Posted on 04/18/2006 8:46:31 AM PDT by hoosierboy
Michigan - Meijer and General Motors are joining forces to make ethanol-based fuel available at the discount chain's gas stations. The fuel, known as E85, will be available at about 20 Meijer stores in Michigan. However, NewsCenter 16 does not know at this time, if the store in Benton Township will be one of the selected stores.
Meijer, GM and Governor Jennifer Granholm will announce details of the plan Tuesday.
E85 is a blend of 85-percent ethanol and 15-percent petroleum-based gasoline.
About four million vehicles can use E85.
However, most owners now use regular gasoline because of the scarcity of stations selling E85.
They buy econo-boxes. Fiats and such.
Amen!
The Wiki has a pretty good essay on E85 and talks a bit about its inefficiencies. Ethanol is not a newfangled fuel. Henry Ford's vehicles were essentially flex-fuel vehicles back in the '20's. I have a hard time believing that with our present 21st century technology we can't make ethanol a viable fuel. For a decent technical essay into details betwixt gasoline, methanol and ethanol as fuels read this essay on biofuels.
Frankly, the arguments against ethanol fuel are beginning to disgust me. The subsidy one being the one that rankles me the most. Aside from paying farmers not to grow, we're essentially subsidizing the very foreign governements that are hostile to us by providing the very revenue to allows the regimes running them to be in existance. Whether we buy oil from Iran, or whether we buy oil from Venezuela is a moot point: the U.S. is the largest buyer in the oil market. Supposing we pulled half of our requirements out of the markets. How much does a nuclear program cost? What would happen to the price of oil if the U.S. pulled half of its orders for oil in? What would happen to the balance of accounts in such a scenario?
Oh, but you wag your finger, if we did that, oil prices would plummet and bio-fuel would become non-viable. Hardly. That is, not if there was a 100% import tariff imposed on all crude oil imported explicitely for the purpose of refining into gasoline (or already refined foreign gasoline). We could ship those tariff's (on a sliding scale) right to the farmers, such that the net price to the consumer would be equivalent to what the rest of the world would pay for pure gasoline.
Problem is someone wants it the way it is.
Someone wants alot of money from oil funding turmoil in the world.
That's the root of the problem.
We have always had as much oil right here in the gulf of messico as we'll ever need.
Right now... but what happens when Nukes go off in Iran?
What's the cost of funding corrupt governments?
What's the cost as India and China continue to grow?
at 120 dollars a barrel I'm sure you find that the cost of oil just doesn't hash out anymore.. could be less.. could be at 60 dollars a barrel if people get sick of sending our money overseas.
There is a hot demand for fuel alcohol right now and, because the cost of production is substantially below the market price, new capacity is being added at a furious pace.
When my nephew was killed in Afghanistan last year, I decided that I was done sending money to terrorist countries. My new pickup truck runs fine on e85, with very little loss in mileage.
I've noticed that most poseters who trash e85 have no experience with it.
I'm not out to gut the oil companies, I think they're great (I really do, after all I AM a capitalist; albeit a pragmatic capitalist). However, their profits has nothing to do with the price of oil (or very little). The present price of crude is a supply/demand curve intersection and has nothing to do with recovery costs. If the price of oil dropped to $35/bbl overnight they'd still make a profit tomorrow. Current price of oil has to do with speculation and not what the oil companies are charging. There's only ONE way I see to get the hysteria of present oil future's speculation out of the market: get the U.S. out of the global oil market. I believe that we can do it (if the U.S. government has the intestinal fortitude to take the steps necessary).
I believe that conservatives can co-opt the liberal environmental support base, by embarking on a path of national energy independence: advertise they're advocating a green fuel, scrapping subsidies, putting farmers to work, and cutting the apron strings to Mamma oil. I think you're right about the status quo and why it is the way it is: the almight U.S. $.
10 years ago, I played D&D (the DM being a guy who was studying for his AICPA at Walsh College here in Detroit, MI) and he said something that has resonated with me to this day: "If you want to get into something good right now, you latch onto a position in the petroleum industry, but you do it NOW!" He said that his instructor told the class that crude oil will continue to rise to such price level where extraction of oil from shale-oil was cheaper than crude-oil. He said after that point the ride on the gravey train will be OVER; there is so MUCH shale-oil that we can't even comprehend it (and all the perks, bennies and largess associated presently with the oil industry will come to a screeching halt (as a result of presently unprecedented austerity pressures to remain competetive).
Here's another spin on the situation (sure to make you anti-immigration people cringe). Suppose we converted as much fallow field to suger-cane production, and we opened the doors to all the foreign farm labor into this country that wanted to come in to work the suger cane fields. Imagine what PetroMex would do NOW, the price of oil just dropped 50% and all their cheap labor flooded to the U.S. (of course the illegals like it here: they get rights, and benefits, housing, supermarkets they can shop in 24 hours a day, and actually have money to buy stuff with, etc.). If we went total Ethanol energy source, I suggest we'd have plenty of jobs for everybody.
