Well ... to understand the fuel you have to look at the history of how it came to be.

I was young at the time but i remember the Arab Oil Embargo of 1973. As i recall ... gasahol was produced in response to that embargo as a way of making us more energy independent.

I remember that i was working for Gibbs Oil Company around 1981 or 1982. We used to sell gasahol at some of the company stations till one fateful winter day. The station i was working was on a busy highway. Something went wrong with the fuel in our gasahol storage tank and there were over ten disabled cars scattered down the highway from us. The company completely discontinued the sale of gasahol within a few days after the incident.

I didn't hear anything about blended fuel for over twenty years after that. GWB was in the oil business before he became president. This is probably why and how the idea came to be revived.



You might keep an open mind about the corrosivity factor. There's a reason why the oil industry had to spend BILLIONS on re-fitting their pumps, pipes and tanks. You should be able to fact check that one.

Think about closer to home though. Didn't you notice that all the gas stations were digging up and replacing all of their underground pipes at one point in time ? It certainly was noticeable here.

Think it through some more. The EPA mandated the change back sometime around 2004. The automobile manufacturers have had plenty of time to re-design their vehicles to work on this new fuel. One thing i noticed was a change in fuel lines. They used to be regular steel tubing. The manufacturers went to stainless steel tubing. The fuel systems appear to be more like a closed loop system. Fuel tanks don't vent directly to the atmosphere like they used to back in the day.

Another thing to consider is that there are seasonal blends. The vaporization properties of the fuel are adjusted seasonally. We had a bad batch of fuel come in about three weeks ago. I don't know what was wrong with it but it was causing hard starts and poor performance when the engine was under load. Point being ... it varies. The blended fuel seems to work okay here in the coldest part of the winter.

Kind of an interesting thing .... when gasoline first came out it was only somewhere in the 50 - 65 octane range. The motors of the time were built with that in mind. Today's motors are designed to run on the fuels that are available today. Flex fuel capability is pretty neat because the ECU can adjust the motor's timing and whatnot to run well on just about all of the fuel choices available out there.

Another fun factoid: Carbon Monoxide is a flammable fuel gas. " City Gas" was originally carbon Monoxide before they shifted over to natural gas.

Ever heard of an exhaust gas recirculation (EGR ) valve ? It pulls exhaust gas up into the motor to be reburned as a fuel when the truck is at an even cruise at highway speeds. They've phased it out now in favor of better technology but it used to boost fuel mileage and keep the engine running cooler.

Granted it is a bit off topic but it's an interesting subject and it's kind of environmental. It it true that it actually takes more calories to produce a gallon of ethanol than the gallon yields in calories when it burns ?