There is a section of my township that had always relied on wells for their water, but after it was discovered that the wells in that part of town had been contaminated by MTBE from a gas station’s leaky tanks, the township had to incur the huge expense of running water mains into that area in order to preserve the health of those folks.
The fact is that MTBE is highly toxic, and nothing can obscure that truth. It’s just unfortunate that the ethanol myth was latched onto once the toxicity of MTBE finally hit home.
Yep yep. I covered the earlier days of ethanol as a cub journalist working in Iowa back in those days. I remember Car and Driver was all over it, showing mathematically that ethanol was junk. Climate issues aside, you get less energy out of it than you put into it, which makes it a liquid battery, not an energy source.
I did a few stories about the energy deficit, but then got fussed at by the station manager because the station was surrounded by corn farms, and most of them were banding together to form ethanol coops. They’d put an ethanol plant up in the middle of nowhere and sell all their corn to it. They got mad when we ran “negative” stories because it “threatened their livelihoods.” To which I responded, perhaps imprudently, “if they decided to stop growing food and instead grow poppies to turn into heroin, would we be worrying about threatening their livelihoods by covering their focus change?”
At any rate, I ended up leaving the station before things came to a head, but not terribly long after, the ethanol plants started going bankrupt because it turns out that garbage products sometimes aren’t widely adopted. Once the federal blend tax credit expired, they could no longer claim that ethanol-infected gasoline was a bargain compared to regular gas. And as sales dropped off because no one wanted that junk, and no one wanted to transport it because that’s a pain in the butt too, the ethanol distilleries withered and died, and a bunch of farmers lost a lot of money.
Yup, farmer relatives in South Dakota invested heavily in the plants. Made so much money, they poured some more money in. Drove through Iowa last week and can’t find a station not selling 10% in the gas, and Iowa and Wisconsin are pushing the 15% stuff if you don’t study the pump labels. I’m not a fan but when you need gas, you buy what is for sale.
All stations in my area sell 10% ethanol fuel. It works o.k. in my vehicles, but not in my two stroke engines on my tiller and snow blower. O buy the 50:1 non-ethanol mixture at either Rural King or Lowes for about $5 a liter. It was cheaper in the old days when I could take the gas can to the pump, add the required amount of two stroke oil and pump.the gasoline into the gas can.
Many place sell non oxy fuel as the premium blend. That’s what I use in my small engines with stabilizer. That canned stuff is supposed to be a much better fuel to use though depending on how much you need.
You should take a road trip to the closest place to buy it by the gallon and stock up! Last summer it was 50 cents a gallon more for premium non-oxygenated!
Ethanol was in use before MBTE. Ethanol and MBTE were in use concurrently, MBTE was eliminated. The gas station pumps were labeled either ethanol or MBTE during the 1980’s and early 1990’s, vehicle manufactures discouraged the use of methanol-based fuel additives.
I have a 2016 Dodge Caravan that can use E85 flex fuel, I have never used anything other than the standard fuel, E10. After reading the owners manual about the use of E85 I won’t use it unless it is my only choice. Highlights are driveability issues, cold start issues and 30% reduction in mileage.
If your vehicle is E-85 compatible, it will operate on
unleaded gasoline with any octane rating, or solely E-85
fuel, or any mixture of these fuels.
For best results, avoid fueling patterns alternating
between E-85 and unleaded gasoline.
When switching fuel types:
• Add 5 gallons (19 liters) or more when refueling.
• Drive the vehicle immediately after refueling for at
least 5 miles (8 km).
Observing these precautions will avoid possible hard
starting and/or driveability problems during warm up.
NOTE:
• Use seasonally adjusted E-85 fuel (ASTM D5798). With
non-seasonally adjusted E-85 fuel, hard starting and
rough idle following start up may be experienced even
if the above recommendations are followed, especially
when the ambient temperature is below 32°F (0°C).
• Some additives used in regular gasoline are not fully
compatible with E-85 and may form deposits in your
engine. To eliminate driveability issues that may be
caused by these deposits, a supplemental gasoline
additive, such as MOPAR Injector Cleanup or Techron
may be used.
550 STARTING AND OPERATING
Printed in a book almost no one reads… the owners manual!
Our Audi is flex fuel. The manual doesn’t have those scary caveats. I have run one tank of E85 through it. The performance increased a bit… by seat of the pants feel… the turbo must have loved the cooling effect of all that fuel and the octane. Didn’t need to do it again.