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OK. So I got hooked on reading all of these ethonol discussions over the last couple of months. I was interested in the discussion of E10 mandates, non-E10 gasoline availability, and the lengths to which some people would go to keep it out of their tanks! Given all the debate, I began to wonder what the requirements for California reformulated gasoline were. After some internet searching, I couldn't find anything, so I posted the question here. I didn't get a direct answer, but I got directed back to the EPA website (which I had looked at too briefly). I found an "ask a question link" there, and said "How can I find out what the requirments for CA RFG are." ...

Well, EPA sent me a link referring to CARB (California Air Resources Board).
http://www.arb.ca.gov/fuels/gasoline/gasoline.htm
I read the document on the CaRFG3 (phase 3, about half way down the paget under "Gasoline Programs". The interesting thing is they do not mandate a specific percentage of ethanol, rather they mandate what the oxygen content of the gas must be after adding the oxygenator (ethanol). To make this even trickier, the mandate only applies to the south central coast and Imperial/Orange counties. Reading this document was interesting, but told me nothing about what was in my gasoline in Northern CA!

EPA must have also passed my request on to CARB, because I got an email from a CARB staffer explaining what I had read in the document above, with an offer to contact him if I had more questions. That was all I needed.

I gave him a call. CA Refiners are not required to put Ethanol in their gas (except for the affected areas in the winter (all other requirements are about removing sulphur, magnesium, aromatic hydrocarbons, etc), however almost all CA refiners put in enough ethanol to maintain a 2.0% oxygen content all the time. That works out to about 6.8% ethanol, according to the staffer.

He also said that the requirement on Southern CA had been an ozone reduction mandate, and because of reduced ozone levels, the mandate was lifted! Woo-hoo! :D , BUT...

The federal government was about to start mandating higher levels of Ethanol in gasoline as a part of the "biofuels initiative" (such bull****!) It was going to rise about a percent in 2009 and would go to 10% in 2010. Time to start writing those congresscritters.

This has been a very interesting diversion into beaurecracy and politics; a necessary evil.

Larry

My local reg gas contained 5.79% ethanol so that makes me think there is some variability in the ETH amounts. I live in the central valley so I'm not sure if that makes a difference.

I wonder how my car will do with 10% ethanol in 2010. Wait and see.

I guess I better pay more attention when I gas up.

Are they adding ethanol at the refinery level? Used to be blended in the truck, to keep ethanol and it's water absorbing property out of the pipelines. If the order called for an ethanol blend, I'd load 90% gas, then swing over to the ethanol line and top off with ethanol. Usually my calculations were right.:rolleyes: That was 18 years ago, hopefully they have come up with a more accurate/error proof method.
Keith

Listening to the CARB person, it sounded like they were mixing it at the refinery.
Larry

Where I live, the gas at the pumps has all been 10% ethanol for a while. Since 2006, I think. I don't have any issues with it. I can smell a whiff of ethanol in the exhaust of a cold engine. Don't notice any driveability problems in warm weather or cold.

It has been a good while since I've mixed any premixed gas-oil mixture for the small two-stroke engines I have. Don't know whether the E10 will cause oil separation issues there.