The ethanol nightmare has arrived!

On Apr 8, 9:13*am, "Jay Honeck" wrote:
Jay -- what changes do you see in leaning, startup, etc with mogas v.
100ll?

The only changes we've seen a

- The oil doesn't turn black
- The plugs don't foul with little BBs of lead
- There is an extra $10,000 in the bank

Anyone who's got the mogas STC and is choosing not to use it is needlessly
burning Ben Franklins at a breath-taking rate.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

But burning Ben Franklins at a breath-taking rate is normal operation
for aviation. Hence the AMU to lessen the shock.

I'm only kidding of course and if you can burn mogas that's great. I'm
in Florida and our gas pumps are also sprouting the "Ethanol less than
10%" stickers. I heard a blurb on NPR the other day that it's mandated
by the feds for the summer to lessen polution. I think, if I recall
correctly that that's how it started in California as well. The point
of the news blurb was that ethanol prices are spiking causing gas
prices to rise. Also, since they're using corn, tortillas and Fritos
will rise as well.

I'm really thinking that diesel is where piston aviation is going to
survive at all and that will be a significant blow due to the costs of
upgrading existing planes. Most won't bother, I think.

Jay, if your only alternative to keep flying was to drop, say, $40K
into a diesel conversion for Atlas, would you?

I don't own (yet) so I'll have to deal with the rental fleet.

John

Take a look at last week's Time magazine cover article on the great myth of
ethanol. It turns out that the list of 'unintended consequences' is quite
long and the net effect of increased ethanol usage is far more damaging to
the environment than the use of oil-based fuels. (This does not address the
damage to engines, the decreased performance (which means more fuel burned),
impact on other commodities, etc etc).

But of course, to 'Big Corn' (corollary to 'Big Oil') the fact that ethanol
is far from our salvation is ignored. Also by the various politicians who
are deep into the pockets of 'Big Corn'.
wrote in message
...
On Apr 8, 9:13 am, "Jay Honeck" wrote:
Jay -- what changes do you see in leaning, startup, etc with mogas v.
100ll?

The only changes we've seen a

- The oil doesn't turn black
- The plugs don't foul with little BBs of lead
- There is an extra $10,000 in the bank

Anyone who's got the mogas STC and is choosing not to use it is needlessly
burning Ben Franklins at a breath-taking rate.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

But burning Ben Franklins at a breath-taking rate is normal operation
for aviation. Hence the AMU to lessen the shock.

I'm only kidding of course and if you can burn mogas that's great. I'm
in Florida and our gas pumps are also sprouting the "Ethanol less than
10%" stickers. I heard a blurb on NPR the other day that it's mandated
by the feds for the summer to lessen polution. I think, if I recall
correctly that that's how it started in California as well. The point
of the news blurb was that ethanol prices are spiking causing gas
prices to rise. Also, since they're using corn, tortillas and Fritos
will rise as well.

I'm really thinking that diesel is where piston aviation is going to
survive at all and that will be a significant blow due to the costs of
upgrading existing planes. Most won't bother, I think.

Jay, if your only alternative to keep flying was to drop, say, $40K
into a diesel conversion for Atlas, would you?

I don't own (yet) so I'll have to deal with the rental fleet.

John

Jay, if your only alternative to keep flying was to drop, say, $40K
into a diesel conversion for Atlas, would you?

Nope.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

On Apr 8, 8:44 am, wrote:

I heard a blurb on NPR the other day that it's mandated
by the feds for the summer to lessen polution.

There seems to be so many misinformation about ethanol in fuel. A
little Google search shows:

* ethanol was first introduced in larger scale in gasoline as an
oxygenate back in 1990s, the RFG program, to reduce the CO emission
mostly in winter in some metro areas. On carburated auto engines
ethanol has the effect of leaning out the mixture - hence reducing the
CO emission especially when the engine is cold. This effect is mostly
irrelevant now that vast majority of the cars have electronic ignition
and automatic mixture control.

* The oil companies didn't like ethanol because 1. it can't be
transported in pipelines and 2. they didn't control its production.
They prefer MTBE, an oxygenate produced from petroleum. EPA at the
time didn't care whether MTBE and ethanol is being used.

* MTBE was later found to be contaminating ground water, and the
congress in 2005(6?) denied MTBE producer's request for a liability
waver. As a result, MTBE as an oxygenate was completely phased out
about two years ago and all areas designated as "non-attainment" areas
by EPA must use ethanol as oxygenate, which triggered the first large
scale shortage of ethanol and a big price run-up.

