Brazil---Almost oil independent!!!!!!!!!!!

[preston39]

Who was it on this board that said...in effect...we could not produce enough ethanol.....!!!??? Wanna restate your thoughts?

=====
From; Cow and Calf weekly 10/28/05

"Brazil sets pace on alternate fuels


More than 30 years after the Arab oil embargo struck fear through much of the industrialized world and U.S. leaders vowed "never again," here's how things stand:


BRANDON
•?Brazil, the largest country in South America, has almost unshackled itself from foreign oil. It once imported 80 percent of its crude oil; now, it expects to be self-sufficient in a few years. Today, 40 percent of all the fuel Brazilians pump into their vehicles is ethanol, derived primarily from sugarcane bagasse. The government requires that all fuel sold within the country contain at least 25 percent ethanol.

Selling like hotcakes are new Brazilian-made automobiles with "flex" engine systems that allow them to run on gasoline, gasoline-ethanol mix, or straight ethanol. Unlike "hybrid" engine cars in the United States, they cost no more than with a conventional engine. Brazil's commercial aircraft manufacturer, Embraer, can't meet the demand for its ethanol-powered planes.

Billions of investor dollars are flowing into Brazil's ethanol sector, and the country's rural economies have received significant benefits.

Further, with more than 300 ethanol plants now online and another 50-plus in the works, Brazil is exporting ethanol like crazy to willing buyers around the world (including the United States), and it has potential for enormous production increases.

•?Germany, whose Rudolph Diesel invented the engine that immortalized his name, is now the world's largest producer of biodiesel, and plans to increase production a whopping 50 percent each year. The high octane, high performance fuel is made from rapeseed oil.

•?In dozens of other countries around the globe, serious programs are under way to loosen petroleum's stranglehold, with fuels that include ethanol and oils derived from everything from soybeans to coconuts.

•?The world's largest ethanol plant is up and running in China, with more like it being planned, and the country's auto plants also plan to churn out millions of flex fuel vehicles.

And in the United States?

Well, after three decades of fiddle-faddling, while becoming more dependent than ever on oil imports, the United States has finally begun a drop-in-the-bucket effort toward alternative fuels.

There are 70-some-odd plants producing 3 billion or so gallons of ethanol yearly, with a dozen or more under construction. Soydiesel production languished until last year, when Congress approved a subsidy for the fuel, but it lags far behind ethanol output.

There are reported to be 4 million U.S.-made cars on the road with flex fuel capability. My new Ford-made vehicle is one, according to the owner's manual (although there's nothing anywhere on the vehicle itself to indicate that capability).

And not that it matters a fig anyhow: I'd be up the proverbial creek if I planned my driving around flex fuel utilization. According to the map on the Web site of the National Ethanol Vehicle Coalition, E-85 fuel is available nowhere in Mississippi; at one place in Tennessee (Nashville); and nowhere in Louisiana and Arkansas. In fact, 14 states have absolutely no availability.

And until Congress enacts measures to facilitate development of an infrastructure to make flex fuels available everywhere, as they are in Brazil, we'll still be knuckling under to Big Oil."
=====

 

[Campground Cattle]

Who was it on this board that said...in effect...we could not produce enough ethanol.....!!!??? Wanna restate your thoughts?

=====
From; Cow and Calf weekly 10/28/05

"Brazil sets pace on alternate fuels


More than 30 years after the Arab oil embargo struck fear through much of the industrialized world and U.S. leaders vowed "never again," here's how things stand:


BRANDON
•?Brazil, the largest country in South America, has almost unshackled itself from foreign oil. It once imported 80 percent of its crude oil; now, it expects to be self-sufficient in a few years. Today, 40 percent of all the fuel Brazilians pump into their vehicles is ethanol, derived primarily from sugarcane bagasse. The government requires that all fuel sold within the country contain at least 25 percent ethanol.

