Ethanol in small engines

JaxDad wrote:

westend wrote:
I would say that the guy quoted is covering a defect in the fuel delivery of Kawasaki engines and is incorrect about most things in that quote. Yes, ethanol added gasoline stores with more problems than a gasoline blended without but he is totally incorrect about blend rate, vapor locking, and engine build tolerances.

I've got a copy of or bookmark to a study done that shows "fuel adulteration" is becoming rampant.

Unscrupulous gas station owners are adding their own alcohol to the gas in the storage tanks. They then sell the 'over-proof' gasoline and pocket all the mark up and road taxes on the increased volume of fuel.

In some places people are also not just adding alcohol, but also spiking with water. Alcohol is hygroscopic, it absorbs water and holds it suspension. If it's a station on the highway this could go on for years and be extremely difficult to detect or prosecute. If a station that sold a 1,000,000 gallons of gas a year added just 2.5% water and 7.5% alcohol that would be $300,000 (minus the cost of 25,000 gallons of alcohol) in extra profits and a boatload of bad fuel for the travelling public.

I would suggest that you read again where that study is based and take into consideration the profitability and practicability of such a process. For instance, 7.5% of gasoline replaced by ethanol (in your example of 1 million gallons) is 75,000 gallons, not 25,000 gallons. Spot price of ethanol is around $2/gal., before delivery. Let's assume that a retailer wants to proceed with the adulteration and wants to reap the profit of 1$/gallon through his pumps. He must now arrange for interval delivery of the alcohol and that delivery will be from an unscrupulous transporter as these deliveries are totally illegal. Now, let's say he's able to do this without intervention and continues the operation. At any time anyone from his State's Weight and Measures Dept. detects this adulteration by testing or the brand distributor tests and the scheme is uncovered, he will be either heavily fined and/or possibly jailed and will lose the delivery of the brands product, basically causing the loss of his business.
This scheme may be rampant in the third world but flies in the face of anything based in the US or Canada.

Regardless, this all has little bearing on the OP's quoted article or the merits/demerits of ethanol blended gasoline and small engines.