Ron and others
I have worked in the industrial ethanol industry since 1975 so I have lots of information. I have never been involved in fuel ethanol but that industry has a direct effect on our industry so I watch it very closely.
Fuel ethanol did make sense for one reason a few years ago and that was to quickly get rid of MTBE in US gasoline. MTBE was making it's way into the ground water and no one knew what long term health effects could result. Ethanol was the only quick and economically feasible way of eliminating a potentially very dangerous problem.
Having said that, fuel alcohol produced from corn does not reduce America's dependence on foreign
oil nor does it really do anything good for the environment. The big deal these days is ethanol from cellulose. I can tell you that this is probably a very good long term solution but it is nothing new even though it is just now showing up in the papers and on the news. Ethanol from cellulose has been around for a very long time but a significant technical break through is required to make the production economically feasible even when
oil is over $100 per barrel.
Now for the problems with ethanol. Let me give you a personal example. I have a dingy with a bullet proof 8HP Mercury 2 stroke on it. I have never touched this engine in the 10 years that I have owned it, that is up until last year when I accidentially filled the tank with gasoline containing ethanol. I then pulled the carb off 3 times, cleaned the fuel filter several more time, emptied the gas tank and refilled it, changed the gas tank and the gas line. It appears that the ethanol ate the gas line which then plugged the fuel filter and contaminated the carb. Since I wasn't aware of what was going on, I kept removing, cleaning, etc only to discover more crap the next day. When I figured out it was ethanol that caused the problem, I pulled everything apart at the same time and I also bought a new gas tank because the alcohol had also eaten the pickup hose in the tank.
Wayne