Selling like hotcakes are new Brazilian-made automobiles with "flex" engine systems that allow them to run on gasoline, gasoline-ethanol mix, or straight ethanol. Unlike "hybrid" engine cars in the United States, they cost no more than with a conventional engine. Brazil's commercial aircraft manufacturer, Embraer, can't meet the demand for its ethanol-powered planes.

Billions of investor dollars are flowing into Brazil's ethanol sector, and the country's rural economies have received significant benefits.

Further, with more than 300 ethanol plants now online and another 50-plus in the works, Brazil is exporting ethanol like crazy to willing buyers around the world (including the United States), and it has potential for enormous production increases.

•?Germany, whose Rudolph Diesel invented the engine that immortalized his name, is now the world's largest producer of biodiesel, and plans to increase production a whopping 50 percent each year. The high octane, high performance fuel is made from rapeseed oil.

•?In dozens of other countries around the globe, serious programs are under way to loosen petroleum's stranglehold, with fuels that include ethanol and oils derived from everything from soybeans to coconuts.

•?The world's largest ethanol plant is up and running in China, with more like it being planned, and the country's auto plants also plan to churn out millions of flex fuel vehicles.

And in the United States?

Well, after three decades of fiddle-faddling, while becoming more dependent than ever on oil imports, the United States has finally begun a drop-in-the-bucket effort toward alternative fuels.

There are 70-some-odd plants producing 3 billion or so gallons of ethanol yearly, with a dozen or more under construction. Soydiesel production languished until last year, when Congress approved a subsidy for the fuel, but it lags far behind ethanol output.

There are reported to be 4 million U.S.-made cars on the road with flex fuel capability. My new Ford-made vehicle is one, according to the owner's manual (although there's nothing anywhere on the vehicle itself to indicate that capability).

And not that it matters a fig anyhow: I'd be up the proverbial creek if I planned my driving around flex fuel utilization. According to the map on the Web site of the National Ethanol Vehicle Coalition, E-85 fuel is available nowhere in Mississippi; at one place in Tennessee (Nashville); and nowhere in Louisiana and Arkansas. In fact, 14 states have absolutely no availability.

And until Congress enacts measures to facilitate development of an infrastructure to make flex fuels available everywhere, as they are in Brazil, we'll still be knuckling under to Big Oil."
=====

It was me Goober and if you think Brazils infrastructure comes anywhere close to the USA you are dumber than I thought.
Brazil Oil - production:
1.788 million bbl/day (2004 est.)
Oil - consumption:
2.199 million bbl/day (2001 est.)

http://www.scaruffi.com/politics/oil.html

Thats a long way from 19 million barrels a day in the good ole USA buckwheat.

 

[Texan]

.....you are dumber than I thought.

Ummmm? Is that possible? Could Goober/Buckwheat actually be dumber than you thought?

 

[Mahoney Pursley Ranch]

I'm gonna sit back and watch the feathers fly on this one ! :shock:

 

[Wewild]

Who was it on this board that said...in effect...we could not produce enough ethanol.....!!!??? Wanna restate your thoughts?

Seems like the average price per gallon of gas was $1.12 per gallon of gas higher in Brazil as compared to U.S gas prices at the same time in March of 2005, I'm not sure your copy and paste really states the economics of their venture.

Help me understand, as the cost of ethanol has already been proven to increase the cost of fuel.

 

[Crowderfarms]

.....you are dumber than I thought.

Ummmm? Is that possible? Could Goober/Buckwheat actually be dumber than you thought?

Presto, how nice of you to drop in this evening.Where you been? I was beginning to think you dont like us anymore.

 

[la4angus]

.....you are dumber than I thought.

Ummmm? Is that possible? Could Goober/Buckwheat actually be dumber than you thought?

Presto, how nice of you to drop in this evening.Where you been? I was beginning to think you dont like us anymore.

Dangit Crowder, lets not be to nice to him. He might think that we like him and wanna come for a longer visit. Please dont let that happen. Once a month is to much.
Bye Goober Presto. Go buy some of that cheap ethanol. Just loose your puter and stay there looking for it.

