OPEI Survey: U.S. Consumers ‘Ill-Prepared’ for Introduction of Higher Ethanol Fuel Blends

摘要

The federal Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) encourages increasingly larger volumes of ethanol to be consumed in the market, but an Outdoor Power Equipment Institute (OPEI) survey released September 11 found that U.S. consumers are “ill-prepared” for the introduction of higher ethanol fuel blends. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has approved the introduction of some mid-level ethanol blends (E15, E30, E85) for use in a small sub-set of automobiles in an effort to comply with the RFS, but “the problem is,” according to the OPEI in a statement, “that these higher ethanol fuel blends may be dispensed alongside current fuels [and] are illegal and risky to use in hundreds of millions of small engine products and applications.”