Ethanol
has made a lot of boat owners miserable, if only for a while.
The stuff is a solvent that cleans gunk off the inside of
gas tanks, clogs filters, and stops engines. It also has
the potential to attract water through the tank’s vent
and separate itself from the gasoline. Should this ever happen,
straight ethanol would then sink to the bottom of the tank
and could damage the engine, especially a two-cycle engine.
And it quickly destroys most fiberglass tanks. (Of the hundreds
of different resins made by Interplastics Corp, only three
are approved by U.L for use with ethanol-enhanced gasoline.)
One more fact about ethanol: it isn’t likely to go away anytime
soon. Ethanol first trickled into the nation’s fuel supply
in the 1970s when lead, which had been used for decades in gasoline
to boost octane, was first outlawed. Although ethanol was a relatively
inexpensive way to raise octane, it remained mostly a novelty (“gasohol”)
until a decade later when the Environmental Protection Agency began
requiring the use of oxygenated gasoline in certain urban areas.
Ethanol was one of two oxygenates that were added to gasoline to
meet the EPA emission requirements. The other was MTBE, which is
an ether made from methanol.
When it was first used in the 1980s, the EPA required that 30% of
oxygenates be made from ethanol but backed off after the major oil
companies complained that ethanol was difficult to store and ship
long distances. (It should also be noted that at the time oil companies
made less money with ethanol.) As a result, ethanol was only used
in the Midwest; MTBE was used everywhere else.
A few years later, MTBE began showing up in drinking water after
it leaked from storage tanks and two-cycle outboards. In 2005 it
was outlawed in five states, including California, Connecticut, and
New York. In late 2005, the federal government denied a request from
oil companies that would have protected them from lawsuits arising
from the use of MTBE. Within months, all of the areas of the country
that had been using MTBE suddenly found themselves using a gasoline
blended with 10% ethanol (E10). It didn’t take long, only a
few weeks, before boat owners began reporting problems with clogged
filters and leaking fiberglass tanks.
As of now, about half of the states have E10; the rest (mostly rural
states) have straight gasoline that must be refined to boost octane.
(It is worth noting that the oil companies, which had resisted the
use of ethanol, dropped their opposition when the federal government
began offering a subsidy for E10.)
One more daunting fact: Gasoline used for maritime purposes represents
far, far less than 1% of the nation’s consumption of gasoline
in trucks and automobiles—.005%. That miniscule percentage
includes commercial shipping as well as recreational boats.
The average automobile tends to be used much more frequently than
the average boat, which means gasoline doesn’t sit around long
enough to form gunk on tank walls. Auto tanks have closed systems
that aren’t vented to the outside air. No air = no moisture
= no chance of phase separation problems. And, of course, cars don’t
have fiberglass tanks so that wasn’t a problem.
All of this means that there has been no outcry from automobile owners
over the introduction of ethanol. Question: If 99.995% of the country
is relatively happy about something, what are the chances that the
remaining .005% can make enough noise to change things? Answer: Not
much. (Only Hawaii seems to be the exception.)
BoatU.S. called Steve Garrett of Votla Oil, a gasoline distributor
in Massachusetts. Could Volta distribute gasoline without ethanol
to its marina customers? Steve didn’t think so. He noted that
it isn’t legal in Massachusetts to sell gasoline without an
oxygenate — ethanol. He also said that gasoline shipped to
Volta’s distributor doesn’t have sufficient octane to
use in a car or boat; it has to be blended (at the local refinery)
with ethanol to boost octane.
Next, BoatU.S. called the American Petroleum Institute (API), a trade
association that speaks for the gasoline industry. If a state-by-state
lobbying effort made it legal for boats to use gasoline without ethanol,
is there some way the big oil companies could ship straight gasoline
to their distributors for use at marinas?
The gist of the API answer is that establishing some sort of system
to distribute gasoline to boat owners, even if it could be done legally,
would be expensive. Like buying anything in bulk, shipping gasoline
in massive quantities for automobiles helps to keep the price down
for boats. A good example of what happens to gasoline prices when
dealing in “small” quantities is the light plane industry,
which uses “avgas.” It doesn’t contain ethanol,
has slightly higher octane than automobile gasoline, and costs a
whopping $1 to $2 more per gallon. Since most of the problems with
ethanol-enhanced gasoline are likely to fade—the gunk clogging
filters disappears after the tanks have been filled a time or two,
and the chances of phase separation occurring can be reduced significantly
by keeping tanks topped off — would boat owners be willing
to pay the extra price for straight gasoline? Not likely. Even the
considerable cost of replacing a fiberglass tank seems less onerous
than the prospect of having to pay 50% more for gasoline without
ethanol.
Could Ethanol Find it’s
Way Into Diesel Fuel?
As of now, the government has not announced plans to require the
use of either biodesiel (also called soy diesel) or E-diesel (also
called oxy-diesel or diesohol). There are no front-page legislative
votes pending and no speeches demanding that diesel fuel be replaced
by a more eco-friendly fuel that will reduce the nation’s
dependence on foreign oil. So, why even talk about it?