 

[greenwillowherefords]

Every Ford vehicle that is a flexfuel that I have seen has a little symbol near the letters,"FFV." According to the booklet that rates every vehicle sold in the U.S. regarding gas milaege, the flex fuel vehicles are not as fuel efficient as their straight gas counterparts, something like a 3-5 mpg difference. Not worth it IMO.

 

[dj]

The little sysmbol is a green leaf.
Have a friend who has an FFV ranger and he doesn't notice any difference in fuel mileage comparing the 10% blend to the 85% blend.
If we can replace 75% of the gasoline (10% vs 85%) it just seems a logical decision.

Can anyone comment on the speed of getting an ethonal refinery up and running versus an oil refinery.

How about long term effects of alcohol production vs oil?

I think the people in Cyril, OK are still having to arrange for drinking water, because of all the contaminents in the water supply. But near Hydro there was a patch of ground that was bare for some years after that alcohol refinery was dismantled in the ?? late 80's- early 90's.

Folks I don't care if your opinions are green,black, or red.
This is a fact. Without oil you can walk.
Without water.... well you stop.

 

[Campground Cattle]

Corn Dog
The ethanol subsidy is worse than you can imagine.
By Robert Bryce
Posted Tuesday, July 19, 2005, at 8:12 AM ET



Running on empty: Is ethanol the answer?


For the last generation, ethanol has been America's fuel of the future. But there has never been more hype about it than there is today. Green-energy analysts like Amory Lovins, environmental groups like the Natural Resources Defense Council, neoconservatives like James Woolsey, and farm groups like the American Coalition for Ethanol are all touting the biofuel.

Making ethanol, they claim, will help America achieve the elusive goal of "energy security" while helping farmers, reducing oil imports, and stimulating the American economy. But the ethanol boosters are ignoring some unpleasant facts: Ethanol won't significantly reduce our oil imports; adding more ethanol to our gas tanks adds further complexity to our motor-fuel supply chain, which will lead to further price hikes at the pump; and, most important (and most astonishing), it may take more energy to produce a gallon of ethanol than it actually contains.

The greens, hawks, and farmers helped convince the Senate to add an ethanol provision to the energy bill—now awaiting action by a House-Senate conference committee—that would require refiners to more than double their use of ethanol to 8 billion gallons per year by 2012. The provision is the latest installment of the ethanol subsidy, a handout that has cost American taxpayers billions of dollars during the last three decades, with little to show for it. It also shovels yet more federal cash on the single most subsidized crop in America, corn. Between 1995 and 2003, federal corn subsidies totaled $37.3 billion. That's more than twice the amount spent on wheat subsidies, three times the amount spent on soybeans, and 70 times the amount spent on tobacco.


The stickiest question about ethanol is this: Does making alcohol from grain or plant waste really create any new energy?

The answer, of course, depends upon whom you ask. The ethanol lobby claims there's a 30 percent net gain in BTUs from ethanol made from corn. Other boosters, including Woolsey, claim there are huge energy gains (as much as 700 percent) to be had by making ethanol from grass.

But the ethanol critics have shown that the industry calculations are bogus. David Pimentel, a professor of ecology at Cornell University who has been studying grain alcohol for 20 years, and Tad Patzek, an engineering professor at the University of California, Berkeley, co-wrote a recent report that estimates that making ethanol from corn requires 29 percent more fossil energy than the ethanol fuel itself actually contains.

The two scientists calculated all the fuel inputs for ethanol production—from the diesel fuel for the tractor planting the corn, to the fertilizer put in the field, to the energy needed at the processing plant—and found that ethanol is a net energy-loser. According to their calculations, ethanol contains about 76,000 BTUs per gallon, but producing that ethanol from corn takes about 98,000 BTUs. For comparison, a gallon of gasoline contains about 116,000 BTUs per gallon. But making that gallon of gas—from drilling the well, to transportation, through refining—requires around 22,000 BTUs.

