Ethanol is now at every gas station

AndrewJ said:

Cleaner transportation fuels

Learn the rules about renewable content for companies that distribute gasoline and diesel fuel for use or sale in Ontario.
www.ontario.ca www.ontario.ca

ALL Ontario gas has to be 10% by 2024...and it raises each year. Please post ANY that are not already..I do believe the answer is 0
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That page was created in 2021. I can't find it, but there is a newer document on a gasoline web site that says that those dates have been delayed at least. That site was not a government site, but one that is an anti-ethanol web site. The document they pointed to was an official one though. Sorry, I never bookmarked it.
 
I was at the local CanTire station 2 weeks ago and noticed the pump for
premium read "no ethanol"
When I went in the mgr was there and I asked him if that was true, he laughed and said
"look what I received this morning". It was all new decal overlays that gave the octane and read "10% ethanol added".
He said he understood all fuel deliveries after April 1st in Ontario would have an ethanol mix.
I think CanTire was the last to add ethanol to all gas grades.
 
Blu427 said:
I was at the local CanTire station 2 weeks ago and noticed the pump for
premium read "no ethanol"
When I went in the mgr was there and I asked him if that was true, he laughed and said
"look what I received this morning". It was all new decal overlays that gave the octane and read "10% ethanol added".
He said he understood all fuel deliveries after April 1st in Ontario would have an ethanol mix.
I think CanTire was the last to add ethanol to all gas grades.
Click to expand...

Looks like all gas stations have ethanol.
This is he article I was referring to earlier (^^^).
 
While ethanol is now at every land-based (note the "land-based") gas station (at least in Ontario, where a Shell Engineer that I know confirmed the switchover in February or March of this year - for all brands according to him) non-ethanol fuel is readily available at Marinas in Ontario. There is an exemption on fuels for marine use, along with some other non-high-volume fuel burning uses. While not practical to try to wheel the C7 up the dock to the pumps at a marina, I confirmed with a local marina on Lake Simcoe that they're willing to fill portable fuel tanks with non-ethanol gas; fuel tanks was what he said, I don't know if that includes jerry cans to refill my small engine stuff.

If I (or you) find that they are unwilling to fill jerry cans, according to this Shell engineer ethanol can be removed relatively easily from fuel in small batches. There are a number of vids on Youtube showing how to do this, just search "remove ethanol" on the Youtube site. I plan to purchase an 11 litre GLASS wine making container and stopper called a "Carboy" from the local shop, and make my own ethanol-free fuel.

Coming from 50 years in the small engine industry, I have seen major damage to carburetors and other components on mowers/chainsaws/trimmers etc. where aluminum has literally rotted away. Hell of a way to force everybody to buy battery-electric products, I'm thinking.

Late Life Crisis
 
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Late Life Crisis said:
While ethanol is now at every land-based (note the "land-based") gas station (at least in Ontario, where a Shell Engineer that I know confirmed the switchover in February or March of this year - for all brands according to him) non-ethanol fuel is readily available at Marinas in Ontario. There is an exemption on fuels for marine use, along with some other non-high-volume fuel burning uses. While not practical to try to wheel the C7 up the dock to the pumps at a marina, I confirmed with a local marina on Lake Simcoe that they're willing to fill portable fuel tanks with non-ethanol gas; fuel tanks was what he said, I don't know if that includes jerry cans to refill my small engine stuff.

If I (or you) find that they are unwilling to fill jerry cans, according to this Shell engineer ethanol can be removed relatively easily from fuel in small batches. There are a number of vids on Youtube showing how to do this, just search "remove ethanol" on the Youtube site. I plan to purchase an 11 litre GLASS wine making container and stopper called a "Carboy" from the local shop, and make my own ethanol-free fuel.

Coming from 50 years in the small engine industry, I have seen major damage to carburetors and other components on mowers/chainsaws/trimmers etc. where aluminum has literally rotted away. Hell of a way to force everybody to buy battery-electric products, I'm thinking.

Late Life Crisis
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Thanks Mr. Crisis! ;)
Very informative!

