Ethanol could kill your small engine
By 2022, the government says the U.S. must produce 36 billion gallons of renewable fuel. But the ethanol mandate could be disastrous for your lawnmowers, boats, and small engines. Peter O'Dowd reports.
An ethanol pump (AFP/Getty Images)
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TEXT OF STORY
Kai Ryssdal: Thirty-six billion gallons -- that's how much renewable fuel the government says the U.S. must produce by 2022. And here's an unexpected consequence of that ethanol mandate: Alcohol is murder on lawnmowers and small engines. Mechanics insist that as gasoline blended with ethanol takes over at gas stations, small engines across the country will start choking to death. Wyoming Public Radio's Peter O'Dowd reports.
Peter O'Dowd: At the WyoTech automotive school in Laramie, Wyo., Larry Wostenburg likes to conduct experiments with engines for his students. Today's test: how much ethanol a small engine can take before it breaks down.
Larry Wostenburg: We're going to put a little choke action on here and start this baby up.
Wostenburg pours alcohol into a lawnmower's fuel tank. His supervisor Jack Longress explains why using too much ethanol can destroy this kind of engine.
Jack Longress: It's a recipe for disaster because, eventually, when those pieces get brittle they're more susceptible to breaking.
Alcohol makes engines run dangerously hot. It melts rubber components. Longress says use anything higher than 10 percent ethanol on small engines long enough, and the insides will start to rot.
Longress: The corrosive properties, what you'd see is, much like what you see on the top of dirty battery terminals.
Drivers of flex-fuel cars don't have to worry much. Their on-board computers can regulate fuel mixtures. But small engines like WyoTech's lawnmower don't have those features. They're more likely to malfunction if they're filled with the wrong blend, and broken engines can mean injured operators. That's just one of the reasons why Kris Kiser is so worried. He's with AllSafe, an advocate group for small-engine manufacturers.
Kris Kiser: What were concerned about are mid-level blends entering into the marketplace in advance of consumers being educated about their use and what their affects will be.
Kiser says millions of chainsaws, lawnmowers and boats could be vulnerable to death by ethanol. This year the government ordered the production of 9 billion gallons of renewable fuel. A decade from now, that number will grow to 26 billion gallons. As the mandate expands, Kiser says higher blends of ethanol will be pumped from every gas station in America. And unless people know what they're doing, he says they could easily fill up with a blend far too potent for their machines.
Kiser: If they drive up to a pump and they see E-20, E-30, E-40, I don't think they know what that means. Even if they do know what it means -- that E-30 means 30 percent ethanol in the gallon they're producing -- if they are selling it at the pump, I think there is the assumption that it's OK, that it's going to work in whatever I put it in.
Ron Lamberty: That's kind of a moot point. We've already got those concerns.
Ron Lamberty works for the American Coalition of Ethanol. He points out that consumers are quite capable of telling the difference between diesel and regular fuel at the gas station. He says America's well on the road to using more renewable fuels like ethanol. Small engine manufacturers can either protest, he says, or start improving their products.
Lamberty: If we always listened to the naysayers, we would still be sitting here with leaded regular gasoline in the United States. We've got to move forward and the small engine guys have to come along.
Critics say they might come along more quickly if the science were more definitive. No one really knows exactly how sensitive small engines are to ethanol. The standard threshold for lawnmowers, for example, is 10 percent, but our experiment showed it could run on a much richer mixture.
The Department of Energy published a study on ethanol in small engines this fall. You can check just how deadly the fuel might be to your old John Deere.
In Laramie, Wyo., I'm Peter O'Dowd for Marketplace.
Comments
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From WA, 12/04/2009
Read the Outdoor Power Equipment Institute report on ethanol and you'll want to strangle your legislator for having forced ethanol into our fuel supply http://www.opei.org/ht/a/GetDocumentAction/i/1926.
There is only one solution. VOTE OUT legislators who force consumers to destroy their own equipment.
The Outdoor Power Equipment Institute (OPEI) announced that it remains concerned by the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) response to the Growth Energy waiver on 15 percent ethanol as it overlooks the impact on hundreds of millions of outdoor power equipment used by consumers, such as utility vehicles, lawnmowers, chainsaws, snow throwers and other affected equipment, including boats, ATVs, motorcycles and snow mobiles.
