Ethanol Fuel Chaos for Boat Owners....

[lamont]

whats the net carbon impact of burning a gallon of gasoline vs. gallon of ethanol (incluing carbon produced during the process of making it)?

anyway, this summer we had a chainsaw that accidentally got some gas with ethanol in it and it totally dissolved the fuel filter in the gas tank. the materials in your engine that might come into contact with the fuel need to be compatible with ethanol...

 

[Wildcard]

I need to see hard facts not twisted statistics to believe that ethanol is a productive way of gaining fuel. Growing, harvesting, refining, transport of the produce as well as fertilizer, ect, Aint buying it.

Good heads up about the small gas engines.I have a barn full that need to be swaped over.

Phillic vs Phobic.
Phobic= lacking an affinity for, in this case water
Phillic= having a great affinity for, in this case water.
Ethanol is hydrophillic. That is it absorbs water. If it was hydrophobic, such as diesel, it would seperate and could be absorbed or drained off.
Had this discussion with Catherine the other day. Not just a pretty face but a chemistry whiz too! Her not me....

 

[Chuck Tribolet]

whats the net carbon impact of burning a gallon of gasoline vs. gallon of ethanol (incluing carbon produced during the process of making it)?

It's more appropriate to ask what's the net impact of generating a given amount of power with
ethanol, vs. the same amount of power with gasoline., including the impact of producing
the fuel.

Ethanol has substantially less energy per gallon than gasoline.

 

[Cacia]

yes, they say even if you have Al tanks, as opposed to fiberglass it eats your hoses and gaskets.

and I had a boat mechanic say it is doing the same thing in our cars...


the parts were not made for ETOH. waaaaa boooooo hoooooooo.

 

[84CJ7]

Being from the MN/WI border ethanol is an old topic up here, fuel lines will eventually get hard and crack and mechanical fuel pumps disagree with the stuff, but it takes years to knock them out. I put regular pump gas in my boat before going to the river and its never notably effected anything. It doesn't seem to effect I/O's or inboards and I don't think much happens at all with cars. There seem to be more alchohol resistant parts now because theyre not really effected much anymore, the VRO pumps on Johnson and Evinrude outboards even have little tags that say so and have for awhile. As far as it attracting water, I'm sure scientifically it does, but all we find in the fuel/water seperators wer change on all the I/O's every years is fuel. I think most of the stuff you hear on ethanol is old out of date news that keeps getting repeated.

I dunno about fiberglass tanks and what not, that just sounds like a stupid idea to start with, everything up here is polyethlylene plastic or an occational aluminum.

Honestly its all quite alot of drama though E85 is a different story, but that has nothing to do with boats.

 

[Wildcard]

Your wrong on a few points. First off, your dealing with little trailer boats not larger boats with built in tanks in which FG was very common. Second, fuel water seperators will NOT seperate the absorbed water only free water, which is now being sucked up by the ethanol making F/W seperators almost useless. Keep using them but understand what they can and can't do. And third, most of this has just now come to light as more boat infested states have 10% now and it'e wreacking havock.

 

[mirrocraft]

there are lot of things you can get as someone was saying about mo gass if you live buy a military base you should be able to get it because we use it alot in the marine corp i know we you thousands of gallons a day in iraq has a longer shelf life the normal gas but if you have a newer motor it will fal things up if you try to start it up with it best bet is to start you motor on gas and then add mo gas to a warm motor