In addition to their findings on corn, they determined that making ethanol from switch grass requires 50 percent more fossil energy than the ethanol yields, wood biomass 57 percent more, and sunflowers 118 percent more. The best yield comes from soybeans, but they, too, are a net loser, requiring 27 percent more fossil energy than the biodiesel fuel produced. In other words, more ethanol production will increase America's total energy consumption, not decrease it. (Pimentel has not taken money from the oil or refining industries. Patzek runs the UC Oil Consortium, which does research on oil and is funded by oil companies. His ethanol research is not funded by the oil or refining industries*.)

Ethanol poses other serious difficulties for our energy economy. First, 8 billion gallons of ethanol will do almost nothing to reduce our oil imports. Eight billion gallons may sound like a lot, until you realize that America burned more than 134 billion gallons of gasoline last year. By 2012, those 8 billion gallons might reduce America's overall oil consumption by 0.5 percent. Way back in 1997, the General Accounting Office concluded that "ethanol's potential for substituting for petroleum is so small that it is unlikely to significantly affect overall energy security." That's still true today.

Adding more ethanol will also increase the complexity of America's refining infrastructure, which is already straining to meet demand, thus raising pump prices. Ethanol must be blended with gasoline. But ethanol absorbs water. Gasoline doesn't. Therefore, ethanol cannot be shipped by regular petroleum pipelines. Instead, it must be segregated from other motor fuels and shipped by truck, rail car, or barge. Those shipping methods are far more expensive than pipelines.

There's another problem: Ethanol, when mixed with gasoline, causes the mixture to evaporate very quickly. That forces refiners to dramatically alter their gasoline to compensate for the ethanol. (Throughout the year, refiners adjust the vapor pressure of their fuel to compensate for the change in air temperature. In summer, you want gasoline to evaporate slowly. In winter, you want it to evaporate quickly.) In a report released last month, the GAO underscored the evaporative problems posed by ethanol, saying that compensating for ethanol forces refiners to remove certain liquids from their gasoline: "Removing these components and reprocessing them or diverting them to other products increases the cost of making ethanol-blended gasoline."

In addition to the transportation and volatility issues, ethanol will add yet more blends of gasoline to the retail market. Last year, American refiners produced 45 different types of gasoline. Each type of gasoline needs specific tanks and pipes. Adding ethanol to the 45 blends we already have means we will be "making more blends for more markets. That complexity means more costs," says David Pursell, a partner at Pickering Energy Partners, a Houston brokerage.

There's a final point to be raised about ethanol: It contains only about two-thirds as much energy as gasoline. Thus, when it gets blended with regular gasoline, it lowers the heat content of the fuel. So, while a gallon of ethanol-blended gas may cost the same as regular gasoline, it won't take you as far.

What frustrates critics is that there are sensible ways to reduce our motor-fuel use and bolster renewable energy—they just don't help the corn lobby. Patzek points out that if we channeled the billions spent on ethanol into fuel-efficient cars and solar cells, "That would give us so much more bang for the buck that it's a no-brainer."

 

[preston39]

Corn Dog
The ethanol subsidy is worse than you can imagine.
By Robert Bryce
Posted Tuesday, July 19, 2005, at 8:12 AM ET



Running on empty: Is ethanol the answer?


For the last generation, ethanol has been America's fuel of the future. But there has never been more hype about it than there is today. Green-energy analysts like Amory Lovins, environmental groups like the Natural Resources Defense Council, neoconservatives like James Woolsey, and farm groups like the American Coalition for Ethanol are all touting the biofuel.

Making ethanol, they claim, will help America achieve the elusive goal of "energy security" while helping farmers, reducing oil imports, and stimulating the American economy. But the ethanol boosters are ignoring some unpleasant facts: Ethanol won't significantly reduce our oil imports; adding more ethanol to our gas tanks adds further complexity to our motor-fuel supply chain, which will lead to further price hikes at the pump; and, most important (and most astonishing), it may take more energy to produce a gallon of ethanol than it actually contains.