“EPA’s letter basically addressed the consideration of E15 for newer automobiles, but ignores the substantial non-automobile product families and the economic and safety issues related to their use,” said Kris Kiser, Executive Vice President at OPEI. “However, we’re pleased that EPA acknowledges more testing is needed.”
Department of Energy testing of mid-level ethanol blends on outdoor power equipment engines demonstrated performance irregularities and failure on tested product. “Should EPA allow higher levels for newer autos, we still face a daunting task of educating millions of consumers and labeling pumps to prevent possible mis-fueling that could potentially harm engine equipment and its users,” added Kiser.
10/30/2009
What the hell is up with all this environmentally friendly crap. We NEED gas. The only reason gas is unleaded instead of leaded is because some idiot decided it would increase new car sales and make gas "safer" wtf? Safe gas? it made gas cost more just as ethanol made gas cost more that methanol did. All this save the environment stuff is BS. americans wont give up gas because we are dependant on it. GO TO AFRICA YOU TREE HUGGERS-no cars to pollute your precious air. The world has to end someday and humans will all die before that. Have a nice day and don't hit the red button nukes are "dangerous". BYE BYE middle east
From Scotia, NY, 01/17/2009
I don't have any problem with the use of ethanol in products that say they are designed to handle it. My problem is what to do for our older products that we know were designed to run on regular gas. I have been hearing of damaged fuel systems? and would like to know if anyone has experienced damage to a new product that has stated that it can use ethanol up to 10%. Also at what time did products change to except this ethanol or how can one tell if thier product can use it or not? . Thanks for any help in this matter Thomas Bovard , E-mails are welcome.
From tampa, FL, 01/14/2009
I do boat repairs in south tampa fla.
the E10 is dissoving everything including fuel pumps, fuel lines, fuel tanks and attracting water into fuel cells. and combining with exsisting water in cells and increasing there levels of water and ethenol (will not burn}. also cleaning out 2cycle blocks and putting all the debri in places you dont want it oh, wait its eating up the crank shaft seals. anything above E10 we are all screwed BUY NEW YOU WONT HAVE A CHOICE
From Boise, ID, 01/14/2009
What about car engines over 30 years old, i.e. my 1975 VW Bug? My mechanic thinks recent problems are due to the gas tank et al being "scrubbed out." Then not passing through the fuel injection system properly. I love my old car and hope to keep her running.
From Scotia, NY, 01/09/2009
I am a member of a snowmobile family and have been concerned about that fact that I have to use 10% ethanol in my new 600 SDI Ski-doo's. I have been a faithful user of marvel mystery oil in everything for 35+ years and feel that this is the answer when it comes to protecting my snowmobile engines and fuel systems. I'm not sure but I think I should not use any isopropyl dry gas any more to suspend any water that I may get on the trail while gassing up becuase this will raise my alcohol level even higher than 10%. Can anyone tell me if I still need to worry about water or does the 10% ethanol provide the same protection as my dry gas. Thanking all in advance for any help in this matter . Thanks Tom
01/07/2009
Interesting...... I was at the Green Industry Expo where I saw that Kohler Company introduced an entire line of small engines that are Flex Fuel capable and with blends all the way to E-85
From Alexandria, VA, 01/05/2009
Just to clarify our position, outdoor power equipment manufacturers are not anti ethanol and can design product to run on a wide range of fuels and ethanol levels. We do not object to increasing ethanol levels to meet government mandates. Quite the opposite, equipment manufacturers will gladly produce new product for customers to meet new fuel requirements. Our main and continuing concern is simply our customers and their safety. The fact is that running existing equipment - boats, snowmobiles, ATVs, and non flex-fuel automobiles on fuels that they were not designed for presents very real safety and performance issues.
For example, boat engine failure miles from shore, snowmobile engine failure in remote areas in inclement weather, chainsaw blades engaging with premature clutch engagement are demonstrable safety and use issues. This is about engineering and science. We’re happy to build new equipment for new fuels with increased ethanol but we’ll not sit idly by and put our customers’ safety and economic interests at risk.
