Gas prices driven up by ethanol?

[JohnWxy]

http://money.cnn.com/2006/03/30/news/economy/ethanol/


Congress voted to eliminate MTBE's use over FOUR years. Oil companies are moving to make the transition in ONE year.

The problem is due to the switch this year to ethanol by most oil companies away from an additive known as MTBE that had been used in the past to meet environmental standards that go into effect every summer. But MTBE itself causes ground water pollution and last year Congress voted to eliminate its use over four years. But the oil industry, due to concerns about liability, is moving to drop MTBE immediately. Caruso said that rapid change could translate into higher pump prices starting later this spring.

"The rapid switch from MTBE to ethanol could have several impacts on the market that serve to increase the potential for supply dislocations and subsequent price volatility on a local basis," Caruso said in his prepared testimony to the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.

Either way it doesn't matter. We need to get ethanol production/use up as fast as possible. OF course this very quick move will cause some consumer pain. But when did that bother Exxon-MObil? LOL

[CatholicEdHead]

1. All part of the plan to reduce supply and raise prices

for more profits.

[RC]

2. Sure we need to get the production of ethanol up because it takes

OIL to produce ethanol! More ethanol production, more oil used. Fertilizer, diesel fuel.

[Rude Horner]

5. You're forgetting one part of the equation though

It may, in fact, require oil to product Ethanol, but as more ethanol is used by the consumer, less oil will be used by the consumer.

[Lefty48197]

6. EXACTLY!

That's why the price is going up: If we use less oil but substituting ethanol, then the domestic oil cartel will have to raise their prices to insure that they have record profits again this year.

[msongs]

3. ethanol is NOT cost effective...just allegedly environmentally friendly

various sources I have read say it costs more per unit of energy to use ethanol than petroleum.
the primary advantages of ethanol appear to be that it is home grown and less polluting to grow etc
than it is to pump oil. perhaps it burns cleaner in car engines, not so sure of that.

it will become popular only when oil companies get a strangle hold on the market.

Msongs
www.msongs.com/liberaltshirts.htm

[greenman3610]

4. ethanol is available now

flexfuel vehicles to run it are on the road,
Brazil provides an example of energy self sufficiency
using ethanol.
Yes, there are stupid ways to produce it,
and I hope it isn't just another way to
subsidize ADM..
but I am working to make E80 pumps available
in my community, because I think it is
a step in the right direction.

[Lefty48197]

7. E85 fuel is still rare.

I think there are only two stations in metro Detroit that sell it. Iowa has several stations. Hopefully, the supply and demand for E85 will skyrocket soon. The ethanol blends we are using today are only about 10% ethanol.

[Dogmudgeon]

10. Actually, this is disputable

The main anti-ethanol study was done by David Pimentel some five years ago. It was a good study, but recently many of the cost-increasing elements have fallen in cost, and the overall price increase of petroleum has changed the equation. JohnWxy has posted several articles on the subject. While he is an ethanol booster, many of those articles are from reasonably objective sources.

Ethanol is not still 100% proven economically, but it seems like it would be a good idea to try it. We need a "transitional fuel" to replace straight gasoline, and we're having a little bit of luck -- aside from ethanol and its fuel compounds, we also have biodiesel and SVO (straight vegetable oil) biodiesel.

The bad news is that ANY way the energy crises evolve, the energy companies WILL have a stranglehold on us. Contrary to popular belief, wind power will be no less "democratic" than will nuclear reactors. There are two distinct problems we must contend with: energy crises AND crises of democracy.

--p!

[JohnWxy]

13. ETHANOL MORE COST EFFECTIVE THAN GASOLINE - real research has shown.

Pimentel'S "studies" are widely discredited. He has never published in a peer reviewed journal. HIs "studies" are recognized as fallacious by real researchers in the field. Pimentel is an entomologist. The following link has more on mssrs Pimentel and Patzek (another shill of the OIl Industry)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x48327


A USDA study released in 2004 found that ethanol may net as much as 67% more energy than it takes to produce

[JohnWxy]

15. The only sources who assert that are pimentel and Patzek or a third party

who is repeating their fraudulent claims. pimentel and Patzek are widely known by real researchers in this field to be shills for the oil industry (see my posts on this for links). The UC Oil Consortium® was established at the University of California at Berkeley by Prof. T. W. Patzek in 1994.

