California bans Denatured Alcohol, and......!!

@Duck I didn't take it as tongue in cheek at all, just a statement of truth. I wouldn't have said only Cali legislators are insane, but clearly they're trying to lead the way.

 

Yup! Just like when they reclassified certain violent crimes so they could let prisoners out of jail and claimed it would make us safer and violent crimes would go down.

 

sometimes something escape bureaucracy, I wonder if in California the ban miss the fuel for "ecologic" fireplaces, in Italy such fuel is called "bio fuel" and is nothing else but denatured ethanol, but the word "ethanol" is missing.
let me know if Califoirnia bureaucrats missed such a fuel.

 

The above comments make my wonder in what other countries is Ketchup classified as a vegetable for school lunch nutrition calculations?

 

As I see it, it is the ingredient used to denature the ethanol.

I know someone said that the ethanol is banned. But, that does not seem to be the case.

 

I don't think anybody said ethanol was banned. But the question is asked, would it not be banned? It is, after all, a VOC.

Here's the situation, as I reconstruct it:
"Denatured alcohol" is banned, as a VOC.
Most denatured alcohol is mostly ethanol, with denaturants added.
An assumption has arisen that it is the denaturants that are the cause of the ban, not the ethanol, but I think that's only an assumption. (Though maybe I missed something in the long thread.)

Assuming a major denaturant is methanol, is methanol more of a VOC than ethanol? I don't know, but I doubt it.

My own inference is that the commercial substance called "denatured alcohol" is banned because it is seen as a VOC solvent, and such solvents are disfavored. Indeed, an interesting thing hereabouts is that I have only ever been able to find denatured alcohol among the solvents in the hardware stores, but KleenStrip DA, the most common brand by far in my searches, is clearly marked "fuel"!

 

@Doc Mark

Interesting indeed about the REI situation. The price, while high, seems to be the standard price for the quart cans, including at the hardware stores here.

My only 'explanation', which is a total guess, is that this stuff in the hardware store is a solvent, but at REI is a fuel!

 

"Fuel" vs "solvent" seems along the same lines as lighters needing a child proof latch while a torch doesn't.

A self igniting torch, being a tool instead of a lighter, can light with a push of a button and no such child proof latch, even though the torch is almost exactly the same thing, just much larger.

 

Here we were slightly more on the ball with lighters and torches. Dissposable versions of both require a child proof latch but refillable ones do not. Standard zippo lighter needs no safety catch.
Did I say we were on the ball or the ball was on us?
Cheap shops now sell $2 refillable butane lighters. Exactly the same price the disposables used to be

 

Make a law, someone will build the alternative.

 

Re: "fuel" vs. "solvent".
If it's just an issue of labeling, then the CARB thinks construction people are idiots. I can tell you they're not. A house builder friend is visiting, and confirmed to me that if bio-ethanol was cheaper by the gallon than it is in quart or liter bottles, that he (he said "everyone") would buy it to use as a solvent.

This is not rocket science.

....Arch

 

By the way, as an item of curiosity-however obvious it may be to some-- what do they use denatured alcohol for, if not stove fuel?

I only ask because they call it 'fuel', they call it 'glass cleaner'....it must be much more than that!?

 

French polishing - to dissolve the insect wings...

 

It's apparently used as a solvent for various finishing products. Or to clean surfaces prior to finishing. I'll have to ask my friend. I know I've seen it on the "clean up" instructions for some products in the paint section.

Of course, the cleaning of surfaces is probably what's being targeted, as the whole point is for the cleaner to evaporate.

....Arch

Edit: post crossed with Kero-Scene's.

 

No one has yet mentioned that the ruling could be based on good choices. Is it not possible?
Yes, I know, at an extreme we end up with zero combustion and no evaporation (VOC), but that is just that, extreme. What was that word you used, Ed? I had to look it up.
In the end, we find a balance.
That means something we are used to gets removed from the marketplace. This is not the first time. Toxic products have been removed from the marketplace many times.

It may be a view that one has for the reaches of government. Does one really want free enterprise? Any manufacturer is free to make any product? Or, is there a place for limitations without oppression?

Green alcohol is available for purchase. We do not need to lobby to have those products made available.

Ken

 

The government has shown itself quite willing to ban things with no data about whether the ban will achieve their stated goals, and even in the face of data showing it won't help at all.

So yes, it's possible this could be a good choice, but I give the probability of that being the case just because government acted on it precisely zero weight. The earth has continued to spin just fine with denatured alcohol being available for use.

Show me the data.

 

Denatured alcohol has several options for the ingredient to denature it. It is not that product in general.
My point is the additives, specifically, it has been all along.

Even a broken clock is right twice a day. At those two times, the clock is right.

 

@snwcmpr

I might be missing your meaning here because I've taken the "a broken clock is correct twice a day" statement as being dismissive of some set of data or facts and and not support for the value of broken clocks.

 

@snwcmpr

The CARB site is rather confusing, but it doesn't appear that the government is targeting the denaturing agents at all.

https://ww3.arb.ca.gov/consprod/regs/2019/article_2_final_2019.pdf

Snip:

Page 48:
(88) “Multi-purpose Solvent” means: (A) for products manufactured before January 1, 2015: any liquid product designed or labeled to be used for dispersing, dissolving, or removing contaminants or other organic materials. “Multi-purpose Solvent” includes: 1. products that do not display specific use instructions on the product container or packaging; 2. products that do not specify an end-use function or application on the product container or packaging; 3. solvents used in institutional facilities, except for laboratory reagents used in analytical, educational, research, scientific or other laboratories; 4. “Paint clean-up” products; and 5. products labeled to prepare surfaces for painting. For the purposes of this definition only, “Paint clean-up” means any liquid product labeled for cleaning oil-based or water-based paint, lacquer, varnish, or related coatings from, but not limited to, painting equipment or tools, plastics, or metals. “Multi-purpose Solvent” does not include 1. solvents used in cold cleaners, vapor degreasers, conveyorized degreasers or film cleaning machines; 2. solvents labeled exclusively for the clean-up of application equipment used for polyaspartic and polyurea coatings; 3. products that are labeled exclusively to clean a specific contaminant, on a single substrate, in specific situations; or 4. except as provided in section 94509(p)(4)(A), any product making any representation that the product may be used as, or is suitable for use as a consumer product which meets another definition in section 94508(a); such products are not “Multipurpose Solvents” and are subject to the “Most Restrictive Limit” provisions of section 94512(a). (B) for products manufactured on or after January 1, 2015: any product designed or labeled to be used for dispersing, dissolving, or removing contaminants or other organic materials. “Multi-purpose Solvent” includes:

(yadda yadda 1-5 removed by me)

Page 49:
6. products that display on the Principal Display Panel a specific chemical name. Examples of specific chemical names include mineral spirits, ketone, turpentine, toluene, xylene(s), acetone, naphtha, or alcohol.

Page 54:

(115) “Rubbing Alcohol” means any product containing isopropyl alcohol (also called isopropanol) or denatured ethanol and labeled for topical use, usually to decrease germs in minor cuts and scrapes, to relieve minor muscle aches, as a rubefacient, and for massage.

(end snip)

Ethanol and isopropyl alcohol are listed specifically, the target seeming to be when labeled for use as a solvent. The same chemical when listed for use as a fuel is not.

I'm still digging out their VOC content(near 100% I would guess) and what the new limit is, which causes them to be banned specifically, but as I said, CARB documentation is confusing and the actual text of the ban is recent and may not be available at all yet.

If anyone has the exact text of the legislation available, please post it.

 

maybe once upon a time
Ivan