> Ethanol is quite a useful thing to have though, as a multi-season stable store of energy.

Am I missing something? Ethanol is hydrophilic and hygroscopic. In concentrations used as a fuel (e.g., E85), it acts like a desiccant and spoils quickly. In a closed system this ends up with phase separation and the freed water causes engine corrosion.

I'm not sure we want people running a still or molecular sieve in their homes to deal with fixing long-term-stored ethanol.

▲

jandrewrogers 9 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

Ethanol doesn't "spoil". It is a very stable molecule and miscible with water.

The main issue is that it has a strong affinity for water so it needs to be stored in containers that are sealed from the environment. The same issue exists with the ubiquitous ethanol/gasoline blends.

	▲	busterarm a minute ago \| parent [-]
		The cheap thin-walled gas containers you find in the auto parts store or on Amazon sell a heck of a lot better than the good stuff. This just doesn't meet up with the day to day reality of your average consumer. Even your gas station underground tanks aren't airtight. The problem is that the air around us has tons of water vapor in it.

▲

bluGill an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

> In concentrations used as a fuel (e.g., E85), it acts like a desiccant and spoils quickly

Citation needed. (hint you won't find one because it isn't true). Be careful here - this myth has been repeated enough that a search will find plenty of claims that don't check out.

High concentration alcohol doesn't spoil. Even lower concentrations don't spoil, but they mix with poor quality gas that does spoil. Well when you get very low it will, but alcohol is poison to living things and so it won't spoil. (I'm not sure how ethanol stands up to UV - but we generally keep it in a tank so that isn't an issue)

Ethanol will absorb water, but it doesn't take it out of the air anymore than anything else.