The greens, hawks, and farmers helped convince the Senate to add an ethanol provision to the energy bill—now awaiting action by a House-Senate conference committee—that would require refiners to more than double their use of ethanol to 8 billion gallons per year by 2012. The provision is the latest installment of the ethanol subsidy, a handout that has cost American taxpayers billions of dollars during the last three decades, with little to show for it. It also shovels yet more federal cash on the single most subsidized crop in America, corn. Between 1995 and 2003, federal corn subsidies totaled $37.3 billion. That's more than twice the amount spent on wheat subsidies, three times the amount spent on soybeans, and 70 times the amount spent on tobacco.


The stickiest question about ethanol is this: Does making alcohol from grain or plant waste really create any new energy?

The answer, of course, depends upon whom you ask. The ethanol lobby claims there's a 30 percent net gain in BTUs from ethanol made from corn. Other boosters, including Woolsey, claim there are huge energy gains (as much as 700 percent) to be had by making ethanol from grass.

But the ethanol critics have shown that the industry calculations are bogus. David Pimentel, a professor of ecology at Cornell University who has been studying grain alcohol for 20 years, and Tad Patzek, an engineering professor at the University of California, Berkeley, co-wrote a recent report that estimates that making ethanol from corn requires 29 percent more fossil energy than the ethanol fuel itself actually contains.

The two scientists calculated all the fuel inputs for ethanol production—from the diesel fuel for the tractor planting the corn, to the fertilizer put in the field, to the energy needed at the processing plant—and found that ethanol is a net energy-loser. According to their calculations, ethanol contains about 76,000 BTUs per gallon, but producing that ethanol from corn takes about 98,000 BTUs. For comparison, a gallon of gasoline contains about 116,000 BTUs per gallon. But making that gallon of gas—from drilling the well, to transportation, through refining—requires around 22,000 BTUs.

In addition to their findings on corn, they determined that making ethanol from switch grass requires 50 percent more fossil energy than the ethanol yields, wood biomass 57 percent more, and sunflowers 118 percent more. The best yield comes from soybeans, but they, too, are a net loser, requiring 27 percent more fossil energy than the biodiesel fuel produced. In other words, more ethanol production will increase America's total energy consumption, not decrease it. (Pimentel has not taken money from the oil or refining industries. Patzek runs the UC Oil Consortium, which does research on oil and is funded by oil companies. His ethanol research is not funded by the oil or refining industries*.)

Ethanol poses other serious difficulties for our energy economy. First, 8 billion gallons of ethanol will do almost nothing to reduce our oil imports. Eight billion gallons may sound like a lot, until you realize that America burned more than 134 billion gallons of gasoline last year. By 2012, those 8 billion gallons might reduce America's overall oil consumption by 0.5 percent. Way back in 1997, the General Accounting Office concluded that "ethanol's potential for substituting for petroleum is so small that it is unlikely to significantly affect overall energy security." That's still true today.

Adding more ethanol will also increase the complexity of America's refining infrastructure, which is already straining to meet demand, thus raising pump prices. Ethanol must be blended with gasoline. But ethanol absorbs water. Gasoline doesn't. Therefore, ethanol cannot be shipped by regular petroleum pipelines. Instead, it must be segregated from other motor fuels and shipped by truck, rail car, or barge. Those shipping methods are far more expensive than pipelines.

There's another problem: Ethanol, when mixed with gasoline, causes the mixture to evaporate very quickly. That forces refiners to dramatically alter their gasoline to compensate for the ethanol. (Throughout the year, refiners adjust the vapor pressure of their fuel to compensate for the change in air temperature. In summer, you want gasoline to evaporate slowly. In winter, you want it to evaporate quickly.) In a report released last month, the GAO underscored the evaporative problems posed by ethanol, saying that compensating for ethanol forces refiners to remove certain liquids from their gasoline: "Removing these components and reprocessing them or diverting them to other products increases the cost of making ethanol-blended gasoline."

