On Nov 24, 8:39*am, flymaule wrote:
In the USA methanol (CAS #67561) is a HAP (hazardous air pollutant).
Your state environmental agency will not be happy about your discharge
of about 210 lbs of a HAP into the atmosphere. *In the concentrations
above I suspect the solution would also be classified as flammable by
OSHA to say nothing of the risk to your glider and youself in the
event of an incident (yes--sparks can happen in a glider accident).

Stay away from the methanol.

Skip Guimond

Actually the mixture in these concentrations (under 20%) and
temperature ranges (under 10C) will not be flammable and methanol is
highly biodegradable.

From Wikipedia:
"Methanol is readily biodegradable in both aerobic (oxygen present)
and anaerobic (oxygen absent) environments. Methanol will not persist
in the environment. The "half-life" for methanol in groundwater is
just one to seven days, while many common gasoline components have
half-lives in the hundreds of days (such as benzene at 10-730 days).
Since methanol is miscible with water and biodegradable, methanol is
unlikely to accumulate in groundwater, surface water, air or soil.
(Reference: Evaluation of the Fate and Transport of Methanol in the
Environment, Malcolm Pirnie, January 1999)."

No one is recommending that we ingest it or handle the concentrated
methanol with bare hands. It is commonly used in windshield washer
fluid and other applications. How many gallons of that are sprayed
each day? Being a relatively simple organic compound (CH3OH) it breaks
down quickly.

A better alternative, but I don't know where to buy it would be simple
ethanol (95% ETOH and 5% H2O azeotrope) denatured with a few percent
methanol. The price should be in the $2 to $3 per gallon range but it
is difficult to find currently in mostly pure form do to the concern
that you will want to drink it rather than use it for other purposes.

Overall you have to have a really good reason to want to carry water
in winter conditions to justify the hassle and cost.