Urban Air Initiative, Energy Future Coalition say EPA emissions model has fatal flaws for ethanol industry

November 3, 2014 |

In Washington, the Urban Air Initiative and Energy Future Coalition have jointly sent a letter to EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy claiming that the EPA’s Motor Vehicle Emissions Simulator (MOVES) model for assessing mobile source emissions is seriously flawed, and could effectively block access to the market for higher ethanol blends. The letter requests an immediate suspension of the model’s use.
The modeling system uses a methodology that shows using more ethanol as increasing particulate emissions rather than correctly identifying aromatics and other high boiling hydrocarbon compounds added to test fuels as the cause.
The letter stated:
“Ethanol blends can be created in one of two ways – by adding more ethanol to a product approved for commercial use, such as E10 (“splash blending”), or by adjusting the gasoline blendstock first to match certain selected parameters (“match blending”), wrote UAI and EFC. “Many tests of splash-blended ethanol have shown that it reduces pollution, but this study used match blending instead – despite the fact that nearly all U.S. gasoline is produced by splash-blending 10% ethanol… In short, the conclusions of both the EPAct study and the MOVES2014 model about the air quality impacts of ethanol are clearly and demonstrably false, and they should be withdrawn as a matter of scientific integrity. Fuels experts at DOE’s national laboratories should be engaged in a further peer review, and guidance should be provided to the states to refrain from using the MOVES2014 model for assessing the air quality impacts of ethanol blends.”

 

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Category: Policy

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