Never Bring A Rapier To A Gun Fight

[Marc J. Rauch + 53]

 

Ethanol critics with glass arguments shouldn't throw stones

Marc Rauch

I have a friend in the petroleum oil business. I know this may surprise many people who read my articles and editorials in which I try my best to smack the heck out of the oil industry, but I do have a friend in the industry. His name is Robert Rapier, he's a chemical engineer, and he's had a long career in the energy business. If you do a search of his name, you'll be impressed by his credentials...frankly, I've always been. I've always enjoyed talking to him, and we've been able to share information about different energy topics. We've published some of his previous editorials on TheAutoChannel.com, and we've used some of his video reports on our broadcast television network. But, you know, even the best of friends can have wildly divergent opinions - This seems to be one of those times.

 

Robert Rapier

Two weeks ago, Robert wrote an editorial for Forbes titled "ETHANOL INDUSTRY IN FREE FALL SINCE PRESIDENT TRUMP'S INAUGURATION." I read the article and thought about it. It didn't move me to reply because I've read dozens of other headlines and stories similar to this over the months since Donald Trump was elected president - it seems like someone is always claiming that Trump has set something or other into a "free-fall." I'm not typically alarmed by anti-Trumpers or "free-fall" warnings, so I brushed this one off.

Then, two days later, Robert followed up with another ethanol story, "THE PROBLEM WITH THE ETHANOL INDUSTRY."

I've been in business for 50 years - half a century. I've worked closely with companies in all types of industries, and with companies of all sizes - creating business plans, marketing plans, sourcing manufacturers, developing production plans, devising advertising plans, and directing the implementation of many of the plans. So, without even reading the story I thought to myself: "Every industry has problems, why shouldn't the ethanol industry?" Funnily enough, as I read his article, I noted that Robert himself acknowledges that all industries have problems - he says so in the second paragraph.

I continued reading, and in the very next paragraph I read something that I don't agree with. Robert wrote:

• "The business model of the ethanol industry...is to get the federal government to force consumers to use their product."

I felt that this is an unfair and myopic view of the ethanol fuel industry, for which there are real reasons and needs for the ethanol industry to exist. I read more, and found some additional points of disagreement, such as:

• "Refiners object to the entire concept of being forced to blend ethanol, and for being penalized if they don't. Refiners have spent billions of dollars complying with the ethanol mandates. That cost to the refiners is essentially a transfer of wealth to the ethanol industry."
  
  "...the ethanol industry...relied on federal subsidies, import tariffs designed to keep out Brazilian ethanol, and a federal mandate. After fighting to keep the federal subsidies for years, the ethanol industry finally lost the main federal subsidy ($0.45 per gallon) at the end of 2011."
  
  (Responding to a statement by Sen. Grassley about ethanol engendering free-market conservatism, Robert wrote) "Forcing consumers to use your product is the opposite of the free-market conservatism Senator Grassley says he supports."

I believe that these comments from Robert are intellectually dishonest and historically inaccurate. The petroleum oil industry enjoys its position of dominance for one reason only: Federal government interference. You can't honestly fault the ethanol industry for accepting a morsel of crumbs from the same hand that nourished the oil industry for more than 150 years, right up to today. This was the subject of the thesis that Rob Bradley, Jr. requested from me and then published on his MasterResource online blog (Ethanol’s Lost Decades: Could We Have Had a Biofuel World?).

If Robert Rapier wants the ethanol industry to act mature and grown up, shouldn't the suggested role model (the oil industry) be worthy of emulation? At this point in time, shouldn't the oil industry be free from all governments supports and be standing on its own?

Refiners object to being "forced" to blend ethanol into gasoline, and being penalized if they don't, for just one reason: the loss of profit. Refiners have long had to blend various additives into gasoline, they know how to do it. They used to blend in tetraethyl lead, then they blended in ethylene bromide, then they blended in other anti-corrosion chemicals and detergents, and then MTBE; so there's no big deal to blending in ethanol. Robert says that the cost to the refiners was a transfer of wealth to the ethanol industry. Even if this was true we all have to remember that this "transfer of wealth" was due to the oil industry's theft of the public's health through the use of the poisonous fuels. For years the oil industry hid the truth about the health risks, just as the Tobacco Industry did. They lied to America and to the world.

In any event, the $.45 per gallon subsidy that Robert refers to didn't go to the farmers or the ethanol industry, it primarily went to the oil/gasoline blenders to make up for having to use 10% of someone else's product. This is the so-called transfer of wealth. So, you see, any animosity felt by refiners for just doing what they have done for many decades (blending ingredients to make this stuff called gasoline), is nonsense because they were compensated.

The effort to end the "blenders tax credit," led by oil industry champion Senator Tom Coburn, backfired on the oil industry. They had assumed that by removing the tax credit that the cost of ethanol-gasoline blends, which were lower priced than ethanol-free gasoline, would increase and make consumers angry. The angry consumers would then scream at their elected representatives to change the law, and the oil industry would be able to add some other crap derived from crude oil. The removal of the blender's tax credit wound up having no effect on the retail price of ethanol-gasoline blends, which remained lower priced than E0. So, it's not accurate to say that the ethanol industry lost the "main federal subsidy," and by implication lost millions or billions of dollars; the oil industry lost that money. They cut their nose to spite their faces, as the old saying goes.

Regarding the issue of Senator Grassley's free-market conservatism, and then Robert's response that "Forcing consumers to use your product is the opposite of the free-market conservatism," I think we need to be realistic here. Correcting an injustice is not an injustice. Requiring a race horse to carry extra weight in the jockey's saddle to compete against heavier horse/jockey units is not an unfair disadvantage, it is leveling the field. The oil industry hasn't been an open and free market since around the American Civil War. Oil companies have used their muscle to keep competitive fuel products out of service stations, even when they don't own specific stations. The RFS didn't, and doesn't force customers to use ethanol, it requires the use of any renewable fuel to extend the available supply of fuel. The oil industry had their chance to give us another oxygenate to replace tetraethyl lead, and they gave us another poison, MTBE. The oil industry could use higher concentrations of aromatics to replace ethanol, but it would cost much more and it would multiply the amount of poisons thrown into the air. So the choice...THE CHOICE...is ethanol.

 

Dead American servicemen, the victims of the modern Black Death: petroleum oil.

