E10 in steel tank

As a follow up to my original response, as someone else has pointed out, Ethanol being an alcohol is “miscible” in water, and will allow the water to pass through into the engine with little if any detrimental affect.

I for one am sceptical that the ethanol based fuels are really doing anything for the environment. They are not an efficient fuel compared to straight petrol, (less kms. per Litre), so you use more fuel to get where you are going. Not knowing the chemical composition of the exhaust gasses of ethanol based fuel as compared to straight petrol, I am not sure how much difference 10% ethanol actually makes in greenhouse gas emissions. In low volume sites, the ethanol can settle out into a layer, so you really do not know if you are getting 10%, 20% or straight petrol.

May be 35 years in the Oil Industry has given me a biased view, however any of the “bio” fuels come with other issues.

Macca.

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I agree Macca. It's a "FeelGood" fuel.

As Allan said, alcohol (ethanol) is miscible with water in all proportions. Petrol is NOT, and at best any low levels of water in petrol will remain as globules which cause issues with fuel filters.

Adding alcohol to a petrol tank containing any water in fact absorbs the water and the combination then readily mixes with the petrol, allowing the water content to pass through fuel filters.

Back in the olden days if we ever saw signs of water in our filters (remember the glass bowl on the fuel pump of early Holdens etc?) we would add a bottle of meths (96% ethanol) to the tank. The only discernible side-effects were minor ignition ones - a reduction in octane rating but cooler burning - depending on the actual alcohol/petrol proportions.

Yep, when I first started reading I thought why would ethanol cause a problem, it was common practice in the past to add a bottle of metho to a tank of fuel to dissolve the water so it could pass into the engine and be burnt.