 
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Late Life Crisis said:
While ethanol is now at every land-based (note the "land-based") gas station (at least in Ontario, where a Shell Engineer that I know confirmed the switchover in February or March of this year - for all brands according to him) non-ethanol fuel is readily available at Marinas in Ontario. There is an exemption on fuels for marine use, along with some other non-high-volume fuel burning uses. While not practical to try to wheel the C7 up the dock to the pumps at a marina, I confirmed with a local marina on Lake Simcoe that they're willing to fill portable fuel tanks with non-ethanol gas; fuel tanks was what he said, I don't know if that includes jerry cans to refill my small engine stuff.

If I (or you) find that they are unwilling to fill jerry cans, according to this Shell engineer ethanol can be removed relatively easily from fuel in small batches. There are a number of vids on Youtube showing how to do this, just search "remove ethanol" on the Youtube site. I plan to purchase an 11 litre GLASS wine making container and stopper called a "Carboy" from the local shop, and make my own ethanol-free fuel.

Coming from 50 years in the small engine industry, I have seen major damage to carburetors and other components on mowers/chainsaws/trimmers etc. where aluminum has literally rotted away. Hell of a way to force everybody to buy battery-electric products, I'm thinking.

Late Life Crisis
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As I understand it, and correct me if I'm wrong, but ethanol boosts the octane level, so if you buy 93 octane and remove the ethanol
what is the octane level reduced to?
I have been told removing the ethanol reduces octane approximately 5%, so 93 octane becomes 89 octane which is too low for all
performance cars.
 
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Blu427 said:
As I understand it, and correct me if I'm wrong, but ethanol boosts the octane level, so if you buy 93 octane and remove the ethanol
what is the octane level reduced to?
I have been told removing the ethanol reduces octane approximately 5%, so 93 octane becomes 89 octane which is too low for all
performance cars.
Click to expand...

91 Premium in Ontario was just base petroleum stock…..no ethanol at least for the majors such as Shell or Esso. The non-ethanol additive package is what gave it the octane bump from the old non-ethanol regular grade fuel. 93 octane was 91 plus around 5% ethanol +/- as an additional octane booster.

On strictly a personal basis, I’m not super concerned about 10% in my premium for the cars as they’re both fairly recent vintage. The problem arises with older vehicles which weren’t made with ethanol fuel in mind, plus my small engine stuff, none of those at least to about 2018 model years when I retired got along very well with ethanol of more than 3%-5%. All the aluminum bits in particular would literally dissolve into mush. (You can see that demonstrated on some YouTube vids as well).

my small engine stuff will run fine on 87 as long as it’s zero ethanol, so I’ll either make my own de-ethanolized fuel from premium or buy it at a marina at “boating prices”, which are sort of a “Corvette Tax” for water toys.

LLC
 
Vetteboy21 said:
I don't get what is the big issue? Mandated fuel standards are what they are. Follow what the manual says as Ross mentions above, fill with 91 or 93 and drive away. The manuals have stated "no additives" for a while.
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Small carbureted engines are killed by ethanol! Perhaps this is the wrong forum (C7) for it, but nonetheless, the carb on my go-kart was destroyed by it. My lawn tractors and even my diesel tractor ran like crap after a while because of the ethanol. Small engines generally don't need high octane because they don't detonate so removing the ethanol can be a lot cheaper than adding Seafoam or the like. Personally I'll just use seafoam in my garden fuels.
 
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Murray20c8 said:
Shell's Sarnia refinery now seems to add ethanol.
So who knows. Perhaps seafoam will go in all my small engine fuels.

"To meet federal regulations for ultra-low sulphur diesel that came into effect on June 1, 2006, SMC signed a 20-year agreement with Suncor Energy Products Inc. which saw Suncor designing, constructing, and operating another hydrotreater. This hydrotreater is used by both Shell and Suncor to reduce the amount of sulphur in our diesel, resulting in environmental benefits for the Sarnia area.

This hydrotreater also allowed Shell to meet tighter gasoline sulphur regulations that came into effect in 2020. As well, in 2020, the refinery converted its terminal to E10 gasoline (gasoline with ethanol) to comply with future federal clean fuel standard requirements."
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No, Shell rolled the dice on regulations that have not transpired yet and they are self-imposing restrictions on the public, and is only self-serving by their premature market predictions and subsequent losses with their foray into the ethanol market. Oil companies should not be dictating what consumers want or get, and what consumers want is for them to operate under the current guidelines, not proposed future guidelines. What I want to know is why Premium 91 and E10 Premium are now priced the same at the terminal, it has only recently changed and suggests a price fixing scheme underway. It is egregious for them to impose their will without public consultation. Sleazy
 