The geeks would be working on the technology, the industrial's would be working on the infrastructure, the people would be working (and making money), and the venture capitalists who took the inital risks would be sippin' Mai Tai's.
Everybody would be happy, except who? Somebody would be unhappy. What do you think the outcry would be? And where would the outcry come from: within or without the borders? Again, I ask, what would happen to the world as we know it if the U.S. collectively as an entire nation took it upon itself (similar to going to the Moon), that it resolved no longer to be addicted to oil. I believe the prospect is doable.
That's my story and I'm stickin' to it. I understand that there's a lot of issues at stake (a LOT of issues), and that there will no doubt be a huge amount of controversy). But I'll share something with you: a few years ago I watched a PBS special on energy and they explored the plausibility of each and EVERY energy solution. The answer: none of them were sufficient to maintain growth necessary on a global scale. All alternatives are necessary in conjunction.
The thing that disturbed me the most was the requirements of electical power. The biggest growth of electrical consumption was the increasing computerized age. One thing the program pointed out was the increasing parasitical as a result of the internet age. All these PC's coming on line, and each one has what kind of power supply. Then they mentioned all the other items in most households that while dormant are still consuming juice. After a power failure, how long does it take you to recover from all the flashing 12's? The program showed the curve of global electricity consumption to 2000 (its exponential without doubt).
The question remains, unless we figure out where we're going to get the energy to fuel sustained growth standards of living WILL suffer. Will it suffer? I don't know, how high does gasoline have to go before the people cry for relief? How hight does natrural gas have to go before the people cry for relief? What about the peripheral energy issues such as water purification and refrigeration for medical supplies for third world country become cost prohibitive until the people cry out for relief? Will moving this nations energy dependence from foreign oil reserves to a renewable energy source solve all those problems. Nope. Not even in the slightest.
But the one thing this PBS program made clear: the amount of money devoted to alternates was ZERO. That's the problem. And from what I can tell: nobody even wants to try (I guess they're too fat, dumb and happy with bread and circuses for that to be important).
Oil has a gigantic external cost, from pollution to national security
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1617340/posts
Ping to another look at ethanol from Dow Jones Marketwatch.
I prognisticate riots within a week of gasoline rising to $5.00/gal. And then the bird-flu hits.
I would if only the "new tech" didn't continually violate all the laws of thermodynamics, economics and nature in general!!! And I'm no Luddite!!! Nuclear power without continual tampering by Luddite EnvironMentalists, CONgressional fumbling, etc., is the answer!!!
Given the entire spectrum of known fissionable material ore, there is approximately 100 years in the ground. What do we do with the shit left over? Who would object to that?
More nuclear power will NOT solve our problems. There is plenty of coal to meet our forseable needs for the next 20 years or so. Who would object to extracting the coal?
There is some energy needs that can be met by hydroelectric power. Who would object to damming rivers for that purpose.
THere are areas where wind-farms can be established: who would object to that?
There are other solutions, but they're trivial. The problem is that of globably sustained economic growth. When will the people cry for relief? Who will give it to them.
The problem is that NO MONEY WHATSOEVER is expended on ANY alternatives. We are firmly where we are at until somebody objects. I say we just ignore the prospect of Ethanol alone (until the people cry for relief). And then what? I believe that a pre-emptive strike on world economic markets may be prudent. If they don't like it, what are they going to do: invade us? And then what?
If the price of global oil dropped, what would that do the the U.S. economy for all those things the U.S. needed to make its own Ethanol? And then what?
Perfect! Just like the swine flu pandemic, I am looking forward to making a profit. The only things that I came away with from the swine flu days was a lime green leisure suit and some stacked platform shoes from one of the millions of corpses in the streets. Or was it the Salvation Army resale store? At any rate, there is enough economic activity here in America that bird flu is not even a blip. They have already extorted the money that they needed for WHO. People are paying 200% more for gasoline than 18 months ago. And the only riots are at the retail discount stores that run out of electronics and molded Chinese plastic crap. That should tell us something.
As far as riots, you haven't a clue what that's all about I guess (they won't be about Leisure Suits). As best I know, the Leisure Suites I have in my closet will dissolve in gasoline. I'm not about to put my Leisure Suits (nor '70's ties into gasoline); they'll be worth far more money than gold one day (kind of like my Beatles picure albums).
Viva la Perma Press! Viva la gasoline!
read tomorrow
If GM wanted market share they would have moved some of that E85 production to the US and fought Toyota for "green customers" but they are too stupid to live. /antiGM and Ford management rant off.
Nope! I can't agree with you about nuclear, whatsoever. You're dead wrong!!! But that's your right, right???
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