question if this is exactly the intended effect of foisting E15 upon an unsuspecting public, many who are driving older cars due to Obama’s bad economy over the previous 4 years. The EPA rather obviously hates old cars. In their eyes they use too much gas, take up too much space and pollute too much. With the push for hybrid and full electric cars lately, it seems that in their eyes even driving a fuel-efficient car that uses gas is bad.
Just think about what’s gone on in the recent past four years. It appears to us to be a concerted effort by the government to get its citizens out of older cars, most gas fueled cars and perhaps out of cars all together. We feel there have been 3 plans and that we’re now starting up number 4.
Plan 1, known as jack up the price of fuel didn’t work to get everyone out of their older cars.
Plan 2, known as cash for clunkers didn’t work either. About all this did was ruin a lot of good parts vehicles that deliberately had their engines destroyed after trade-in and then were crushed. Let’s not forget it wasted a few billion of your tax-dollars, too.
Plan 3, subsidizing hybrids such as the Toyota Prius, full electric cars like the Nissan Leaf and the whatever it is Chevy Volt hasn’t gotten many people to leave gas fueled cars either. Chevy Volt sales (owned by GM aka: Government Motors) are sucking. Even subsiding any of them leaves them too expensive for the average person to buy.
Based upon all of this, it appears to us that the next step to be implemented is what we’ll call Plan 4. Plan 4 is the sneaky plan to increase the ethanol content of gasoline to the point where it will destroy many old cars and force people into buying new cars that the EPA considers green, such as the Chevy Volt, Toyota Prius, Nissan Leaf, or at the very least, more fuel-efficient gasoline powered cars that pollute less and will run on E15. Once they get this going, it’s an easy step for them to eliminate E10 totally, like they did leaded gas in the previous century. Then it will be all E15, and even if you have so far been able to avoid filling up your older car with E15, they’ll get you now.
Let’s not forget ethanol is made from food crops such as corn and right now there’s a drought in much of the Midwest, which is causing corn and other crop prices to rise. Throw in more competition for these same crops due to an increase in ethanol production and you have a recipe for higher gas prices, higher food prices and even possibly shortages of one, the other, or both.
This seems a rather nefarious and sneaky plan to us, meaning it fits perfectly with the Obama Administration’s modus operandi, referred by them as being ‘transparent’ for some strange reason.
Have a better sneaky way to get everyone out of their own cars and save us all from non-existent global warming? Call the EPA, they’ll love to hear from you.
Source: The Hill
