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I think the main point of my post is still valid, E10 is not going away. The announcement was to permit E15 to be sold year-round instead of seasonally. Several trade groups are already gearing up to block the move to year-round E15. |
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[Agreed. The original post has been edited to remove the political comments.] |
Amen! Public discourse has become too polarized.
Original post has been edited...one of the moderators. |
As mentioned in first post, I sent an email to Rotax Technical Support.
Here is response... Dear Sir The fuel issue is not as simple as elected officials lead you to believe. Increasing the fuel from 10 to 15% would radically increase NO x emissions into the atmosphere. For that reason there will be no allowable increase in our recommendation based on testing of the fuels and emissions. If only 10% auto fuels are used this is manageable but at 15% there must be some consideration for carburetor fitted vehicles, both aircraft and automobiles, to do so without substantial emissions into the environment. Best regards Technical support |
Interesting.
E10 is only "up to 10%" ethanol and as I understand varies a bit but is usually somewhere between 6%-8%. E15 is "between 10.5% to 15%" according to the Alternative Fuels Data Center. So you can jump from E10 to E15 with only a 0.5% increase in ethanol, presuming E10 is max and E15 min. And this supposedly would "radically increase... emissions into the atmosphere". That sounds.... unjustified. https://www.afdc.energy.gov/fuels/ethanol_blends.html When concentrations vary so much it's difficult to see how positive folks can be that "5%" would make that much of a difference. |
I found it interesting that the only issue mentioned in the email from Rotax support is emissions. I saw no mention of performance, reliability or other operational issues. I don't know what the limits are on nitrogen oxides from small piston aircraft, let alone experimental aircraft, but I suspect it's not a show-stopping issue for those of us in the US.
Of course there's always 100LL, which eliminates the ethanol issue altogether. |
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