Let's be clear about a couple of things: The fuels produced by the petroleum oil industry are poison. P-O-I-S-O-N. They kill. Oil has been called "Black Gold." The famous "Beverly Hillbillies" TV show theme song uses the expression "Black Gold" in the lyrics to recount how a poor backwoods family became rich by discovering oil on the property. But it's not Black Gold, it's "BLACK DEATH." The infamous 14th century European disease called "The Black Death" is estimated to have killed 50 million people. Almost all wars in the 20th century (certainly the major wars) were fought over petroleum oil - either control of oil, access to the oil, ownership of the oil land, etc. It's estimated that more than 120 million people died because of these wars. That's more than twice the number of deaths from The Black Death.

But what the heck, let's say that only half of the 120 million died in oil-related wars. Nah, I'll be really generous and cut that in half again. So now we have just 30 million people were killed in the 20th century from oil related wars. Comparatively, how many people died in wars over ethanol rights and distribution? I don't know of any. We have 30 million deaths on one side, and 0 deaths on the other. Isn't this enough reason to advocate for more ethanol use?

 

Oh wait, I forgot to add in the tens of millions of people who were permanently injured and disabled by the oil-related wars, and then the tens of millions of people who were killed or made ill from respiratory diseases linked to petroleum oil fuels, and then what about the untold millions of non-human animals that were killed from petroleum oil disasters in the 20th century? This isn't some obscure arguing about whether climate change is real and if people and animals will die. Petroleum oil wars, illnesses, and disasters have killed more people than the devastating Bubonic Plague.

This is the filthy, disgusting, deadly petroleum oil industry I'm talking about. Oh sure, there are guys like Alex Epstein who ran around for a few years celebrating "The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels," and how the world owes so much to gasoline and diesel and coal; but it's a fraudulent argument, and I told Alex Epstein that his 'magnum opus' is a fraudulent argument. I did it in my emails to him, and I did it in my published essay on the subject in early 2018. Mr. Epstein, who announced that he would debate anyone at anytime on this issue, decided that I wasn't the anyone he would debate, and that he had no-time available to do it. (See: The Immorality of Arguing That There's a Moral Case for Fossil Fuels)

So, filled with all these thoughts, I started to craft a response to Robert Rapier's editorials.

However, before I got very far in my reply, Robert published a third ethanol article in Forbes, then a fourth, then just a couple of days ago, a fifth. This fifth article begins with Robert writing, "I hadn't intended to write another ethanol column so soon..." I have no idea if there will soon be a sixth and seventh from Robert, but I think he's presented enough at this point for me to offer my perspective...the correct perspective (if you don't mind me saying), with facts thrown in to make it palatable.

By the way. I'm well aware of Forbes anti-ethanol history ₁ (with a dogged unwillingness to publish counter pro-ethanol texts), and so despite Robert's assurances in his editorials that he is not anti-ethanol, I'd say that Forbes must view Robert's editorials as being anti-ethanol enough to meet their criteria for bashing ethanol, thereby allowing Robert to publish five unfavorable ethanol articles in such quick succession.

Robert's third editorial focuses on what he says is the solution to fix the ethanol industry, and he targets Iowa as ground zero for his solution. To be honest, I heard this pitch before. In a phone conversation I had with Robert a few years ago, he told me about this plan. And if I'm not mistaken, I believe he also did a short videotape tape of the plan, and it's probably on YouTube. The bottom line of the plan is to get Iowa and Iowans to use more ethanol. Yes, baby, I'm all for that; it's what I've been saying for a long time. Let's get New Yorkers to use more ethanol; Oregonians to use more ethanol; Georgians to use more ethanol; all Americans to use more ethanol. Let's do it!

But there's a catch, Robert wants to compare Iowa to Saudi Arabia, and he wants to treat Iowa as an isolated sand locked country. He wants to treat Iowa as if its ruled by a "royal" dictator and his family, and commands that Iowans use ethanol before using any other fuel. Saudi Arabia was a very poor country up until American oil men and politicians made them very rich. The Saudi family was promised national protection, and other subsidies...all the things that Robert finds wrong with what he says in his last editorial is the ethanol industry's "Entitlement Mentality."

 

Saudi Arabia's citizens are all on the dole; if it wasn't for large government handouts the people would riot, capture the kink (I misspelled 'king' purposely because if you've ever read about the Saudi royal family you'd know how kinky they are), and give him the old Muammar Gaddafi drainage pipe sendoff. Saudi Arabians use lots of petroleum oil and natural gas domestically because that's all they have to use. If they didn't have oil their national enterprise would be making sand timers for tourists.

Moreover, Robert's description of Saudi Arabia exportation of crude oil implies that the Saudis only export the amount left over after the Saudis satiate themselves with the oil they produce. This is not a correct depiction. The great majority of oil produced in Saudi Arabia each day gets exported. They use what they don't export.

I'm not saying that there isn't a problem with ethanol in Iowa; there is. The problem is that there are Iowans posting comments on the Internet about how ethanol damages engines. I say this because I get a couple of people every week who write to me saying things like, "I'm from Iowa and we hate ethanol because it damages engine parts." They seem to think that because they live in a state that produces a lot of ethanol that they inherently know everything there is to know about ethanol. In actuality they know as little about ethanol as the average Texan or Californian. Of course, I always tell them that ethanol doesn't damage engines; it cleans engines, adds power to combustion, and helps to remove water that forms in engines because of condensation. And I assure them that this is true in Iowa just as it's true in every state in the country, and in every country on planet Earth. I know this to be true for two reasons: First, from personal experience and extended study of the subject. Second, because every single aftermarket liquid additive that claims to safely clean engines and remove water contains some type of alcohol.₂ And since ethanol is more compatible with rubbers, plastics, and metals (less corrosive) than other alcohols, it means that ethanol can't possibly be the primary cause of any type of engine damage (ethanol is also more compatible than gasoline and aromatics with various types of materials). The reason that people claim that ethanol damages engines is because of the lies created to malign ethanol.

