Good posts, marshallf3. Yes, I pretty much hate ethanol in gasoline too. You should see the dance the aviation people have to go through if they want to run mogas in their airplanes. Lots of older general aviation engines were designed for 80 and even 65 octane fuel, which can't be found at airports anymore. So they're stuck buying 100LL (100 RON Low Lead - high lead fouled plugs) at $3.20+ per gallon.
There are changes that then allow the use of mogas, but there have been a lot of problems with ethanol content in the fuel - tank sealers and fuel lines don't respond well to it, and many airplanes seem especially good at getting atmospheric moisture into the fuel tank. The water then attaches to the ethanol in the gasoline and settles to the bottom of the tank where the fuel pickup is. Badness follows shortly thereafter.
I always wondered if the banning of MTBE and ETBE in gasoline didn't have a lot more to do with them not coming from corn fields than with any possible toxicity, especially given that an engine running rich on ethanol makes lots of formaldehyde and acetaldeyhide, which aren't things you ever want to breathe either...
There are changes that then allow the use of mogas, but there have been a lot of problems with ethanol content in the fuel - tank sealers and fuel lines don't respond well to it, and many airplanes seem especially good at getting atmospheric moisture into the fuel tank. The water then attaches to the ethanol in the gasoline and settles to the bottom of the tank where the fuel pickup is. Badness follows shortly thereafter.
I always wondered if the banning of MTBE and ETBE in gasoline didn't have a lot more to do with them not coming from corn fields than with any possible toxicity, especially given that an engine running rich on ethanol makes lots of formaldehyde and acetaldeyhide, which aren't things you ever want to breathe either...
