The Ethanol Papers - Paperturn manuscript - Flipbook - Page 196
More ethanol, more destruction. More vehicle repairs, parts sold, the whole
beeswax. So it's not just farmers who have a stake in ethanol being increased
in our fuel supplies. I wish it was as simple as egging our representatives but
it's not. They do what's best for THEM, not US.
Reply from MARC:
Lance - When ethanol blends (of any percentage) are used in vehicles that have
hardly ever or never used an ethanol blend there is a great likelihood that there
will be what you describe as "a thick nasty coat of black tar and crusty." This is
because ethanol is a solvent. In other words, what is happening is that the ethanol is cleaning the engine. The residue is actually caused by the inefficient
burning of gasoline.
In time, the engines would need to be cleaned anyway, and the chances are
that the product used to clean the engines would be either ethanol-based or a
product that was formulated to replicate the cleaning characteristics of ethanol
(alcohol). As I'm sure you know, in the several decades that the only gasoline
available in America was ethanol-free gasoline, yet all during that time it was
common place for internal combustion engines to have experienced all the
problems, and more, that you attribute to ethanol-gasoline blends.
There's no question that if a person goes directly from long-term ethanol-free
gasoline use to using high ethanol-gasoline blends that the cleaning process
can exacerbate the need to clean the engine and fuel line parts. So the answer
is to slowly, over several fill-ups, increase the ethanol-gasoline blends you use.
In a sense, it's like changing the food you feed a dog: You should never go coldturkey from one food to the other. Even though the new food might be the best
for your dog, the sudden change will cause digestive problems that can also
result in something that looks like a thick nasty coat of tar.
Ethanol is a corrosive substance, but so is gasoline; gasoline can also be used
as a solvent but its flammable explosive qualities make it much more dangerous
than alcohol. Air is also corrosive, and of course, water is one of the most corrosive liquids on Earth. The not-so-secret secret is to use materials that are
resistant to the substance you are dealing with.
Take water for instance: We can't live without it and we consume it as if it has
no corrosive characteristics whatsoever. We swim and bathe in water, including
