A driver opened his trunk on a sweltering summer day and found his gasoline can blown up like a tire exploded. “Mine exploded in the trunk of my car,” cautioned another motorist on the web, one of an increasing list of complaints against a new line of gas cans without air vents.
Not through carelessness but through environmental regulation. In 2007, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) required portable fuel container manufacturers to reduce evaporative emissions gasoline vapors that seep from gasoline even when idle. Vapors are a concentrated mixture of hydrocarbons, harmful to human health and causing global warming. Regulations, in place since 2009, allowed vents if they shut automatically when idle. But uncertainty regarding compliance led most manufacturers to forego vents entirely.
Without a vent, fuel flow is reduced to a trickle and pressure builds up in the container, especially on hot days. When gas expands during hot days, the gasoline expands as well, and without the pressure-relief path, the container will warp, crack, or leak. The risks are authentic: gasoline vapors are heavier than air, creep along the floor, and explode if they encounter a spark. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration warns that vapors can flashback from a distant ignition source into the container to create a fireball. The EPA is now performing a u-turn.
In a letter to producers, Administrator Lee Zeldin stated, “Moving forward, Americans should have gas cans that are compliant, but most importantly, that are effective and consumer friendly.” The agency described self-closing vented designs as meeting emissions and capable of recovering safe, fast fuel flow. This push is part of a broader initiative to eliminate regulatory uncertainty while not sacrificing safety features mandated by other laws, such as child-resistant nozzles covered under the 2008 Children’s Gasoline Burn Prevention Act and flame-reduction devices mandated under the 2020 Portable Fuel Container Safety Act. The safety glasses with a multi-layer design have been a nuisance for engineers. Devices for suppressing flames, for example, must suppress flashback ignition by shedding heat from an external flame ahead of flaming vapors within the can. But such ineptly integrated design will also restrict flow, enraging users and causing some to alter their cans typically by drilling holes or adding aftermarket vents, which can undermine emissions control as well as safety.
Technically, the optimum solution is automatic vent opening during pouring for pressure equalization and automatic closing for vapor sealing. Technologies can utilize spring-loaded push-button vents or integral passage through the spout assembly. The technological challenge is to meet flow rate, vapor sealing, child resistance, and flame arresting within budget constraints.
For customers frustrated with monkeying around with ventless cans, one solution does away with the problem entirely: taking gasoline out of the picture. Moving about in hybrids or electric vehicles precludes the need for hauling fuel in liquid form, and some connected risks. Electric drives achieve 87%–91% of battery energy into motion, whereas gasoline engines achieve only 16–25%. Even accounting for generation emissions of electricity, EVs typically have fewer life-cycle greenhouse emissions than gasoline-powered vehicles.
Charging infrastructure is expanding exponentially.
There are over 77,000 public charging stations and 219,000 ports in the United States today, and billions of dollars of federal funding are allocated towards building a national charging infrastructure. Smart charging systems can schedule charge in synchronization with the availability of renewable energy, reducing the burden on the grid and saving dollars. In some business uses, solar chargers provide in-situ capacity storage so that EVs can be charged without drawing from the grid during peak hours. To the uncommitted, rental fleets offer a risk-free test drive. Big companies now have electric models on their lots, so driving can experience the benefit of home charging and not having to make a gas pump stop. It’s a switch that not only avoids the broken gas can but also eliminates risk of toxic fume exposure and the risk of fire involved with gasoline handling.
Whether via improved-designed gas tanks or going directly to electric transport, the end result is the same: cleaner, safer, and more convenient transportation energy. The EPA’s new rule will finally put an end to ventless frustration, but for others, the solution may be to simply eliminate gasoline and its tanks arexvkbt.
