Ethanol Free Gasoline
Ethanol Free Gasoline. Wonderful! Its free of ethanol! Thats good right?
Ethanol Free Gasoline is a joke. Its an insult to the environment, and to your intelligence. Its also disrespectful to the consumer as it is a wholly misleading promotion of regular gasoline. We all know that regular gasoline is harmful to the environment from production to consumption. We know it is a non-renewable resource that we depend on for our current way of life (never a good idea). You may have heard of ethanol gasoline, but don't really know much about it. You may have heard the slants on ethanol based gasoline and believe it to be deceptively harmful to the environment. This website contains many expressions of the idea that 'certain kinds of ethanol are harmul in production, but some are actually a blessing to the environment, and ethanol consumption is always better than consumption of gasoline, and it is a renewable resource'. The logical conclusion is that we need to cut down on consuming ethanol free gasoline and focus on producing E85 ethanol the right way.
Ethanol Free Gasoline myths
This is why the slogan of ethanol free gasoline, and the very notion itself, is an affront to both the environment and the basic tenets of human decency. Claims that ethanol can damage your engine are largely unsupported. These claims may be confusing methanol based gasoline, which has been known to be somewhat toxic to metal. Ethanol is water soluble, and has been lampooned for being so, even though this turns out to be a good thing (water separating from fuel is very bad for engines, and can freeze fuel lines). So your ethanol free gasoline, which is not so water soluble, runs a greater risk of damaging your engine if water creeps in, whereas ethanol based gasoline may actually absorb the water and save you from spending a good deal of money on new fuel lines, a new engine, or a new car. Ethanol has also been unfairly pigeon holed for being a detergent, which can break down carbon deposits that could clog your filters. While this is true of ethanol, it is now also true of most ethanol free gasoline.
Ethanol fuel is a good thing. In simple and factually accurate terms, ethanol fuel creates less greenhouse gases upon consumption than ethanol free gasoline. As far as your engine, there is no evidence that ethanol is bound to cause damage, and infact there are vehicles now that are officially stated to be 'e85 ready'. Forget about the 10% ethanol blend, these engines can safely run 85% ethanol, and are covered under warranty.
The slogan 'ethanol free gasoline' is really just a rehashing of the term 'gasoline', intended to mislead you into believing that this gasoline is special, and somehow different from what you get at the pumps. The pumps may contain a small blend of ethanol, but it is insignificant, and either way, its nearly equally as damaging to the environment. If I am ever to come accross one of these 'ethanol free gasoline' promotions, I'm going to think to myself that here is a company who has either thoughtlessly or intentionally tried to spread an anti-green notion in favor of making money. And it is well known that marketing and advertising is always going to come with a spin. In order to sell a product, it is often customary in business to talk it up and downplay the negatives. This is a situation where business is trying to talk up negatives and completely respin them as positives. A brilliant move, but this ethanol free gasoline is as free of ethanol as its promotion is free of business ethics.