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Gas Prices Too High? Well, E85 ethanol blend is 40 cents cheaper
GF Herald ^
| Mar. 21, 2004
| Lisa Davis
Posted on 03/21/2004 5:59:59 AM PST by wallcrawlr
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To: wallcrawlr
But the price of ethanol, determined by things such as corn prices and tax policy, has stayed steady. E85 was selling for $1.39 a gallon Friday. The solution is not to buy ethanol, it is to reduce taxes on gasoline to the same level levied against ethanol.
2
posted on
03/21/2004 6:02:31 AM PST
by
dirtboy
(Howard, we hardly knew ye. Not that we're complaining, mind you...)
To: wallcrawlr
How much of that is subsidized? You're still paying for it.
3
posted on
03/21/2004 6:03:03 AM PST
by
sigSEGV
To: dirtboy
Christianson said cars running on E85, rather than gas with 10 percent ethanol, see a drop off in the number of miles they can travel per gallon of fuel.Well, if you're driving less miles per gallon, you're filling up more often, which means you may be paying the same anyway! Depends on what the drop off is, of course.
4
posted on
03/21/2004 6:15:57 AM PST
by
Azzurri
To: sigSEGV
How much of that is subsidized? You're still paying for it. The primary subsidy for ethanol is actually a tax break - ethanol is not taxed at the same rate as gasoline - because without the tax break, ethanol wasn't competive (it might be marginally competive at current prices). In addition, the corn feedstock receives federal subsidies, thereby increasing the supply and driving the price down.
5
posted on
03/21/2004 6:18:40 AM PST
by
dirtboy
(Howard, we hardly knew ye. Not that we're complaining, mind you...)
To: Azzurri
Alcohol has fewer BTUs than gasoline.
To: wallcrawlr
It requires more energy to produce a gallon of ethanol from corn than is released by using the ethanol as fuel. Ethanol use contributes. The difference in price is a result of tax subsidies at many levels. Ethanol use is actually harmful to the nation's attempt to be energy independent. It is, however, very popular in the farm states, where voters enjoy the subsidies.
7
posted on
03/21/2004 6:40:43 AM PST
by
LOC1
To: wallcrawlr
It requires more energy to produce a gallon of ethanol from corn than is released by using the ethanol as fuel. Ethanol use contributes. The difference in price is a result of tax subsidies at many levels. Ethanol use is actually harmful to the nation's attempt to be energy independent. It is, however, very popular in the farm states, where voters enjoy the subsidies.
8
posted on
03/21/2004 6:40:48 AM PST
by
LOC1
To: Eric in the Ozarks
Ethanol has approximately 1/2 the heating value of gasoline.
Heating value is the number Engineers use to determine the maximum theoretical efficiency possible from a hydrocarbon fuel used in combustion.
So a mixture of 85% Ethanol and 15% gasoline would result in
a 42% reduction in efficiency or an increase of 42% fuel for the same distance.
Please report the increase in pollutants caused by this increase in Ethanol.
Since I do not report to Archer Danial Midland Corp., I feel free to discuss the truth.
9
posted on
03/21/2004 6:42:03 AM PST
by
curmudgon1
(False Hopes)
To: curmudgon1
I'm a practicing peddler of petroleum products by profession.
To: dirtboy
Bottled water is more expensive than gasoline. Tax That!
11
posted on
03/21/2004 6:54:44 AM PST
by
BobS
To: wallcrawlr
---as an aside, I'd like to know a little more on the physical production of ethanol--for example, what are the boilers fueled by in the distillation process?
To: rellimpank
Depends on where they're located. ADM's plants in Decatur and Cedar Rapids are fueled by coal, burned in fluidized bed (limestone injection to control emissions) boilers. The smaller plants around the midwest are fueld by natural gas. In both cases, it takes more heating value to make ethanol than is in the ethanol. But using a low rank fuel like coal to manufacture a high rank fuel does seem logical.
To: wallcrawlr
There's a federal excise tax credit of
52 cents per gallon of ethanol on ethanol-gasoline blends, so the $1.39 a gallon for E85 quoted in the article actually includes a 44.2 cent tax credit to the blender. On an equal tax footing, therefore, the price of the E85 comes out to $1.841 cents per gallon, two cents more than the gas price quoted in the article.
Who's picking up the difference? You and I, the taxpayers.
Ethanol is a big, fat ripoff, lining the pockets of the agribusiness giants like ADM at the expense of the consumers and taxpayers.
14
posted on
03/21/2004 7:11:58 AM PST
by
mvpel
(Michael Pelletier)
To: mvpel
Ah, yes. Remember when the referred to Bob Dole as the Senator from ADM ?
To: Eric in the Ozarks
--thanks. That confirmed my suspicion. I have a long time friend in Wisconsin who sold light industrial machinery for years. He was visiting an ethanol plant and casually stated that "you must use a lot of this in the manufacturing process"---The reply was on the order of "oh, no--this stuff is too expensive"---
To: mvpel
--it also buys farmer votes for incumbent senators of both flavors in the great midwest. I never cease to be amazed on my infrequent trips back to southwest Wisconsin in the summer.
When I was a kid corn, oats and alfalfa were rotated as crops--now it's CORN as far as the eye can see---
To: dirtboy
The solution is not to buy ethanol, it is to reduce taxes on gasoline to the same level levied against ethanol.That just means paying more taxes elsewhere to make up for the loss and pay for roads and such.
18
posted on
03/21/2004 7:24:11 AM PST
by
templar
To: templar
That just means paying more taxes elsewhere to make up for the loss and pay for roads and such. Or we could try the radical concept of eliminating stupid spending that government shouldn't be doing so that our tax dollars go for something useful, such as roads.
19
posted on
03/21/2004 7:25:46 AM PST
by
dirtboy
(Howard, we hardly knew ye. Not that we're complaining, mind you...)
To: rellimpank
Interestingly, some cheese plants also make ethanol as a by-product. At one Kraft plant in Minnesota, about three truckloads of 200 proof alcohol is produced everyday. Because of the cleanliness of the plant and purity of the product, Kraft's management wanted to introduce their alcohol into various consumer products like mouthwash and aftershave. Trouble was, the ethanol contained an overwhelming spearmint taste and smell, so the cheese alcohol continues to be used as a gasoline oxygenate.
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