The answer is that while much of the nation continues to adjust
to ethanol-enhanced gasoline, at least two groups — the E-diesel
Consortium and the National Biodiesel Board — are quietly promoting ‘renewable
alternatives’ to petroleum diesel fuel. The first, the National
Biodiesel Board, coordinates research and development for biodiesel,
an oil derived most often from soybeans. The other group, the E-diesel
Consortium, is made up of a group of “stakeholder companies
and organizations that are committed to bringing E-diesel to the
marketplace.” E-diesel is made with ethanol. Both groups are
betting that their respective fuels could eventually help engine
manufacturers meet tougher emissions regulations for diesel engines — an
80% reduction in emissions from all diesel engines by 2014.
The two fuels are very different. Biodiesel has been around for over
a decade; as far back as January 1997, BoatU.S. noted that 20/80
blend of biodiesel reduces particulates 31%, carbon monoxide 21%
and hydrocarbons 47%. It also lubricates a diesel’s fuel system,
gets rid of gunk in the tank, and is almost impossible to ignite.
Using a 20/80 blend doesn’t require any modifications to an
engine’s hoses and seals. There were, and still are, a lot
of reasons to like biodiesel.
In some respects, E-diesel is similar to biodiesel: Both are made
from renewable resources and burn cleaner than petroleum diesel.
Both will clean gunk that builds up in tanks. (Note that for both
E-diesel and biodiesel, clogged filters would be problem, at least
initially.) And the use of either fuel blended with petroleum diesel
(15/85 for E-diesel and 20/80 for biodiesel) does not require engines
to be modified. But it’s their differences that are most likely
to grab your attention. One positive for E-diesel is that it would
be much easier to start in cold weather. On the other hand, it doesn’t
provide lubricity, which is one of biodiesel’s biggest positives,
especially in this era of low-sulfur diesel. The biggest difference,
however — and it is a huge difference for marine purposes — is
that E-diesel, like gasoline, is a Class I flammable liquid.
It’s a difference that has not been missed by the automobile
and trucking industries. Shawn Whitacre, the director of Chemical
Technology for Cummins Inc., says that from a safety standpoint,
E-diesel is a “no-go” and would change a diesel engine
from a safe product to one that is potentially dangerous. He is not
aware of any U.S. diesel manufacturers who support its development.
Even the proponents of E-diesel acknowledge that there would need
to be many changes in the way diesel fuel is stored, delivered, and
consumed before it could be use safely.
There is no reason to believe that the use of E-diesel will become
widespread, at least in the near future. An ASTM (American Society
for Testing and Materials;) specification must first be adopted before
a fuel can be sold to the public. E-diesel is only about two years
into the rating process, and as Whitacre points out, there are no
guarantees of success. He notes that attempts thus far to ballot
an ASTM standard have met with “significant resistance” from
a variety of stakeholders. And while E-diesel is still considered “experimental,” biodiesel
has had an ASTM rating for over a decade and is currently available at about
400 filling stations nationwide, out of 187,000.
Diesel engines, because they are more efficient and get much better mileage
than comparable gasoline engines, are used in almost half of the automobiles
sold in Europe. In this country, pollution concerns have meant that diesels
are used primarily on larger commercial vehicles. According to the Department
of Energy, if 30% of the passenger cars and light-duty trucks in U.S. had diesel
engines, net crude oil imports would be reduced by 350,000 barrels per day.
In the quest to reduce the nation’s dependence on foreign oil, it’s
likely that diesels will be getting more and more attention from Capitol Hill
to the automakers. Improvements in technology — catalytic converters — will
help diesels run cleaner. But the key to cleaner burning diesels is the fuel
itself. Leland Tong, a consultant to the National Biodiesel Board, thinks that
the use of one or the other fuel will ultimately be driven by economics, “If
one makes more money than the other, that’s what will be in the system,” said
Tong. Cummins’ Whitacre also worries, that while E-diesel makes no sense
from a technical viewpoint, it could get a boost from the corn lobby. Will
E-diesel become a political issue? Stay tuned.
BoatUS is Testing Biodiesel
and E-diesel in Fiberglass Fuel Tanks
If the use of either E-diesel or biodiesel were to become widespread,
what would the effect be in fiberglass fuel tanks? Is ethanol mixed
with diesel fuel as corrosive in a fiberglass tank as it is when
it’s blended with gasoline? Is biodiesel corrosive?
Rick Strand of Impact Matrix Systems was asked by BoatU.S. to conduct
a series of tests using both fuels to at least get a preliminary
idea what the effects of the new fuels might be. Strand is using
newly laminated samples immersed in E-diesel and biodiesel for several
months. He will test samples before and after immersion, to gauge
the loss of strength and stiffness, if any. The results, when finalized,
will be posted at BoatUS.com/Seaworthy/ethanol.asp.
— By Bob Adriance
© BoatU.S. Magazine July 2007
