Ethanol burns but does not leave the pollutants to the level regular unleaded gasoline does. It has high octane but burns very (too) fast so you blend it with lower octane 85 unleaded and the overall octane is 87(and up). Works fine but with a slight degradation to fuel mileage.

A few ways to blend the ethanol from blending at the refinery in a precise manner to 5000 gallon trucks splash blending with two hoses going into the truck.

SOHIO kept that name in use at marinas only after BP bought them in the late 80's.

I have to run 10% ethanol to get the 93 octane my '88 Carrera demands. The only pure gasoline we can get around here is at Casey's stations and it's only 90 octane.

Shaun is really lucky to have sources of high octane pure dino fuel.

Most newer cars don't.
They used to use lead, and then MTBE, to increase octane, but both of them were banned. Lead is poisonous and MTBE contaminated groundwater. So they turned to ethanol to raise the octane. That turned out to be a boon to farmers because it's made from corn and corn is easy to grow as an industrial crop. Compared to growing food for humans, it's a piece of cake. Plus, the government subsidizes its production.
Newer cars with computerized fuel injection, knock sensors, etc for engine management can use lower octane fuel just fine, so they don't need ethanol to boost the octane.
Basically, we have ethanol because some older cars need it and farmers make money producing the corn it's made from.

For reference, I think they have been selling gas with ethanol since the 1920s so this is not a 'new' thing...(pre-dates moving away from lead and MTBE).

The required reason:

The 1970 Clean Air Act. Richard Millhouse Nixon.

Not PARF. Just data.

Is this possibly a little overblown ? I agree the crap seems to cause havoc with my rarely used generator carb, but I have 2 oldies from 1972 and they've been running on 10% ethanol (and 91 octane only) for 10yrs now and.... nothing... at all... Granted MFI, not carburated, and I check fuel and oil lines as part of regular maintenance, but all I ever do is add some stabil marine if the car will not be running for a month due to a repair, nothing else..

Would I prefer no ethanol and not subsidising the corn lobby, sure... But you'd expect burning MGBs at every corner and I'm not seeing that. Just wondering.

I think it’s overblown. Some rubber deteriorates in gasohol, but not all. The problem is knowing what is at risk and what isn’t. The forward fuel line (from the tank to the steel line that runs to the engine bay) on my ‘65 VW dissolved, but the ones from the steel line to the fuel pump and from the pump to the carb weren’t bothered at all.

I am very much against using corn to make ethanol. The way they farm it to get huge yields tears the hell out of the soil and they dump tons of poisons and fertilizers on the earth. It can’t be good in the long run. We may need that soil to grow food one day - if they haven’t ruined it.

Plus, I hate to see all those subsidies going for the benefit of ADM, Cargil, and Monsanto.

Agreed with WD! Monocrop agriculture is absolutely horrible for the soil, its one of many reason why huge industrial farming operations are bad for our country. A byproduct that many have probably forgotten was the spike in food prices associated with ethanol fuel subsidies. It spiked the price of just about everything because more farmers switched to subsidized corn for fuel, corn went to fuel instead of food and feed, and the quantity of many other food products went down because of the land being used for corn production.

owned a 2012 f150 coyote V8 that was e85 approved. Sure it was cheaper to run, but is also got 4-5 mpg worse mileage so the tradeoff was zero . the Ford manual tells you to only run three tanks of e85 then run tesl fuel do to harm to the system

My experience/observation is if you often don't drive your older 911 or allow it to sit for any length of time, ethanol will cause your fuel tank to rust and ruin your fuel system (tank, CIS, etc.). I had to have both my WUR and my FD rebuilt for just that reason. Might as well pour a cup of water into your tank every now and then.