In addition to the transportation and volatility issues, ethanol will add yet more blends of gasoline to the retail market. Last year, American refiners produced 45 different types of gasoline. Each type of gasoline needs specific tanks and pipes. Adding ethanol to the 45 blends we already have means we will be "making more blends for more markets. That complexity means more costs," says David Pursell, a partner at Pickering Energy Partners, a Houston brokerage.

There's a final point to be raised about ethanol: It contains only about two-thirds as much energy as gasoline. Thus, when it gets blended with regular gasoline, it lowers the heat content of the fuel. So, while a gallon of ethanol-blended gas may cost the same as regular gasoline, it won't take you as far.

What frustrates critics is that there are sensible ways to reduce our motor-fuel use and bolster renewable energy—they just don't help the corn lobby. Patzek points out that if we channeled the billions spent on ethanol into fuel-efficient cars and solar cells, "That would give us so much more bang for the buck that it's a no-brainer."

=============
Cronies: Oil, the Bushes, and the Rise of Texas, America's Superstate (Hardcover)
by Robert Bryce "Some of the soldiers carried shotguns, other carried Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine guns..." (more)
SIPs: crony network, independent oilmen, independent oilman, logistics contract, oilfield equipment (more)
CAPs: White House, Baker Botts, Persian Gulf, Lyndon Johnson, Saudi Arabia (more)

(9 customer reviews)
===========
Interesting choice campground...(Uh....copy and paste.....I believe you say!!!!!)

 

[la4angus]

Corn Dog
The ethanol subsidy is worse than you can imagine.
By Robert Bryce
Posted Tuesday, July 19, 2005, at 8:12 AM ET



Running on empty: Is ethanol the answer?


For the last generation, ethanol has been America's fuel of the future. But there has never been more hype about it than there is today. Green-energy analysts like Amory Lovins, environmental groups like the Natural Resources Defense Council, neoconservatives like James Woolsey, and farm groups like the American Coalition for Ethanol are all touting the biofuel.

Making ethanol, they claim, will help America achieve the elusive goal of "energy security" while helping farmers, reducing oil imports, and stimulating the American economy. But the ethanol boosters are ignoring some unpleasant facts: Ethanol won't significantly reduce our oil imports; adding more ethanol to our gas tanks adds further complexity to our motor-fuel supply chain, which will lead to further price hikes at the pump; and, most important (and most astonishing), it may take more energy to produce a gallon of ethanol than it actually contains.

The greens, hawks, and farmers helped convince the Senate to add an ethanol provision to the energy bill—now awaiting action by a House-Senate conference committee—that would require refiners to more than double their use of ethanol to 8 billion gallons per year by 2012. The provision is the latest installment of the ethanol subsidy, a handout that has cost American taxpayers billions of dollars during the last three decades, with little to show for it. It also shovels yet more federal cash on the single most subsidized crop in America, corn. Between 1995 and 2003, federal corn subsidies totaled $37.3 billion. That's more than twice the amount spent on wheat subsidies, three times the amount spent on soybeans, and 70 times the amount spent on tobacco.


The stickiest question about ethanol is this: Does making alcohol from grain or plant waste really create any new energy?

The answer, of course, depends upon whom you ask. The ethanol lobby claims there's a 30 percent net gain in BTUs from ethanol made from corn. Other boosters, including Woolsey, claim there are huge energy gains (as much as 700 percent) to be had by making ethanol from grass.

But the ethanol critics have shown that the industry calculations are bogus. David Pimentel, a professor of ecology at Cornell University who has been studying grain alcohol for 20 years, and Tad Patzek, an engineering professor at the University of California, Berkeley, co-wrote a recent report that estimates that making ethanol from corn requires 29 percent more fossil energy than the ethanol fuel itself actually contains.

