Gas with ethanol getting the cold shoulder
Not that long ago, a lot of gas station owners thought having ethanol in your gasoline was the "cool" thing to do (examples here and here, and there are now over 1,900 E85 stations in the US). One gas station in Albany, NY, though, is advertising its gasoline as "ethanol-free." Why? Bob Haines, who works at the Rhaodes' Service Center, told the local Fox staion that it's because, "Small engines can't cope with ethanol." It's winter time and some gasoline-powered snow blowers get can be damaged by the ethanol in some gasoline. The small percent of humidity that the ethanol absorbs is enough to damage some small engines, as we've heard before. While most car engines are computer-operated and can manage the E10 situation, small and simple engines can't. The "100% Ethanol Free" gas is appealing even to people who don't operate small engines. Some local motorists are driving the extra mile to fill up with the straight gasoline. Haines himself belongs to the anti-ethanol side, and said, "Come up with something better, boys, because this is not the way to go."
[Source: Fox 23]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Vibhu 8:37PM (1/08/2009)
I can understand that smaller engines are at risk, but the higher % of gasoline usage is in cars; which as per article are not at risk. Maybe the gas stations are just marketing to the nishe market of small engines, but having ethanol in gas stations does a whole lot of good!
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andrew 9:20PM (1/08/2009)
not really....besides increasing food prices...it doesn't hurt anything either
Vibhu 9:34PM (1/08/2009)
Yes, it's true that fuel economy might not be the positive factor, but this is a renewable energy option. Fair trade plantation trade of corn/sugarcane are very good for third world countries and providing them with a viable living; especially for countires who have agricultural based economies.
I think it is a process which has to improve end to end and will allow for a better option for everyone worldwide.
Food prices have gone up in the short term, but that does not mean that they will not come down.
MikeW 9:05PM (1/08/2009)
They should drop the percentage to 5% in regular grade, I don't care if the design spec of regular grade is reduced to 86AKI or stays at 87AKI
Keep mid-grade at 10% but mandate it to be 90AKI.
Increase premium to 15% ethanol, but make sure that it is at least 93AKI. (95AKI would be fun for turbos ;)
Everyone is happy.
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jeremie 9:35PM (1/08/2009)
Ethanol does not affect the price of food.
Please read up and inform your self.
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BoneHeadOtto 8:49AM (1/09/2009)
nice cross reference material you posted.
Problem is in a situation where a commodity is traded based on the latest investment fasion and the govt is subsidizing its production, you have no clear picture of what is affecting prices and where they would be without all that external intervention. You also have no clear picture of how that resource would scale in demand were increased 100fold.
Problem is no one knows the answer. But making ethanol from non-food products cant be argued to increase food prices, so lets do that. kthxbye
Tyler 12:29AM (1/09/2009)
Way to go Bob Haines!!! ethanol was a bad idea from the start. with the world in need of food, burning it to run your car doesnt make sense. We need more Bob Haines out there!!!!
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Carney 2:28PM (1/09/2009)
Untrue.
http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/achieving-energy-victory
Carney 2:29PM (1/09/2009)
Oops, wrong leak.
http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/in-defense-of-biofuels
Far from raising food prices, alcohol reduces them.
eliot 3:11AM (1/09/2009)
Taking the actual gasoline out of the equation for a moment (yes I know its unrealistic) I thought the 10% ethanol in gasoline was used as a displacement for MBTE which is highly toxic to the environment and hard to clean up where as ethanol is less toxic and hard to clean up relative to MBTE.
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Carney 2:26PM (1/09/2009)
Not only is ethanol non-toxic, it's edible, being the key ingredient in every alcoholic drink. Course if you're an idiot you can consume extreme amounts of it and kill yourself but the same is true for water.
Furthermore, ethanol is actually the cure for the ingestion of one toxic subtance: methanol. But methanol's toxicity shouldn't be over-stated; it's in the same class as gasoline which people spill on themselves etc all the time - we're not talking dimethylmercury here.
Not only that, alcohols are readily biodegradable, breaking down within a day if not hours into safe components.
Bri 5:47PM (1/12/2009)
Correct. MTBE is outlawed as a gasoline additive, with ethanol being the standard substitute for it. I don't know what the heck this gas station thinks its selling, as I am pretty sure it is illegal to sell gas in NY with MTBE or with no additives, not to mention potentially more harmful to the environment in either case.
john riley 6:21AM (1/09/2009)
They have been using ethanol blends in Iowa for something on the order of 20-30 years. It has been subsidized so it was cheaper than regular, although I think that is changing. It has been widely available and widely used, without any significant _engine_ issues, AFAIK. I think car engines are designed to accommodate it. Don't know about snow blowers, but it would be foolish to sell one in Iowa that could not use ethanol blend.
