EPA to protect small engines

[George]

No premium involved. I have multiple friends who know something about gasoline prices and have seen wholesale price schedules and non blended fuel costs less.

One of my friends family owns a bunch of large Cstores. They were one of the last of the bigger operators around here to convert to blended ethanol fuels. One of the reasons it happened so quickly was the "walmart syndrome". People were shopping only on price not value and a gas station operator could buy blended fuel for $0.09~0.11 less/gallon. So if you owned a station everyone just knew you were ripping them off by selling them non-blended for more money. Eventually all had to convert.

It would actually go up.

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[George]

without E costs less to produce, and they are now charging more. Christopher A. Young Learn more about Jesus

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local refinery tell me this. It was the same when I was in the fibers business. Product yields were in the 99+% for continuous process of spinning something like polyester where a spinneret could last for over a month before changing. What cost was switching from one product to another on the production line. In the case of polyester, it might cost half a shifts production and loss of yield to switch over. That's what happens when all these botique gasolines are mandated by technically ignorant politicians.

Actually the refineries aren't involved. You can't ship ethanol or ethanol blends through pipelines because of steel corrosion issues. The way they do it is to blend it in at the loading rack at the terminal.

[Vic Smith]

Probably. The oil companies will say the supply was reduced by 10% and refinery capacity isn't there. And they'll have a point.

[trader4]

Well duh! That was precisely the point, that gas WITHOUT ETHANOL is selling for a higher price, ie at a premium to blended.

Apparently some are still offering both and selling the ethanol free gas at a premium.

You must be one of the guys that thinks a $40,000 volt really only costs $25,000 because the govt is subsidizing it to the tune of $15,000. We are all paying the true cost of the Volt, just as we are all paying the true cost of ethanol, including all the subsidies. And then factor in what it's done to the price of bread and cornflakes and it's a total disaster.

[HeyBub]

We've got plenty of refining capacity.

Excess refining capacity on the Gulf Coast is why the XL Pipeline was conceived. It would be cheaper to build a 1,500 mile pipeline to Texas than to build a refinery anywhere along the way.

[HeyBub]

But it's RENEWABLE (praise be unto that and peace be upon the name), much like whale oil.

[krw]

Sure we lose money on every sale, but we make it up in volume.

[Malcom "Mal" Reynolds]

which would mean that more and more stations would sell E-free to take advantage of this, but strangely they aren't

[Malcom "Mal" Reynolds]

If Nuclear Energy was safe, it wouldn't need gov't exemptions from liability issues resulting in the odd nuclear accident

[Malcom "Mal" Reynolds]

Define "plenty". this report says that in June of this year there was just over

7% excess capacity and it looks like the trend for the year was for that number to continue decreasing. All it takes is for one refinery to go poof and voila, no excess capacity. Considering the age of most refineries, it's a certainty that more and more refinery accidents will occur, not to mention the downtime due to maintenance

here's a biased summary of refinery accidents in the US for the last 8 years. shows a total loss of oil (spills) of 25000000 gallons

and this is just for Louisiana

and you can bet that any oil refined there will likely be shipped overseas where it will fetch a higher price

[George]

Not a defender of big oil but blended has always been less expensive at wholesale because of tax exemptions and subsidies.

[HeyBub]

If such exemptions exist, I rather suspect they are meant to cover the case, soon after the plant goes on-line, where a woman 65 miles away gives birth to a baby of indeterminate sex whose entire body is covered with a light green fur and will eat only bananas. This heart-breaking event must be caused by the nuclear power plant and home-town juries will certainly sympathize.

The people who make the laws know how the plaintiff bar thinks.

[Steve Barker]

that's not what they mean.

[Steve Barker]

the ethanol cannot leave the plant without gasoline in it.

[Steve Barker]

this is a fact. you will lose about 25% in mpg also, so unless the e85 is 25% cheaper than your local regular, then you're losing money. I've run it in my explorer, but just for the experience. Power seemed about the same in a flex fuel vehicle designed for it. Does smell like an alcohol dragster, though.

[trader4]

That sounds kind of nuts. You mean if I'm a company processing corn into ethanol I have to buy gasoline to put in it? How much do I have to put in? I would have thought the ethanol went from a company that distills it from corn to a gasoline company that then blends it into their products.

[Malcom "Mal" Reynolds]

nope, it sets a clear limit to their liability in the case of a nuclear meltdown

just check out the Price-Anderson Act which limits the amount of insurance plants must carry and caps the liability of the plants due to serious accident or attack

the people who made this law know how big business thinks. power to the de-regulators

[Robert Green]

Is that an ATF thing?

-- Bobby G.

[Larry W]

If by performance you mean miles per gallon, I agree. OTOH, if you are talking about power developed by the engine, then with a modern fuel injection system and electronic controls, it really doesn't make any difference, in fact, an engine running on ethanol can make more power than one running on gasoline, but it will take about twice as much ethanol to do so. It's worth noting that small engines with their simple carburetors and lack of appropriate engine sensors have no way to adjust fuel metering to compensate for different fuel blends.

[clare]

And in their insane desire to control everything the EPA has made it virtually impossible to adjust the carb on most small engines to make it possible to run different fuels.