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Team from GM, Ford, FCA reviews how to calculate engine efficiency benefits of high octane fuels

Green Car Congress

Alcohol and gasoline-alcohol blends also offer efficiency benefits independent of their octane value. Higher octane fuel improves the efficiency of today’s engines through reduced spark retard (from optimum) at high loads, and could enable even higher efficiency if engines were optimized for higher-octane fuel.

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Perspective: US Needs to Transition to Hydrous Ethanol as the Primary Renewable Transportation Fuel

Green Car Congress

The government assisted the shift by giving sugar companies subsidized loans to build ethanol plants, as well as guaranteeing prices for their ethanol products. Both production and consumption of ethanol were basically flat for much of the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s. As used in this section and Sec. 40 CFR § 80.27(d)