[Lurker]

How about we get rid of the stupid regional boutique blends instead.

L

[generally]

How about we get rid of corn based additives?

[WhoisAlanGreenspan?]

It's funny because I have a little octane story that played out on Monday. We had a pretty nasty ice storm here (Detroit area) and we lost electrical power Sunday night.
I hadn't touched my generator for 9 months or so and was kind of surprised I got it running at all. Trouble was it was hunting for RPM; idle up, idle down constantly while the load was a freezer and our big refrigerator.
I hadn't thought much about it until I plugged in a light and saw the variable voltage before I measured it as 135 - 125vac.

Everything was telling me dirty carb but I was thinking spoiled food. I had to fill my gas can anyway and at the last moment decided to fill er up with premium and some added Stable. And that worked!

Smooth running for the rest of the day. Voltage constant at 122vac, thanks in part to an octane boost!

[taildragger]

"How about we get rid of the stupid regional boutique blends instead."

And the winter and summer blends that screw you in terms of fuel economy, that's right I said it. Oh ya get rid of Ethanol and sell the corn to the Norks to feed their livestock so they have food.

You cannot run a military on multi-fuels that is why the NATO mandate of all small engines ( generators and UAV's ) run on JP-4/8 so they don't logistically have to carry around gasoline. So why should we run our economy on a more common fungible fuel?

[Fresh Wind]

How about we get rid of the stupid regional boutique blends instead.

And the stupid winter/summer blends that give us 10% poorer mileage in the winter.

[AFreeBird]

We could do both.

[GreyFriar]

And get rid of the ethanol mandate that reduces mileage by at least 10% from that possible with pure gasoline. Percentage based upon my own experience with drop in mileage when ethanol was mandated to be blended into gasoline.

[shawnlaw]

How about 100 low lead?

[FLT-bird]

Why the hell would we want to align with Europe? Gas is two or three times more expensive there.

[drop 50 and fire for effect]

How about we get rid of the stupid regional boutique blends instead.

Excellent point. The octane rating may or may not be important, I drive my Ford F150 over here in Germany, and it does fine, but no spectacular improvement on 95 octane fuel.

But forcing refineries to make multiple blends for different regions and change blends for summer or winter does add costs.

Pick one blend and stick with it.

[usconservative]

How about we get rid of the stupid regional boutique blends instead.

Been saying that for DECADES now! There are more than 57 (last I counted ..) REGIONAL "blends" of Gasoline mandated by the EPA.

ONE BLEND, NATIONWIDE would save us all $$$ at the pump. The pipeline system built largely in the 60's wasn't designed to move so many blends around the country. Cutting the number of blends to ONE eliminates so much of the logistical acrobatics to deliver fuel to parts of the country that gas should then be cheaper for everyone.