Food for thought on ethanol 'scandal'

[RET]

Very interesting article in the Sydney Morning Herald the other day by Paul Sheehan, a well respected journalist.

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/04/27/1051381850427.html

The long and the short of it is that the whole ethanol scandal was a huge beat-up from the start, but it's worth reading in its entirety.

I'd be very interested to hear the opinion of our resident fuel guru fcfromscratch.

cheers
RET

[FCwagon]

Read the article and it's very interesting but I'd also like to hear a fuel experts opinion on the matter. I'll take some convincing that ethanol is harmless though. Consider this - if you are gutless enough to perform the low act - dumping a bag of sugar in the hated party's tank will stuff the whole fuel system, it clogs everything and sets harder than concrete. It's been done in the past by plenty of morons and I've even had to make the repairs on a car of mine including a new tank, new lines, new fuel pump and a new carby. Sold the beast shortly after before I found out if the motor was going to give any trouble,
Ethanol is made from sugar cane, so why then would long term use of a sugar by-product be harmless?
As from tomorrow in Victoria, it will be an offence to sell fuel without specifying ethanol content so that surely says something.
cheers,
Leigh

[Jockster]

Ethanol is a big industry in the US, here is some data directly off of the American Alternative Fuels site:

Ethanol
Ethanol is an alcohol-based alternative fuel produced by fermenting and distilling starch crops that have been converted into simple sugars. Feedstocks for this fuel include corn, barley and wheat. Ethanol can also be produced from "cellulosic biomass" such as trees and grasses and is called bioethanol. Ethanol is most commonly used to increase octane and improve the emissions quality of gasoline. In some areas of the United States, ethanol is blended with gasoline to form an E10 blend (10% ethanol and 90% gasoline), but it can be used in higher concentrations such as E85 or E95. Original equipment manufacturers produce flexible-fuel vehicles that can run on E85 or any other combination of ethanol and gasoline.

The molecular structure of Ethanol is (CH3CH2OH)

The Molecular structure of Methanol is (CH3OH), methanol can be derived from fermented wood products or from Natural gas products. There is not a lot of difference in the two.
The web site is http://www.afdc.doe.gov/altfuel/eth_general.html
It is interesting reading
Cheers
Jock

[nicko]

the problem with previous comments is that you are relying on petrol companies being honest (lol).
when using ethanol you also lower the octane level, where as premium unleaded uses toluene to raise the octane and tolly also has the benefit of burning a little hotter which keeps the system a little cleaner, two bonuses for the price of 1 so to speak,
my old HR ute loses power on hills and pings its guts out under any strain using lead replacement petrol so i tried premium,low and behold no more hill trouble or pinging, standard unleaded is the same result as lead replacement so what to do thats the question? i know which one i trust.
The so called experts all have different opinions which makes you wonder who is right and who is getting the bonus in there research cheques