ethanol

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Fri 11 Oct 2002 16:15
ethanol - Flat in Fifth
Looks like the USA is about to legislate that petrol must contain at least 10% ethanol.

What is the EU/UK position on this?
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Sat 12 Oct 2002 01:56
ethanol - Paul Mykatz-Tinks
I strongly suspect our worthy leaders have never heard of ethanol..................if you reveal it, they'll beaver away to work it into the Grand Plan to Abolish Private Mobility.
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Sat 19 Oct 2002 12:26
ethanol - RogerL
Ethanol is a vegetable-derived alchohol. I suspect that most of the production of ethanol comes from the US, so the US Government is once again trying to promote it's own economy at the expense of the rest of the world.

Ethanol is commonly used as an Octane Booster, but additives over 10% cause problems with tanks, pipes as well as corrosion in the engine.
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Sat 19 Oct 2002 14:37
ethanol - madf
I suspect US ethanol comes from grain or maize. Mots US food is: yes that's right, it's not organic it's GM .. So it's unsaleable in Europe and some people don't accept it as free. So lets ferment it.

Hmm..what will the Greens do when they learn we're using GM ethanol , and emitting it in the streets for us all to breathe? :-)
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Sat 19 Oct 2002 16:47
ethanol - andymc {P}
Well, ethanol is chemically derived from the grain (or grapes!) and so no genetic material could remain in the pure substance. Doesn't necessarily mean that anything that would promote the use of GM crops should be encouraged, but there wouldn't be any freak genes waiting for us to inhale. Personally, I can't wait to see the implementation of ethanol as a fuel. Cleaner burning, better performance. Power returning to the energy-self-sufficient state instead of the oil companies, etc etc and all that ...
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Tue 22 Oct 2002 15:16
ethanol - Andrew-T
As ethanol has only 2 carbon atoms to rub together, there is no way it can contain any genetic info, modified or otherwise!
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Tue 22 Oct 2002 15:31
ethanol - madf
Personally I neither know nor care about ethanol being GM derived or not.

BUT it's not my opinion but the Greens/public ignornace that will/could make or the difference. And people have such entrenched (and quite rightly imo) scepticism of government assurances on anything, they may well refuse to accept GM derived fuel whether or not it can be proven it has no GM organic base left.. or not.
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