Piling on Ethanol

Two days, two newspapers, two stories bashing ethanol... I'm starting to see a pattern here.

Elizabeth Douglass in today's Los Angeles Times has a story about how ethanol is wreaking havoc on the boating industry by disolving fiberglass fuel tanks and ruining engines.

Not that anyone should shed a tear for the recreational yachting industry given the real challenges facing the rest of California which is having a hard time gassing up cars, let alone cabin cruisers, but you can bet the lawsuits are coming en masse.

Interesting to note CARB professes to be surprised by this development. In a bit of tragic irony, you might recall that CARB was among the agencies leading the charge against MTBE, with the idiotic claim that MTBE was causing underground storage tanks to leak. Now MTBE's replacement-- ethanol-- actuall is causing tanks to leak and CARB is completely caught off guard.

Boater sues over ethanol-laced gasoline's effect on fiberglass fuel tank [Los Angeles Times]