Really ? Honestly ?? The 10% of the liquid coming out of the hose that is ethanol is NOT gasoline. That is a pretty simple concept. Even if you want to figure in the slight extra total fuel use because of it, the refiners still sell maybe 7% less refined gasoline.
Really ? Honestly ?? So drivers buy just a set number of gallons, and drive only as far as that fuel lasts, then stop? So instead of driving 100 miles as they did on E0, they choose to drive just 97 miles on E10 then park the car, without buying additional fuel to drive the extra 3 miles they used to drive? That is a pretty simple concept. They are selling 103% total refined gasoline, compared to an E0 flow. 10% of that is ethanol, 93% is refined crude oil. You were misrepresenting the later as 10% less of all refined product, including the fuel oils and other products that are still going at 100%. Since the ethanol is being blended in at the refinery, they are still getting their processing and handling and profit markups on the ethanol fraction too. You can't honestly say that 10% (exaggerated from a more realistic 7%) is a big deal, then turn around and dismiss 3% as just a slight difference.
Maybe the dealers are but the refiners are NOT. Almost without exception, the companies that sell gasoline at the wholesale level do NOT also sell ethanol.....at any level. It typically is mixed at the far end of the pipeline because pipelines don't play good with ethanol. The ethanol does NOT come from the same supplier as the refined gasoline. The companies that refine gasoline, and other petroleum products are NOT opposed to ethanol because it is somehow inherently evil, it is because it cuts into their profits. This is ridiculous. I quit.
I love ethanol...... as used in 114 octane, ethanol engines designed to efficiently burn 114 octane ethanol. INDY cars have great performance, burning 114 octane ethanol. However, 114 octane ethanol can NOT be burned efficiently in gasoline engines designed to burn 87 octane gasoline. As stated previously, when only ten percent 114 octane ethanol is added to gasoline to form a designated 87 octane fuel blend, the gasoline molecules must be ~ 84 octane. This miserably designated 87 octane fuel blend(E10), when used in 87 octane, designed gasoline engines, has very few 87 octane gasoline molecules, but mostly 84 octane gasoline molecules & 114 octane ethanol molecules. Coupled with the lower energy output in ethanol, these are the reasons why E10 (10% ethanol) loses 8% to 5% MPG compared to E0. E0 would be close in price to E10, except oil companies are penalized by EPA for selling E0, thus oil companies have to pass the penalty to customers.
I have never heard that ethanol has a negative effect on MPG above and beyond energy content. However I would concede that EPA does not test cars with both E0 and E10 to advise us the real-world impact of E10, which could possibly be vehicle-dependent. EPA assumes the only MPG-effect of 10% ethanol is the energy content difference (-3%). As consumers we can informally do that test in our own cars, and I agree that up to 10% better MPG might be seen for E0, but the reason I would cite for that is that the base E0 gasoline can vary in MPG too. Also, as a Prius owner, I rather see 50 MPG than 48.5 with E10, so that's frustrating for those of us who'd rather not have the ethanol mandate.
Checking with a family refinery engineer (retired), I received a clarification. Her refinery has multiple output streams, including a distribution terminal (truck rack) on site, loading the fully blended E10 to the truck tankers. The stuff sent down the pipeline is ethanol-free, and sub-octane. I stand by the rest of my statements, specifically that your "[refiners] losing 10% of their market" statement is significant exaggeration, or bunk.
Remember also that ethanol production requires a lot of extra agricultural fuel. Depending on who is counting, this also offsets much or even most of the crude oil 'savings'.
I see no bunk. Actually Sam was agreeing with you that ethanol mandate was somehow a blessing in disguise for the oil industry, when as a Freudian slip, he mentioned taking 10% of the industry's product slate away. I did not bother pointing out the contradiction in Sam's argument, since I thought he stated the negative so clearly himself. U.S. Congress mandates ethanol gets 10% of gasoline market. I agree with Sam that is taking product away from oil industry. We can bicker if that is 10% or 7% on energy content basis. Ethanol does shift the refinery output to make less gaso and more diesel, but I have never heard that the magnitude of the extra diesel offsets the overall negatives from a refinery profit perspective. If the extra diesel did offset the gasoline loss, that would imply that ethanol is worse for the environment than just using E0 gasoline.