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Gaslady said:
No, Shell rolled the dice on regulations that have not transpired yet and they are self-imposing restrictions on the public, and is only self-serving by their premature market predictions and subsequent losses with their foray into the ethanol market. Oil companies should not be dictating what consumers want or get, and what consumers want is for them to operate under the current guidelines, not proposed future guidelines. What I want to know is why Premium 91 and E10 Premium are now priced the same at the terminal, it has only recently changed and suggests a price fixing scheme underway. It is egregious for them to impose their will without public consultation. Sleazy
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Thanks for the reply and welcome to the forum. I think many of us have long believed that there is price fixing. Shell is not the only one that is self-imposing the restrictions on the public. They all seem to.
 
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Welcome to Canuckistan. Please check your ICE at the door as you enter.
Murray20c8 said:
Small carbureted engines are killed by ethanol! Perhaps this is the wrong forum (C7) for it, but nonetheless, the carb on my go-kart was destroyed by it. My lawn tractors and even my diesel tractor ran like crap after a while because of the ethanol. Small engines generally don't need high octane because they don't detonate so removing the ethanol can be a lot cheaper than adding Seafoam or the like. Personally I'll just use seafoam in my garden fuels.
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Friend of mine argued with me about that. He learned when he killed his Quad engine running base level with a metric s**t ton of ethanol in it while the rest of us always ran top end gas in ours and they were fine.
 
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Pep said:
Welcome to Canuckistan. Please check your ICE at the door as you enter.

Friend of mine argued with me about that. He learned when he killed his Quad engine running base level with a metric s**t ton of ethanol in it while the rest of us always ran top end gas in ours and they were fine.
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I don't think I understand your statement. Are you saying that you are OK running top tier fuels even though it has 10% ethanol?
 
19C7GS said:
Apparently since last year there were some pretty big changes that went under the radar. Regulation forced companies to increase ethanol in gas.

Every premium octane out there now has 10% ethanol in it, Shell included. I was curious about this because I pulled up to a Shell gas station last year and noticed that all gas levels had 10% ethanol stickers, I promptly left to another that didn't and filled up.

Well, the time has come boys, we are now screwed and have to force feed our cars ethanol.

Not going to Shell anymore, why pay the premium price when I can get the same garbage fuel at any other random gas station.
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I noticed at the Shell station in Yellowknife about two weeks ago, ( Aug 15 ) the top tier 91 octane pump said right on it , no ethanol. Quite pleasantly surprised to see that but for how much longer with the new “ clean fuel standard “ is yet to be seen. Seems that other than the cash grab aspect of this and the “ carbon tax “ that the intention is to get everyone to switch to electric scooters. Brings to mind that expression “ from my cold dead hands “ .
 
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19C7GS said:
Apparently since last year there were some pretty big changes that went under the radar. Regulation forced companies to increase ethanol in gas.

Every premium octane out there now has 10% ethanol in it, Shell included. I was curious about this because I pulled up to a Shell gas station last year and noticed that all gas levels had 10% ethanol stickers, I promptly left to another that didn't and filled up.

Well, the time has come boys, we are now screwed and have to force feed our cars ethanol.

Not going to Shell anymore, why pay the premium price when I can get the same garbage fuel at any other random gas station.
Click to expand...
 
I have been having severe vapor lock on my '79 corvette the past few summers. I've been driving the car for around 30 years with no issues before now. It seems the ethanol content is causing the fuel to vaporize at a lower temp than the car is built to handle. The problem happens as soon as the car is shut off and is allowed to sit for a few minutes. Winter gas (spring driving) (lower vaporization point) and Calgary's altitude don't help. The car is now completely unreliable. I will have to switch to fuel injection to have any sort of reliability.
 
gregVette said:
I have been having severe vapor lock on my '79 corvette the past few summers. I've been driving the car for around 30 years with no issues before now. It seems the ethanol content is causing the fuel to vaporize at a lower temp than the car is built to handle. The problem happens as soon as the car is shut off and is allowed to sit for a few minutes. Winter gas (spring driving) (lower vaporization point) and Calgary's altitude don't help. The car is now completely unreliable. I will have to switch to fuel injection to have any sort of reliability.
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Found an article by Motor Trend Magazine, maybe a help. https://www.motortrend.com/how-to/engine-vapor-lock/
 
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