New Year Green Resolutions - Use E15 petrol only

My Renault Megan 2.0 litre engine is warranteed to takes up to a 15% blend of ethanol and gasoline. The French have been driving on blended petrol and biodiesel/diesel blends for years. There is an independent petrol station in Randwick selling an E15 blend under the name of ULP. My New Year Resolution is to merge the two happy co-incidences and give them my custom.

The rewards are many. The ethanol is derived from Queensland grown sugarcane so this helps reduce Australia's reliance on foreign oil infrastructure. It gives the Megane more punch when needed and helps reduce greenhouse gas emissions as this report from 2003 shows.

Engine performance and total emissions are both improved by the addition of ethanol to gasoline. The clean burning nature of ethanol allows you to capture more of the work from the fossil portion of the gasoline, which compensates largely for the lower energy content of ethanol itself. In a 10 per cent blend (E10), all other things being held the same, you might get a zero to 2.7 per cent loss in mileage (kilometres per litre).

Another performance benefit from ethanol is its high octane addition to fuel. Of all the commercially viable octane enhancers possible, nothing delivers more punch than ethanol. The populace still feels the ill effects of the tons of poisonous lead that were spewed into urban environments because of the poor decision to accept lead over ethanol as the octane additive of choice.