Ethanol

Could Ethanol fuel be damaging your car? The University of South Alabama's Dean of the College of Engineering, Dr. John Steadman says "ethanol could damage fuel lines, rings and those things that may be affected by having a strong chemical solvent" in cars made before 1986

Sao Paulo Ethanol Pump by Mariordo Mario Roberto Duran Ortiz is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license

Ethanol fuel damages older engines, the legislation in Australia restricts any blend of more than 10% of the corrosive liquid to be sold from regular petrol stations. Countries in the American continent have placed laws to restrict the sale of "gas" without ethanol, which is sold in its E20 (20% ethanol) or E100 in the case of Brazil where the vehicles have an auxiliary tank which allows for the engine to warm up from a cold start, using petrol, and then the ethanol takes over.

While the fuel is controversial and requires vast farm land and manufacturing facilities to produce, the blend can reduce carbon emissions (Particularly CO2 emissions) by 6-80%, just looking at the combustion process. There are other factors which go into the calculation when CO2 is measured against the movement of a vehicle. One of the most important factors is the quality of the engine, when the engine is old or /and corroded, the vehicle will be slower and could be more carbon expensive to run.

Newer cars do not need to worry much, but because of the corrosive property of ethanol, which could destroy the plastic parts of a fuel tank the fuel could lead to engine death.

Another property of the blend is its phase separation where a vehicle's engine could be damaged, when mixed with water, particularly dangerous for boats, or in cold temperatures due to condensation of the fuel tank. Popular Mechanics have an article with advice available click here to find out more.

Petrol is not the solution, but ethanol blends wont be either if they damage the engines of current day, make sure you know what kind of petrol suites your car at the gas station, and where to get the right stuff if your car wont accept what's being offered.

Visit this website (Federal Chambers of Automotive Industries) to find out if ethanol fuel suits your car

Visit this website (Australian government's page) for a government provided website on alternative fuels.