The two scientists calculated all the fuel inputs for ethanol production—from the diesel fuel for the tractor planting the corn, to the fertilizer put in the field, to the energy needed at the processing plant—and found that ethanol is a net energy-loser. According to their calculations, ethanol contains about 76,000 BTUs per gallon, but producing that ethanol from corn takes about 98,000 BTUs. For comparison, a gallon of gasoline contains about 116,000 BTUs per gallon. But making that gallon of gas—from drilling the well, to transportation, through refining—requires around 22,000 BTUs.

In addition to their findings on corn, they determined that making ethanol from switch grass requires 50 percent more fossil energy than the ethanol yields, wood biomass 57 percent more, and sunflowers 118 percent more. The best yield comes from soybeans, but they, too, are a net loser, requiring 27 percent more fossil energy than the biodiesel fuel produced. In other words, more ethanol production will increase America's total energy consumption, not decrease it. (Pimentel has not taken money from the oil or refining industries. Patzek runs the UC Oil Consortium, which does research on oil and is funded by oil companies. His ethanol research is not funded by the oil or refining industries*.)

Ethanol poses other serious difficulties for our energy economy. First, 8 billion gallons of ethanol will do almost nothing to reduce our oil imports. Eight billion gallons may sound like a lot, until you realize that America burned more than 134 billion gallons of gasoline last year. By 2012, those 8 billion gallons might reduce America's overall oil consumption by 0.5 percent. Way back in 1997, the General Accounting Office concluded that "ethanol's potential for substituting for petroleum is so small that it is unlikely to significantly affect overall energy security." That's still true today.

Adding more ethanol will also increase the complexity of America's refining infrastructure, which is already straining to meet demand, thus raising pump prices. Ethanol must be blended with gasoline. But ethanol absorbs water. Gasoline doesn't. Therefore, ethanol cannot be shipped by regular petroleum pipelines. Instead, it must be segregated from other motor fuels and shipped by truck, rail car, or barge. Those shipping methods are far more expensive than pipelines.

There's another problem: Ethanol, when mixed with gasoline, causes the mixture to evaporate very quickly. That forces refiners to dramatically alter their gasoline to compensate for the ethanol. (Throughout the year, refiners adjust the vapor pressure of their fuel to compensate for the change in air temperature. In summer, you want gasoline to evaporate slowly. In winter, you want it to evaporate quickly.) In a report released last month, the GAO underscored the evaporative problems posed by ethanol, saying that compensating for ethanol forces refiners to remove certain liquids from their gasoline: "Removing these components and reprocessing them or diverting them to other products increases the cost of making ethanol-blended gasoline."

In addition to the transportation and volatility issues, ethanol will add yet more blends of gasoline to the retail market. Last year, American refiners produced 45 different types of gasoline. Each type of gasoline needs specific tanks and pipes. Adding ethanol to the 45 blends we already have means we will be "making more blends for more markets. That complexity means more costs," says David Pursell, a partner at Pickering Energy Partners, a Houston brokerage.


There's a final point to be raised about ethanol: It contains only about two-thirds as much energy as gasoline. Thus, when it gets blended with regular gasoline, it lowers the heat content of the fuel. So, while a gallon of ethanol-blended gas may cost the same as regular gasoline, it won't take you as far.

What frustrates critics is that there are sensible ways to reduce our motor-fuel use and bolster renewable energy—they just don't help the corn lobby. Patzek points out that if we channeled the billions spent on ethanol into fuel-efficient cars and solar cells, "That would give us so much more bang for the buck that it's a no-brainer."

=============
Cronies: Oil, the Bushes, and the Rise of Texas, America's Superstate (Hardcover)
by Robert Bryce "Some of the soldiers carried shotguns, other carried Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine guns..." (more)
SIPs: crony network, independent oilmen, independent oilman, logistics contract, oilfield equipment (more)
CAPs: White House, Baker Botts, Persian Gulf, Lyndon Johnson, Saudi Arabia (more)

(9 customer reviews)
===========
Interesting choice campground...(Uh....copy and paste.....I believe you say!!!!!)

