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Open Letter To Washington Examiner and John Siciliano About Ethanol


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"Oh great, BP has a new product they want to sell to humans!"

By Marc J. Rauch
Exec. Vice President/Co-Publisher
THE AUTO CHANNEL


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Marc J. Rauch

Hi John -

I just finished reading your article "EPA's new super fuel could spell trouble for ethanol" that was published June 5th in the Washington Examiner.

I couldn't help but notice that you are listed as the Examiner's Energy and Environment Reporter, and in a very brief search I discovered you have been in this position for about three years now.

I'm wondering at what point do you feel that you might begin to acquire some knowledge about energy and the environment? I'm not saying that you can't become super knowledgeable about a subject in three years - a person can - I'm just wondering how long you think it might take for you to become knowledgeable about the subject.

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"And they say it's safe! Hahahahahaha."

In your story you report that "The boating industry has identified biobutanol as a suitable and safe alternative to ethanol, which can damage engines, including those that power recreational boats." When they and you say that biobutanol is a safe alternative to ethanol, what do you mean by safe? Are you suggesting that you can rub biobutanol over your hands? Are you suggesting that you can drink biobutanol? In case you don't know, you can't because butanol (regardless of the raw material used to create it) is highly toxic - so to whom is it a safe alternative? You can drink ethanol. You can rub ethanol on your body. You can use ethanol to clean an open cut. Sure, ethanol can be made poisonous by denaturizing it with gasoline, but that's because of the gasoline, not the ethanol.

In reporting the statement "The boating industry has identified biobutanol as a suitable and safe alternative to ethanol..." don't you know that the boating industry has already stated that ethanol-gasoline blends are better than ethanol-free gasoline and that it can be used in marine engines? Are you unaware of the statements made by Mercury Marine, the world's largest manufacturer of marine engines, that E10 will not cause any engine damage? Did you not know that Mercury Marine and many other marine engine manufacturers sell their engines and boats in Brazil where standard fuel is E27? Are you in possession of any documents from Brazil that show E27 to be specifically damaging to marine or automobile engines?

And when you report "damage," did you ask anyone what they mean by damage? You use the words "damage," "damaging," "corrosive," and "harmful effects." Like what? You quote John McKnight, of the National Marine Manufacturers Association as saying that they tested E15 and that they "helped conduct a number of tests on the effects of 15-percent ethanol blends on the engines in collaboration with the Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory and we have pictures. They just blew up...I mean, they could not run through a normal durability cycle on E15."

What tests is he talking about? What year were those tests? Where is the report of those tests? Where are the pictures? What does he mean that they just blew up? WHAT BLEW UP? DID SOMETHING ACTUALLY EXPLODE?

By the way, I'm not saying that butanol is a bad fuel for internal combustion engines, but I have trouble understanding why America and the world would want to use another poisonous fuel made by the oil industry when we have the opportunity to finally get away from that? Why do we need more neurotoxins in the air we breathe, wasn't six decades of tetra-ethyl lead bad enough? Don't we have enough respiratory illnesses? Don't we have enough children with autism?

And while I'm on the subject of aren't things bad enough, why would anyone in their right mind want to listen to anything that BP has to say? Haven't they already proven that they have no interest in humans and other living animals?

By the way, you mention ethanol's "energy density" as a problem by making cars less fuel efficient when it is added to gasoline. Energy density (energy content) is irrelevant in an internal combustion engine. Mechanical engine optimization is the key. An engine mechanically optimized to run on ethanol will provide comparable or better MPG than a gasoline optimized engine running on gasoline, and tests have shown that certain blend levels (i.e., E30) will deliver more MPG in a non-flex fuel vehicle than E0.

John, why does the Washington Examiner continue to publish absurd, incorrect stories about ethanol. Don't you understand that intentionally publishing incorrect information about one subject negatively affects your credibility on all other subjects?