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Are Fuel Additives Really Green?

by GSCClarita Posted on March 26, 2018

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As gas prices trend upward, you may be wondering about ways to maximize the fuel economy in your car. One commonly assumed option is adding a gasoline additive when you fill the tank, and there are plenty on the market.

In fact, it’s estimated the fuel additive market will reach over $11 billion by 2024, with environmental concerns one of the top reasons. This leads to the question: Are fuel additives actually eco-friendly?

What Is a Fuel Additive?

Simply put, fuel additives are products that will increase gasoline’s octane rating (so you can buy 87 octane and get the benefits of 89 or 91 octane) or help prevent engine corrosion. They have been around since 1970, when Chevron gas featured a new additive called polybutene amine, marketed as F-310.

F-310 was promoted as reducing emissions by up to 50 percent and increasing fuel economy by up to 7.7 percent. This product has eventually been modified into Techron, arguably the most recognizable fuel additive today.

For F-310, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) investigated claims of deceptive advertising, and Chevron ended up pulling the campaign. Ever since, the FTC has kept tabs on how fuel additives promote their benefits to consumers.

This hasn’t stopped the market from developing. Because the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) requires gasoline additive companies to register their products, we know that there are more than 10,000 fuel additives on sale today. Not surprisingly, over 100 have the word “green” in the company or product name.

How Are Additives Regulated?

The additive registration process does not include testing for fuel economy increases or emissions reductions, although manufacturers must include the chemical composition of additives. The EPA makes a point to say that even though a product is registered, that doesn’t imply an EPA endorsement of its benefits.

However, the EPA does have a voluntary testing program called the Evaluation Program for Aftermarket Retrofit Devices, where manufacturers allow their additives to be tested to verify marketing claims. So far, 92 fuel additives have been tested, most recently in 2005, and most have had either “a neutral or negative effect on fuel economy and/or exhaust emissions.”

For some companies, the FTC may step in and challenge claims. This was the case in 2013, when the manufacturer of EnviroTabs was fined $800,000 for stating its product increases fuel efficiency and reduces emissions.

When to Use Fuel Additives

While the jury is still out on improved fuel economy, there are a few areas where fuel additives have been shown to help your car:

  1. Fuel stabilizers can be used in seasonal vehicles (boats, RVs) or classic cars to preserve the gasoline over time.
  2. Fuel injection cleaners are helpful if most of a commute is via short trips where the engine doesn’t heat enough to burn off the carbon that accumulates over time.

Fuel additives have their place if your goal is to beat Vin Diesel in a drag race, but there isn’t much evidence that they will save you at the gas pump or produce fewer emissions. If that’s your goal, here are 11 free steps you can take while driving.

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Are Fuel Additives Really Green?

Posted in eco-friendly, FF, G & F, GE, LAI, ONA, PUR, solar, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Are Fuel Additives Really Green?

This Rookie Chicago Politician Is Ready to Resist Donald Trump’s Deportation Fervor

by GSCClarita Posted on January 26, 2017

Mother Jones

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Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel held a press conference Wednesday to assure anxious residents that Chicago would remain a “sanctuary city”—meaning local law enforcement won’t help federal agents with President Donald Trump’s plan to deport millions of immigrants, a plan that just got a lot more real. In December, Emanuel told Trump to his face that he should rethink his proposed policies—specifically, that he should retain the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which has allowed undocumented immigrants who were brought here as young children (and for all practical purposes are Americans) to stay in the United States.

Yet even as Emanuel gets recognition as a mayor willing to stand up to Trump on immigration, 27-year-old rookie Alderman Carlos Ramirez-Rosa has been pushing for stronger legal protections in the city—especially given the White House’s reported intent to engage state and local police in its deportation efforts. “What we really need,” the alderman told local reporters “is less symbolism and more action.”

Ramirez-Rosa is a Chicago native, the son of a Puerto Rican dad and a Mexican-born mom. He grew up in the Lakeview neighborhood on the city’s North Side and went to a magnet high school before attending the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. After graduating, he become an aide to Illinois Rep. Luis Gutierrez, running his boss’ social-media efforts and working directly with families facing deportation. Just two years later he managed to unseat Rey Colon, the four-term 35th Ward incumbent, to become one of the youngest members of the City Council and its first openly gay Latino.

As an alderman, Ramirez-Rosa has made immigrants’ rights his main focus, and the overwhelming message he hears from affected families is that the city hasn’t done enough to protect them. “I’ve been fighting this mayor since before I took office,” Ramirez-Rosa told me. “I wasn’t elected to cozy up with the rich and powerful. I was elected by my constituents to represent their interests.”

