Adding ethanol to petrol.

[Maurice_Minor]

Oil companies claim they are "helping the environment" by giving you 90% of the petrol that you paid for & topping up the last 10% with ethanol, but still charging you full price, akin to a pub landlord adding 10% water to his beer, claiming its to "help" alcoholics?

[JOWETTJAVELIN]

Vast tracts of virgin land and existing farmland have been developed into ethanol producing crops. With the attendant harm to the environment that causes.

[les]

We’re all responsible.

[MontysDad]

Oil companies claim they are "helping the environment" by giving you 90% of the petrol that you paid for & topping up the last 10% with ethanol, but still charging you full price, akin to a pub landlord adding 10% water to his beer, claiming its to "help" alcoholics?

Where's the LIKE button?

!00% agree, all these 'Green' policies are doing more harm than we can possibly imagine.

[Maurice_Minor]

In the US they are desperate to launch an E20, ie 20% ethanol mix. No doubt we'll be doing the same & anyone who dares question the scam will be called an "Unbeliever" & vilified.
https://youtu.be/I2yN_HIxLzI?t=4

[rocco]

Nice to see/read a healthy skepticism on here of the phony green agenda and all the ridiculous measures that the climate zealots thinks we'll believe in.

What is the downside of having ethanol in petrol though?

[Maurice_Minor]

There is a link below describing the potential for damage to your engine & its ancillary pipe work. Of course those behind the green agenda are delighted at the idea of millions of cars prematurely written off & people turning to Lithium Ion driven cars which are in themselves an environmental disaster waiting to happen. At some point Lithium Ion batteries will be replaced with new technology & the world will be piled up with millions of these useless artefacts which will rot & pollute the environment for 10's 1000's of years.
Leaving that aside, I have read many reports that people using E10 & making long trips, have had suffered a severe drop in MPG, presumably because the engine must draw more fuel to achieve the same distance it would have achieved on pure petrol. This maybe why the petroleum companies are so keen on "Going green", the more ethanol they add, the less oil they have to dig out of the ground & we the "Useful idiots" have to fill up more often, thus making them even more money. It's a win, win & thrice win for the oil companies & they can brandish their bogus green credentials to the world. BP has just raked in their biggest profit for 14 years. £6 billion. I wonder how they managed that?

As they say, "You couldn't make it up"

https://bit.ly/3QZ9aKF

[Monty-4]

"phony green agenda"? "climate zealots"? "vilification"?

Ethanol fuel is likely not the answer, but you lot sound like nut jobs. All the usual regurgitated catchphrases pushed through the press (have some imagination and come up with your own at least), but no serious ackowledgement of, or solutions to, increasing levels of atmospheric CO2 and pollution.

The super-rich oil giants must be loving that they've got you believing nonsense, blaming others and shouting at clouds!

[rocco]

Just in case anyone wants to read some information that isn't sponsored by government or any climate alarmist nutters, this is an interesting take. Make up your own mind but keep it open to change too.

https://edberry.com/blog/climate/climat ... -alarmism/

--
"As CO2 has had no noticeable effect on climate in 600 million years, until 15- 20 years ago, when carbon tax was invented, any alleged climatic effects can be ignored."

[les]

Who is right? I bet both sides claim it’s them !

[Maurice_Minor]

Maybe I'm just an old hippie, but I do tend to mistrust a bunch of billionaires who own beach front properties & fly around in private jets telling me how to live my life.
We forget is we are no longer a manufacturing nation, compared to China our pollution is like smoking half a cigarette in a large house with all the windows open.

Pic 1 DAVOS
Pic 2 CHINA

[Pete Bags]

Leaving that aside, I have read many reports that people using E10 & making long trips, have had suffered a severe drop in MPG, presumably because the engine must draw more fuel to achieve the same distance it would have achieved on pure petrol.

On my daily modern driver, with it's MPG computers etc, I experimented by filling up with basic E10 and recording the average MPG and then with E5 Super. Interestingly, the E5 Super gave me around an extra 10% fuel economy - and as E5 Super is around 10% more expensive, it pretty much evens out the cost/distance issue. As almost all of my drives are pretty similar, I think it is a fairly accurate experiment. As a result, I now fill up only with E5 Super - at least with the increased distance it gives me, I don't have to fill up so often!

