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Very Interesting video on Ethanol

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JPSmit

JPSmit

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This came through my inbox today from Hagerty. I suspect most of us aren't big ethanol fans. I found this very interesting. Worth a watch.

(BTW posting for interest not political response - remember Basil will put a bat up your nightshirt!)


whole story here: > Was ethanol fuel an empty promise? <
 
I saw that several weeks ago. Very interesting.
He does some good videos. Had one on his cross country drive in an ev.

David
 
...yet blithely down th' garden path we go...
 
While I have recently adopted no-eth gas for my boat and swamp buggy, I am not sure why (except that Bombardier said so). I used and stored long term (6 months or more) eth- laced gas over 20 years or more and never had any of the adverse consequences bandied about by so many people. So, I do not see the ethanol gas as harmful to rubber, etc. Reminds me a bit of the old myth that non-Girling brake fluid ruined rubber in the English brake and clutch systems. On the enviro front re ethanol, Michael Polen did an analysis of this in one of his books years ago. My recall is that since corn is grown, fertilized and processed into ethanol using petroleum, ethanol gives us 1 btu of energy for each 1.2 btu of petroleum used in production. Not sure about the ratio here stated, but it was a net btu deficit.
Bob
 
Our small trimming mower, which I keep in top condition as all my mowers, started acting up two years ago and wouldn't run right, it has always had Ethonal tainted gas in it, so just for the heck of it, I put in some non-eth gas in it and ran it for a couple of hours, to my surprise, it started running better! Next time it started right up on one pull and ran great! Since that day it's had nothing but non-eth gas in it, it's 6 years old now and still runs like a top! Also, I do change the oil in my mowers once a year regardless of engine size. Just sayin. PJ
 
I think the guy in that video completely missed the reason why ethanol was originally added to gasoline.

But he's really good at crunching numbers and creating a straw man!
 
bobhustead said:
While I have recently adopted no-eth gas for my boat and swamp buggy, I am not sure why (except that Bombardier said so). I used and stored long term (6 months or more) eth- laced gas over 20 years or more and never had any of the adverse consequences bandied about by so many people. So, I do not see the ethanol gas as harmful to rubber, etc. Reminds me a bit of the old myth that non-Girling brake fluid ruined rubber in the English brake and clutch systems. On the enviro front re ethanol, Michael Polen did an analysis of this in one of his books years ago. My recall is that since corn is grown, fertilized and processed into ethanol using petroleum, ethanol gives us 1 btu of energy for each 1.2 btu of petroleum used in production. Not sure about the ratio here stated, but it was a net btu deficit.
Bob
Click to expand...
Speaking of brake fluid, I did years ago read a tech article about that. Seems that at least one point the issue was that Girling didn't always use the same additives in the rubber. Some had no reaction to the chemicals in some brake fluid, others would absorb some of them and swell. You couldn't tell the difference in what was used for the seals without a chemical analysis so some had problems over the years, some didn't. Can't say how 100% true this is, but it does explain why opinions are mixed.
 
The original reason was to increase octane and stretch gasoline supplies using a non-petroleum product.
 
No matter the reason, where the fuel/atmosphere level is in any carb it forms a blue-green NASTY build-up. Accelerator jets and SU needles in particular.
 
The old Quadrajet on my Caddy was constantly needing to be rebuilt with E10 being run in it. The stuff gummed it up pretty badly and started to eat at the plating inside the bowl. I switched to an Edlebrock AVS and it was a world of difference. I've been running that for two years now and it still hasn't needed a rebuild.
 
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