The Ethanol Papers - Paperturn manuscript - Flipbook - Page 327
Pitting Valves, Leaks, and Loss of Compression
The anti-ethanol crowd likes to say that ethanol damages engines. They say it
as if gasoline had no negative effect on engines. The panel members in today's
anti E15 teleconference repeated this over and over. The truth is that gasoline
damages engines. Gasoline causes pitted valves; gasoline can leak, engines
that run on gasoline can experience compression loss. If you don't believe me,
drive past any engine shop and look to see if they are working on any vehicle
engines. These aren't engines that have been using ethanol, these engines are
damaged because engines deteriorate over time, and gasoline damages engines.
Furthermore, if it wasn't for mixing ethanol with gasoline any higher compression engine (all modern engines) would blow apart because of the knock
caused by straight gasoline. During the years that tetraethyl lead was added to
gasoline, the knock was quieted. When leaded-gasoline was finally legislated
out of existence, the options were to go back to mixing in ethanol or methyl tertbutyl ether, aka MTBE. When it was finally realized that MTBE was another
poison, and it too was eliminated, the only real solution reverted to the original
solution, ethanol.
I've run across a few knuckleheads online who promote freedom of choice by
saying that we Americans should be allowed to choose to not use gasoline with
ethanol. It makes me laugh because if their gasoline didn't have any ethanol in
it their engines would really experience damage. By the way, this freedom of
choice has nothing to do with the Open Fuel Act, which truly would give us a
choice in deciding which fuel to use.
Gasoline Engines Not Made for E15
Perhaps the only comment I heard during today's press conference that I
agreed with was when one of the speakers said that gasoline engines were not
made to run on E15. That statement is exactly correct. However, it's a completely irrelevant and immaterial point to make.
The fact that a gasoline-optimized engine can run on any other fuel other than
gasoline is absolutely remarkable. It's a testament to how fantastic ethanol is.
Just think: if we were ever faced with the apocalyptic future, as envisioned for
example in the Mad Max Road Warrior movie, we wouldn't have to hijack remnants of gasoline to run our gasoline-powered motor vehicles, we would just
make ethanol out of almost anything regardless of where we are. We wouldn't
need to drill thousands of feet below the surface with expensive equipment, we
