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Bertram31.com General Bulletin Board
Another angle on ethanol
Posted By: Peter
Date: Saturday, 18 March 2006, at 12:32 p.m.
I have been following Harv's work, (Thanks Harv!) and doing some resaerch of my own on this ethanol issue, and just fixing our fuel systems in our boats is only the tip of the iceberg.
First of all, if the gas station or marina doesn't have their storage tanks cleaned out before switching to the ethanol fuels, the new ethanol fuel will become contaminated with all the accumulated grunge from the years of "normal" gasoline storage which it dissolves and holds in suspension. Somehow I doubt that every small marina is going to have their storage tank emptied and polished before they get their first ethanol delivery. You definately don't want to be the first guy to fill up after the switch!
Next, the ethanol in concentrations below 10% is not a particular problem, but in concentrations above 20% becomes a real nightmare. Soft metals like aluminum, brass, zinc and lead are not compatible and neither are compounds of nylon, rubber, Viton, and cork. A lot of caulks, putties, and adhesives are also incompatible. These things exist in almost every fuel system I can think of, so just fixing your tank is only part of the solution. What about all of your fill lines and fuel lines? They have to be teflon-lined now. How about steel? Nope, it seems that if a corrosion point begins in steel, ethanol scours it and causes it to get rapidly worse.
Maybe 3xx stainless steels or Hastalloy or Inconel, but I have not seen anything that positively says these things work either. I'd be suspicious of copper, and Inconel has coper in it too.BUT Wait...there is more!
Ethanol mixes with any water in the fuel up to a point, and this water runs through your engine without a lot of fuss UNLESS the amount of water in the fuel gets above a certian percent. Once this happens the fuel phase-separates in the storage tank with an ethanol/water mix in the bottom and a non-ethanol gasoline on the top.
What this means is if your marina or gas station doesn't upgrade their storage system to be ABSOLUTELY water tight, water will get into their tanks. Once the water/ethanol settles to the bottom and you pull up and and top off your vehicle, you are now getting not just 10% ethanol, but instead the ethanol rich water mix off the bottom of the storage tank. Hence the final mix in your vehicle tank could wind up ethanol enriched to percentages well above 10%.
The same thing happens on board your boat. It is quite possible that when you first start the engines after having sat a day or two, the first couple of gulps of fuel you burn will be mostly ethanol and water! The etanol is definately not good for your fuel system, and the water is definately not good for your engine.
So for all of you guys getting geared up to replace your tanks, make sure you include some sort of quick-drain sump in the fuel tank system so that you can drain off the water in the fuel each day like they do with aircraft.
And as for the use of vynilester approved resins for new fiberglass tanks.....the ethanol can pick up and hold in solution any free (not completely reacted) phthalates in the resin. These are additives that are used in lots of plastics to make them more flexible, and they do occur in various resins. The only way to be sure you are not getting these into your fuel is to post-cure the new tank at a pretty high temperature for a couple of hours. (I saw a number of 165 deg. Celcius quoted someplace, but I'm not a resin expert.)
And do you suppose that every piece of fiberglass pipe, every storage tank, and every little piece and part of the delivery system in the entire chain from the distributer to your tank has been upgraded in this manner? I highly doubt it! So you could do everything just right on board your own boat, and you probably will still get fuel that was contaminated on its way to your tank!
And this is only the crap we have to deal with at E-10 levels. E-20 is on its way with E-85 already in use in certain places.
And by the way, you Diesel guys....E-95 is being developed just for you!
We are being sold this entire ethanol thing based on air pollution control for a few badly polluted cities like LA. What I believe is really happening is that the oil companies get to cut their product up to 20% with government-subsidized ethanol and still charge us nearly full price for a gallon of "Gas." If we as a nation are addicted to oil, then the oil companies are the drug dealers in the picture, and just lilke any drug dealer if they can cut their product with cheaper junk they will.
Meanwhile the big oil companies are not putting the ethanol into THEIR systems....too many incompatibility problems. Instead they are trucking it to the distributers and making everyone from there on down in the fuel chain deal with the problems it causes.
I am all for making ethanol fuels available for those who have made the necessary arrangements to use it, but I also think that we should have the opportunity to buy fuel compatible with our pre-ethanol vehicles and distribution systems.
What is the final fix?
Get out and vote!!!
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