 

The OTHER Industry - It's not just the petroleum oil industry that the ethanol industry has to contend with, there's another industry that is very problematic: the Anti-Ethanol Industry. And it is an INDUSTRY, in every sense of the word. It began in earnest in 1919 with the founding of the American Petroleum Institute (API), shortly after the passage of the Volstead Act (Prohibition) - oh my, what a small world. National Prohibition was made possible courtesy of John Rockefeller's financial and political power. You know, the John Rockefeller of Standard Oil fame, the Standard Oil that colluded with the Germans against America in the First World War; then colluded with the German Nazis against America in the Second World War; and the Standard Oil that was convicted for violations of the Sherman Anti-Trust Laws and then convicted as a participant in the "Street Car Conspiracy." Oh yeah, and it's the same Standard Oil that years earlier (1880) was called "the most cruel, impudent, pitiless, and grasping monopoly that ever fastened upon a country" by a New York newspaper.

Prior to the founding of the Anti-Ethanol Industry, all top automotive people as well as a good many of the best scientists and inventors knew that ethanol was equal or superior to gasoline. People like Henry Ford, Charles Kettering, Thomas Midgely, Harry Ricardo, Elihu Thompson, Thomas Edison, William Hale, Alexander Graham Bell, Charles E. Lucke, Rufus Frost Herrick, and Victor Pagé. In fact, Victor Pagé, who authored about a dozen different automotive books and manuals from 1910 through the mid-1920's, always extolled the virtues of ethanol as a fuel and as a safe additive for internal combustion engines. He wrote about how the German military's early success in the air and on the ground was aided by ethanol (alcohol fuel). In publication after publication, Pagé wrote:

 

• "Denatured alcohol is without doubt the best substance to use as it does not have any destructive action on the metals or rubber hose, will not form deposits of foreign matter, and has no electrolytic effect." ₃

In the years prior to the First World War and Prohibition, dozens of newspaper articles throughout America and the world promoted "farm alcohol fuel" as being the fuel of the future, and none raised the alarm that ethanol damaged engines. The entire Anti-Ethanol industry and all the lies about ethanol fuel were concocted by the American Petroleum Institute, Standard Oil (and the Standard off-shoots), the precursor to the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers association, John Rockefeller, and others in the oil business. Meanwhile, in Great Britain and other European countries, ethanol-gasoline blends were being sold by Standard Oil and other leading gasoline companies as being superior and safer in every way to ethanol-free gasoline.₄ General Motor's Charles Kettering and Thomas Midgely only turned away from ethanol after they had invented and co-patented leaded gasoline (yet they never stooped so low as to spread incorrect information about ethanol).

Returning to the topic of Business Model, turning Iowa or any other state into a Saudi Arabia is not the right model. Nor is the correct business model the same as the oil industry business model. The right business model for the ethanol industry is the Dairy Industry model. Ethanol fuel should be produced in local regions using whatever is the least expensive and most abundant raw material. Deliveries of ethanol are made to local blenders or retail outlets using short haul transportation; not ships, and not pipelines. To break the logjam at traditional retail service stations, ethanol should be sold via direct delivery to fleet and individual customers, similar to local personal delivery of gasoline and petroleum diesel that is available in many markets - not unlike the delivery of propane and heating oil to individual customers - and then splash-blended into ICE fuel tanks. All ICE vehicles on the road today could use vastly higher ethanol-gasoline blend levels than just E10 or E15. There is no blend-wall, and there never was. E20, E25, E30, E40, E50 can all be splash-blended by individual vehicle owners to save money and enhance vehicle performance. My business partner (Bob Gordon) and I would love to see an army of American military vets operating ethanol filling stations in the parking lots of big-box retail stores, such as Lowes, Home Depot, Costco, and Sam's Club. In many states, these parking lots are used to sell seasonal things like fireworks and Christmas trees. Why not ethanol fuel? It would be poetic justice to see American vets earning a living while kicking the oil industry in the pants.

 

In many instances, the only thing stopping any non-flex fuel car and light truck from using E85 is that the "Check Engine" light will illuminate. This can be cured by uploading new on-board computer software, or installing a simple E85 conversion kit, or just ignoring the light.

But for the ethanol industry to efficiently and economically use the Dairy Industry business model something has to change. That something is the spread of true information about ethanol, and the elimination of the junk lies propagated by the Anti Ethanol Industry...admittedly a daunting task, but it is made somewhat less difficult by being able to rely on common sense, true information, and not having to invent new lies on a regular basis.

Robert Rapier warns: 

• "the U.S. ethanol industry has never been consistently profitable;" "that farm bankruptcies are steadily rising;" "that if the ethanol mandate was suddenly removed, the ethanol industry would collapse...(forcing the ethanol industry) into a perpetual cycle of lobbying to ensure that the federal government keeps them in business."

Earlier in this paper, I wrote that Robert's comments are "intellectually dishonest." To the warning just above I slightly amend what I wrote. I say that this warning is intellectually bankrupt - I changed the word "dishonest" to "bankrupt" for a specific reason. Through his warning, Robert implies that the oil industry has been consistently profitable; as if oil industry entities have been immune to financial downturns; as if the oil industry has not had to rely on a perpetual cycle of government largesse to survive.

 

Talk about "bankruptcies," take a look at these stories published online:

The 15 Biggest Oil Bankruptcies (So Far) - this was published in May 2016, just 4 months into the year

Haynes & Boone Oil Bankruptcy Monitor - this study was released at the end of 2016 and showed there were 114 North American oil and gas producer bankruptcies

The oil bust forced more than 330 North American energy companies into bankruptcy, report says - this report was published in April 2018

Energy bankruptcies back on the rise in 2019 - this report was published about 10 days ago

 

I didn't cherry pick these stories, and I didn't stop the list at four items because there weren't any more stories detailing the (sad) state of financial affairs in the oil industry, I left it at four because there are too many oil industry bankruptcy stories to cite...I do want to conclude this editorial some time soon.

And, I laugh at the Chicken Little sky-is-falling assertion "if the ethanol mandate was suddenly removed, the ethanol industry would collapse."

Imagine what would happen to the oil industry if all government subsidies and the free use of the U.S. military were suddenly withdrawn.

Imagine what would happen if the federal government suddenly came to its senses and mandated "No more benzene in the air, no more any aromatics in the air." Remember, the government mandated the end to analog television, they could mandate the end of gasoline and petroleum diesel if they wanted.

