Hold On To Your Wallets Folks

• November 29, 2006

My editor at the Dakota Beacon, Steve Cates, has an excellent post up about ethanol:

After thirty plus years of federal subsidies, after years of state wide subsidies, after mandated use by gasoline refiners, after a 30 site peak and continued decline of stations selling E-85, the ethanol industry is concerned. Concerned that you are not being forced to buy their product which can not compete in the world energy market. Solution: Have the state legislature make your motor fuel retailers sell you ethanol.
The insanity continues: “We’ve got a lot of plants being built for a demand that doesn’t exist with a (10 percent ethanol) blend,” Dorgan said. Interpretation: We must make people buy more ethanol.
When Mike Williams, a Fargo city commissioner said, ‘When you go out and testify at the Legislature, people always say, ‘Oh, they’re going to mandate something, I’m on the city commission and we make laws every other day. A mandate is just another word for a law.” So, there you have it there is every intention in the world to force motor fuel retailer to accommodate ethanol rather there is a demand or not, and you will be forced to buy what is being forced to sell.

Because forcing you to buy a product you don’t really need or want is just something politicians do when they’ve already wasted millions of your tax dollars subsidizing the production and distribution of a product that is, frankly, just not competitive in the free market.
Read the whole thing.

Tags: North Dakota News, Politics

http://SayAnythingBlog.com The_Whistler_ofnd

Global warming doesn’t seem like such a bad idea. It got down to 0 degrees last night.
robert108

Rob: There is a mileage penalty with any ethanol “blend”, in addition to the lubrication probs you already pointed out. If this was a great idea, we would be demanding it.
robert108

The free market will fix global warming.

You can’t “fix” something that isn’t broken; “global warming” is a completely natural process, and isn’t within our purview to change. As we have since the end of the last Ice Age, we will adjust to it.
http://SayAnythingBlog.com The_Whistler_ofnd

“We’ve got a lot of plants being built for a demand that doesn’t exist with a (10 percent ethanol) blend,”

Dorganoff wouldn’t know the free market if it slapped him in the face.
http://www.bikebubba.blogspot.com/ Robert Perry

The mandates they want to push are simple; require E10 all over and push to E20 when at all possible–Minnesota has an E10 requirement and there was a push to get E20 required last year, which was scuttled when manufacturers pointed out it voided warranties.
GroovyPKP

I’d happily use it if it was avail. where I live; my owner’s manual encourages it’s use.
http://angrychad.blogspot.com/ Chad

The free market will fix global warming.
http://www.freerepublicans.com/ freerepublicans.com

What’s the mandate they want to push?

From an engineering standpoint a standard car can use up to a 23% blend. Anything more than that and you risk ruining fuel line components and thengine itself by reducing the lubrication properties of the fuel.

Politicians need to stay out of war planning and mechanical engineering.
http://sayanythingblog.com robport

From an engineering standpoint a standard car can use up to a 23% blend.

A standard car might be able to run on it for while, but what of longevity concerns? Certainly ethanol, which acts as more of a solvent then gasoline, is going to be harder on engine parts.

Robert, I think that mandates are a silly way to promote any energy alternative. If an energy alternative were truly viable in terms of cost and use its use wouldn’t have to be forced on us by the government.
http://sayanythingblog.com robport

My owner’s manual encourages it’s use as well, but when I put it in my tank I lost a lot of power and 8 mpg. Even priced nearly a quarter/gallon cheaper then normal gas it ended up being more expensive because it was less efficient.

And that doesn’t even take into account my tax dollars that were used to subsidize the fuel.

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