Ford says more ethanol pumps are needed

[JohnWxy]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11726984/

Car maker tells Congress oil companies need to step up distribution

WASHINGTON - With millions of flexible-fuel vehicles on U.S. roads and more coming, major oil companies must install many more service station pumps to provide gasoline made mostly from ethanol to run them, a top Ford Motor Co. official told Congress on Tuesday.

"For ethanol to be a real player in the transportation sector and lessen America's dependence on foreign oil, we need a strong, long-term focus on policies that increase U.S. ethanol production and accelerate E85 infrastructure development," Cischke told lawmakers.
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Most service stations carrying E85 fuel are mom-and-pop or independently owned stores in the U.S. Midwest.

U.S. automakers have produced almost 6 million flexible-fuel vehicles. If they all ran on E85 fuel, over 2.5 billion gallons of traditional gasoline could be saved, Cischke said.

But she said the flexible-fuel cars and trucks cannot boost U.S. energy security if E85 fuel pumps are not available.

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Sen. Pete Domenici, who chairs the energy panel, said the lack of distribution for E85 is a big problem. "How do we get the companies to put the tanks out there?"

He said the government should lean on oil companies to install more pumps and Congress should follow up to "find out is there any role we have, any possible way we can pursue this, so that the companies will do more."

Domenici said he is "seriously thinking" of meeting with oil company representatives and Bush administration officials to see if enough is being done to get the ethanol fuel to consumers.

The scarcity of E85 pumps has the attention of U.S. Energy Secretary Sam Bodman, who said last week he planned to ask big oil companies why they were not installing more of the pumps.

He said if the companies don't make an effort to provide more ethanol fuel, there would be a more "aggressive response" from the government. He did not offer details.

Here's an idea, tell the oil companies they will pay excess profits tax for 2005 OR ...they can start making ethanol (10% and 85%, as production makes it more available) more available to people who would like to buy it.

I think people would buy it like mad. You can use ethanol 10% in any car that uses gas.

HEre's another idea go to www.congress.org and email Pete Domenici and tell him you want to see ethanol more available. It's clean (reduces GHG), it's renewable and it's domestically produced. The money spent within the U.S. strengthens our economy.

LEt's start cutting oil imports now. (and you can help accomplish that without spending $5,000 for a hybrid!

[tuvor]

1. Maybe not such a good deal after all.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=732699&mesg_id=732814

[JohnWxy]

7. TOTAL BULLSHIT, What else can I say - here are some links to realiable

information.

E85, according to all relaiable sources of data, gets about 17% - 21% less miles per gallon than gasoline NOT 40% - that is COMPLETE BULLSHIT.
(of course since Ethanol85 is 19% cheaper than gas kinda makes it all academic anyway, huh?)


BUT THATS NOT THE WHOLE STORY - ETHANOL HAS A HIGHER OCTANE RATING THAN GASOLINE (105- 110 for ethanol vs 92 to 93 for PRemium grade gas. With the higher octane, if you are burning ehanol 85 (85% ethanol) you can use turbo-charging or super-charging to effectively raise the compression in the compression chambers (where the fuel is burned) and get more horsepower and torque than you can with gasoline (!).

That's what Saab did with the 9-5 BioPower FFV. They have computer controlled variable valve timing and turbo-charging, boosting horsepower 20% and torque 16% over what the engine produces running on strait gasoline. The result is you get as good or better mileage when running on E85 as you do when using gasoline.

Now Saab is owned by GM, so they could make this engine configuration available in U.S. FFVs, but they do not. ( Maybe people should go to the GM web-site and submit feed-back telling them to make this turbo-charged FFV configuration available here in the U.S.)

