Came across this post from the mechanics subreddit.
I know nothing about ethanol, so there's no need to come at me. But I just read this on the mechanics subreddit. Absolutely agree with the last line, though.
"There is so much nonsense out there floating around about ethanol. It's become a political issue, so that's to be expected. Personally, I don't give a shit. I only care about its chemical properties. Here are some no-nonsense bullet points for you:
Ethanol burns just like any other fuel. Race cars often run on methanol; a closely related molecule. If alcohols made bad fuels, they wouldn't be so popular in motorsport. In fact, ethanol is great in turbocharged engines because it is more tolerant of challenging combustion chamber conditions and actually cools the combustion chamber due to its phase change properties. Tuners are always looking for E85, because you can crank up the boost to insane levels.
The problem is that pretty much all fuels are also solvents, and solvents are rough on various types of materials; plastics and rubber included. If the components in your fuel system aren't resilient to ethanol, it can cause issues. Cars built since some time around 2001 will be fine.
Ethanol is hydrophilic, which means it draws in water. This can be a problem for carbureted engines, where the fuel sits in a bowl that is vented to the atmosphere. In fuel injected automobiles, the fuel system is entirely contained, and is only vented in the fuel tank. So water accumulation isn't nearly as big of a problem. It's probably also worth pointing out that water is literally a byproduct of combustion, even when using ethanol-free fuels. So it's not like a tiny amount of water is a huge problem. Water can actually decarbonize the combustion chamber to some extent.
Ethanol has been made out to be a boogey man because environmentalists proposed it. I hate to be misanthropic, but I don't personally give a shit either way. I don't have kids, and the planet is going to be just fine. It's humans who have a reason to worry about our environmental future. The Earth will eventually shake us off like a base case of fleas."