Ethanol Fuel
The demand for ethanol fuel in the United States was stimulated by the discovery in the late 1990s that methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE), an oxygenate additive in gasoline, was contaminating groundwater. Due to the risks of widespread and costly litigation, and because MTBE use in gasoline was banned in almost 20 states by 2006, the substitution of MTBE opened a new market for ethanol fuel. This demand shift for ethanol as an oxygenate additive took place at a time when oil prices were already significantly rising. This shift also contributed to an expansion in the use of gasohol E10 and to a sharp increase in the production and sale of E85 flex vehicles since 2002.
| United States States with mandatory use of E10 blend |
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|---|---|---|---|
| Florida |
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Missouri |
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| Hawaii |
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Montana |
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| Kansas |
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Oregon |
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| Louisiana |
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Washington |
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Read more about this topic: Biofuel In The United States
Famous quotes containing the word fuel:
“It is now many years that men have resorted to the forest for fuel and the materials of the arts: the New Englander and the New Hollander, the Parisian and the Celt, the farmer and Robin Hood, Goody Blake and Harry Gill; in most parts of the world, the prince and the peasant, the scholar and the savage, equally require still a few sticks from the forest to warm them and cook their food. Neither could I do without them.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)