John Kerry Wants to Mandate Obsolete Technologies

Massachusetts News ^ | 6-28-2006 | MassNews

[francke]

In a highly publicized public relations event at Faneuil Hall Monday, Sen. John Kerry outlined his proposal that the Federal Government mandate a reduction in oil consumption of 2.5 million barrels of oil a day --- an amount equivalent to all the oil we currently import from the Persian Gulf.

[Lazamataz]

In a highly publicized public relations event at Faneuil Hall Monday, Sen. John Kerry outlined his proposal that the Federal Government mandate a reduction in oil consumption of 2.5 million barrels of oil a day

Well, that makes sense.

Listen, he also thinks we are consuming a little too much oxygen, so he will also be mandating a 16% reduction in the number of breaths we take each day.

[Conservative Texan Mom]

John Kerry wants to mandate? And how does Tereza feel about this? Another insistence of flipflopping?

[maggief]

Tori Spelling?

[TommyDale]

No, Sarah Jessica Parker. Actually they could both be Kerry's, IMHO.

[Palmetto]

In reality, most standard vehicles can handle a good 25% ethanol actually

Unfortunately, Gasoline with 25% ethanol runs only slightly more efficiently than gasoline with 25% water.

I'll consider E85 in my flex-fuel Yukon when the price of E85 is low enough to offset the reduction in fuel mileage, and then significantly enough to pay me something for the nuisance of filling up more frequently.

Ethanol is a loser.

[kcvl]

Federal Government mandate a reduction in oil consumption of 2.5 million barrels of oil a day

John Kerry could get his wife to sell four of their five houses, park their private jet and their limos and take care of a few million barrels!

[FroedrickVonFreepenstein]

I always thought Sarah Jessica Parker looked like Dee Snyder from Twisted Sister.

[Beckwith]

Kerry said that Democrats need to take another issue to the country -- the urgent need to develop new energy sources and to wean the American motorist away from gas-guzzling automobiles.

Kerry is not only a loser he's an incredible hypocrite. He wants to "wean the American motorist away from gas-guzzling automobiles."  This, from a man who rides around in the biggest, most powerful SUVs you can buy at 10 to 12 miles per gallon.

His yacht Scaramouche has twin 500 horsepower diesels with a fuel capacity of 500 gallons, and a range of 340 nautical miles, or .68 miles per gallon.

His wife, Teresa, flies all over the globe in a Gulfstream V which consumes 500 gallons per hour or more than 1 gallon of jet fuel per mile.

I think the boy is still tokin'.

[TommyDale]

Now there's a face..."Twithted Thithter"...spoken with a spray of saliva. Yeah, that's another possibility I hadn't considered! LOL!

[Mike Darancette]

He also wants to conduct a war on terror using policemen stationed on Okinawa.

[garyhope]

"Personally, I think they have magic wands, gossamer wings and tutus."

Agreed, all the usual fairy equipment.

[garyhope]

"The biggest Dork in the land, strikes again."

I don't know, Gore is running a close second or first.

They both just don't know when to quit and fade away.

[maggief]

With those faces it's a horse race.

OFO, I mean LOL.

[TommyDale]

A horse race! LOL!

I heard that term before, OFO. Any idea where that originated?

[TKDietz]

You get roughly 30% fewer miles per gallon on pure ethanol than you would get with pure gasoline. You could get more or less depending on the efficiency of your engine. In Brazil their flex vehicles will all run on 100% ethanol, 100% gasoline, or any combination of the two, and there are pumps just about everywhere where pure ethanol is available. They just buy whichever is cheaper, buying ethanol when it is around 30% less than gasoline, or whatever percentage lower they think it needs to be in order to be worth it which of course will depend on how well one's vehicle does with ethanol compared to gasoline.

I doubt E85 gets cheap enough to be a better bargain than gasoline, at least not for any long periods. Ethanol sellers will charge what the market will bear. Right now ethanol prices have more than doubled in a little over a year because demand has outstripped supply, and most of this demand is government created. More and more ethanol plants are coming on line though so the supply problem should abate and ethanol prices will drop. Wholesale prices dropped below $1.30 a gallon in May of 2005, right around production costs. If gasoline prices stay high or go higher, ethanol prices could drop below 70% of gasoline prices, which would make it a better deal than gasoline. The problem is that if it gets too cheap, demand will increase and price will soar. Regardless of production costs price will usually trail not far below gasoline prices unless we see times like now when government created demand sends prices higher than gasoline prices, or if in the future gasoline prices drop so low that ethanol produces have to sell their product at a loss.

One thing that will always keep ethanol prices up though, probably even higher than 70% of gasoline prices, are those willing to pay extra for it to stick it to the Arabs and support American farmers. There are a lot of people like that, along with some who think ethanol is better for the environment, and when you consider that ethanol will never account for but a small portion of our automotive fuel supply, my guess is that there will always be enough people willing to pay more for ethanol to keep the ethanol suppliers from ever having to be extremely price competitive with gasoline suppliers. The only way it would ever get super cheap is if there was a dramatic increase in supply over a short period of time producing a glut in the market. That's not very likely to happen though and even if it did people like you and my brother with E85 compatible vehicles that don't currently use E85 would start buying it, people would buy more E85 compatible cars and modify existing vehicles, and before you knew it ethanol prices would rise again.

I don't think ethanol is a loser though. If it was you wouldn't see oil companies and people like Bill Gates investing so much in it. I think we'll see more and more investment in it. Times are right to make a buck off of ethanol. Their is plenty of government created demand driving prices higher and there doesn't appear to be any end in sight in this. Several states have passed laws phasing out MTBE as a fuel additive. Two have laws in force requiring almost all gasoline sold in those states be E10, and several more have laws that requiring at least substantial increases in the use of E10 in the next few years. The feds are requiring more of their vehicles use E85 a greater percentage of the time. There are lots of state and federal mandates coming on line to reduce the use of petroleum based fuels over time, and we'll see more states doing the same over time to appease the feds. Ethanol may not be the best alternative to gasoline, but it is coming on strong. We'll see some people getting rich from it.

I'm not in love with ethanol. I do like the idea of finding and using alternative fuels though to reduce our dependence in foreign oil. I do like the idea of supporting American farmers and encouraging more farming of our lands, rather than seeing prime farmland used to build strip malls, suburbs, and that sort of thing. I do like the idea of keeping more of our money here, rather than sending it to foreign countries where too often it will be used to support our enemies. I also like the idea of diversifying into different fuels because I think it is dangerous to have all of our eggs in one basket with petroleum based fuels. If a category five hurricane hits our refineries in Houston, or if the Middle East gets nuked, we're going to be in a world of hurt. Even without catastrophic events we are suffering at the mercy of a Middle East run oil cartel that can and will send oil prices higher just to hurt us. The more alternative fuel we can get in the mix, the less power they will have over us, and the more stable prices should be at the pump. I'm all for doing more drilling here, developing cost effective methods for fuel production from oil shale, increasing biodiesel, ethanol, and butanol production, experimenting more with thermal depolymerization or thermal conversion, coal liquification, whatever. I don't care for all these government mandates monkeying with the free markets, but I think it would be unrealistic to think that a lot of that is not going to be going on in the next few decades.

[maggief]

One Freeper's Opinion.

Helloooo?!? Where have you been? ;)

[TommyDale]

Still battling the heat wave and humidity. Air conditioning on the fritz.

[Calvin Locke]

Allegedly, O'Reilly has JF'nK on tomorrow night.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1657270/posts

[BraveMan]

Hey! I like obsolete technology!

[maggief]

Bummer. Got any ice?