Imagine what would happen if the Federal Trade Commission ruled that the Anti-Ethanol industry had to cease all attacks on ethanol and had to publically admit that the negative comments were all intentional lies or based on bad information. Think it's far fetched? Think again, because the FTC had once decreed that no companies selling unleaded gasoline could promote the fact that leaded gasoline is poisonous. Could we get a little 'turn-about' from the FTC? Why not?

 

In other words, imagine what would happen if REALITY took hold, if our law makers remembered that they are working for the people, not for themselves. The entire stinking, rotten petroleum oil industry would drop dead. Do you think that Big Oil could exist on just supplying oil as an ingredient for cosmetics? No way in hell or anywhere else. And guess what? If the oil industry dropped dead tomorrow, ethanol (alcohol) could be used to manufacture every single thing that petroleum oil is used for! We would never even miss it.

Robert's fourth editorial concludes with:

• "It is time to get the federal government out of this business."

This is a platitude; it's too late. You can't stop a horse race in the final turn because a challenger is making a move on the leader. The leader is the leader - in the case of the energy industry - because it was permitted to start the race half way around the track. Provide the ethanol industry with equal subsidies and open availability to the marketplace, make the competition fair and prohibit the lies, then kick out the Feds. I say all this as an avowed conservative free-market capitalist.

Robert's fifth (and maybe last editorial in this series) concerns the EPA and border walls - not physical walls, per se, like a wall along the Rio Grande, but walls around commerce. The most important function of the federal government is to protect America. Creating restrictions and barriers are an essential part of that protection. Trade restrictions and barriers are an important part of the barrier system. Health restrictions and barriers are another important part of the barrier system.

The Environmental Protection Agency is a mixed-bag - I've written this often. Sometimes they do things that the oil industry loves, sometimes they do things that the oil industry hates. The same can be said about the ethanol industry and any other industry that falls under the purview of the EPA. The problem with the EPA is that it is subject to changing presidential administrations; as the political tides change, so does the EPA's positions. The alternative is to give the EPA the kind of "off-limits" existence that the FBI had. But the last thing we need are out of control dictators running the EPA, and with humans being the beings we are, an out-of-control EPA dictatorship is what we would get.

In my opinion, the EPA should follow federal law, not interpret it. We have lots of problems with the individuals who write the laws, but at least we do get the chance to throw them out of office every so often. Gasoline is poison. Petroleum diesel fuel is poison. Aromatics (that nice sounding word that includes some of the foulest things on planet Earth) are poison. The debate about these things being poison is over, it's been over for a long time. There is no reason to continue using these poisons, there is no societal benefit. We can make abundant quantities of fuels that are not poisonous - or at the least much less hazardous. There is no excuse for allowing refinery exemptions. If there is an industry that deserves to be pushed into bankruptcy it is the petroleum oil industry. If there are people in the petroleum industry who like being in the "energy" business, and want to be in the business of producing a fuel that is not poison...a fuel that does not push us into wars...a fuel that does not give away our economic freedom, then they should get into the ethanol industry and compete fairly. It's interesting to note that BP has recently enlarged their involvement in ethanol production in Brazil; and despite any complaints about Valero suffering from RFS regulations, they've recently increased their ethanol capabilities here in America.

 

(I sure hope that all these refinery exemptions are not just an attempt by oil companies to manipulate the financial markets, drive down the value of distilleries, and then swoop in to buy them at bargain-basement prices)

In conclusion, I'll repeat what I've written and said elsewhere: Brazil's mandated use of E27 (and their forthcoming move to E40) proves that all ICE vehicles and equipment can safely and efficiently use more ethanol than we are using in America, and more than the amount used in Canada, Europe, and Asia/Australia/NZ. The long history of ethanol-gasoline blends in Great Britain also proves that all ICE vehicles (land, sea, and water) can use blends higher than E10 and E15. And the tests conducted by the EPA about ten years ago not only proved that E15 was safe to use, they tested E20 and concluded that E20 performed the same as E15. Until and unless congress changes the RFS, the EPA should not be issuing any refinery exemptions.

I would rather my fuel money go to American farmers than to a foreign dominated industry that makes and sells poison.

I offer all this with great respect to my friend Robert Rapier, and with no respect to anyone else in the oil industry.

 

₁ Forbes has published anti-ethanol articles written by James Conca, Michael Lynch, Henry I. Miller, and Steve Salzberg

₂ SEE: Famous Manufacturer of Anti-Ethanol Additives Proves Ethanol's Safety and Benefits

₃ SEE: The Ford Model T Car, page 156

₄ SEE: The Hypocrisy of Big Oil

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

Obviously you are not a fan of the oil industry...fair enough.

My question to you is, "What benefit does blending ethanol with gasoline achieve? If this blend has less energy content than 'pure' gasoline, isn't it less efficient?

Another question, in the same vein, would be, "If there was no government mandate to use ethanol in gasoline, would it be blended?

I am not knocking your viewpoint, simply trying to get a read on the issue.

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

16 hours ago, Douglas Buckland said:

My question to you is, "What benefit does blending ethanol with gasoline achieve? If this blend has less energy content than 'pure' gasoline, isn't it less efficient?

Anyone who fails to accept, with total obsequiousness, Marc Rauch's version of fact and history is headed for a bruising.  I speak from personal experience.  Having been beaten over the head in the past, I choose not to do so in the future, and thus do not respond to this monologue except to say that it is historically misleading and factually inaccurate.  Mr. Rauch is, in my personal view, an eco-warrior, and brooks no disagreement with his versions. 

On to Douglas' question:  "efficiency" has a bit of an elastic concept.  Does either fuel  (gasoline or ethyl alcohol) convert its volume of material into energy release by combustion with oxygen), the answer is "yes."  Do you get more energy release per unit volume with gasoline?  That answer is Yes. From the point of view of the motorist, will his tank of fuel, a fixed amount, get him more miles of travel with gasoline?  The answer is Yes. Will that tank of fuel be cheaper with alcohol?  that depends on the pricing, but generally, alcohol ends up priced lower than gasoline, liter for liter. 

So the hidden, implied but unasked question is:  what's the difference?  And that difference is in the internal workings of a gasoline piston engine.  The piston goes up and down inside the cylinder, creating "compression" with air.  The bulk of the air components are uninteresting to the fuel burning; that fuel is seeking the oxygen in that compressed gas. If there is sufficient oxygen, then you get an explosion instead of a flame-front burn, and that causes a "knock" in the chamber.  A Knock will, if you have enough of it and with enough over-pressure from the burn, wreck the motor, including busting up the pistons and the connecting rods.  