10% refinery market loss is bunk, but many folks must stick to simplified math because basic algebra is 'too complicated'. Tough. You are not one of my authority figures, nor a website moderator. I'm not claiming that the additional agricultural and transportation diesel required to produce the ethanol fully offsets the reduced petroleum fraction used for gasoline. But it clearly does offset a large chunk of it. (I don't have product-specific profit metrics, so use other factors as proxies.) Estimates of ethanol's net energy balance vary widely, from about 2:1 gain by the most optimistic sources, to negative by the pessimistic sources. With some basic math and algebra, use of lower-MPG E10 to travel a fixed distance should require (0.9) / (0.9 + 0.1/1.5) = 0.931 as much petro-gasoline as E0, i.e. a 6.9% reduction. But gasoline makes up just about (or slightly under?) half the refinery output, so this is now about a 3.4% market loss. But then the refineries get to sell additional fuel to those who produce this ethanol, offsetting a good chunk of that initial loss, whittling the net loss down to under 2% (best energy balance claim), likely even under 1% (more centrist claims), depending on just whose ethanol energy balance accounting is used. That is why I'm labeling the original 10% loss claim as bunk.
And THIS is why I am labeling your continued ranting as worthless narcissism. Nobody ever said that ethanol causes a 10% loss to a refinery's total output; just gasoline. And the 10% figure was an approximation. There IS some loss of gasoline market. The exact amount is not really that important to the general discussion. IF......the use of ethanol caused the refining companies to make MORE profit they would love it. Simple economic reality.
Trying (unsuccessfully) to find figures on refinery profits lost from smaller crude oil net throughputs due to the ethanol mandate, I get the impression that industry concerns are instead more focused on the RINs, credits for renewables that are issued at the gasoline-ethanol blending point, but with obligations belonging to the refineries. This structure works just fine for the large vertically integrated multinational oil companies, but is a major problem for the independent refiners without their own blending operations. "The big companies such BP and Shell are best set up to blend the ethanol, and thereby collect the most RINs. Many merchant companies and small refiners only do the first step of the refining process, which includes turning the crude oil into fuel and sending it into the market. And because they don't have access to the second step of the fuel-to-market process, the blending part, they have to buy RINs from the major oil companies in order to meet the RFS each year." The connection to this thread is that a portion the oil industry fits the model Sam describes, where the refinery is completely distinct from the terminal where ethanol is blended in. But a different portion fits the vertically integrated model I described, where the refining and blending operations are owned by the same corporation, which then profits from a good portion of the ethanol chain too, offsetting some of any net reductions on the crude oil side. And the bigger profit-loss issue is the trading of the mandatory RINs. By coincidence, my 'family tribal knowledge' of the oil industry comes from a retired refinery engineer from one of those named companies above, who is married to a refinery engineer working for the other named company. According to these articles, both those companies have enough ethanol blending in-house to profit from the RINs. Which probably explains why I never heard any complaints from them. But Sam is referring to refineries on the other side of that RIN trading business, those independents with no such blending, and thus paying a lot to buy their needed RINs. Some more descriptions are here: Ethanol credits drive up the cost of doing business Changing The Renewable Fuel Standard Is Crucial To Revitalizing American Manufacturing
came to this thread to reply in regards to my use of non-ethanol fuel. (it was my only option to purchase by the lake). I honestly didn't see any significant change as it was only 1 mpg higher than a normal tank. Now, onto this: You guys argue like your related. It's pretty sad actually, because this forum is so packed with users who are "know it all's" already. Absolutely refusing to listen/consider an opposing point of view. Why not go to facebook for that crap, because here it's just making a good place a pain in the a** to weed thru because you can't go more than a day without running into it. {end of rant}
Things do tend to get out of hand......on almost any subject. That is sometimes unfortunate and sometimes educational. One should be skeptical of ANY adamant position taken by ANY big corporation because their one and only motivation is PROFIT...MORE, MORE, MORE. What they claim as the truth often isn't.
Can see you don't read posts showing E0 to E10 MPG increases of 5% to 8%. As far as your 10% increase possibility(I don't agree) in E0 to E10 MPG, some people have reported that too. As for my five 87 octane engines, they show E0 to E10 MPG increases of 8%, 8%, 7%-8%, 7%, & 5%.
