When is the time to start using alcohol and bean oil to power our vehicles ?How much will it cost per gallon to make it profitable ?
While I’d hate to be the one to start pouring a 5th of “Murphy’s Finest” into the tank it’s supposed to be do-able, yet we have never started gearing up for corn fuel. Tell me that the fertilizer comes from oil by products and I’ll tie the dogs up to the sled.
Oh, I’m gonna keep using these #%@&* codes 'til I get 'em right.
With the ridiculously low price oil was selling for how could you justify developing alternatives? If the price goes high enough the alternatives will get some market share, but I suspect the price will come back down before that happens. Too bad in a way. People started going back to their old wasteful ways when the price went down, now they’re driving gas hogs and crying all the way to the gas station.
Git along little doggie.actually part of some fertilizer is the residue of cleaning up natural gas. And you believed all those clean fuel commercials.
The time to switch is when the marginal cost of bean/corn-produced fuels drops below the marginal cost of fossil-based fuels.
Figuring out the marginal cost is the tricky thing. Not just cost per gallon, nor cost to drive a vehicle per gallon, but cost to switch over to the newer / modified engine. Cost to alter the fuel distribution network. Cost to the environment (ethanol is not as great as one might think, though somewhat better than gasoline). Cost of convincing consumers they need to switch. The list can go on for quite a while, each cost having its associated group of assumptions and flat-out guesses.
The switching point is not likely to happen any time soon. However, if [insert your favorite sci-fi or conspiracy theory here] happens, the price per barrel of crude will sharply increase. Should that increase look like a permanent increase, and look like it is the beginning of an upward trend, then we will be much closer to the switching point. It will make economic sense for companies to put dollars into R&D for alternative fuels, including the production and dissemination of those fuels. Whatever, in total, on the margin, is cheaper is what you will see people using.
Once in a while you can get shown the light
in the strangest of places
if you look at it right…
A few years back the Brazilians tried to substitute ethyl alcohol (from sugar cane) for gasoline. They had a few, not insignificant problems: the substitution meant they had to increase the amount of land for growing sugar cane. This drove up the price of food.Second: at temperatures below 70F, alcohol doesn’t vaporize well-the result: explosions of unburned alcohol in the mufflers (they had to replace A LOT of mufflers)!
I like ethanol. I put ethanol in my tank. But let’s be realistic.
As irritating as high gas prices are, we have to remember that gasoline is a relatively small share of the oil we use everyday, for industrial uses, diesel fuel, plastics, etc. We couldn’t tell OPEC to buzz off in the 70s, when we were a lot less dependent on oil imports, and I doubt if things would be any better now.
Secondly, the only reason the U.S. has an ethanol industry is because it’s heavily subsidized – one of the great debating points between Bush and McCain. Oil prices would have to go a lot higher, and stay there a lot longer, to justify the investment in ethanol.
Before we start telling the oil producers to kiss off, it might help to read Cecil’s take on ethanol in cars: http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a2_392b.html
“You can be smart or pleasant. For years I was smart.
I recommend pleasant.”
Elwood P. Dowd
Don’t think that the convertion would be that big a deal technically speaking Some old farm tractors had alcohol carbs.But then again there are the politics to consider
I find it funny that everyone gets all outraged when the price of regular unleaded gasoline starts hitting $1.50 per gallon. I recall the same outrage at the same prices in the early '80s. In the last almost 20 years, the price of gasoline has remained relatively constant, sometimes higher, sometimes lower. What other major consumable can you say THAT about?
This country STILL pays one of the best prices for gasoline in an industrialized nation. If you’re gonna bitch about gas, bitch about pollution, or using up precious reserves of fossil fuel, but don’t complain about price. 
When in highscool I pumped gas for 50cents a gallon. I washed the windows checked the oil and checked the tires. I’ve seen gas sell for 29cents and they still washed the windows etc. I can’t believe that it costs that much more to produce gasoline. there is a skunk in the works somewhere. 
I had this sinking feeling too, the last time I was filling up and wandered inside to the convenience mart for a ½ liter bottle of water at $1.49. You think Exxon charges a lot for their gasoline? They charge twice as much for their water.
Maybe I’m being rash- do profits from food & snacks go to the oil companies or to the station operator? You’d think that if oil companies collected that money, they’d be able to shave a few nickels off their gasoline prices & attract more business.
Recent polls revealed that some people have never been polled, until recently.