Personally, I am a believer…

Personally, I am a believer in moving towards "other" renewal types of transportable liquid energy such as the BioDiesel and BioPropane or whatever else can be used for gasoline other than Ethanol. In our area (Northern Ontario), Bio normally comes in 100% pure and needs to be blended with regular diesel to get to the B5-B20 mix.   During the summer months this can be a labour intensive process, but it can be done.  Issue is during the winter months, Bio turns to Jello.  meaning it does not flow and actually can cause mechanical issues.  From a distributors perspective, we would have to keep any bio inside a heated building and the truck that delivers would also have to be kept inside during the colder months.  Even if all was heated, when you left to make deliveries and got stuck or a flat tire or any other mechanical issue, the entire load and the vehicles fuel system now is in jeopardy of turning into Jello and the repair costs to fix this is astronomical.

As for the Ethanol in our area (Hub of the Great Lakes) any customer that is near water does not like anything to do with Ethanol as it seems to grab water at an astounding rate.  Most of our Marinas have in their contracts with us that they will refuse any fuel that has Ethanol in it.  as for as lawnmowers and ATV's or snowmobiles, they too have major issues with Ethanol.  You cannot get a snow blower to run on Ethanol blended gas as any small snow or water particles will freeze and cause fuel issues with the engine.  Keeping them inside heated building helps, but it can also allow more condensation to build up and then the Ethanol grabs even more water and if allowed to freeze stops the engine.

I have heard that in the US, they are making Propane from Algae blooms and it seems to work quite well in all areas.  there seem to be many ways to make BioPropane but I have not had any access to it in our area.   BioDiesel works great when it is warm, but not when it is cold.  Plus it can go bad (rotten) if made from Vegetable Oils.

Having set thresholds to use or consume a certain percentage of Bio/Ethanol in our Fuels in Ontario is commendable, but during times of the year, it is not practical.  Those that want to put the effort into all the additional steps to deal in the Bio/Ethanol world are willing to work thru these challenges.  But to force this across the board will be very costly and will hamper and potentially hurt many industries and residents.  Until manufacturers can come up with some ideas to keep the fuel warm or make the fuel to flow during cold temps in all aspects of equipment (snow blowers up to snow plows) we may need to rely on conventional Petroleum products.  Thanks for your time.

[Original Comment ID: 196675]