Can you build a powerful engine without getting into that Knock area when it runs on straight gasoline?  Of course you can; all you do is lower the compression ratio.  Most autos run today on compression ratios of around 8.9:1.   A WWII gasoline radial engine that would power (for example) a P-40 warplane would be at 6.0:1.  A gasoline engine in a marine landing craft would be built at 4.91:1. 

There are two disadvantages to low-compression engines:  (1) they burn quite a lot of fuel, so you need to "tanker" extra fuel, and you end up with limited range; (2)  the only way to develop more power is to add more cylinders, and that adds weight.  So you see these huge V-12 auto engines of the 1930's that will only produce 190 hp; a modern small 4-cylinder auto engine running at 10.5:1 compression does a lot more than that. 

You get around this low-power problem by increasing the compression ratio and adding a supercharger (or turbocharger) to push in more air so you can burn more fuel inside each stroke of that piston engine. But now the fast burn gets c lose to explosion and the dreaded Knock.  So the refiners add "anti-knock" to that gasoline to retard the explosive burn characteristics of their fuel in higher-compression, turbocharged engines.  In the old days, that was Tetraethyl lead, or "leaded gasoline," except that the lead component also flows out the exhaust and into the air, and causes serious brain damage to the people, especially children, nearby.  Today leaded gasoline is unknown. 

The characteristic of blending in that ethyl alcohol is you get the burn-retarding effect for running in a higher-compression engine when mixed with refinery gasoline (which is not really a pure gasoline, but whatever the refinery process ends up with in attempting to extract octane, or C8-H18, out of the crude oil.  They call it "octane" because it is "C8").  The refiner can also obtain the result by refining with greater exactitude, so the output is purer Octane.  And that stuff is called "premium gasoline," as it has a higher concentration of Octane, all the way up to 100 Octane, which is what light piston aircraft run on. 

So, does alcohol-blended gasoline have lower "efficiency"?  In the sense that you end up with less miles per tankful, Yes.  Does it burn equally well?  IN that sense, no.  Alcohol will combust as fully as does Octane. 

16 hours ago, Douglas Buckland said:

Another question, in the same vein, would be, "If there was no government mandate to use ethanol in gasoline, would it be blended?

Short answer:  No.   The alcohol blends exist entirely and exclusively from Government requirements.  The blending of alcohol is a political decision.  The politics is perfectly straight-forward: they provide a certainty of a customer for corn biomass. In business, there is nothing quite like a guaranteed buyer.  No uncertainty of actually selling your production.  Always nice, especially for an industry that habitually goes to the bank for production loans, to be paid against the sale of the harvested product.  Bankers just love that.  When you are blowing $190,000 for a new tractor, the bank likes to see that whatever you grow will get sold, so they can get paid!

Unasked question: is using corn as a feedstock for brewing alcohol an optimum process?  In other words, is is a "good idea"?  Answer:  No.  From a technical perspective, you would be much better off using sugar cane.   But allowing that would require the import of the sugar-cane crop of Cuba, and that is politically unpalatable.  Sugar in the USA is monopolized by the U.S. Sugar Company, which is careful to make gigantic political campaign donations to anybody and everybody to maintain its monopoly on sugar - and keep out Cuban, Dominican, and Barbadian sugar. Sugar is roughly six times better for producing alcohol, per unit volume, than corn.  Using corn and banning imported sugar is a purely politic decision within the USA context.  In Brasil, they use sugar as the feedstock.

PS:  since this is such an explosive topic, it always generates vast volumes of hyperbolic diatribe.  I don't have the time to get into it, as I actually have to work for a living.  So, don't expect responses from me.  I do invite readers here with experience in the refining process to chip in with technical details I have likely glossed over; remember, I don't work in that industry.  Cheers.

Edited August 29, 2019 by Jan van Eck

[Ulysses + 21]

“The RFS didn't, and doesn't force customers to use ethanol, it requires the use of any renewablefuel to extend the available supply of fuel.”

There is zero concern for the future availability of petroleum products. If that is the argument for ethanol, we don’t need it.

[NickW + 2,714]

A limited market for ethanol serves well for soaking up surplus corn / sugar which fails quality tests for human consumption. If the residue still meets requirements for animal feed it can be used for the that. I know British Sugar does this at its refineries converting the remaining pulp into bulk animal feed. 

That lends its self well for an E5 / E10 market  which I guess is about the optimum blending level to get the octane boost without reducing the calorific value too much. 

[Meredith Poor + 883]

https://news.stanford.edu/2017/06/16/discovery-sustainable-source-ethanol/

Making ethanol from CO2, water, and electricity. No farming involved.

How many people have been killed or maimed by coal?

How many civilizations have been wiped out due to depletion of forests (wood as a fuel and building material)?

How many sailboats/sailing ships have sunk and what is the corresponding cost in life?

50 Million? Peanuts. As far as the Black Death in the 14th century, my understanding is that it wiped out half of Europe, which probably had more than 100 million people at the time.

Energy is by its very nature dangerous, no matter what form it's in. If it's misused it kills people. If it's a valuable resource people fight over it. C'est la vie.

[James Regan + 1,776]

We have been down this road before on this forum regarding ethanol, as a blending tool it’s fine and does not affect performance of your vehicle, if your infrastructure has been set up for the use of fuels which blend ethanol.  However yes it lowers the performance of a normal petrol  guzzling engine, slight mods and you have vehicle which runs on petrol but not as punchy.

Erhanol in itself is a standalone fuel, Brasil were and still are number 1 world wide users and exporters of Ethanol, oil and ethanol are one in the same, go to any petrol station and you will 6 types of fuels material to drive your combustion engine.

The main article is long drawn out very hard to follow and seems to contradict itself and is bias towards the USA (again), this forum is gaining momentum to force the reader to go through US immigration before being able to give a good argument.

Gents Gas is not Petrol gas is LNG let’s try and get this clear as we move into the future, Petrol stations sell Gasoline (petrol) and LNG etc....

This is a big industry and all areas and countries should be considered before deciding how we should act as we move ahead as an INDUSTRY.

