Domestic Fuel

It is now very obviuos that McCain will not be helpful toward E85 and ethanol development. McCain by far received the most in Big Oil lobby money. Obama may prove to be helpful, but he’s not going to debate it because such a debate likely would only benefit McCain in the end (McCain being an advocate of eliminating all subsidies). Now, onto what’s even more important immediately:

There are over 7 million FFV’s on the road today that could be fueling up with millions of gallons of cheaper E85, but not enough pumps for them to make a dent. I bet the ethanol industry wishes it had combined its collective power to get more E85 pumps set up sooner, with this unexpected event driving up ethanol supplies just as many plants had hedged for $8 corn feedstock supply earlier this year. Let’s not dinker around with E15 and E20 for now (will be 2020 by the time EPA, CARB, UL, gov’t etc. gets the studies done and approval), and instead get E85 used by more FFV’s now!! Let’s do the math… One penny on 8 billion gallons of ethanol sold is $80 million that the ethanol industry could give away for free for fuel stations to put in E85 pumps (kind of like a soybean check off). That $80 million could convert at least 16,000 mid-grade fuel pumps to E85 (if $5,000 each to convert, which likely would be less). If each E85 pump sold 5,000 gallons of E85 per month (about 4,000 gallons of ethanol and on the low end for most stations), that would be 64 million gallons of ethanol consumed in one month alone–and over 750 million gallons in one year! That would certainly offload a big part of the oversupply that is occuring now. Also, if done for several years in a row, there would be 48,000 conversions for E85 pumps, and an additional total of 2.25 Billion Gallons of ethanol consumed by FFV’s!! But, would the ethanol plants pay a penny per gallon to make a dime per gallon (tighter supply leads to higher prices, and this seems feasible)? Only time will tell. So far most ethanol plants have focused solely on E10.

Oh yes, and while they are at it they can put in a whole bunch of blender pumps (not just E85 but also E20, E30, E50) as well. Then those with FFV’s can choose the blend that happens to make the most economic sense at the time, rather than either/or. If people with regular gasoline vehicles illegally (according to EPA) use these pumps so be it; they can already do it by filling up with 10 gallons of E10 and 5 gallons of E85, so what’s the difference? Dragging our feet on blender pumps is as detrimental as dragging our feet on E85 pumps has been. Logically, there’s more economic and environmental harm to this nation by dragging our feet on E85 and blender pumps than there is by allowing consumers their free choice of fuels!