The Ethanol Papers - Paperturn manuscript - Flipbook - Page 348
published their results in July 2012. Oak Ridge concludes that “in
general, the materials used in existing UST infrastructure would not
be expected to exhibit compatibility concerns when moving from
E10 to E15.” Oak Ridge admits housekeeping issues like water
contamination and microbial growth are more likely to have a negative impact on USTs than adding ethanol to gasoline.”
So, as I alluded to in my first email to Michael Green, AAA took a small piece
of information out of context, blew it out of proportion, and used it to help support
the fallacious oil industry position that ethanol damages engines.
Also commenting on the AAA editorials was Bobby Likis, host of the nationally
syndicated Car Clinic Radio Network. He wrote:
“I’m both surprised and disappointed in the entire premise of the AAA E15
article…In the 41 years I have been - and still am - hands-on in the diagnosis, service, and repair of cars, I find the repeating of an already dispelled myth that E15 ruins engines distasteful and contrary to the results
found in extensive EPA and university studies, as well as in my first-hand
experience with over 175,000 cars that have rolled through my service
shop. In 41 years, we have not diagnosed a single 'ruined' engine due to
ethanol.”
David Blume, perhaps the world’s leading authority on ethanol production and
author of “Alcohol Can Be A Gas” had this to say about the AAA editorials:
“Of course this isn't the first time AAA whored themselves to the American
Petroleum Institute. The first time, in the 1930s had them conducting a
phony test on phase separation in an attempt to prevent wider scale use
of alcohol.” (1)
Incidentally, I’d like to point out that the oil industry used all of these anti-ethanol
arguments years ago to try and discredit the government’s decision to deploy
E10 gasoline blends – the gasoline that has become our standard regular and
premium gasoline fuels. The claims weren’t true then, and they are not true
now. Additionally, we do not hear of any consistent, universal problems from
other parts of the world where they use higher ethanol-gasoline blend levels.
The oil industry has one goal: Keep us enslaved to gasoline and to keep us
reliant upon foreign entities. AAA’s participation in this scheme, whether willing
or unwittingly, is counter to America’s economic health. Unfortunately, as The
Auto Channel has pointed out in the past, AAA is not the only “American”