Here is a scientific study conducted by the Argonne National Laboratory , MIchael Wang is a widely recognized authority , in evaluation of energy sources by serious researchers in the Government, industry and the academia.


www.ncga.com/public_policy/PDF/03_28_05ArgonneNatlLabEthanolStudy.pdf

This study concluded there is a 38% GAIN in the production of ethanol. It also showed that for gasoline you recover 19% LESS energy than you consumed in producing the gasoline.

Subsequent studies by Michigan State University concluded a 56% GAIN for ethanol and by the

U.S Dept of Agriculture which concluded a 65% GAIN for ethanol. There is no question as to the practicality and efficiency of ethanol.

[JohnWxy]

16. the journal Science evaluates ethanol studies AND Pimentel and Patzek's

http://www.ethanol.org/ethanolinthenews.html/documents/ScienceJournalJanuary2006.pdf


Two of the studies stand out from the others
because they report negative net energy values
and imply relatively high GHG emissions and
petroleum inputs (11, 12). The close evaluation
required to replicate the net energy results showed
that these two studies also stand apart from the
others by incorrectly assuming that ethanol
coproducts (materials inevitably generated when
ethanol is made, such as dried distiller grains with
solubles, corn gluten feed, and corn oil) should
not be credited with any of the input energy and
by including some input data that are old and
unrepresentative of current processes, or so
poorly documented that their quality cannot be
evaluated (tables S2 and S3).




11. T. Patzek, Crit. Rev. Plant Sci. 23, 519 (2004).
12. D. Pimentel, T. Patzek, Nat. Resour. Res. 14, 65 (2005).

[htuttle]

8. I've been using E10 for several years -- it's the same price

The BP stations around here have *only* offered E10 for some time, and the price is right in line with other gas.

Friday, I think the price at the BP across the street was about $2.56 or so.

[JohnWxy]

11. Ethanol 10% WHERE?

I have been trying to find WHERE Ethanol 10% is available. Ethanol 10% can be used in ANY engine that burns gasoline. Anybody who wants to help reduce the demand for imported fossil fuel could help in this campaign WITHOUT SPENDING THOUSANDS TO BUY A NEW CAR (and thousands more for a Hybrid car).

I'm sure millions of people who are really fed up with buying oil with blood (over 2,300 Amearican dead now) would jump at the chance to buy fuel with ANY percentage of ethanol.

BArach Obama has requested an invetigation into Oil companies restricting availability of Ethanol (of any percentage) becuse they do not want people to become familiar with it and start building a demand for it. The oil companies have long known ethanol could be an effective competitor to gasoline. Also, they don't want to offer a product the price of which they can't completely control themselves.

The oil industry is not a competitive industry they control the price of gas by limiting the refining capacity (go to Public Citizen .org and:Oil and Gas - they published a study on this some years ago about price controls and the closing of oil refineries by the major oil companies).

Pimentel's "study" has been revealed as bogus many times over. USA Today reported on this some time ago. LEgitimate research proves Ethanol production is more cost effective by far than producting gasoline. I will provide links.

[htuttle]

12. Any British Petroleum station in WI, I think

At the BP station on Williamson St in Madison, all they have is E10 -- it's been that way ever since they switched over to BP from Marathon a few years ago. There are little yellow stickers on the pumps -- otherwise you'd never notice that it's E10.

I've been running it in my (4-stroke) scooter. :shrug:

[JohnWxy]

14. I'll check them out here. NEver stopped at BP.

BTW they call themseves Beyond Petroleum now. They are one oil company which is not aggressively opposed to expanding renewables. (As far as the oil industry goes, about the only alternative energy source they are not opposed to is generating hydrogen from oil! OF course, this is 'alternative" but NOT renewable!)

Thanks!

[rfkrfk]

9. this story is completely untrue

the US Congress did not ban MTBE.

this is typical media BS

what DID become law, is that the federal mandate that
RFG gas must contain oxygen, is repealled May 6 of this year.


I'm not sure what the author meant, perhaps
'voted' on, {but lost}, or
was in one version,
{it got dropped in a later version, that later necame law}

what failed, was proposed lawsuit protection, for MTBE related companies.

seperately, some companies do not want to continue
to handle MTBE

several{17?} states ban MTBE