As stated in the interview and to legislators and regulators our concern is the transition to new fuels and their use in product for which it was not designed. We must look at the lesson of history when ethanol was pushed into the fuels marketplace in the 1970s during the oil embargo. Widespread product and engine failures created a consumer backlash against the fuel. The lesson learned is: If you are going to use a particular fuel…design for it. It also has to be emission compliant. Outdoor power equipment manufactures now have to meet EPA emission and evaporative requirements like automobiles and different fuels have different emission profiles. Regrettably, the issue is simply more complicated that many ethanol proponents acknowledge. If you are going to change the fuels in the existing fuels marketplace then fully educate consumers about the effects on existing equipment. Outdoor power equipment manufacturers currently produce product that operates on battery, solar, electric, propane, CNG, diesel, gasoline and ethanol-gasoline fuel blends to E-10. We fully support and are cooperatively working with the Department of Energy on testing equipment with ethanol blend fuels to better understand the effects and the challenges in transitioning them to market. Sadly, we are portrayed by some commentators as anti-ethanol. We are not. We fully support the government’s efforts to reduce our dependence on foreign sources of oil. Outdoor power equipment makers are consumer product companies that value their customers’ safety and their products’ performance in their hands and are able and willing to design and build new equipment to meet government fuel requirements. We are just mindful of history’s lessons.
Kris Kiser
Executive Vice President, Outdoor Power Equipment Institute
From Northville, MI, 01/05/2009
Ethanol kills ??? Only in a place like Wyoming ...
Ethanol is trying to prevent deaths from the stupid, small engines, using carcinogenic, crude-derived gasoline.
Use electric tools (much cleaner and cheaper) and stop driving your cars, then I believe you're truly concerned.
So don't shoot the messenger and cry the crocodile tears.
From Merrimack, NH, 01/02/2009
A few years ago I was watching a race on television. The fuel used by these cars was alcohol. One driver had an accident that I believe split the fuel tank. The alcohol must have caught on fire because the driver got out and appeared to be jumping around. You can't see the flame in an alcohol fire. Someone from a pit crew went out and doused the driver with a dry chemical fire extinguiser. The driver was still experiencing pain but the pit crew could not tell if the flame was out. Is this the alcohol that we will use for our energy needs?
From Westerville, OH, 01/01/2009
The comment by Mr. Proctor on using 100 octane avgas points to the problem faced by owners of small aircraft. When the refiners stopped producing 80 octane avgas, many of us went to the expense of certifying unleaded 87 octane auto fuel for use in our aircraft. This avoided lead fowling of the aircraft spark plugs and as well as introduction of lead into the environment associated with 100 octane avgas (which has four times as much lead as the old 80 octane avgas or pre '70s leaded gasoline). Fuel with any ethanol (even less than 5%) can not be used - not only because of corrosion to fuel systems, but the differences in vapor pressure for ethanol can cause engine failure at altitude. Due to government mandate, I can no longer find auto fuel without ethanol and am forced to burn a highly leaded fuel. Another unintended consequence of government mandates.
From Hayward, CA, 01/01/2009
Should California consider a fee on corn fuel ethanol use?
* * Lower price for food, gas, water, beer, cleaner air and funds for the budget from oil profit.
From pittsford, MI, 01/01/2009
hey guys, check out the new kohler engines for lawn equipment for 2009, 90% of all their new engines are e85 ready, this changes everything. ethonal has been a big boon for mid america economy, and also a lot of battery tech. coming also in lawn and garden, so relax and visit year local L @ G dealer this spring not the box store.
From kalamazoo, MI, 01/01/2009
Some of the 70's cars burning gasohol had problems. Seems some natural rubber "O" rings didn't like alcohol mixes. Since then all manufacturers switched to Viton or Buna "O" rings of superior quality.
Actually, material wise the ethanol's are friendly to more materials than petro. Meaning more to select from for product design. Also, would suggest if concerned of small engine damage from ethanol blends of gasoline....use something like Marvel Mystery oil a excellent gas additive. No one is testing utilizing a simple over the counter product to protect engine components. I would with expensive motorcycles and outboards. If they are two cycle.....use a slightly higher oil mix.
