If they mandate ethanol up to 15% in our fuel. Buy new motors designed for it? Friend of mine is an outboard mechanic. He says that it will be very hard on current outboards, and horrible for older motors. They (the marina were he works) has already had 2 fires due to ethanol eating customers gas lines over the winter.
Please read the following article;
There will be a day in the not to near future where ethanol will be in your marina's gasoline. If have read your owner's manual you know that is not a good thing. While most outboard engines will operate with up to 10 percent ethanol (E-10) anything over that is bad news. How are we going to be able to cope with the new alcohol fuels? Here are a few of the problems with boating and alcohol.
Alcohol is a great solvent. So good a solvent that it can clean out an older boats fuel system and deposit all the old crud in the engine. This can lead to not only poor performance. It can kill the engine. The higher the alcohol content is in the fuel mixture, the greater the potential for major damage. While E-10 is allowable E15 fuels and fuels with higher ethanol concentrations can start causing problems..
Alcohol and water mix. With gasoline any water the gets into your fuel settles to the bottom of the tank. If enough water gets in to the tank ,a fuel water separator normally stops everything before there is too much damage. With alcohol, the water mixes with the alcohol and runs right past the fuel separator. If enough water mixes with the alcohol, the engine will be damaged while running. In low concentrations, the engine still runs, but once the engine is shut off the water in the fuel system starts corroding important parts. An engine that sets idle for an extended period can have a great deal of rust build-up on the cylinder walls, piston rings and other steel components. Not a good thing if you want to go fishing.
Alcohol is less powerful that gasoline. At very high alcohol fuel concentrations like E85 ethanol fuel, more fuel is required for proper performance. With direct injection engines, reprogramming the fuel flow rates will be required to compensate. With carborated engines, the jets will have to be larger. Cold starts will be very difficult for two-cycle engines requiring starting fluid or alternate start-up fuels. This means your miles per gallon will go down and fuel costs up.
Finally alcohol is corrosive to many rubber and synthetic materials used in boat and engine fuel systems. New materials rated for very high ethanol concentrations will have to be installed in older boats and engines. While this is the least of your worries now, a leaking fuel line in your bilge will not be.
The conversion to ethanol in the automotive industry will be a lot smoother than in the boating industry. Boat owners and manufactures need to be prepared for some very tough decisions in the not so distant future. All boat owners need to be aware of the potential problems that lie ahead. These issues have been mentioned before. The reason for this is they have not been satisfactorily addressed.