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Author Topic: Ethanol  (Read 10946 times)

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AGelbert

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Re: Ethanol
« on: October 10, 2013, 07:46:19 pm »
Op-Ed: Big Oil Tells More Lies About Ethanol, Only Idiots Believe Them

SNIPPET:

In a move that should surprise no-one, the whining cry-baby rich-boys at Big Oil are butt-hurt over the latest federal court ruling that upholds the EPA’s E15 mandate. In a legal brief filed with the US Supreme Court, the American Petroleum Institute – a powerful, well-funded lobbyist group that represents more than 500 oil and natural gas companies – insisted that transportation fuels containing 15 percent ethanol (E15) could damage cars and trucks. 

Should we believe them?

Obviously, the answer is a resounding “Haha! F**k no we should not!”

Let’s get one thing clear: the oil industry does not give one fat rat’s ass about the health, safety, future, or security of you, me, or anyone else.

The horrible people involved in the oil industry have proven, again and again – from Washington DC to Canada to Saudi Arabia to the Mississippi Gulf – that lining their own pockets with cash is more important to them than the your continued health or your children’s clean drinking water. Still, that hasn’t stopped them from faking a concern for your safety.

http://gas2.org/2013/06/11/op-ed-big-oil-tells-more-lies-about-ethanol-only-idiots-believe-them/

Here's a small anecdote from my days as an air taxi pilot to help you understand how water contamination and consequent damage to your engine is far more likely with gasoline than ethanol.

I flew light twin aircraft for a number of years. Unfortunately, to this day the gasoline on ICE powered aircraft is the really bad stuff with tetra-ethyl lead (and you thought it was banned from use, didn't you?). Of course they could run these aircraft engines on ethanol but apparently big oil is exerting influence there too. Remember that if you are on an approach path to a busy general aviation airport, you are getting showered with lead poisons. It's legal.

http://www.onearth.org/articles/2013/08/aiplanes-flying-on-leaded-gasoline-are-still-poisoning-us?iref=obinsite

But getting back to my flying experience and water contamination causing corrosion or faulty engine performance, let me explain what big oil doesn't want to explain to you.

As a pilot you are concerned with water in your fuel. All pilots are trained to fill the tanks on their aircraft when they finish flying that day. Why? Because any air in those tanks contains a certain amount of water vapor. When the aircraft tank cools at night, water vapor inside a half filled tank will condense into the gasoline.

Gasoline and water do not mix. Water is heavier and always sinks to the lowest part of the tank which just happens to be where the fuel line to the engine is located. As an air taxi pilot, you don't own the aircraft and cannot tell if the tanks were topped off the day before until you check. If you are making the first flight on an aircraft on a given day and you find partially filled fuel tanks, that's a danger sign.



I would carry a fuel contamination tester (see above) for each preflight. The aircraft fuel tanks have sump drains that are just a hair lower than the fuel line location. You open the sump and take a sample. If you don't see water in the bottom, you are good to go. If you do find water, you keep draining the sump until there is no evidence of water.

As a flight instructor, I would put some spit in the gasoline to show my students how easy it is to tell if you have water contamination. The spit will turn into a shiny bead and sink to the bottom of the sample. In other words, if you run gasoline in your tank and don't fill it up each night (nobody that owns an ICE car does, do they?), you have water in your fuel guaranteed!

The irony of this fossil fuel founded disinformation about ethanol is that ethanol, unlike gasoline, DOES mix quite well with water! It does NOT separate out. How many times have you seen water in your whisky bottle? You aren't drinking anhydrous 200 proof are you? Of course not! Humans can't handle those levels. You probably have between 80 and 130 proof hard liquor ethanol and the rest is WATER (80 proof = 40% ethanol and 60% water).

So boys and girls, if you have ethanol in your fuel tank, you have LESS chance of water corrosion than with gasoline in an inverse proportion to the ethanol percentage. The greater percentage of ethanol in your fuel, the less chance of corrosion in your tank.

Because your tank was designed for gasoline, you are ALREADY home free for ethanol. IOW, a tank for ethanol does NOT require the same level of corrosion resistance as a tank designed for gasoline.

Why? Because water condensation from cooled air inside your fuel tank will mix freely with the alcohol molecules in a state of equilibrium and will NOT sink to the bottom.

However, if gasoline is what is in your tank, condensed water will sink right to the bottom of your tank and be positioned for hours to DAYS on that bottom ready to aid corrosion when it encounters a bit of oxygen from the air swishing around your tank. You can put that in the next fossil fueler's pipe and make them smoke it the next time you hear some lies about ethanol caused water corrosion.
« Last Edit: June 18, 2014, 12:13:12 am by AGelbert »
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

 

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