Chicago’s 2012 sanctuary city law, the Welcoming City Ordinance, prevents city police from detaining undocumented immigrants on behalf of federal authorities. But the law contains several exceptions: for immigrants who have a criminal warrant out on them, who have been convicted of a serious offense, who are defendants in a criminal case, or who have been identified as part of a gang. Some of these carve-outs mean that people who haven’t been found guilty of a crime could be refused sanctuary. A Chicago Police Department spokesman told me that, to his knowledge, the police have not acted on any of the exceptions, and that they were intended for extreme circumstances. Still, Ramirez-Rosa and his constituents want those carve-outs removed to give legal backup to the city’s commitment to not cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Ramirez-Rosa wants Chicago, with its 183,000 undocumented immigrants, to be a model for immigrant protections. While Chicago’s law is already stronger than those of many sanctuary cities, it falls short of Philadelphia (which has no exceptions, barring extreme circumstances) and Los Angeles, New York City, and San Francisco (which have only a couple). He has been busy organizing and educating immigrant communities to be ready for the Trump administration. “The focus right now,” he said, “is preparing the community.”

Back in 2015, Ramirez-Rosa and more than a dozen local immigrants’ rights groups joined forces to create the Chicago Immigration Working Group, which has come up with six key policy goals. Bolstering the Welcoming City ordinance is one of them. They’ve also persuaded the city to launch an ID program that’s open to undocumented immigrants and helps them access city services. Emanuel has committed just over $1 million to a legal defense fund for would-be deportees, although Ramirez-Rosa points out that San Francisco, with a fraction of Chicago’s undocumented population, has just proposed a $5 million legal-defense fund. The alderman also co-sponsored an amendment that makes it illegal for police to threaten people with deportation during a confrontation, or to verbally abuse them. (During a 2013 raid, a Chicago cop famously yelled at a naturalized Chinese American man that he’d “put you in a UPS box and send you back where the expletive you came from!”)

This week, Trump signed orders to begin construction on a Mexican border wall and add detention centers and federal agents to the deportation effort. He also doubled down on his threat to rescind federal funding from sanctuary cities that won’t cooperate with the feds on deportations. If Trump follows through, Chicago stands to lose an estimated $1.3 billion—Congress would need to approve the cut. Trump’s attorney general pick, Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, is in favor of repealing DACA and opposes a path to citizenship to undocumented immigrants. Democrats in the Senate have delayed his confirmation vote, which is now expected to take place in February.

Given all the uncertainly about what will happen, Ramirez-Rosa and his office are making it a priority to educate the immigrant community. Earlier this month, he started a door-to-door outreach effort and “know your rights” trainings to teach undocumented families what they can do to fight deportation attempts. Next up: a “cop-watch” type network in his ward so neighbors can alert one another if federal immigration agents are in their area. In an act of solidarity, Ramirez-Rosa has even declared his office a sanctuary location, a move he hopes other aldermen will copy.

Ramirez-Rosa was in talks with Emanuel’s office last year. The mayor wasn’t always such a full-throated defender of immigrant rights, the alderman notes; as chair of the House Democratic Caucus, Emanuel once called immigration the “third rail of American politics,” and he actually pushed to ramp up deportations while working under President Bill Clinton in the mid-1990s. “We know the history of this mayor,” Ramirez-Rosa says. “He just wants the sound bite on TV where he says ‘I’m your champion.'”

But the alderman is feeling more hopeful of late. The talks with the mayor have gone well, he says, and Emanuel even asked for a memo outlining the working group’s proposals. Emanuel’s office wouldn’t comment on plans to alter the carve-outs. But it pointed out in a statement that the mayor started a task force (“Chicago Is With You”) with Rep. Gutierrez and Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) late last year to provide legal and mental-health services to immigrants and others in need, and he’s involved in other efforts to help immigrants.

But Chicago leaders have to do much more, Ramirez-Rosa insists. The measure of progress, he says, “is in the actual ordinances and resources that the city is bringing to bear. And we’re nowhere near the other cities that are actually national leaders on this.”

Original article – 

This Rookie Chicago Politician Is Ready to Resist Donald Trump’s Deportation Fervor

Posted in Citizen, FF, GE, LG, ONA, PUR, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on This Rookie Chicago Politician Is Ready to Resist Donald Trump’s Deportation Fervor