Incredible but true

I took a chance today and filled my lawnmower with Ethanol instead of Gasoline. It was a nervous moment as I pulled the starter cord. Would my mower sputter and die? Or worse yet give off sparks and catch fire?

None of these things happened. It worked fine. It started like regular and I mowed the whole back yard. There were no unusual noises or thick smoke. Although I did notice that power was about 80% of normal gasoline and that there was a smell like a brewery coming out!

It was 95% grain alcohol and 5% water that I used for fuel All my life chemistry teachers told me that you could mix no more than 10% alcohol with gasoline or the engine would not work. That you needed a special carburator to burn alcohol, well, guess what, all lies...

The mower, a troybuilt with a honda engine worked fine with alcohol. In fact, you could barely tell the difference. I was amazed.

All these years I could have been using alcohol made from plant waste, but I believed that grain alcohol might somehow harm the engine. That it would not work.

Well, my next victim will be my scooter -- it is a standard four cycle engine, and then if all goes well my pickup truck.

The lesson for today is don't believe everything you are told.

In all the year I have been on the internet not a single person has said "Guess what, you can run your mower on Ethanol - ITS EZ!"

They all act like you have to be a rocket scientist to make your own fuel.