Pundits tell us ethanol not only will save us from being poisoned by methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE), it will solve all the farmers' problems. That sounds good. We all should be against being poisoned. And happier farmers mean tastier food, right?
We also hear that MTBE isn't all that bad if properly contained, and that use of ethanol will increase the price of gasoline.
How did we get here?
The use of ethanol in automobiles goes back to Henry Ford and the early internal combustion engines when more booze was being distilled than gasoline. Gasoline, however, won out as a fuel because crude was more plentiful than corn, and gasoline was cheap to produce. And the help wasn't tempted to drink the product before it got to market.
During the second world war, people were ingenious enough to make fuel out of almost anything. In Japan, pine tree roots were boiled to produce a liquid that could be distilled into a crude gasoline. And, of course, coal was used in Germany to make liquid fuel.
It was about the time of the Arab oil embargo that gasoline manufacturers began looking at ethanol made from corn as a way to enhance gasoline supplies. A product appeared that we now know as "gasohol." Drivers learned to look for the ear-of-corn emblems on pumps, warning of real and imagined damage that could be done to your engine if you used it. In particular, "gunk" would be cleaned from your tank, causing the engine's systems to clog, and leaving you stranded on the side of the road anticipating a big repair bill.
Some areas of the country sold it; others did not.
Driving instructions
A close relative of mine worked his entire career as a refining engineer for a major oil company. And being an engineer, he was full of all types of useful knowledge to share with a young driver. Here are a few of the things he told me. Repeatedly.
- Don't speed.
- Always fasten your seatbelt.
- Change the oil in your car regularly.
- Don't buy gasoline from a service station where a tank truck is unloading fuel (sediment stirred up in storage tank).
- Don't EVER put gasohol in your car.
Until the recent debate over ethanol use in reformulated fuels, I always thought the only reason for not using gasohol had to do with the overly efficient cleansing effect it had on old engines. A recent article in OGJ has added more light on the subject.
In his article, "More evidence mounts for banning, not expanding, use of ethanol in US gasoline," OGJ, Oct. 6, 2003, p. 18, Cal Hodge talks about California switching to ethanol from MTBE to test the relative merits of oxygenates used in reformulated gasoline (RFG). Hodge says that in 2003 through July 31, the ozone exeedances in California's South Coast Air Basin were twice the level of the prior 3 years, and that the maximum ozone concentration was up 22%.
That doesn't sound very good.
It seems detrimental to the interests of consumers and the country to push the fuel manufacturers in a new direction every time political winds change. And now it looks again as if the country will have to bow to the propaganda of special interests, whose goals are only political and financial.
That refiner relative I mentioned earlier served for a number of years as chairman of an American Petroleum Institute subcommittee on fuels emissions. That is the committee that created the popular (R+M)/2 notice on gasoline pumps. And in the midst of all this talk on RFG I can't help but think back 30 years or so and remember the car-care advice he gave me.
Don't EVER put gasohol in your car.
Gasohol
A gasoline extender made from a mixture of gasoline and ethanol (often obtained by fermenting agricultural crops or crops wastes) or gasoline and methanol, or wood alcohol.... Gasohol has higher octane, or antiknock, properties than gasoline and burns more slowly, coolly, and completely, resulting in reduced emissions of some pollutants, but it also vaporizes more readily, potentially aggravating ozone pollution in warm weather. Ethanol-based gasohol is expensive and energy-intensive to produce.... Methanol-based gasohol is also expensive to produce and is toxic and corrosive, and its emissions produce cancer-causing formaldehyde.
From the Columbia Encyclopedia, sixth edition, 2001.