Respectfully

James

 

Edited August 29, 2019 by James Regan

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

At the end of the day we need to ask ourselves a few question in regards to the corn/ethanol/gasoline issue:

First, is the American corn farmer effectively being subsidized by the rest of the nation simply because ethanol is mandated, by the government, to be blended into our gasoline.

Second, is this blend, at the mandated levels, more or less efficient in our vehicles as opposed to a lesser blend or gasoline with no ethanol?

Third, depending on the answers above, would it be more beneficial globally to grow corn for food and fodder as opposed to a fuel additive?

Finally, considering the actual emissions from the ethanol blend coupled with the carbon footprint of seeding, growing, fertilizing and harvesting the corn, is it any more environmentally friendly than unblended fuel?

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

@Marc J. Rauch

As an aside, I found your use of the photo of "Dead American servicemen, the victims of the modern Black Death: petroleum oil." To be underhanded and disgusting. If you need to resort to this type of ploy, and dishonoring of or servicemen, to support your rant, you need to re-evaluate your debating skills.

[Guest]

On 8/29/2019 at 11:00 AM, James Regan said:

The main article is long, drawn out, very hard to follow and seems to contradict itself and is bias towards the USA (again), this forum is gaining momentum to force the reader to go through US immigration before being able to give a good argument.

No s**t

[Marc J. Rauch + 53]

On 8/28/2019 at 5:50 AM, Ulysses said:

“The RFS didn't, and doesn't force customers to use ethanol, it requires the use of any renewable fuel to extend the available supply of fuel.”

There is zero concern for the future availability of petroleum products. If that is the argument for ethanol, we don’t need it.

The reality is that you're correct. However, for about a century the primary reason for thinking that the world would run out of oil was because the oil industry pushed that narrative in order to make it seem like oil was a rare a precious commodity to keep prices high. The sentence of mine that you quote is a correct statement. America is still reliant on foreign oil, and in the event that the foreign oil stops, we would need to fill in; renewables do that. In addition, the big question is why do we continue to use a substance that is poison, and can still ignite foreign wars? Ethanol is not poison and no military men have ever dies defending ethanol production.

[Marc J. Rauch + 53]

On 8/28/2019 at 3:31 AM, Douglas Buckland said:

Obviously you are not a fan of the oil industry...fair enough.

My question to you is, "What benefit does blending ethanol with gasoline achieve? If this blend has less energy content than 'pure' gasoline, isn't it less efficient?

Another question, in the same vein, would be, "If there was no government mandate to use ethanol in gasoline, would it be blended?

I am not knocking your viewpoint, simply trying to get a read on the issue.

Energy content is irrelevant. Internal combustion engines don't run on boiling water and steam. I have a separate paper on this issue. It's

The Irrelevance Of BTU Rating - Big Oil's Gimmick To Hoodwink The Public - http://www.theautochannel.com/news/2015/10/19/144405-irrelevance-btu-rating.html.

A follow up is:

The Irrelevance Of BTU Rating - Revisited - https://www.theautochannel.com/news/2018/07/14/603714-irrelevance-btu-rating-revisited.html

I am not a fan of the oil industry.

Edited September 16, 2019 by Marc J. Rauch

[Marc J. Rauch + 53]

On 8/28/2019 at 5:36 AM, Jan van Eck said:

Anyone who fails to accept, with total obsequiousness, Marc Rauch's version of fact and history is headed for a bruising.  I speak from personal experience.  Having been beaten over the head in the past, I choose not to do so in the future, and thus do not respond to this monologue except to say that it is historically misleading and factually inaccurate.  Mr. Rauch is, in my personal view, an eco-warrior, and brooks no disagreement with his versions. 

On to Douglas' question:  "efficiency" has a bit of an elastic concept.  Does either fuel  (gasoline or ethyl alcohol) convert its volume of material into energy release by combustion with oxygen), the answer is "yes."  Do you get more energy release per unit volume with gasoline?  That answer is Yes. From the point of view of the motorist, will his tank of fuel, a fixed amount, get him more miles of travel with gasoline?  The answer is Yes. Will that tank of fuel be cheaper with alcohol?  that depends on the pricing, but generally, alcohol ends up priced lower than gasoline, liter for liter. 

So the hidden, implied but unasked question is:  what's the difference?  And that difference is in the internal workings of a gasoline piston engine.  The piston goes up and down inside the cylinder, creating "compression" with air.  The bulk of the air components are uninteresting to the fuel burning; that fuel is seeking the oxygen in that compressed gas. If there is sufficient oxygen, then you get an explosion instead of a flame-front burn, and that causes a "knock" in the chamber.  A Knock will, if you have enough of it and with enough over-pressure from the burn, wreck the motor, including busting up the pistons and the connecting rods.  

Can you build a powerful engine without getting into that Knock area when it runs on straight gasoline?  Of course you can; all you do is lower the compression ratio.  Most autos run today on compression ratios of around 8.9:1.   A WWII gasoline radial engine that would power (for example) a P-40 warplane would be at 6.0:1.  A gasoline engine in a marine landing craft would be built at 4.91:1. 

There are two disadvantages to low-compression engines:  (1) they burn quite a lot of fuel, so you need to "tanker" extra fuel, and you end up with limited range; (2)  the only way to develop more power is to add more cylinders, and that adds weight.  So you see these huge V-12 auto engines of the 1930's that will only produce 190 hp; a modern small 4-cylinder auto engine running at 10.5:1 compression does a lot more than that. 

You get around this low-power problem by increasing the compression ratio and adding a supercharger (or turbocharger) to push in more air so you can burn more fuel inside each stroke of that piston engine. But now the fast burn gets c lose to explosion and the dreaded Knock.  So the refiners add "anti-knock" to that gasoline to retard the explosive burn characteristics of their fuel in higher-compression, turbocharged engines.  In the old days, that was Tetraethyl lead, or "leaded gasoline," except that the lead component also flows out the exhaust and into the air, and causes serious brain damage to the people, especially children, nearby.  Today leaded gasoline is unknown. 

The characteristic of blending in that ethyl alcohol is you get the burn-retarding effect for running in a higher-compression engine when mixed with refinery gasoline (which is not really a pure gasoline, but whatever the refinery process ends up with in attempting to extract octane, or C8-H18, out of the crude oil.  They call it "octane" because it is "C8").  The refiner can also obtain the result by refining with greater exactitude, so the output is purer Octane.  And that stuff is called "premium gasoline," as it has a higher concentration of Octane, all the way up to 100 Octane, which is what light piston aircraft run on. 

