fuel treatment for ethonol gas

rosie · Oct 24, 2011

Could be you might find a station, got to check our the site. Someone recently told me that Virginia could not legally sell ethanol-free for on-road use. Sometimes I wonder if the whole point is to get us so hooked that we have to buy brand new sh** that takes the new fuel mixtures, be unable to run saws and other tools ourselves, and be totally captive worker bees.

rosie · Oct 24, 2011

Not an ethanol basher, we have no political or spiritual agenda here, but chemicals is chemicals and if the stuff isn't right for the application, it's just not right. Additives do help; worst thing to do of course is to neglect maintenance and blindly go along until a piece of equipment sh*ts itself.

rosie · Oct 24, 2011

Don't be scared, just aware. When you drive old stuff, it's not going to behave like the new fresh stuff just off the assembly lines, with computers and soothing voices coming out of the dash. I remember a few years ago, my daughter came by to visit, and left her lights on. Drained the battery, of course, car wouldn't work--and when I popped the hood I literally could not find where they had hidden the dad jim battery. A far cry from the days of our youth when you could identify engine parts with one eye closed and one hand behind your back! :deadhorse:

rosie · Oct 24, 2011

Any ethanol in boat or aircraft fuel is death; I've talked to people who have had to rip out fuel tanks and replace them with stainless steel for their watercraft. As I said in an earlier post, chemicals is chemicals, sometimes they are compatible and sometimes they ain't....

dozer1 · Oct 24, 2011

rosie said:
Not an ethanol basher, we have no political or spiritual agenda here, but chemicals is chemicals and if the stuff isn't right for the application, it's just not right. Additives do help; worst thing to do of course is to neglect maintenance and blindly go along until a piece of equipment sh*ts itself.

I respect your opinion. Just wanted to show you an article about a guy who saw ethanol as the right chemical for the job. He was Henry Ford . Ethanol fuel: Journey to Forever

rosie · Oct 24, 2011

ABsolutely...and the first Diesel engines ran on vegetable oil---peanut, I believe, back in the days when Edison and George Washington Carver collaborated. Like the saying goes, there is nothing new under the sun....just the applications change. (Also, since we're on old sayings, the devil is in the details...and sometimes the details just don't jive with ethanol in the fuel!!!)

Speedwoble · Oct 24, 2011

rosie said:
Any ethanol in boat or aircraft fuel is death; I've talked to people who have had to rip out fuel tanks and replace them with stainless steel for their watercraft. As I said in an earlier post, chemicals is chemicals, sometimes they are compatible and sometimes they ain't....

Disclosure: I formerly worked for an ethanol manufacturer, but left on less than amicable terms, I am actually neutral/against ethanol(I prefer electric cars), but as an engineer I hate to see misinformation spread.

Guys running ethanol in airplanes: Aviation grade E85 -It's great because no longer will water seperate out and freeze in the lines. I find it ironic guys are opposed to ethanol but seem to have no problem with LEAD in airplanes.

Energy content: Ethanol takes around 30-40,000 btu's of energy to make one gallon, which yields 76,000BTU's if memory serves. Most of the energy goes to drying the byproduct which is used as cattle feed(cattle aren't starving). The guys quoting 1.5 gallons to make one gallon are using numbers from the 80's. Technology has improved since then, or else your cell-phone would be a backpack.

It's not perfect, but neither is gasoline. You can get ~600+ gallons of Ethanol plus 60 gallons of corn oil per acre compared to 60-80 gal per acre of oil from soybeans for biodiesel.

A gallon of E10 could withstand 3.8 teaspoons of water before phase separating. http://www.epa.gov/oms/regs/fuels/rfg/waterphs.pdf On the bright side, you never have to buy "Heet" gas line dryer again, ethanol has eliminated that need. For those that did use Heet, the methanol in it is far more corrosive than ethanol, which is only corrosive to certain metals in certain conditions.

I could go on for days, but as a previous poster said, carb problems were a problem in the 80's, it is not a "new" phenomenon

As to the original poster's question, there is no way to "neutralize" it, though you can separate it out with an overabundance of water. Most additives are snake-oil, preying on a gullible populace. If you search around, there are many organizations offering to pay for engine damage caused by ethanol in cars, and to my knowledge, none have had to.

Heath_h49008 · Oct 25, 2011

Because the fine print on those ads requires verification most owners of said older cars wouldn't have even if they knew about the offers. I've been in automotive for over 10 years and this is the first I've ever heard of it.

Ethanol makes farmers and the chemists cash in subsidies and guaranteed buyers. It sucks for fuel, kills mileage, is hygroscopic , and was never intended by the designers of modern carbs to be used. Henry Ford liked the idea to sell farmers trucks by telling them they could run them on corn squeezin's... yippee. The GM engineer who picked out the coatings, seals, and designed the carb in the Camero didn't get the memo.

About the only bio-fuel I'm interested in these days is made from ground up hippies, Green-engery scam artists and the corrupt politicians that milk them both and jam the product down our throats.

