Lauren Fix Takes Ethanol Opposition To New Level Of Stupidity

by Marc J. Rauch (The Auto Channel) ... On an official basis, E15 is approved by the EPA to be used in all gasoline-powered passenger vehicles manufactured in or after 2001. The vast majority of gasoline-powered vehicles on the road in America were manufactured in or after 2001. This accounts for 75% of all cars and trucks on the road today. This means that the 95% statement is woefully incorrect.

And Ms. (Lauren) Fix says we have ethanol-gasoline blended fuels "just because some politician has a deal going with another one."

No, Ms. Fix, it's taken this long to get ethanol added to gasoline because some politicians had a deal with the oil industry and General Motors to literally ram poisonous leaded gasoline down our throats for seven decades. This was the status quo until the evidence against tetraethyl lead was so overwhelming that it was finally banned from everyday automobile fuel. The solution to replace tetraethyl lead should have been ethanol, but Big Oil persuaded the politicians to allow another poisonous ingredient, MTBE (which is made from petroleum oil). After discovering that MTBE was also poison, it too was banned and ethanol was given it's chance to re-emerge on the public scene. And since that time, ethanol-gasoline blends have played a significant part in clearing the air in cities like Los Angeles and New York.

Yes, ethanol is a corrosive liquid, but so is gasoline. Solar rays are corrosive; 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 the most corrosive of all water, salt water. It's not that the water we consume and bathe in is not corrosive, it's that our bodies are not very susceptible to water corrosion.

It's the same with engine fuels. You can't just put gasoline in any old container, it must be a container that is not susceptible to gasoline corrosion. The same is true for alcohol (ethanol). Everyone knows that you can leave scotch, rum, vodka, whiskey and brandy in a glass bottle or metal flask in your home for years and there will be no degradation of the alcohol nor the container during that time. There will also be no so-called "phase separation," even if you leave the top off the bottle - although you will lose some or all of the liquid because of evaporation.

The same is true of rubbing alcohol, regardless of what the rubbing alcohol is made from. Some rubbing alcohols are just regular grain alcohols with a denaturizing ingredient to render it non-drinkable. And if you have rubbing alcohol in your home chances are that it's in a plastic bottle. The question to then ask is why doesn't the alcohol eat away at the plastic bottle? The answer is because these bottles were manufactured to be resistant to ethanol's solvent characteristics.

During prohibition (when alcohol was supposedly not available in America) and in the decades subsequent to the end of prohibition, automobile parts makers used materials that were not highly susceptible to gasoline corrosion. The parts didn't not corrode because the gasoline was not corrosive, but because of the materials used. If ethanol fuel or blends had been America's primary engine fuels then auto parts manufacturers would have used parts that were resistant to ethanol.

Studies conducted by Mercury Marine, one of the world's largest manufacturers of smaller marine engines, had this to say about so-called ethanol phase separation and absorption of water from the air:

"There is no active transfer mechanism for ethanol molecules to reach out and 'grab' water molecules out of the air."

"E10 may actually be a superior marine fuel as it tends to keep low levels of water moving through the fuel system, keeping the system 'dry'."

And funnily enough, Mercury Marine recommends that if you're going to leave your engine idle for extended periods, other than removing all the fuel, you should fill the tank with E10 to reduce the amount of exchange with the air that may bring in condensation.

Incidentally, I'm using the Mercury Marine information because it's often claimed that ethanol-gasoline blends in boats can cause greater problems then it supposedly causes in road vehicles.

At about 11 minutes into the show Ms. Fix brings up the grand old canard about ethanol having 30% less energy than gasoline so that you get far less miles per gallon of ethanol or an ethanol-gasoline blend than you would from ethanol-free gasoline. In my opinion, using the "BTU" energy-content issue to explain why there is a difference in MPG when you use ethanol is the litmus test that proves a person's ignorance of the overall issue.

Using ethanol or an ethanol-gasoline blend in a gasoline optimized vehicle will deliver fewer miles per gallon. However, the lower MPG is not because of the difference in BTUs, it's simply because the engine is OPTIMIZED to run on gasoline. A comparable engine OPTIMIZED to run on ethanol will deliver the same or better MPG. If you don't know this then you don't know what the issue is about. READ MORE / MORE and MORE (The Jacki Daily Show includes VIDEO)