Originally Posted by
DakotaRog
Scrappah- Interesting how things and perceptions can vary from place to place such as South Dakota and Maine. Here, in my little sphere, 10% ethanol has always been available since at least 1980 onwards. Day in, day out. It’s never been "resurrected from the grave" in this state.
Here are the vehicles I've owned since 1978 when I turned 16: 1966 Dodge Monaco, 1971 Dodge PU (as a secondary vehicle owned for only a short time-a POS from the get go), 1974 Pontiac Catalina, 1974 big Plymouth wagon, 1978 Pontiac Lemans, 1986 Old Cutlass Supreme, 1987 Dodge D-150 PU (secondary hunting vehicle owned 12 years), 1991 Toyota Camry, 1996 Honda Accord, 2003 Buick Regal, 2003 Honda Odyssey van (wife’s car). The van was the only one I ever bought new. Most of the others had higher miles on them (80K and above when bought). None of them ever sh** out because of fuel issues and I’ve always run E10 in them since whenever it was available here. Of the old carburetor cars, sure there were carb kits installed because carb parts wear out after how many 10s of thousands of miles?? I’m sort of least maintenance type of guy when it comes to vehicles and things have held together (never replaced an engine, never replaced a tranny). I must be lucky because the evil ethanol never has killed one of my rides. Maybe now it will or maybe they just sold sh***y gas in Maine in the early 1990s. I don’t know. I can only go with observed data and that’s my personal story.
I agree with some of your numbered pointed but I would also like to see actual documentation (such as #4) that would stand up to peer review standards. Maybe there are real reports from a federal agency that monitors motor fuel infrastructure that list such retro fitting was needed. And maybe it’s just internet dross. Buyer (user) beware. I haven’t published on ethanol yet but it’s one of my goals a few years hence when the 10-year anniversary of EISA has happened and the then current data on how much cellulosic ethanol is being produced is available. But I have gone through the peer review publication process. More than once…This doesn’t mean you’re not a smart guy and are very knowledgeable on many things. But getting a manuscript through peer review takes a critical review of the sources and data used. If you want to flesh out your essay into a manuscript and submit to a journal, more power to you and I can certainly suggest some journals you can try. But as of right now both yours and mine are just opinion pieces. The timing for me isn’t right to take it to the next level of publication. We’ll revisit in 3 years to see if my 2018 plans go forward. Meanwhile I have lots of other irons in the fire to work on.
Nuff said.
Rog,
I'll try to address it point by point as best i can.
It's very different here in the Northeast. I should probably provide more detail because context is everything. Just shortly after dropping out of college i went into the workforce and bounced around from one thing to another for awhile. Bear in mind .... i grew up in Massachusetts. Didn't move to Maine till 1983.
With one of my jobs i was working for Gibbs oil company which was based in Chelsea Ma. I guess you would best call it a mid-sized oil company. They had a large tank farm and around 120 gas stations spread throughout NewEngland. I used to cover five different stations in the greater Boston area. The place where i witnessed the Gasahol failure was at the full serve station on the southbound side of route 1 in Saugus Mass. It was a busy,high volume station so they were moving lots of product. I can't tell you with a certainty why it failed but it did in a big way. It wasn't very long after that happened that Gasahol completely disappeared from the market here.It was never a big seller anyway. The lion's share of demand was for regular leaded which eventually transitioned into regular unleaded.
I really didn't see anything for blended fuel here in Maine till sometime after y2k. We live by the seasons. The spring,summer and fall are the times we work hard to put up enough supplies to carry us through the hard winters. Extended power outages are fairly common so you really have to think about of ways of safely storing enough fuel to run the generator for extended periods of time. This has been a trial and error thing for me that's been evolving since the late 1990's.
We started out with regular unleaded gasoline. I had a 275 gallon storage tank with a 12 volt pump mounted up on top. Where i was storing for extended periods of time (over 3 mos) I always used the red colored Sta-Bil which is intended for regular unleaded gas. That worked just fine. If it ended up that it was being stored for over a year all that was needed was to re-treat with another dose of stabilizer and cycle it through.
The introduction of blended fuel changed all that. I tried shifting over to Sta-Bil blue which is intended for use with blended fuels but the gasoline just wouldn't keep for any amount of time. Up against a problem ... i researched the heck out of it and learned a few things in the process.
When you said we have poor gas here in Maine you were right .... just not in the way you intended. You see ... the Maine State legislature MANDATED that the only gasoline that can be sold here must be a minimum 10% blend. The free will choice for me not to use a fuel that isn't working out was taken from me. Kinda sucks and i resented that.
The best solution that i could develop was to convert my generator over to dual fuel and reduce my gasoline storage to 25 gallons. Propane served well as the primary fuel and i kept the gasoline for times when demand was especially heavy on the generator as petrol has a bit more oomph.
Eventually i was able to save enough money to phase into a diesel generator and did away with both gasoline and propane. IMO, it's about the best overall solution. Your generator is just like a fire truck or any other kind of emergency equipment. When you need it you need it and it has to run flawlessly after months of laying idle.
Anyway ... looooong post. Good for you if you had the patience to follow it through.
If i had to gel it all down in regards to ethanol blended fuel i would say this:
1: For best results your motor must be specifically designed for the kind of fuel you have available. If you look at the history of blended fuel you'll see how the auto manufacturers re-designed their engines to run on it. Take an even closer look and you begin to appreciate just how sophisticated and technologically advanced they are. The ECU is pulling sensor readings off the engine and adjusting timing and air / fuel mix at a rate of a thousand cycles per second. The average daily driver on the road today can handle this.
Your average carburated small engine handles this fuel only marginally well. If it's a two stroke oil mix small engine the problems are even worse and often result in a blown piston/cylinder assembly if the fuel has begin phase separation.
2: Phase separation is well documented. There are commercially available fuel testing kits so you can see how far along the breakdown process is with your fuel.
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As for peer review ...i barely even know what that is. If you like ... i should be able to dig a list of source materials out of the weeds for you. I rely more on practical hands on learning but i've done some research on the issue as well.
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