[SOC] MTBE (was: Great News for Ontario Residents)

[JMcAulay]

At 12:33 AM 01/15/2003 -0500, you wrote:
>Ian Purdie wrote:
>
>>It seems, if you can get "experts" to agree, that 10% is harmless. It is
>beyond
>>that level problems occur.
>
>Even at 10% the ethanol will wreck havoc in an older car that hasn't been
>run
>on the mixture. It will loosen any gunk in the fuel tank and send it to clog
>the
>fuel injectors or carb passages.
>
>Here in Maryland they don't exactly say what is in the gas. It's
>"oxygenated".
>And it has a devil's additive called MBTE. This crap is getting into the
>ground
>from leaking storage tanks and polluting the ground water.


Here in California, Our Amazing Governor decreed that we would keep on
using MTBE (methylated tetra-butyl ether) as an oxidizer for at least
another year, to avoid being at the mercy of "the ethanol cartel."  (I'm
serious, he really said that.  Of course, before the November elections, he
also said we had a state deficit which was manageably small.  He then said
later (after he won re-election) oops, it's several times larger than he
said previously -- on the order of thirty billion dollars.)   

Thrifty oil company is a California fuel company... they used to have one
refinery (I think they still do) and many gasoline dispensing locations.
Some years ago, their fuel was processed to include 10% ethanol.  Their
product was actually cheaper than the stuff provided by most sellers in
this state.  I began using it in my several-year-old Toyota and continued
to use it for some years with no noticeable ill effects.  Almost every car
nowadays has a sufficiently effective fuel-line filter so that any
dissolved crud will not cause problems.  The energy from a volume of 90%
petrol and 10% ethanol is marginally lower than from 100% petrol, but so
what.  Carbon monoxide emissions are much lower.  By the way, using
*methanol* as an additive is unwise, because methanol may damage some
non-metallic fuel system components -- flex line, for example.

Meanwhile, MTBE -- alleged to be dangerous for human consumption in the
parts-per-billion range -- is known to have contaminated enormous amounts
of ground water, with this problem compounding daily.  Ethanol
contamination in ground water would, of course, be safe at a thousand times
that level.  Are we nuts, or what?  Oh, sorry, I forgot.  We Californians
are cleverly avoiding being held hostage by "the ethanol cartel."
Poisoned, maybe, but "the ethanol cartel" won't get us.  It's the sole
thought that helps me sleep the night away.

73
John WA6QPL  SOC 263