But what if you have an American FFV without the turbo -charging? Well, at E85 at $2.19 versus $2.69 (or higher) for galsoline that's about 19% CHEAPER for the ethanol! OF course, most of us know what's going to happen to the price of gasoline wehn summer driving season reallly gets goiing. Yes, we'll be seeing $3.00/gal gas. MOre ethanol plants are being built at a feverish pace to try to keep up with the demand. There has been a spike in ethanol prices because Oil companies recently startedd buying eathanol (the fuel they said was too hard to incorporate into their supply system) to replace MTBE. But By the end of this year considerably more production capaciaty will be in place and that should counteract any short term spike in ethanol prices (should they occur - somebody recently posted that he found E85 for 2.19 / gallon so that doesn't show a price spike in his area.).


OF course a FFV doesn't cost the buyer any more than a regular gasoline-only car but if you prefer, you buy a hybrid vehicle and spend $5,000 MORE and wait several years to get your money back.

The moral is, dont' be fooled by horseshit. Look for reputable information sources on the web.

By boosting compression with turbo-charging or super charging you can get better performance and just as good as mileage with ethanol 85 as you can with gasoline, plus you are releasing far less GHG than you would with gasoline. And it's a domestic source of fuel - much better for our economic and strategic security.

[NickB79]

10. From personal experience, E85 is now as expensive as regular unleaded

And that's here in Minnesota, one of the most E85-friendly states in the US. The three gas stations in my area that sell it all have it priced only a few cents less than regular unleaded gasoline.

[JohnWxy]

11. The Oil companies just in the last couple of months have started buying

Ethanol in a big way. They want to replace MTBE with ethanol right away. This will cause a spike in the price of ethanol until the ethanol manufacturers can catch up with this jump in demand. Although, ethanol plants are being built in large numbers, it could take a year for them to meet this huge increase in demand with the added production capacity they will provide.

There was a post from another DUer who said he was paying $2.19 a gal vs $2.69 for regular gas.

It's sortof odd, after all the counter arguments that the oil companies have been making for years about how difficult it would be to incorporate ethanol into the fuel supply, now they want to do it in a few months! ("You want ethanol? We'll give you your fuckin' ethanol. How's THAT for a price!")

Be patient. More plants are being built and production volume is increasing rapidly (about 60% addtional capacity, compared to 2005 total production, is under construction right now - takes about a year to complete a plant).

[Lefty48197]

2. I think E85 is a great idea.

Even if it takes 40% more gallons to run your vehicle, you're only using 40% more gasoline, which only makes up 15% of the E85 to begin with. Add 40% to that 15%, and you're still only using 21% of the total amount of gasoline. Of course, they need to get the price of E85 down to about 75% of that of gasoline in order to get the costs in line. More availability will help.

[JohnWxy]

8. Total Bull-shit. It won't take 40% more of E85.

Legitimate sources of data show FFVs on E85 get 17% - 21% less mpg than they do on strait gasoline. Which is balanced out by the lower price of E85. But with turbo charging the mileage would be about the same! ...read on.

Just for fun, check out the Saab 9-5 BioPower FFV which is turbo-charged. turbo-charging allows the 9-5 to take advantage of the higher octane of Ethanol(105 -110 vs 92-93 for Premium grade gas). with the higher octane you can boost the compression using turbo-charging or super-charging and you get considerably more horssepower and torque and your mileage is about the same as when you are using strait gasoline.

GM owns Saab but they don't offer turbo charging in any of their own FFVs. Maybe people should go to GMs web-site and offer some feed-back that they should do this to save even more gasoline (and ethanol) and make the FFvs more attractive to people. they could do itm, when the Saab engineers were designing the engine set-up for the 9-5 they consulted with GM engineers!

[rfkrfk]

3. ethanol pumps will be near ethanol production

usually,

ethanol can't be moved by pipeline

[Dead_Parrot]

4. really?

How does it get from the gas tank to the engine, then?

[rfkrfk]

5. meant 'petroleum pipeline'. n/t

[Dead_Parrot]

6. *chuckle*

:P

[hatrack]

9. It dissociates when shipped by pipeline, doesn't it?

I'm just sayin . . .

[rfkrfk]

12. the problem is 'water pickup'

when moved by pipeline,
for either ethanol, or a gasoline-ethanol blend

currently, ethanol is added to the
gas-station delivery tanker