So, does alcohol-blended gasoline have lower "efficiency"?  In the sense that you end up with less miles per tankful, Yes.  Does it burn equally well?  IN that sense, no.  Alcohol will combust as fully as does Octane. 

Short answer:  No.   The alcohol blends exist entirely and exclusively from Government requirements.  The blending of alcohol is a political decision.  The politics is perfectly straight-forward: they provide a certainty of a customer for corn biomass. In business, there is nothing quite like a guaranteed buyer.  No uncertainty of actually selling your production.  Always nice, especially for an industry that habitually goes to the bank for production loans, to be paid against the sale of the harvested product.  Bankers just love that.  When you are blowing $190,000 for a new tractor, the bank likes to see that whatever you grow will get sold, so they can get paid!

Unasked question: is using corn as a feedstock for brewing alcohol an optimum process?  In other words, is is a "good idea"?  Answer:  No.  From a technical perspective, you would be much better off using sugar cane.   But allowing that would require the import of the sugar-cane crop of Cuba, and that is politically unpalatable.  Sugar in the USA is monopolized by the U.S. Sugar Company, which is careful to make gigantic political campaign donations to anybody and everybody to maintain its monopoly on sugar - and keep out Cuban, Dominican, and Barbadian sugar. Sugar is roughly six times better for producing alcohol, per unit volume, than corn.  Using corn and banning imported sugar is a purely politic decision within the USA context.  In Brasil, they use sugar as the feedstock.

PS:  since this is such an explosive topic, it always generates vast volumes of hyperbolic diatribe.  I don't have the time to get into it, as I actually have to work for a living.  So, don't expect responses from me.  I do invite readers here with experience in the refining process to chip in with technical details I have likely glossed over; remember, I don't work in that industry.  Cheers.

Lower compression engines are engines that are optimized to run on gasoline. Ethanol allows for higher compression engines, which provide more mpg and more power.

Tests conducted for more than a century show that certain ethanol-gasoline blends (approx E30-E40) can provide better mileage even when used in gasoline-optimized engines.

[Marc J. Rauch + 53]

On 8/28/2019 at 12:19 PM, NickW said:

A limited market for ethanol serves well for soaking up surplus corn / sugar which fails quality tests for human consumption. If the residue still meets requirements for animal feed it can be used for the that. I know British Sugar does this at its refineries converting the remaining pulp into bulk animal feed. 

That lends its self well for an E5 / E10 market  which I guess is about the optimum blending level to get the octane boost without reducing the calorific value too much. 

Field corn is grown specifically for ethanol and or animal feed. It's not a question of finding a use for left-over corn. Energy content is an irrelevant issue, "caloric" content is not even an irrelevant issue, it is a non-issue.

A lower %, such as E5 or E10 is sufficient to top engine knock. Tests have shown that higher ethanol-gasoline blends (higher than just E5 or E10) provide greater MPG and power than gasoline, even when used in a gasoline-optimized engine.

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

Nice work Jan!

[Marc J. Rauch + 53]

On 8/29/2019 at 1:36 AM, Meredith Poor said:

https://news.stanford.edu/2017/06/16/discovery-sustainable-source-ethanol/

Making ethanol from CO2, water, and electricity. No farming involved.

How many people have been killed or maimed by coal?

How many civilizations have been wiped out due to depletion of forests (wood as a fuel and building material)?

How many sailboats/sailing ships have sunk and what is the corresponding cost in life?

50 Million? Peanuts. As far as the Black Death in the 14th century, my understanding is that it wiped out half of Europe, which probably had more than 100 million people at the time.

Energy is by its very nature dangerous, no matter what form it's in. If it's misused it kills people. If it's a valuable resource people fight over it. C'est la vie.

The Stanford "discovery to use co2, water and electricity is theoretical. There are far more raw materials to use than corn, including seaweed, which would provide 100 times more ethanol per acre, per year than corn. Electricity can be one of the most energy negative forms of energy, so using it to make ethanol may be very inefficient.

There have been wars/battles fought over coal. Many people have lost their lives mining for coal, and many maimed or made ill by coal miming.

There's a book written by Anne Korin "Turning Oil Into Salt." You might like to read it, or at least read the abstract. The abstract alone dismiss your last point.

[Marc J. Rauch + 53]

On 9/6/2019 at 10:04 AM, DayTrader said:

No s**t

It's hard to follow unless you have good reading comprehension. Compound sentences can be difficult. Mining for gold can be difficult.

[Marc J. Rauch + 53]

On 8/29/2019 at 4:30 AM, Douglas Buckland said:

@Marc J. Rauch

As an aside, I found your use of the photo of "Dead American servicemen, the victims of the modern Black Death: petroleum oil." To be underhanded and disgusting. If you need to resort to this type of ploy, and dishonoring of or servicemen, to support your rant, you need to re-evaluate your debating skills.

And right up front... the reason for my using it is because it is disgusting. Having American men and women fighting to defend another countries oil is dispicable. If you need to pretend offense over the reality of multiple wars that cost America millions of men and women, then it is you who dishonors our servicemen. What I would say to you and any one else who disagrees with my rebuttal to Robert Rapier's Forbes editorials is that if you want to engage in a debate with me then you should try finding fault with the facts I present, not invent immaterial objections.

[Meredith Poor + 883]

4 minutes ago, Marc J. Rauch said:

The Stanford "discovery to use co2, water and electricity is theoretical. There are far more raw materials to use than corn, including seaweed, which would provide 100 times more ethanol per acre, per year than corn. Electricity can be one of the most energy negative forms of energy, so using it to make ethanol may be very inefficient.

There have been wars/battles fought over coal. Many people have lost their lives mining for coal, and many maimed or made ill by coal miming.

There's a book written by Anne Korin "Turning Oil Into Salt." You might like to read it, or at least read the abstract. The abstract alone dismiss your last point.

As far as a discovery being 'theoretical', it either works or it doesn't. If it works it's no longer theory. "The results were clear. When the team applied a specific voltage, the electrodes made of copper (751) were far more selective to liquid products, such as ethanol and propanol, than those made of copper (100) or (111)." This quote from the Stanford article indicates that it's actually been done, this isn't just some computer simulation.