I know this is not a scientific experiment, but I like to think that the E5 Super is probably also better for my engine in the long term as the Super fuel claims to have additional engine/fuel injection benefits compared to the basic E10. Likewise, I only fill my Moggy with E5 Super, preferably Esso, as it apparently has zero added ethanol here in the south of the UK!

[Mick Lynch]

“ Oil companies claim they are "helping the environment" by giving you 90% of the petrol that you paid for & topping up the last 10% with ethanol”

Errrr, no. You pay for 100% of ‘product’ at the pump which happens to be formulated as 90% petroleum distillate and 10% ethanol. There’s not a scooby doo villain in the pump with a jug of alcohol twirling his moustache and cackling!

Can we leave all this conspiracy theory and culture war nonsense for the daily mail and the guardian to battle out and just talk about our cars?

[rocco]

Can we leave all this conspiracy theory and culture war nonsense for the daily mail and the guardian to battle out and just talk about our cars?

You can leave it whenever you want mate. Nobody has claimed any conspiracy to fuel firms diluting their product and nobody has forced you to reply here with your unsubstantiated opinion, gleaned from what appears to be an unnatural obsession with the Daily Mail/Guardian and its readership.

The rest of us will continue to post whatever we like, without your royal highness' approval.

[geoberni]

Oil companies claim they are "helping the environment" by giving you 90% of the petrol that you paid for & topping up the last 10% with ethanol, but still charging you full price, akin to a pub landlord adding 10% water to his beer, claiming its to "help" alcoholics?

Except the one huge hole in your statement is that the Ethanol is more expensive than water.....
With global Oil prices being easily influenced by events, such as Ukraine, it's hard to make direct price comparison, but Ethanol isn't cheap and in the past 10 years it has, on occasion, even been more expensive than petrol if you compare it at 'price per barrel'. Even that isn't an easy comparison, since if for example it cost $54 a barrel for Ethanol, do you use that price for the comparison, or do you allow for the fact that Ethanol has 67% of the energy of Oil... so comparing the 'Energy Barrel' would require a 'bigger barrel' for Ethanol, costing around $76.


It does however depend on which figures you're using, not forgetting that the majority of out price in the UK is Taxes...
All far to complex for me to worry about...

[Monty-4]

Just in case anyone wants to read some information that isn't sponsored by government or any climate alarmist nutters, this is an interesting take. Make up your own mind but keep it open to change too.

https://edberry.com/blog/climate/climat ... -alarmism/

--
"As CO2 has had no noticeable effect on climate in 600 million years, until 15- 20 years ago, when carbon tax was invented, any alleged climatic effects can be ignored."

"If you open your mind too much, your brain falls out".

[scrooge95]

Leaving that aside, I have read many reports that people using E10 & making long trips, have had suffered a severe drop in MPG, presumably because the engine must draw more fuel to achieve the same distance it would have achieved on pure petrol.

On my daily modern driver, with it's MPG computers etc, I experimented by filling up with basic E10 and recording the average MPG and then with E5 Super. Interestingly, the E5 Super gave me around an extra 10% fuel economy - and as E5 Super is around 10% more expensive, it pretty much evens out the cost/distance issue. As almost all of my drives are pretty similar, I think it is a fairly accurate experiment. As a result, I now fill up only with E5 Super - at least with the increased distance it gives me, I don't have to fill up so often!

I know this is not a scientific experiment, but I like to think that the E5 Super is probably also better for my engine in the long term as the Super fuel claims to have additional engine/fuel injection benefits compared to the basic E10. Likewise, I only fill my Moggy with E5 Super, preferably Esso, as it apparently has zero added ethanol here in the south of the UK!

The thing with that 'experiment' is that you're actually changing the type of fuel used - the Super petrol isn't just different because of the ethanol content - it's always been higher octane even before the basic fuel had it's extra ethanol added. That said, you're probably right about it being better for your engine, and certainly that it gives better MPG - but that's always been the case, not just now.