Mark Keller take reflects everything I've learned on the subject. Ethanol a excellent fuel and a no brainer upon our economy. The value of not exporting a trillion dollars for energy would be more important stimulus than all the artificial cheap money currently being thrown about.
From CA, 12/31/2008
Folks, this small engine concern is similar propaganda as Food vs. Fuel. We have a lawnmower and weedeater that have run on ethanol-blended gasoline very well for years. My parents have decades-old small engines that have used ethanol blends for many years, and they run great. Don't know about boats, but why would they be any different? I can see how something from the 1980's and before may have incompatibilities, but from the 1990's on most all engines should be compatible. If not, shame on the manufacturers for selling cheap junk.
From Brentwood, TN, 12/31/2008
I must agree with "Home building's" comments above. This story was not well researched. As an engtineer with experience with several of the major small engine fuel system manufacturers here are the facts. The rubbers and plastics in our carbs can all tolerate the 10% ethanol in fuels. The problem is the lack of a feed back and control system to tell us how the engine runs. 10% ethanol will enlean the mixture 3.4% Ironically the regulations prevent the customer from being able to adjust the air fuel mixture richer, so while he is forced to use ethanol, he cannot adjust his engine to compensate for that! IF the engine manufacturer sets the mixture at his factory on ethanol, then IF the engine is run on regular gasoline it is too rich. If the EPA were to audit this engine it might fail the EPA audit and the manufacturer could be forced to re-call products from the field. So ROCK-HARD PLACE!
MR. Keller's 13 points are mostly wrong! The US has nowhere near the capacity to grow enough crops for our Ethanol use! Look up a great National Geographic article entitled "Growing Fuel" Brazil makes ethanol from Sugar Cane, which is 13x more sugar dense than corn. "we can't grow much sugar cane in the US" Ethanol from corn is at BEST an energy neutral product. As far as carbon sequestering, sure, you sequester it, until you burn it! But you are at least NOT releasing new carbon from fossil fuels.
From Wichita, KS, 12/31/2008
I'm tiring of lazy reporting on nearly all matters relating to energy:
First, ethanol has FAR fewer BTUs/gallon than does gasoline (gasoline has 47% more energy in every drop!). Your fuel mileage will absolutetly reflect this--expect very close to a 5% drop with E10.
Modern engine systems compensate by using more fuel. Carbureted cars, mowers, chainsaws and tractors must have larger openings in the carburetor bowl "jets" to make the same amout of power (on greater ethanol fuel volume than gasoline, of course).
However, on the good side, ethanol has anti-knock capacities and compression ratios can be raised to the range of 15:1 instead of the customary gasoline maximum of around 10:1. More power is created in the same engine but there are other complicating diffulties, such as accelerated wear. Race car guys have known this and mastered the tricks of getting the most from alcohol cars (on a frequent basis) since the 1950s.
Note that alcohol is one of the best and cheapest solvents--running a bit in your gasoline engine will clean deposits from your top piston rings and from behind the heads of your intake valves--both desirable outcomes.
But older gasoline engines are very likely to have seals and pumps that are very vulnerable to destruction by this caustic solvent. It is a REAL problem, and any old gasoline engine in storage should absolutely have alcohol mixes minimized.
By the way, diesel fuel has 63% more energy per gallon than ethanol.
Please, more facts and less opinions on energy. I expect more from you than from industry hacks that have the money to go to DC and mislead our leaders.
Thank you.
From South China, ME, 12/30/2008
We recently had an icestorm and no electricity for 3 days... fortunately I have my gasoline powered generator purchased at the beginning of a 14 day outage in 1998. I used stabil treatment and have not run the generator in ~4 years, Back when MTBE was used in gas. It started with no problem and ran the E10 gas I gave it... My neighbor's generator has been run once a year and had "old gas" maybe 8 months old. Her generator started hard and ran rough. I understand that Ethanol gas gets "old" like cheese and yogart. Once she got fresh gas (E10) it ran well. Local Small Engine repair guy says use fresh gas... This has worked for alot of his customers... dump out the old gas from chainsaw, put in new E10 gas/oil and it runs fine... Yet this is a concern for those of us with a bunch of small engines. What I have been saying is anicdotal... It would be good to do more stories from those who use and service small engines. Manufacturers want to sell new... and government is promoting ethanol... maybe not so good for small engines... I'll check out the airport option for "E-zero" gas for my small engines. Thanks.