"Electricity can be one of the most energy negative forms of energy, so using it to make ethanol may be very inefficient." Depends on how it's being generated. For the purpose of discussion, just how 'energy negative' is solar power? A typical PV cell can collect enough energy to replicate itself in less than six weeks. After that, all energy produced is 'net gain'.

I get people telling me 'read this book' all the time. This is what happens when the person I'm talking to either can't explain their idea, or has run out of them.

[Guest]

57 minutes ago, Marc J. Rauch said:

It's hard to follow unless you have good reading comprehension.

It's more about how dull it is.

When you become an amish vegan I may pay more attention. 

At the moment ''high horse'' comes to mind. 

On 8/28/2019 at 1:36 PM, Jan van Eck said:

I don't have the time to get into it, as I actually have to work for a living. 

DING. Trading oil right now. 

 

Edited September 16, 2019 by Guest

[Manfred Kruger + 40]

Any government interference in the free market is bad. The fact that it was created to benefit the farm lobby at the expense of consumers is doubly bad, especially when there is starvation in the rest of the world. Think about it on a global basis giant gas guzling SUV’s at the expense of lives?

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

28 minutes ago, Marc J. Rauch said:

And right up front... the reason for my using it is because it is disgusting. Having American men and women fighting to defend another countries oil is dispicable. If you need to pretend offense over the reality of multiple wars that cost America millions of men and women, then it is you who dishonors our servicemen. What I would say to you and any one else who disagrees with my rebuttal to Robert Rapier's Forbes editorials is that if you want to engage in a debate with me then you should try finding fault with the facts I present, not invent immaterial objections.

I think that Jan effectively pointed out the flaws in your logic very eloquently, there is therefore no reason for me to repeat his discussion.

To readily admit that you used a “disgusting” photo of dead American servicemen to defend your opinion on this forum was inexcusable and unnecessary regardless of your opinion on the matter. You simply did it for sensationalism.

[Marc J. Rauch + 53]

2 hours ago, Meredith Poor said:

As far as a discovery being 'theoretical', it either works or it doesn't. If it works it's no longer theory. "The results were clear. When the team applied a specific voltage, the electrodes made of copper (751) were far more selective to liquid products, such as ethanol and propanol, than those made of copper (100) or (111)." This quote from the Stanford article indicates that it's actually been done, this isn't just some computer simulation.

"Electricity can be one of the most energy negative forms of energy, so using it to make ethanol may be very inefficient." Depends on how it's being generated. For the purpose of discussion, just how 'energy negative' is solar power? A typical PV cell can collect enough energy to replicate itself in less than six weeks. After that, all energy produced is 'net gain'.

I get people telling me 'read this book' all the time. This is what happens when the person I'm talking to either can't explain their idea, or has run out of them.

You may find that people suggest you read a particular book because they understand that you don't know what you're talking about and they don't have time to waste trying to bring you up to speed.

The reason I suggested that you didn't have to read Anne Korin's entire book is because the title and the abstract pretty much tells you all you need to understand her point. Standford University has a number of academics associated with the school who don't know what they're talking about when it comes to energy and fuels. Mark Jacobson is one, Henry Miller is another. The school also harbors political science professors who are equally devoid of real knowledge.

The word theory can be used in to ways: One for a concept that has not been proven, and the other to explain the total elements of a process. The Stanford situation is a theory. It doesn't matter if it works in a laboratory, it's a theory. So another book that you might acquaint yourself with is called a "dictionary." Now, the fact that the process...the theory...involves the use of a very expensive form of energy to make it happen means that it is not (yet) practical. So your including it in this discussion is nothing better than a theory that has never been proven to work.

The article you linked to uses many instructive sentences, you should have paid better attention. For example, the author writes: " A recent discovery by Stanford University scientists could lead to a new, more sustainable way to make ethanol without corn or other crops. This technology has three basic components: water, carbon dioxide and electricity delivered through a copper catalyst." The key words are: could lead to a new, more sustainable way to make ethanol without..." The caption under the photo reads: "... have demonstrated the feasibility of designing copper catalysts that convert carbon dioxide into ethanol without corn or other crops..." So it's a theory, regardless of whether you use definition #1 or #2.

2 hours ago, Douglas Buckland said:

I think that Jan effectively pointed out the flaws in your logic very eloquently, there is therefore no reason for me to repeat his discussion.

To readily admit that you used a “disgusting” photo of dead American servicemen to defend your opinion on this forum was inexcusable and unnecessary regardless of your opinion on the matter. You simply did it for sensationalism.

No, what Jan wrote was that he couldn't effectively challenge me, and so therefore he doesn't do it. Then he wrote that I was historically and factually incorrect, but failed to point out what any of those errors are.

And I'll repeat again, of course I used the photos for their emotional impact. That's the emotional impact of war. Petroleum oil fuels are poison in every sense of the word. The disgusting side is that there are people who try to pretend that none of this has happened,or that there's a good reason for millions of people and untold millions of animals to die on behalf of petroleum oil fuels.

[Marc J. Rauch + 53]

2 hours ago, DayTrader said:

It's more about how dull it is.

When you become an amish vegan I may pay more attention. 

At the moment ''high horse'' comes to mind. 

DING. Trading oil right now. 

 

It's a high, high horse, and I'm waiting for someone to try and take me off the horse. There's a lot of lips flapping, but that's all.

[Marc J. Rauch + 53]

2 hours ago, Manfred Kruger said:

Any government interference in the free market is bad. The fact that it was created to benefit the farm lobby at the expense of consumers is doubly bad, especially when there is starvation in the rest of the world. Think about it on a global basis giant gas guzling SUV’s at the expense of lives?

Yes, that's correct, any government interference in a free market is bad. That's why we have to reverse all the government interference that led to petroleum oil fuels becoming the primary engine fuels. You see, Manfred, you have skipped over an extremely important aspect of this entire argument, it's called "history." Here's a good thesis I wrote for Robert Bradley, Jr a few years ago:

Life As We Might Have Known It: What If Ethanol Was Our Primary Engine Fuel - http://www.theautochannel.com/news/2016/03/07/205279-life-as-we-might-have-known-it-imagining-bio-fuel.html