Reply #2: Petroleum derived butanol makes its way into gasoline. [View All]

[hunter]

I've pumped gasoline that's got a strong t-Butanol odor.

ARCO (now BP) used to sell a gasoline with a blend of Methanol and t-Butanol. Methanol has some serious proplems as a gasoline additive, it's not well behaved. Then an inexpensive process was developed to manufacture MTBE ( Methyl tert-butyl ether ) from these two components and the unhappy result was the extensive contamination of ground and surface water with MTBE.

I've always been fascinated by the economics of the rapid conversion of gasoline producers to MTBE blends. I don't think it had much to do with clean air concerns at all. I suspect the clean air advertising and government lobbying were greenwash. MTBE gasoline was simply profitable and the producers would have made it anyway, probably giving it some cute trade name and mystical attributes.

"Now with PowerMeth! It's what your engine craves..."