Comment Log Display

Dear Members of the Board:
As you begin considering minor modifications to the Zero Emission
Vehicle Regulation, I respectfully ask you to consider granting ZEV
status to optimized ethanol engines running on E98 Ethanol fuel
(98/2 Etoh/ipOH). Why? Because ethanol fuel is a carbon neutral
fuel, especially in an engine built for it. Many myths about
ethanol abound. These are well documented in David Blume's
important book, Alcohol Can Be A Gas. But ethanol is a fuel that
can be easily made out of many varieties of biomass, and not just
from corn. If grown and harvested according to the methods of
permaculture, feedstocks can produce low cost ethanol with very
little cultivation. Such will mitigate extreme climate change,
bolster America's energy independence, reinvigorate the economy,
and establish international peace and security. And ethanol does
not require massive infrastcture development, or rely on invasive,
expensive, controversial, and polluting extraction operations.
Today, critics make much about how ethanol fuel does not perform as
well as gasoline fuel. But this is unfair since ethanol is being
asked to perform in engines optimized for gasoline. Even though
critics level their complaints, ethanol fuel is a fact of life and
more and more of it is being used as the years go by. It is the
21st century and this writer believes that many new and different
transporatation styles will soon be upon us. Already, there are
plans for electric cars, air cars, hydrogen cars, and driverless
cars. In the ZEV Emission Vehicle Regulations there is language for
some of these innovative vehicles. But, is there language for
vehicles with optimized ethanol engines running on E98, which is
denatured with the non-petroleum chemicals isopropyl alcohol and
denatonium benzoate? If not, there should be. Soon, vehicles with
optimized ethanol engines will be developed. And because the
optimized ethanol engine uses carbon neutral ethanol fuel, cars and
trucks designed with 21st century optimized ethanol engines and
fuel should be granted Zero Emissions Vehicle Status. 
Thank you,
Debbie Baron,
Secretary of the Mendo Alcohol Fuel Group