Some things I have found out about ethynol.
It looks like the folks in NY will just have to do without cars that run on gas. Their senior Senator has been fighting ethynol. MTBE and ethynol are the two leading additives that allow gasoline to meet EPA requirements in most major cities.
Ethynol can only be used up to certain levels in most vehicles. You see states that require it having pump blends of about 10%. It is lighter than most current gas blends and as the level of ethynal goes up you would need to adjust flow rates. Some newer vehicles are dual fuel and can run higher levels up to E85 which is 85% ethynol.
Ethynol has a good octane rating. E85 rates out at about 105 at the pump. The good side is you can flow more and make more power. The bad side is you flow more and get less mileage.
Ethynol blends don't ship or store as well. They can pull moisture from the air and hold it in the fuel. This means they need to be blended closer to the point of sale. That can add to cost and also makes it harder to use in multiple markets.
As we use more ethynol, we need to build more ethynol plants. The plants currently in place are already running into problems with their neighbors due to the constant heavy sweet smell from the drying process.
And there is an energy cost to the production of ethynol. They use natural gas in the drying process. So ethynol allows us to make a cleaner burning gas blend, but it takes fuel to make it offsetting the energy gains.