Pesto, now you learned to quote too. You growing up boy. Your mama taught you how ro do that.. Next year you might be in 2nd grade huh. You sure getting to be a big little boy. Be sure and do all your home work now, ya hear. You gonna bring your teacher an apple tomorrow for Halloween. You trying to kiss ass huh.

 

[preston39]

La...,
I see your level of intellect has not improved. Did you just give up or do you plan to pursue other avenues of discourse.

 

[greenwillowherefords]

The little sysmbol is a green leaf.
Have a friend who has an FFV ranger and he doesn't notice any difference in fuel mileage comparing the 10% blend to the 85% blend.
If we can replace 75% of the gasoline (10% vs 85%) it just seems a logical decision.

Can anyone comment on the speed of getting an ethonal refinery up and running versus an oil refinery.

How about long term effects of alcohol production vs oil?

I think the people in Cyril, OK are still having to arrange for drinking water, because of all the contaminents in the water supply. But near Hydro there was a patch of ground that was bare for some years after that alcohol refinery was dismantled in the ?? late 80's- early 90's.

Folks I don't care if your opinions are green,black, or red.
This is a fact. Without oil you can walk.
Without water.... well you stop.

As I understand it, the issue is not whether the FFV vehicles get better fuel milaege on one blend than another, but that they are not capable of the same fuel economy as their normal counterparts no matter what you put in them. Apparently something in the design enabling them to be flexible fuel also reduces their efficiency. Take a look at the official ratings of flex versus normal for yourself.

 

[Campground Cattle]

The little sysmbol is a green leaf.
Have a friend who has an FFV ranger and he doesn't notice any difference in fuel mileage comparing the 10% blend to the 85% blend.
If we can replace 75% of the gasoline (10% vs 85%) it just seems a logical decision.

Can anyone comment on the speed of getting an ethonal refinery up and running versus an oil refinery.

How about long term effects of alcohol production vs oil?

I think the people in Cyril, OK are still having to arrange for drinking water, because of all the contaminents in the water supply. But near Hydro there was a patch of ground that was bare for some years after that alcohol refinery was dismantled in the ?? late 80's- early 90's.

Folks I don't care if your opinions are green,black, or red.
This is a fact. Without oil you can walk.
Without water.... well you stop.

As I understand it, the issue is not whether the FFV vehicles get better fuel milaege on one blend than another, but that they are not capable of the same fuel economy as their normal counterparts no matter what you put in them. Apparently something in the design enabling them to be flexible fuel also reduces their efficiency. Take a look at the official ratings of flex versus normal for yourself.

Willow its about btu's per gallon converted to energy its that simple every pound of hydrocarbon(oil) is about 20,000 btu's per pound. Gasoline weighs aprox 6 pounds per gallon giving you 120,000 btu's converted to energy to push the auto down the road, diesel is aprox. 7.5 pounds per gallon giving you approx.150,000 btu's per gallon. Ethanol if I remember right is 75,000 btu's per gallon so you would have to buy almost 2 gallons of ethanol to get the same energy to move the auto the same distance as one gallon of gasoline. This is not counting the energy cost to produce energy. We sell fuel by the gallon in this country that is why diesel is the best buy as you are getting more pounds of energy(btu's) per gallon. Example propane weighs aprox 3 pounds gas 6 diesel 7.5 no matter what you use it still takes the same amount of pounds(btu's) to create the same energy to move the vechile the same distance 2 gallons of propane to one of gasoline 2 1/2 gallons of propane to diesel .

So if you are buying an ethanol blend of fuel you are buying less pounds less energy per gallon. You figure out if that is a good buy.

It is not about price only if the fuel you buy is not efficient which fuel cost more? ;-)

 

[la4angus]

La...,
I see your level of intellect has not improved. Did you just give up or do you plan to pursue other avenues of discourse.

OK Pesty, don't get your shorts in a wad. You better go back and see your teacher, little boy.