Reply To: ETHANOL in fuel – Our right to use 'Yesterday's Vehicles on Tomorrow's Roads.

[BernieParticipant]

Folks,

A couple of years ago my local (all makes) car club invited a speaker from one of the companies marketing ethanol removal kits.  The talk was interesting and fairly convincing and one kit was purchased for trial purposes.

Although it worked well enough, the process entailed multiple decanting operations – not the safest way to handle petrol at home.  Water had to be added to the petrol and then thoroughly mixed to enable the water to absorb the ethanol.  The mixture was then left to stand in a special container until the petrol and water seperated at which point the water, with the ethanol in solution, could be drawn off via a tap in the container leaving ethanol-free petrol.

The process meant only a couple of gallons could practically be treated at a time and to produce a “tankfull” would certainly be a long and potentially hazardous process.  In addition, this was not a process that could be carried out just anywhere and it was clearly going to be necessary to revert to fuel containing ethanol once the tank required filling on a long trip.

The conclusion was that the kit did what it was supposed to do but, in practice, it was probably really only suited to low mileage, low consumption, vehicles that rarely ventured beyond the capacity of one full tank of fuel.

B….