Ethanol an Environmental disaster?

Question

Ethanool allows water to disolve into the fluid.Itdesolves fuel lines abd gaskets in the motors.Because it is so easy to block fuel lines and destroy fuel lines people will simply pour it out anywhere they can because there is no facility to recover discarded fuel contaminated with water.Your lawn mower,weed whacker,Outard or boat motor ,anything with a fiberglass fuel tank.Your moped and any other small motor will be subject to water damage or fuel line cloging.ETHANOL will cause more problems than it will solve.

Answer 1

Your a pessimist. Look at the optimist view. It decreasing the need of oil and other fossils.

Answer 2

Rather than blocking fuel lines, as water in a gasoline tank does, water dissolves in ethanol, and will pass through the fuel lines unnoticed. Some say it even enhances engine performance. Neither ethanol nor gasoline dissolve fuel lines unless you make the fuel lines of some material soluble in both. I agree basically with rhsaunders' position that ethanol production is a glorious waste of time, Few have considered the pollution generated in getting the corn grown and into the still, and then disposing of the used-up mash, or the problems of a dual or triple fuel distribution system.

True, ethanol burns cleaner than gasoline (and much cleaner than diesel), and the still boilers can be tuned to minimize pollutants, but ethanol will never be a viable stand-alone fuel. It will always have to be subsidized.

Answer 3

Looks like you're suggesting that ethanol as a gasoline additive adds water to the gasoline and consumers will then dump said gasoline on the ground instead of burning it because they are afraid the ethanol will dissolve rubber fuel lines and gasket. And that would be a worse disaster than dependance on foreign oil.

There are so many issues with your statement that I suggest you do some research. Starting with this. The ETOH used in gasoline is annhydrous. ETOH becomes a problem for buta N gaskets at concentrations > 25%. Engines today are designed with viton gaskets (ETOH friendly). Who dumps gasoline on the ground just because it has ETOH in it? ETOH replaced MTBE (a very nasty chemical) as an oxygenate. and of course it is a renewable fuel source.

By the way, ethanol is a 2 carbon molecule. Iso octane (100 octane gas) is an 8 carbon molecule. Neither is a particularly long chain carbon molecule. And both are converted to CO2 (a greenhouse gas) and water upon burning in a car engine.

Answer 4

Ethanol production starts with a sugar-containing liquid, like juices from overwhelmed corn, sugarcane, etc. Then the liquid is fermented. it is precisely the technique used to make alcohol for eating. Yeast is further, which converts the sugar into alcohol. usually the alcohol isn't centred very lots after this step, and the answer could be distilled with a view to get extreme concentrations (on the element of a hundred%) mandatory for use as a gas. of direction there are some questions whether or no longer the production of ethanol for a gas is a robust theory - yet that's no longer what you asked, is it? :)

Answer 5

Not only that but in order to power all vehicles in the US on 100% ethanol we would need about 150% of the land area of the US planted in corn. I am not sure how I feel yet but I am old enough to remember before smog, during smog and of course today. Believe me the air is cleaner than it was in years past. I was in Tokyo in 1970 and couldn't see a half mile on a good day. Los Angeles was as bad. Both have improved significantly.

I don't think ethanol is an air scrubber as much as it is a fuel stretcher. But it is less efficient than fossil fuels so I give up. I'm old anyway and won't have to put up with the environmental nut cases and the sky is falling Chicken Little's much longer.

Answer 6

Ethanol is not a particular environmental hazard; if some spills on the ground, most will evaporate and the rest will degrade safely. But it is an economic disaster: it takes about the same energy (85,000 BTU) to produce a gallon of ethanol as it contains, so making the stuff is a complete waste of time -- unless you care to drink it.

Answer 7

I agree..ethanol is just a diversion from the already smart choice which is electric...from there the consumers have done there part...it's up to the gov't to make the utility co's clean up their act to make electricity be a green fuel . That is an immediate step towards cleaning up our environment and they are afraid to do this because it would mean revamping every plant and elliminating many skilled workers in the combustion engine field.

Answer 8

And your point? How do we cut our grass? I heard Julia Roberts say she has goats come to her house to eat the grass instead of using a mower.....since I am so rich maybe I will do that...oh wait I live in REALITY, and the reality is, if I worried about every little thing, I would have no play time!!

Answer 9

You work for an oil company or something? I'm pretty sure that a lot of what you are describing is either a kink that has been worked out, or you really buy into what the petrochemical companies are selling....

Answer 10

Ethanol is a natural substance that is basically non-toxic. It doesn't do harm to environments and it's only bi-product after being burned is carbon (which is not bad for the environment) All ethanol is, is a long chained carbon alcohol. feasably non-toxic.