From Portland, OR, 12/30/2008
This sounds like more miss information put out by the big oil company's. Any one wanting to know the facts of using ethonal as a fuel should get David Blume's book Alcohol Can Be a Gas!
1. Almost every country can become energy independent. Anywhere that has sunlight and land can produce alcohol from plants. Brazil, the fifth largest country in the world imports no oil, since half its cars run on alcohol fuel made from sugarcane, grown on 1% of its land.
2. We can reverse global warming. Since alcohol is made from plants, its production takes carbon dioxide out of the air, sequestering it, with the result that it reverses the greenhouse effect (while potentially vastly improving the soil). Recent studies show that in a permaculturally designed mixed-crop alcohol fuel production system, the amount of greenhouse gases removed from the atmosphere by plants—and then exuded by plant roots into the soil as sugar—can be 13 times what is emitted by processing the crops and burning the alcohol in our cars.
3. We can revitalize the economy instead of suffering through Peak Oil. Oil is running out, and what we replace it with will make a big difference in our environment and economy. Alcohol fuel production and use is clean and environmentally sustainable, and will revitalize families, farms, towns, cities, industries, as well as the environment. A national switch to alcohol fuel would provide many millions of new permanent jobs.
4. No new technological breakthroughs are needed. We can make alcohol fuel out of what we have, where we are. Alcohol fuel can efficiently be made out of many things, from waste products like stale donuts, grass clippings, food processing waste-even ocean kelp. Many crops produce many times more alcohol per acre than corn, using arid, marshy, or even marginal land in addition to farmland. Just our lawn clippings could replace a third of the autofuel we get from the Mideast.
5. Unlike hydrogen fuel cells, we can easily use alcohol fuel in the vehicles we already own. Unmodified cars can run on 50% alcohol, and converting to 100% alcohol or flexible fueling (both alcohol and gas) costs only a few hundred dollars. Most auto companies already sell new dual-fuel vehicles.
6. Alcohol is a superior fuel to gasoline! It’s 105 octane, burns much cooler with less vibration, is less flammable in case of accident, is 98% pollution-free, has lower evaporative emissions, and deposits no carbon in the engine or oil, resulting in a tripling of engine life. Specialized alcohol engines can get at least 22% better mileage than gasoline or diesel.
7. It’s not just for gasoline cars. We can also easily use alcohol fuel to power diesel engines, trains, aircraft, small utility engines, generators to make electricity, heaters for our homes—and it can even be used to cook our food.
8. Alcohol has a proud history. Gasoline is a refinery’s toxic waste; alcohol fuel is liquid sunshine. Henry Ford’s early cars were all flex-fuel. It wasn’t until gasoline magnate John D. Rockefeller funded Prohibition that alcohol fuel companies were driven out of business.
9. The byproducts of alcohol production are clean, instead of being oil refinery waste, and are worth more than the alcohol itself. In fact, they can make petrochemical fertilizers and herbicides obsolete. The alcohol production process concentrates and makes more digestible all protein and non-starch nutrients in the crop. It’s so nutritious that when used as animal feed, it produces more meat or milk than the corn it comes from. That’s right, fermentation of corn increases the food supply and lowers the cost of food.
10. Locally produced ethanol supercharges regional economies. Instead of fuel expenditures draining capital away to foreign bank accounts, each gallon of alcohol produces local income that gets recirculated many times. Every dollar of tax credit for alcohol generates up to $6 in new tax revenues from the increased local business.
11. Alcohol production brings many new small-scale business opportunities. There is huge potential for profitable local, integrated, small-scale businesses that produce alcohol and related byproducts, whereas when gas was cheap, alcohol plants had to be huge to make a profit.
12. Scale matters—most of the widely publicized potential problems with ethanol are a function of scale. Once production plants get beyond a certain size and are too far away from the crops that supply them, closing the ecological loop becomes problematic. Smaller-scale operations can more efficiently use a wide variety of crops than huge specialized one-crop plants, and diversification of crops would largely eliminate the problems of monoculture.
