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Originally Posted by BeCool68
I am seeing less and less gas stations offering non-ethanol fuel and this is concerning.
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We can thank our government for another brilliant scheme.
The EPA mandated oxygenated (reformulated) gas in the early '90's and ethanol has been slowly replacing MTBE as the oxygenator.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxygenate
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The United States Environmental Protection Agency had authority to mandate that minimum proportions of oxygenates be added to automotive gasoline on regional and seasonal basis from 1992 until 2006 in an attempt to reduce air pollution, in particular ground-level ozone and smog. As a consequence, much gasoline sold in the United States is blended with up to 10% of an unspecified oxygenating agent. This product is known formally as oxygenated fuel and often (but not entirely correctly, as there are Federally-mandated reformulated gasolines without oxygenate) as reformulated gasoline. Groundwater contamination scares and the State of California's ban of the substance as a gasoline additive has allowed ethanol to displace methyl tert(iary)-butyl ether (MTBE) as the most popular fuel oxygenate in the United States.
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