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Comment by dublinben | Hacker News Reader

Where would you even find 100% gasoline?

I know you can get it at two places in my state (nh) - one is a place for older boats, up in our lakes area, and you need to be filling an old boat to pump it. The other is an airfield, and you need to be filling an old airplane to get it.

So it's not strictly accessible.

It's around. They even sell testing kits to make sure.

If you can find it, run the 100% pure stuff in your lawn equipment unless it specifically says it can run on E10. The E10 absolutely destroys the old rubber lines and clogs up carburetors.

For smaller 2 cycle engines (chain saws, string trimmers, etc.) you can also buy small volumes of pre-blended gasoline and oil at various mixture ratios that are ethanol free. You can find these near the mower section in most of the big box hardware stores. It's not cheap compared to blending your own, but it keeps my tools very happy.

Though I generally have tried to move away from 2 cycle tools to LiPo electric ones where feasible. My electric push power works really well, and I maintain a little under 2 acres of grass.

Around here in NW Georgia I see a lot of "Hi-Tech" branded stations with 100% gasoline, but usually for about a 30 cent markup per gallon.

100% gas does cost more because ethanol is subsidized, but depending on your engine you can get more than that back in mileage. (The same mechanic told me that some 6-cyl Toyota engines lose 42% of efficiency on 10% ethanol.)

> The same mechanic told me that some 6-cyl Toyota engines lose 42% of efficiency on 10% ethanol.

He's off by a magnitude. E10 has about 97% energy density as 100% gasoline (http://www.afdc.energy.gov/fuels/fuel_comparison_chart.pdf)

A 42% loss would be huge. A 30 MPG Toyota would get about 18-19 MPG.

Just because the energy density is there does not mean that the engine can take advantage of it. ICE engines are all about timings and combustibility. If the timing computer is not configured to adjust for E10's alternate timing, this measure of poor efficiency is entirely possible.

That's what the octane rating is for. Ethanol even has a higher octane rating than gasoline. All modern (~'96 or later) engines have anti-knock sensors and can adjust timing. 89 octane gasoline vs 89 octane E10 will perform the same.

It just isn't possible to lose 42% from running E10. You won't even lose that much efficiency from running low octane fuel in an engine that requires high octane.

Are you getting E10 confused with E85? E85 is a whole different beast and will ruin a car not designed to run on it.

Empirically, there seems to be a correlation between lawn care company usage and stations that carry 100% gasoline where I live. I am lucky to be about 7 km from a station that has it (suburban/semi-rural border area). Cost is roughly 10% more than E10 (at this one particular station).

Here in Ontario, a lot of stations I've seen offer "up to 10% ethanol" in regular (87 octane) gasoline, "up to 5% ethanol" in mid-grade, and "0% ethanol" in premium.

Best bet is to buy the "premium" blend, but ask to be sure.

Strangely, a lot of Cenex Stations have a non-ethanol pump.

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