Cub Driver wrote:

On Sat, 29 Apr 2006 10:35:33 -0400, John wrote:

The federal government hasn't banned
MTBE outright (some individual states have) but will not protect oil
companies from MTBE lawsuits so MTBE is being phased out by next week in
most places.

I think you have to make that *all* places. There may be some MTBE
still being pumped out of the ground, but nobody is going to
manufacture it because Congress did not renew the immunity to
liability that companies previously had. Nobody wants to repriese the
asbestos liability monster.

My local airport was so fussy about mogas that it found a dealer in
Maine that would deliver mogas without MTBE. I don't know what will
happen to the mogas pump. I understand that there's a huge problem
about ethanol in that it can't be stored for long periods of time or
sent over long distances because water will cause the ethanol to
separate out (funny, I thought that that was why we put alcohol in our
gasoline in New Hampshire, to get the water to meld with the fuel).

It's the same principle, but ethanol will keep picking up water it comes
across. A pipeline may have small amounts of water here and there but this
can get added again and again over long distances. The fuel becomes less and
less useable as more and more water is added, because obviously the water
doesn't contain any useable energy and it takes energy to evaporate that
water in a cylinder.

When you add alcohol to remove water (ice) from a gas tank, there is a very
limited amount of water (hopefully) so the effects of that water aren't
great, especially compared to ice blocking your fuel line.


I
don't see how ethanol mix can sit in the ground for months or a year
without suffering the same fate. The airport just doesn't sell that
much mogas.

Or maybe non-MTBE, non-ethanol gasoline will still be available in
Maine?

Time will tell.