PROFILE
In Defense of Ethanol ICM’s Steve Vander Griend digs into the details of ethanol’s bad rap. By Susanne Retka Schill
Getting his start as an take into account ethanol’s properties, and airplane mechanic, Steve thus misrepresents the renewable fuel’s performance. Vander Griend understands the importance of octane. Curious Test Fuels
The antiknock properties of octane enhancers are critical to keeping lightweight airplane engines running smoothly. Yet, given other hurdles, ethanol has some difficulties as the octane booster of choice for aviation fuels. At ICM Inc., Vander Griend, technical manager of fuel and engine technology, has relied on his background in engines and fuel performance to immerse himself in understanding ethanol’s performance, both as a fuel and in the tests used by regulatory agencies and researchers. Vander Griend has spent untold hours reading, scrutinizing and responding to detailed reports from groups such as SAE International and the oil and auto industry-backed Coordinating Research Council. He’s made headway, and friends, at times getting his questions answered— and his papers reviewed—by the technical engineers he’s come to know as colleagues while working on octane and engine projects for ICM. More recently, he’s broadened that work into ASTM International, giving a presentation in December, for example, on how the design of one quick distillation test used to characterize fuels does not accurately PHOTO: NICOLE CONRAD, REDROCK PHOTOGRAPHY
Vander Griend makes it his business to dig into details, and that proclivity makes him an important technical agent for the ethanol industry. He has been highly critical of recent reports that have reflected poorly, and perhaps unfairly, on ethanol. Vander Griend has questioned the findings of a recent U.S. EPA report, EPAct E-89, ordered by Congress as part of the 2005 energy bill to ensure air quality doesn’t backslide as a result of ethanol blending. “The first day it was released, it was almost like getting kicked because it said ethanol raised every emission,” Vander Griend recalls. The test appears comprehensive, with 27 fuels and 18 vehicles used in over 1,000 tests. But in examining the study closely, Vander Griend learned that unique—and questionable— fuels were used in the tests. All of the E0 fuels used for comparison with ethanol blends were specially formulated and only three of the 27 fuels used were below 90 octane. They were designed, he points out, to make sure ethanol wouldn’t improve emissions in the tests. And octane, ethanol’s primary contribution to cleaner burning fuels, was not one of the five parameters tested. The engine durability study that the CRC released last year, which is touted as demonstrating that E15 harms vehicles, is another example of manipulated tests, according to Vander Griend. “They added