Hello All,
The past couple of years the economy has had a growing sense of urgency to try and instate a different type of fuel for vehicles to help and clean up our already polluted world. Slowly this movement is making its way across the country and it looks like it finally has landed in our hometown, Phoenix AZ!!!!!!
Phoenix, Jan. 30, 2007 — Western States Petroleum, Arizona’s leader in biodiesel delivery, has become the first Phoenix retailer to offer E85, 85 percent ethanol 15 percent petroleum, to a growing number of flexible-fuel vehicle owners who wish to fuel with the cleaner burning, domestically produced fuel at its site at 450 S. 15th Ave.
Western States Petroleum Inc. is proud to once again lead the way in the greater Phoenix area by offering E85 ethanol. The good news is it’s just in time for the Super Bowl, which means all those flex-fuel vehicles arriving in the state have a place to fuel with cleaner burning domestically produced fuel. “It’s a win win for everyone,” said Bob Kec, owner of Western States Petroleum.
“We were the first to offer BQ9000 certified quality biodiesel, and now to be the first to offer E85 makes us proud,” Kec said about the opening of Phoenix’s first E85 retail station.
Colleen Crowninshield, manager of the Pima Association of Governments’ Clean Cities Program, said, “It has been a long time coming. I receive phone calls and e-mails every day with people asking when Phoenix will have a retail station. Now I can actually have a positive response and tell them that they can find fuel for their flex-fuel vehicles in the market.
“The ethanol industry would like to congratulate Western States Petroleum for becoming the first retail station to offer E85 in Phoenix, the country’s fifth largest city,” said Robert White, interim executive director for the Ethanol Promotion and Information Council (EPIC). “It is a milestone in ethanol history.”– Source EPIC
Why would this matter at all to any performance minded individuals? Well the induction of these alternative fuels is great for us that like Horsepower as the octane rating of true E-85 is around 105. So essentially running E-85 is like running race gas all the time!! Also the cost of E-85 is considerably less as it contains 85% ethanol and only 15% of pertroleum fossil fuel.
But with any great thing there has to be a few cons. The problem with Ethanol as a fuel is the burning rate or flash point of ethanol is a lot higher than Gasoline. Gasoline is way far negative while the flash point for ethanol is 50 degrees. That means that for those of you were it gets real cold, good luck trying to start your car. Although it does still contains some petroleum it still has a majority of concentration of Ethanol, thus being very hard to start. That is why they make different variations of ethanol based fuel. E-70 is only 70% Ethanol and 30% gas making it much easier to start in cold weather.
The second con to E-85 is overall fuel consumption. To be able to run E-85 you must supply the car running it with a lot more fuel to be able to work properly. I am talking twice as much fuel almost!!! Stoichiometric AFR for Ethanol is around 9.8:1 with gas being a much leaner 14.7:1!! So overall a very big difference but I think well worth it.
It is an exciting era to be apart of right now with the advent of alternative fuels. There are going to be some very exciting developments in the next few years and we will be there every step of the way to make sure we can not only create a cleaner environment but some really clean fast cars.
Mitch Mckee