The original intention of the ethanol programs was to raise the price of corn. Now the advocates are saying it doesn't?
It is all moot now, with the depression, but raising corn prices was the original reason.
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JN 8:19AM (1/09/2009)
Funny, my 5-year-old lawn tractor runs fine on E10, and it has from the day it was new. But I guess that doesn't suit the anti-ethanol people.
The owner's manual for this tractor's Briggs & Stratton engine says not to use E85, but that it is designed to be compatible with up to 10% ethanol.
I think if the honest-to-God truth were known, the engine damage supposedly caused by ethanol is probably the result of neglect (i.e., not changing the spark plug, the oil).
Before you attack, let's get to the heart of the matter here. I do not believe that ethanol is the be-all-and-end-all as far as alternative fuels are concerned. I want to see more and better solutions as much as anyone. Ethanol is but ONE of what I hope will be MANY choices for renewable fuels as we work to get away from oil, and I'd like to see more development of ethanol from otherwise non-useful plant sources like kudzu, switchgrass, even lawn clippings ... it can be done, it should be done, and I believe, in my lifetime, it WILL be done.
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nataku83 11:09AM (1/09/2009)
Ethanol eats away at the rubber that used to be used for fuel lines and o-rings. I'd imagine if you're using a Briggs and Stratton mower you're fine, since it's pretty amazing for one of those engines to last 5 years, but my dad's Gravely tractors are almost 60 years old. It sucks to have to go completely through the fuel system and replace any old rubber with fuel grade nitrile.
JN 11:23AM (1/09/2009)
That WOULD suck ... but after 60 years, most of the rubber parts on a Gravely should be upgraded anyway. The older rubber wasn't meant for unleaded gas either. Do you use a lead substitute?
Carney 2:18PM (1/09/2009)
No need for the research you advoate; clippings and random vegetable matter, indeed all biomass, can currently and easily be made into methanol, today, with no further research required.
And an engine that can run methanol can run ANY higher alcohol, including ethanol, because methanol is the simplest alcohol molecule.
Instead of waiting around for unnecessary research to plod forward, we should act now with a simple and straightforward mandat that all new cars sold in America have flex fuel capability.
http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/achieving-energy-victory
CNCMike 11:44AM (1/09/2009)
It's funny how people keep saying that ethanol increases the price of corn or food in general when ethatnol production is higher today than it was when corn prices peaked and yet the price of corn is half what it was then.
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dlstephenson 1:22PM (1/09/2009)
It is unethical to use food as a source for fuel when we still have people in the United States that are going hungry. Not only do we take food cropland out of production, we take water from areas that were once used to help produce food and supply drinking water to the general population. Ethanol is hard on aluminum parts and seals that are not specifically designed to handle the extra moisture that it draws.
This is no more than a Few people get rich scheme that will hurt America in ways that we have not even calculated yet.
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Carney 2:14PM (1/09/2009)
dlstephenson, the only thing you are correct about in your remarks is that fuel with high alcohol content such as E85 and M85 doesn't work well in a fuel tank or fuel line that was designed with gasoline only or a low alcohol blend in mind.
But the cost and effort involved in that is trivial. There are dozens of models of "flex fuel" vehicles for sale right now that feature such high-alcohol compatibility; the total cost of adding that for an automaker is about $100.
The rest of what you said is completely false.
Far from harming food production and starving people, alcohol fuels, by lowering gasoline and fertilizer prices, make food cheaper.
Cropland is abundant, not scarce, and in the United States alone an enormous portion of our farmland is unused for agriculture. Corn ethanol's growth has not prevented food corn production from rising as well, nor that of other staples such as wheat and soybeans. And corn ethanol has a byproduct that goes into animal feed so it enters the human food chain anyway.
Alcohol is NO THREAT to food.
In fact, switching on a worldwide basis to an alcohol economy would divert hundreds of billions of wealth from the mischief-making governments of petro-tyrannies and over to peaceful farmers and trash recyclers, many in the Third World who are desperate for income to feed themselves and their families.
http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/in-defense-of-biofuels
We can accomplish such a switch with a simple mandate that all new cars sold in America have flex fuel capability.