Well, according to a plant operator I talked to several years ago, when ethanol is made, they mix it with a little bit of gasoline at the ethanol plant, because otherwise it would be moonshine. Ethanol itself isn’t any more dangerous than any other form of high-proof booze. You can get just as messed up drinking Everclear. It’s the added gasoline in the fuel-ethanol that makes it particularly hazardous.
Actually, Gore never claimed he invented the internet. But since he was credited with making that statement, she has started joking about “his” amazing invention. Big Al actually has quite a sense of humor. But most people only remember his presidential run, and he didn’t yuck it up on that tour. Now that he can express his sense of humor, that could account for the last half of your post.
“What’s your definition of “no where near as toxic”? The reason I ask is that Ethanol is pretty toxic, and it only takes about 2.5x as much to kill you as MTBE.
The LD50 for MTBE is about 4g/kg.
The LD50 for Ethanol is about 10g/kg.”
Re-read the post. The issue was ground water contamination. Ethanol degrades long before MTBE. The problem is the long life of MTBE in the water table. Yes, you can kill yourself drinking too much of either. But you can also kill yourself drinking too much water, even though there is no LD50 for water.
That’s my point. High-proof booze is pretty nasty stuff. A half-liter of Everclear is something like 25 “standard drinks” worth of Ethanol (Figure a shot is ~50ml and 80 proof gives 20ml of alcohol in a standard shot. This is sort of half-assed so feel free to come up with a better estimate). That would give a large man a BAC of about 0.5%, which is pretty firmly in the “likely to kill you” category. Its worth mentioning that the half-liter is about half the 10g/kg LD50 I quoted in my previous post, and is pretty close to the LD50 for MTBE.
The fact that they mix “a little bit of gasoline” with the ethanol should give you and idea of how much worse for you some of the stuff gasoline is compared to either.
Of course there is. You just don’t know what it is.
The issue was about MTBE vs Ethanol, with ground water contamination being one of two issues being raised, the other issue being toxicity.
Since it’s been repeated I assume that you or Mike have a source for the claim that ethanol breaks down quickly when released into the water table, and that MTBE doesn?t? I can’t find any information about what actually would happen to Ethanol that was released such as it might be from a leaking tank.
Another thing to consider if your going to argue MTBE from a water pollution angle that there are two issues that need to be addressed. First, there are things in gasoline that are a lot more toxic then MTBE and are able to spread in the water table. Second, there is a lot of water pollution generated from agriculture.
Also, I’m not sure where you got your water fact from, the force fed LD50 is 300-650g/kg depending on the animal tested. There are a few sources to get these numbers. One is a JAMA article from 1935. WATER INTOXICATION: REPORT OF A FATAL HUMAN CASE, WITH CLINICAL, PATHOLOGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL STUDIES; FERDINAND C. HELWIG, CARL BRYANT SCHUTZ, DWIGHT E. CURRY; J Am Med Assoc. 1935;104(18):1569-1575.
Also, some fun math suggests that the LD50 for ethanol in a person is way lower the 10g/kg, as that would give a BAC well over 1%.
Ethanol will break down and evaporate. MTBE WON’T. Once it’s in the water it stays there. There are wells here in NH that were polluted with MTBE YEARS AGO…and still have toxic levels of MTBE in them. The good thing is…you can filter it out with a bubbler (same device used to remove radon from water).
Yes…Ethanol in water is VERY VERY toxic…but at least over time it will break down and no longer be toxic. MTBE WON’T.
Brasil has used sugar cane ethanol successfully for over thirty years.Both Brasil and China have robust economies.
I believe we need to use less petroleum,but we should drill more and build refineries for the short term .Dependency on foreign oil is a big mistake. New technology will arrive, as it always does.