I can't say for my Morris, as it's been off the road having engine and gearbox issues fixed for most of the time I've owned it (hopefully soon to return!!), but I own a classic VW campervan as well and it gets used a lot, both for distance and local driving.
I've always recorded the MPG (mainly because old 1970s campervans are ridiculously uneconomic and we all like to squeeze every possible mile out of our tanks of petrol) and from previous years when basic petrol was E5 and this year when basic petrol is E10, I've seen absolutely no difference in the engine running or the MPG. On a good run I still get 25mpg, and driving to work it is around 21-22mpg. Rubbish isn't it??!
The main issue would be the hydroscopic nature of ethanol potentially drawing more water (causing rust in the tank) from the atmosphere if the van was laid up over the winter, and the effect of ethanol on the rubber parts of the carb and the fuel lines. Ergo, the recommendation on our 'late bay' VW forum is to leave your camper with E10 fuel in if you're not using it for the chilly months. Alternatively, just use it and keep the petrol flowing around rather than sitting and potentially degrading things. I use mine all year.

Just my thoughts, from an alternative 'classic' point of view.
When I've got Henry back on the road, I'll be all about the Morris chat ;)

[Maurice_Minor]

Leaving that aside, I have read many reports that people using E10 & making long trips, have had suffered a severe drop in MPG, presumably because the engine must draw more fuel to achieve the same distance it would have achieved on pure petrol.

On my daily modern driver, with it's MPG computers etc, I experimented by filling up with basic E10 and recording the average MPG and then with E5 Super. Interestingly, the E5 Super gave me around an extra 10% fuel economy - and as E5 Super is around 10% more expensive, it pretty much evens out the cost/distance issue. As almost all of my drives are pretty similar, I think it is a fairly accurate experiment. As a result, I now fill up only with E5 Super - at least with the increased distance it gives me, I don't have to fill up so often!

I know this is not a scientific experiment, but I like to think that the E5 Super is probably also better for my engine in the long term as the Super fuel claims to have additional engine/fuel injection benefits compared to the basic E10. Likewise, I only fill my Moggy with E5 Super, preferably Esso, as it apparently has zero added ethanol here in the south of the UK!

The thing with that 'experiment' is that you're actually changing the type of fuel used - the Super petrol isn't just different because of the ethanol content - it's always been higher octane even before the basic fuel had it's extra ethanol added. That said, you're probably right about it being better for your engine, and certainly that it gives better MPG - but that's always been the case, not just now.

I can't say for my Morris, as it's been off the road having engine and gearbox issues fixed for most of the time I've owned it (hopefully soon to return!!), but I own a classic VW campervan as well and it gets used a lot, both for distance and local driving.
I've always recorded the MPG (mainly because old 1970s campervans are ridiculously uneconomic and we all like to squeeze every possible mile out of our tanks of petrol) and from previous years when basic petrol was E5 and this year when basic petrol is E10, I've seen absolutely no difference in the engine running or the MPG. On a good run I still get 25mpg, and driving to work it is around 21-22mpg. Rubbish isn't it??!
The main issue would be the hydroscopic nature of ethanol potentially drawing more water (causing rust in the tank) from the atmosphere if the van was laid up over the winter, and the effect of ethanol on the rubber parts of the carb and the fuel lines. Ergo, the recommendation on our 'late bay' VW forum is to leave your camper with E10 fuel in if you're not using it for the chilly months. Alternatively, just use it and keep the petrol flowing around rather than sitting and potentially degrading things. I use mine all year.

Just my thoughts, from an alternative 'classic' point of view.
When I've got Henry back on the road, I'll be all about the Morris chat ;)

I'm trying "Lucas Oil 40576 Safeguard Ethanol Fuel Conditioner" in my Mercedes CLA 4WD estate. It has an app that works out average MPG per trip. I'm still using E10. On its first trip with a full tank with the additive it showed 42.5MPG normally it would show 39-41 MPG. This is a regular trip & does involve motorway & A road driving. M25 driving doesn't necessarily mean fast motoring, most of the time its stop/ start. I'll start making a tally & see what happens. I must say, the car seems to be much smoother. I also have a little Toyota IQ which was running oddly. Last week I filled up with the additive & it now runs smoothly. Coincidence? Who knows. I'll have to check the MPG on this as well. My Moggie convertible gets E5 &a dash of lead substitute.
I must admit to wondering what the billionaires who meet every year at DAVOS in Switzerland to issue directives on how wasteful we all are, whilst arriving in their private jets, use as fuel? Somehow I bet its not the all new ethanol based aviation fuels being rolled out for we the peasants when we travel, it will be the finest, purest aviation fuel that money can buy.