OT: Gas Prices

[Atrocities]

The problem is, everyone is obsessed with ethanol at the moment which, if what I once read is correct, would supply only 1/3 of the US demand for fuel even if the entire arable land area of the US was given over to ethanol production.

This is untrue. This was a lie promoted by anti-ethanol people and the oil companies to mitigate the research and exploration of Corn and corn stocks for fuel. The truth is, like in Brazil, there is more than enough "sugar" products such as sugar beats, corn, and corn stocks in current supply to both supply enough fuel and food for current consumptions. Sure growth would be required but currently only part of the corn is being used to produce fuel. When they switch to using the ENTIRE corn plant the amount of fuel generated can increase up to 50 fold.

[Santiago]

I have to agree with AT about Brazil, A friend goes down there a lot and said they're pretty much independent of foreign oil due to the Ethanol production which they started many years ago.

Also on a business trip last month to Louisiana, many of the people down there were all talking about the new ethanol refineries being built and that a lot of the cotton farmers were seriously considering when not if to switch to corn.

Ethanol is going to happen here in the US. Whether it'll be owned by the oil companies or not, I don't know. Distribution and infrastructure problems still need to be addressed, but realistically it won't be any cheaper.

[Atrocities]

One of the major hindrances to the acceptance of Ethanol isn't just from the oil companies, but from State Governments who derive a ton of money from gas taxes. When Ethanol goes mainstream many state governments as well as the Federal government, will have to scramble to pass new Ethanol fuel taxes. Many states are therefore resistant to accepting Ethanol and other alternative fuels.

Remember when Natural Gas was suppose to be the cheap alternative to Electrical power? Look at what they did there? They hiked the taxes on NG to the point that made NG less cost effective than Public Power.

Right now my state has the 6th largest gas tax in the nation and our beloved Governoress wants to raise the gas tax again because the sales of gas are down thus the revenue from the gas tax is down. This would put our price per gallon of gas over $4.20 a gallon here in WA. Instead of raising the Gas tax to compensate for lower gas sales my state government should temporarily lower the gas tax to help lower income people afford fuel.

Instead of bowing to the pay offs of the oil company to keep our state an oil owned economy the government should embrace alternative fuels and promote ethanol fuel production. Not only should they embrace it, but they should encourage it and help to support it by giving tax breaks to corn and sugar beat farmers, sugar and bio fuel distilleries, distributors and retailers.

But like I said, our government is bought and paid for by the oil company's and therefore any prospective interest in alternative fuels is actively denounced as a waste of time.

[aegisx]

Atrocities said:
One of the major hindrances to the acceptance of Ethanol isn't just from the oil companies, but from State Governments who derive a ton of money from gas taxes. When Ethanol goes mainstream many state governments as well as the Federal government, will have to scramble to pass new Ethanol fuel taxes. Many states are therefore resistant to accepting Ethanol and other alternative fuels.

Remember when Natural Gas was suppose to be the cheap alternative to Electrical power? Look at what they did there? They hiked the taxes on NG to the point that made NG less cost effective than Public Power.

Right now my state has the 6th largest gas tax in the nation and our beloved Governoress wants to raise the gas tax again because the sales of gas are down thus the revenue from the gas tax is down. This would put our price per gallon of gas over $4.20 a gallon here in WA. Instead of raising the Gas tax to compensate for lower gas sales my state government should temporarily lower the gas tax to help lower income people afford fuel.

Instead of bowing to the pay offs of the oil company to keep our state an oil owned economy the government should embrace alternative fuels and promote ethanol fuel production. Not only should they embrace it, but they should encourage it and help to support it by giving tax breaks to corn and sugar beat farmers, sugar and bio fuel distilleries, distributors and retailers.

But like I said, our government is bought and paid for by the oil company's and therefore any prospective interest in alternative fuels is actively denounced as a waste of time.

The government will get paid whether it is oil or corn. You are right about the government getting a lot of money in taxes from gasoline sales. I recall the president mentioning alternative fuels a bunch. Here is an interesting fact:

"The U.S. Postal Service Has The Largest Alternative Fuel Vehicle Fleet In The World. Almost 13 percent of the 289,000 vehicle fleet are alternative fuel vehicles such as hybrids, biodiesel, compressed natural gas, and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles."
http://www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/energy/

Its just an example of the changes that are already being made.

Did you know they already pay farmers to grow corn?
http://www.ewg.org:16080/farm/region.php?fips=00000
When the demand is there for the ethonal, the corn farmers will sell their corn for that purpose as it will make them more money.

Is Ethonal the best solution? Probably not. Is it better than oil? It sounds like it.

[Erax]

As the resident Brazilian, I thought I'd pop in and add these tidbits:

"Despite having the world's largest sugarcane crop, the 45,000 sq km Brazil currently devotes to sugarcane production amount to only about one-half of one percent of its total land area of some 8.5 million sq km. In addition, the country has more unused potential cropland than any other nation."

Brazil no longer subsidizes its ethanol production. It was heavily subsidized at one point, but is no longer so.

There seems to be some debate about whether 'ethanol takes more energy to produce than it yields'. In any event this debate is over corn ethanol, while sugarcane ethanol produced in Brazil (where sunlight is much more plentiful) has a higher yield.

There are some drawbacks to ethanol, the main one (which most Brazilians are familiar with) being that ethanol engines have trouble starting in cold weather.

All in all I'd say ethanol doesn't work as a 100% substitute for gasoline, but it works as a 'let's consume less fossil fuels so we have more time to develop alternative technologies' kind of solution, especially if mixed into gasoline (Brazil already uses a 20/80 mix, I believe) or in bifuel cars which start up on gasoline and switch to ethanol once they're running, thus bypassing the cold-weather problems.