* In the mean time, some states have passed various laws mandating
ethanol blending in gasoline. The exact requirement can be very
different from state to state.

* In 2004, Congress passed the law to give 51 cent per gallon subsidy
for pure ethanol (and proportional tax credit for various % of blend).

* In 2007, Congress passed the law (and Bush signed it) to require a
rapidly increase of renewable fuel by 2022 (See
http://www.ethanol.org/index.php?id=78&parentid=26 for the schedule).
For the first few years this would come almost entirely from corn
ethanol. This misguided effort resulted in a huge increase of corn
price, food price - particular meats, and ethanol price in 2007 when
20% of the entire U.S. corn production was turned into ethanol - which
was merely the first year of the schedule (see
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ne...G=Search+News).
Interestingly enough, even with 51c a gallon tax credit ethanol
producers have been barely turning a profit lately due to this huge
run-up of corn price, and this is merely the beginning. To produce 15
billion gallons of corn ethanol a year it would probably require more
than 50% of the entire U.S. corn harvest, a situation that's highly
unlikely to occur. If you think $3/dozen eggs is expensive, imagine
$10/dozen eggs - that's what'll happen if we produce anywhere near 15
billion gallons of corn ethanol a year.

* Even though the 2007 law requires a massive increase of ethanol
blending in gasoline, it didn't exactly specify that each gallon of
gasoline must contain certain percentage of ethanol. The oil
companies are free to blend ethanol in some areas and not other
areas , or to blend in regular gas but not premium, etc, etc -
subject to state by state regulations.


My point is? This ethanol madness totally sucks, but the hard reality
has begun to set in. Just wait for another year when the food price
totally shoot through the roof, something will change. I have already
seen the news coverage regarding corn ethanol turning largely negative
in the last month or so.

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message news:WrJKj.57870$TT4.6732@attbi_s22...
In essence, with the 5.1 cent per gallon tax break, the US federal government has just killed the Aviation autogas
concept.

Thanks for the head's up. We've used over 9,000 gallons of mogas in our Lycoming O-540, without a burp, at a savings
of well over $10K. Obviously this change will be catastrophic if it is, indeed, nationwide.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"


I told you this last year, Jay, and you acknowledged it, yet you still said that none of the gas you put in atlas had
ethanol contamination. I warned you to test all the gas you put in if it was not 100LL Hope you did!

I'm trying to locate a new source, but may not be successful. The
ethanol is added at the distribution rack. Chevron and a couple others
are requiring their retailers to go to E-10.



Have you actually tried to go to a Chevron station, get some of the
Premium gas, and actually test it for ethanol? E10 should be very
obvious with the test tube method.

Because Washington state has a relatively sensible ethanol law, and
the fact that wholesale ethanol price is very high right now, there's
a chance that you might get ethanol free gas by buying the Premium
fuel.

Remember, ethanol is not mixed into the fuel until the local
distribution terminal, because it can't be transported in pipelines.

M writes:

Remember, ethanol is not mixed into the fuel until the local
distribution terminal, because it can't be transported in pipelines.

Just out of curiosity, why can't it be transported in pipelines?

Mxsmanic wrote:
M writes:

Remember, ethanol is not mixed into the fuel until the local
distribution terminal, because it can't be transported in pipelines.

Just out of curiosity, why can't it be transported in pipelines?

The same reason it can't be used in existing airplanes; pieces of the
plumbing start leaking.


--
Jim Pennino

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wrote in news
Mxsmanic wrote:
M writes:

Remember, ethanol is not mixed into the fuel until the local
distribution terminal, because it can't be transported in pipelines.

Just out of curiosity, why can't it be transported in pipelines?

The same reason it can't be used in existing airplanes; pieces of the
plumbing start leaking.



It can be used in existing airplanes. All you need to do is replace
fittings. I've done it. My old Luscombe ran on Ethanol laden mogas.



Bertie

Bertie the Bunyip wrote:
wrote in news

Mxsmanic wrote:
M writes:

Remember, ethanol is not mixed into the fuel until the local
distribution terminal, because it can't be transported in pipelines.

Just out of curiosity, why can't it be transported in pipelines?

The same reason it can't be used in existing airplanes; pieces of the
plumbing start leaking.



It can be used in existing airplanes. All you need to do is replace
fittings. I've done it. My old Luscombe ran on Ethanol laden mogas.

Then it isn't the existing plumbing, is it?

Depending on what the existing plumbing is made of, you may have to
replace all, some, or none of gaskets, fittings, lines, tanks, and
the carburetor, i.e. everything the fuel touches.


--
Jim Pennino

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