If you need a law passed to force people to buy your product, your product sucks.[/rant]

Speedwoble · Oct 25, 2011

Heath_h49008 said:
....was never intended by the designers of modern carbs to be used.

There's a "modern" carb? Just sayin... But if you are referring to new carbs, yes they are E10+ compatible.

Heath_h49008 said:
Ethanol makes farmers and the chemists cash in subsidies and guaranteed buyers. It sucks for fuel, kills mileage, is hygroscopic , and was never intended by the designers of modern carbs to be used.
If you need a law passed to force people to buy your product, your product sucks.[/rant]

With few state exceptions, there is not a law forcing people to buy it. Oxygenated gasoline is mandated and ethanol is frequently used because the alternative will KILL you. Seriously, MTBE is carcinogenic, while people drink ethanol all the time.(BTW, MTBE is not even banned, the fed just refused to shield oil companies from lawsuits regarding groundwater contamination with MTBE, so oil companies switched to ethanol)

Yes, there is a blender credit of $0.42/gallon of ethanol blended into gasoline, but that credit goes to the oil companies, not farmers, not ethanol producers. Why does it exist? Well, how would you like to sell your product through your competitors? Ethanol is BANNED from being sold at 100% and E85 is BANNED from being put in any car not labeled from it. You are BANNED from using anything >E10 in vehicles older than 2001. The only way you can buy ethanol to put in your car is if it is contaminated with gasoline.

So , for those people claiming you should have choice in your fuel, realize that you are BANNED from using many grades of ethanol, but you are not required to use it. Quite the opposite of what most are claiming.

That said, I think the tax credit is a little generous still. It does artificially place a floor on ethanol prices and therefore is hampering some technological improvements and efficiency gains in ethanol mfg. The ethanol blender credit, going to the oil companies, pales in comparison to the producer tax credits also received by oil companies.

I really get a kick out of the variety on this board: People on the Deuce forums saying "I use discarded sludge from X and I don't care if it is specified or not" Then Ethanol comes up(which has been thoroughly tested) and people think... well... you can read what people think....

Speedwoble · Oct 25, 2011

rosie said:
. In face a small-engine repairman we know has said that Stihl equipment co. will not honor warranties on any of their chainsaws that are run with ethanol containing gas.

False: Frequently Asked Questions - STIHL USA
"All STIHL gasoline powered engines can be used with up to a 10% (E10) blend of ethanol in the gasoline/engine oil mix. We also recommend that if a unit will be left unused for more than 30 days that it be stored "dry." This means emptying the fuel tank and then restarting and letting the unit run until all the fuel is consumed and the engine stops. For maximum performance and engine life expectancy we also recommend using STIHL Ultra 2-cycle engine oil with built in stabilizer."

Heath_h49008 · Oct 25, 2011

Don't get me wrong... if someone can produce pure ethanol at a cost low enough to make it competitive, there should be nothing standing in their way. I'm saying mandated blends are a payoff.

If the market can't support it, it isn't functional.

If you choose to run it, have weighed the risks/benefits/cost and decided that is what you want, more power to you!

I fly, and most small aircraft sit for weeks on end with full tanks... E85 for a plane sounds impractical simply due to water absorption, let alone fuel tank issues. I would personally wager you will see GA diesels that run on Jet A in bug beaters before you see large numbers of gas-a-hol aircraft.

The true test will be when all the regulations and subsidies are gone, what will be the fuel of choice. Bio/Green/etc cannot compete with Nukes to generate electricity once the NRC costs are taken out of the way... coal might not even be able to. We have enough new domestic oil and natural gas to last a couple hundred years even if no new tech comes online. And the next generation cars are going to be electric running on nano-tube/graphine/etc capacitors... so the entire long term crunch is a joke to begin with. 15 years, tops... probably less than half that before the capacitors start showing up in phones and computers.

Speedwoble · Oct 25, 2011

Heath_h49008 said:
Don't get me wrong... if someone can produce pure ethanol at a cost low enough to make it competitive, there should be nothing standing in their way. I'm saying mandated blends are a payoff.

That is what I am saying, there is not a law mandating the blend. There is a law mandating oxygenated gasoline, and ethanol beat all the other substances as an oxygenate. The law does allow up to E10, and soon E15 for some vehicles. Fuel companies use the full E10 blend because ethanol is cheaper than gasoline.

BTW, there is no magic to the 10% number. In the 80's, a gas station petitioned the EPA to allow ethanol in gasoline and they just picked 10% because it sounded good. There are actually studies that show E20 or E30 would be better for fuel economy. http://www.ethanol.org/pdf/contentmgmt/Press_Release_12507-1.pdf

I used to run E30 and even E85, in a stock 1990 buick century. Sold the car @ 220K miles after a transmission failure.

I am a private pilot as well, and own an ultralight. I do error on the side of caution and put straight gasoline in the ultralight because it is two stroke. I would love to run E85 in the planes I fly because I hate handling the leaded stuff.