13. The byproducts of small-scale alcohol plants can be used in profitable, energy-efficient, and environmentally positive ways. For instance, spent mash (the liquid left over after distillation) contains all the nutrients the next fuel crop needs and can return it back to the soil if the fields are close to the operation. Big-scale plants, because they bring in crops from up to 45 miles away, can’t do this, so they have to evaporate all the water and sell the resulting byproduct as low-price animal feed,which accounts for half the energy used in the plant.
From Richmond, ME, 12/30/2008
What about my 1966 Cub Cadet tractor? It is nice that we are moving to new materials for new engines, but I'm concerned about the old engines some of us like to keep for another 20 years.
From Murfreesboro, TN, 12/30/2008
"Drivers of flex-fuel cars don't have to worry much. Their on-board computers can regulate fuel mixtures."
Wrong - they don't have to worry because they have parts that are designed to withstand the higher heat and the higher corrosive nature of ethanol.
The on-board computers adjust the mixture (air & fuel) because ethanol carries with it its own Oxygen molecule so less air needs to be brought in to combust the fuel. Less air in = less nitrogen in = less NOx in the exhaust.
The onboard computers also adjust the ignition timing as the percentage of ethanol in the fuel goes up because ethanol burns slower than gas and needs to be ignited further in advance of top dead center.
On board computers do not "adjust the mix" to effect the corrosive nature of the fuel.
When talking about the dangers of an uninformed public, try not to misinform them further.
From Shady Side, MD, 12/30/2008
Injectors to accomodate the fuel, non-rubber fuel lines, and noncorrosive metals are well and good in new motors. In the boating industry, however, how does one integrate them into an engine that's ten (or more) years old? We've already seen many problems in the use of E10.
From SC, 12/30/2008
I work for a manufacturer of small outdoor power equipment and we recently considered this issue and found a solution. Because we test-run every unit we build, we required a fuel blend that wouldn't damage the engines (ranging 3.5 - 16HP) and evaporated quickly, since international air cargo carries tend to frown on gasoline-scented packages.
The answer was simple, though a bit pricy: 100 Octane avgas from the local GA airfield.
From Tampa, FL, 12/30/2008
Dear Mr. Deming,
Color coding is fine, but where I live you have no choice. I have to use fuel with up to 10% alcohol as that is all anyone sells in my area. I have no problem burning it in my primary vehicle, but my motorcycle has already started to see the effects of alcohol in the fuel (according to my mechanic.
From CO, 12/30/2008
And let me add...
Aircraft jet engines run much hotter then any little engine for your mower. Technology has developed simple fuel computers much like those on jet engines.
For instance, a C610 Jet engine and Garrett engine can run on 90 octane gas. I personally have used cheap gas in Nigeria in the Lear I was flying. Just remember to set the fuel controller and go!
The same practices will be made with auto engines and little engines. The computer will automatically test the fuel and set the mixture and combustion.
This is nothing new and has been in the plans for "again decades".
According to the AFP, the National Petroleum Agency reported that in Brazil, ethanol sales for 2008 are passing the sales of gasoline for the first time. The article said that the figures only take into account sales of hydrated ethanol that can be used in its pure form in most cars in Brazil, and not anhydrous ethanol that is used just to blend with gasoline.
"Sales of hydrated ethanol, through October, hit 15.8 billion liters (4.2 billion gallons), up 44.9 percent from a year earlier, it added. Brazil is a leading producer of ethanol from sugar cane, the world number two after the United States, which uses corn as its base plant. But about 90 percent of cars sold in Brazil’s market can be run on either ethanol, gasoline or a mix of both in any proportion. Less than 10 percent of the U.S. vehicles sold run on high blends of ethanol.
Ethanol costs about .63 cents USD per liter compared to 1.07 USD locally for a liter of gasoline."
From CO, 12/30/2008
This is so stupid. We have been color coding fuel for decades. We color code fuel caps and distribution point nozzles.
If you are color blind, have someone else fill your little engine. Read the article about 'Toro' and their engine products.
When we move to E85 we will all be aware and the injectors on small engines will accommodate the fuels. Duh,,,, We are also moving to fuel lines that are not rubber and we use internal metals that do not corrode.
Read!
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