Gasoline could go from 10% ethanol up to 20%

WASHINGTON -- Key backers of ethanol fuel are starting a push to double the amount of ethanol commonly blended with gasoline to 20%. The move would boost the market for grain alcohol, while skirting problems and controversy surrounding E85, an 85% ethanol fuel.

Blending ethanol — alcohol typically now made from corn — into gasoline is a way to cut petroleum use. A 10% ethanol blend, called E10, now is standard at many gasoline pumps across the USA. It can be used by virtually all gasoline vehicles, which is not true of the E85 being promoted as a fuel of the future.

Studies by the University of Minnesota and Minnesota State University at Mankato suggest that ordinary vehicles could burn a mix of 20% ethanol, called E20, as routinely and harmlessly as they now burn E10. Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty is to announce the study results at a conference here today.

"We see E20 not exactly as bypassing E85, but supplementing it," says Gene Hugoson, Minnesota agriculture commissioner.

A separate study, commissioned by the Renewable Fuels Association and not yet finished, will assess the environmental impact of doubling the alcohol.

Minnesota law requires 20% of fuel used be ethanol within a few years, making the matter more urgent there than elsewhere. The mandate could be satisfied if enough motorists burn E85 to raise the average to 20% — or if E20 replaces E10 as the state's standard fuel.

Hitting the state's goal, as well as boosting U.S. ethanol use as much as the industry hopes, "will take awhile" relying on E85, Hugoson says. E85 availability remains limited mainly to the Midwest. It is potentially corrosive, making it hard to ship in pipelines and requiring special fuel system parts in vehicles. E85 also has far less energy than gasoline, so it takes more to go the same distance.

For E20 to become a legal fuel, however, it would need U.S. Environmental Protection Agency approval.

Automakers also have doubts that it is as benign as E10. They are running trials, but they say they do not have enough data on how risky E20 is to components and whether it would change emissions in unwanted ways.