There is also research focussing on using ethanol blends in Diesels. It reduces particulates, but increases the volatility of the fuel so they need flame arresters on the bulk tanks. http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy03osti/34817.pdf

dozer1 · Oct 25, 2011

This link is from the STA-BIL fuel stabilizers website that I posted a link to in a previous post. Why that shortcut was called "depreciated browser error" I don't know, but here is this other link. http://www.goldeagle.com/UserFiles/file/STA-BIL%20files/White_Paper_Ethanol_%20Blended_Gasline.pdf A lot can be learned about ethanol there.

6x6junkie · Oct 25, 2011

hey thanks guys you are really educating me on this stuff i think i hay have to get some glass jars with same amount of fuel and do a little test for each product. i do not want any carb/oring trouble with my m151 and the year of it is a 1970 thanks for the great info keep it comming

rosie · Oct 25, 2011

The corn-ethanol business would not exist without very heavy subsidization. Brazil generates ethanol fuel solely from sugar cane waste--there is a lot of experimentation with enzymatic digestion of other sources of cellulose to produce the sugars for fermentation.

rosie · Oct 25, 2011

some of us still drive cars from the 80's and earlier so the passage of time has not fixed the problems ethanolized fuel causes in these vehicles

rosie · Oct 25, 2011

Speedwoble said:
There's a "modern" carb? Just sayin... But if you are referring to new carbs, yes they are E10+ compatible.

With few state exceptions, there is not a law forcing people to buy it. Oxygenated gasoline is mandated and ethanol is frequently used because the alternative will KILL you. Seriously, MTBE is carcinogenic, while people drink ethanol all the time.(BTW, MTBE is not even banned, the fed just refused to shield oil companies from lawsuits regarding groundwater contamination with MTBE, so oil companies switched to ethanol)

Yes, there is a blender credit of $0.42/gallon of ethanol blended into gasoline, but that credit goes to the oil companies, not farmers, not ethanol producers. Why does it exist? Well, how would you like to sell your product through your competitors? Ethanol is BANNED from being sold at 100% and E85 is BANNED from being put in any car not labeled from it. You are BANNED from using anything >E10 in vehicles older than 2001. The only way you can buy ethanol to put in your car is if it is contaminated with gasoline.

So , for those people claiming you should have choice in your fuel, realize that you are BANNED from using many grades of ethanol, but you are not required to use it. Quite the opposite of what most are claiming.

That said, I think the tax credit is a little generous still. It does artificially place a floor on ethanol prices and therefore is hampering some technological improvements and efficiency gains in ethanol mfg. The ethanol blender credit, going to the oil companies, pales in comparison to the producer tax credits also received by oil companies.

I really get a kick out of the variety on this board: People on the Deuce forums saying "I use discarded sludge from X and I don't care if it is specified or not" Then Ethanol comes up(which has been thoroughly tested) and people think... well... you can read what people think....

Taking the thread in a slightly different direction, since we are talking about contamination of water by various chemicals--How many of you are on municipal water, and are thinking you may be safer than someone relying on a groundwater well?
Traditional water treatment has involved filtration, usually through charcoal and sand, and then chlorine application to kill pathogens. The great thing about chlorine is also a problem when it sits in pipes and is not free-running; it degrades rapidly, and there is not enough chlorine residual to maintain bacteria killing properties. (Many of us remember as kids running a pitcher of water and letting it sit overnight so that the chlorine would evaporate, so we could then re-fill our goldfish tanks).
Enter the brilliant minds that wish to extend the bacteria killing residual of chlorine: by adding ammonia, which produces a very persistant chemical called chloramine. Chloramine is toxic to fish, cannot be evaporated away and must be filtered out, is deadly when used with kidney dialysis, AND, if that is not bad enough, dissolves the lead out of brass plumbing fixtures, solder, etc. and has been linked to increased lead levels in drinking water (not to mention the failure of water heaters, pumps, etc. that have had their brass fittings and O rings eroded out by chloramine. Google up chloramine and get the news.

6x6junkie · Oct 25, 2011

yea i hear ya there

rosie · Oct 25, 2011

You may not get a straight answer from the municipality about their treatment system, but it is good to know if you need filtration, etc. if they use the chloramine method to protect plumbing and yourselves. You know that strong, penetrating chlorine odor in a badly kept swimming pool? It is due to chloramine buildup (you know where the nitrogen is coming from, ick) and is considered something that should be got rid of...

dozer1 · Oct 25, 2011

rosie said:
The corn-ethanol business would not exist without very heavy subsidization. Brazil generates ethanol fuel solely from sugar cane waste--there is a lot of experimentation with enzymatic digestion of other sources of cellulose to produce the sugars for fermentation.

The oil industry is also very heavily subsidized and has been for many decades longer as it is an older industry then ethanol. Probably all subsidies for both industries should be dropped. It would save alot of tax dollars, but you would pay it back at the pump. Oh well, time will tell what the future holds.

Oh, the part about Brazil using only sugar cane waste to make ethanol is false. They just use sugarcane, and the waste materials generated from that are used to produce heat and power. They really have a great program going down there.

fuel treatment for ethonol gas

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