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Bills introduced to mandate E85 pumps, cut oil tax breaks, $7,500 PHEV credit

Bills introduced to mandate E85 pumps, cut oil tax breaks, $7,500 PHEV credit

Posted Sep 12th 2008 8:01PM

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One of the key elements to the success of ethanol as a fuel in Brazil has been the requirement for all filling stations to have at least one ethanol pump and it looks like the U.S. Congress may finally be pushing for this as well. Currently, only about 1,700 of the nation's 170,000 gas stations have an ethanol pump and so many of the millions of flex-fuel vehicle drivers out there couldn't use E85 even if they wanted to. However, while mandating more ethanol availability is a good idea in principle, until cellulosic ethanol becomes commercially available, it would be counter-productive to have so many ethanol pumps. There isn't enough ethanol to feed that many outlets anyway right now. A separate Senate bill introduced by Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, and Max Baucus, D-Mont, also addresses energy policy. The bill would apparently cut back on the tax breaks that big oil companies get and use at least some of that money to fund consumer tax credits of up to $7,500 for plug-in vehicles. Meanwhile House speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has committed to inserting funding for $25 billion in federally guaranteed loans to automakers to help pay for the transition to more efficient vehicles. That funding will be attached to some bill that is guaranteed to pass and be signed by the president.

[Source: Detroit News]

Category: Ethanol, Legislation and Policy, USA

Tags: mandates, tax breaks, TaxBreaks

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gorr

Foods like corn and sugarcane and palm-oil and sunflower have to be eaten before been turn to fuel(methane and/or ethanol and/or hydrogen and/or green algae-biodiesel-ethanol-hydrogen-butanol(gasoline equivalent) at the sewage plant. It's an easy method that make fuel and depollute the land. Cars don't mind if fuel come from empty stomachs or s&?t in sewage plant.

This disaster is coming from exactly the same persons that provide gasoline and diesel and natural gas to the consumers and industry. They simply jack-up the price of everything by creating artificial shortage-deforestration-war-suicidal policies
all over the world.

It's full of oil and natural gas everywhere to begin with. It's full of great technologies like hydrogen gas that can come from solar or windmill or simply made cheaply on demand near the engine that is using it.

We are faced by ultra-imcompetant persons everywhere but the ones in washinton and in canada, europe, asia,africa, south-america,australia are paniking and don't offer a single positive view on anything. Here in canada it's the most water abondant contry in the world and they started to legiferate on water-depletion,???.

September 14 2008 at 5:22 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Seth

This is a chicken and egg argument. You want the cars to be flex fuel first, but no pumps? That's what we have now.
Whether its corn ethanol or not, the point is to force all stations to have a pump that has a fuel that is not petroleum based. This way when people shop for cars they can say, hey, I can buy this flex fuel model because the station near me and my office has non-gasoline fuel that runs in the car. Today its corn ethanol, tomorrow it is something else, but the precedent has to be set somewhere.
The stations will not sell less gasoline at all short term until flex fuel cars become more common. The existing tanks in the ground will just drain faster.

September 14 2008 at 12:43 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Stefan Feer

*sigh* the ethanol idiots are out in force.

OK, what part of "Ethanol Sucks" don't you understand? Which part do you disagree with?

1. For every gallon of ethanol produced from corn or other food crops, about the same amount of fossil fuel energy had to be used. That means ethanol is not a solution to the energy problem at all, just a way to move things around a bit.

2. Those who claim cellulosic ethanol or sugarcane ethanol are better solutions are ignoring some significant facts: a.) when you turn biomass into ethanol, soil gets depleted. You see, that biomass would ordinarily be left on the field to replenish the soil; without it, the soil is leeched of nutrients over time. b.) Whenever land of any kind, whether grassland or rainforest, is cleared for crop land, lots of CO2 is released. In fact, the amount of CO2 is over 90 times the amount of CO2 saved annually by using the ethanol produced on said crop land instead of fossil fuels. So even using cellulosic or sugarcane ethanol leaves us not breaking even, greenhouse-gas-wise, for over 90 years.

3. Ethanol is corrosive. Perhaps flex-fuel engines have been modified sufficiently that this isn't a problem in the long term, I don't know. What I do know is that ethanol will destroy any pipeline you try to use for its transport, meaning that distributing ethanol requires trucks or trains, which must burn either more ethanol or fossil fuels.

4. Even if you can magically create ethanol out of thin air, there is still only one way to use it: the internal-combustion engine. The automotive ICE is, at its best (e.g. diesel), less than 50% efficient. So no matter where you get the ethanol, the need for an ICE means it's still a horrendously wasteful way to power transportation.

Ethanol is stupid, and so are people who don't understand why it's stupid.

September 14 2008 at 11:58 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

ganapatidave

Ethanol is not THE solution to our dependence on foreign oil, but it is a viable part of the solution. Right now oil companies are clearly not interested in expanding the availability of E85. You're all looking at things as they are now. Sure there are problems with producing ethanol from grain, but what about cellulosic ethanol? That's where the future of ethanol lies. If we (an WE are the government) don't take measures to encourage E85 availability then there won't be any incentive to develop cellulosic ethanol, and we will continue with the same old status quo dependence on buying oil from countries that support terrorists. Gee, that sure sounds like the way I want to go. Pull your heads out of the sand, people!

September 14 2008 at 10:24 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

ltclloyd

Lets get the stuff out there, I've used over 300 gallons of E85 while setting up and tuning my car. the mileage loss is not all that bad (10%) I know people resist change. A unlimited market will fast lane the $1.00 per gallon celulostic plants up and running. It's a chicken or the egg problem. I am in the process of going Tri-fuel Adding natural gas to my arsenal. Don't buy the hype put out by the oil companies. Ethanol is not all bad, check the facts. we are producing more Corn then ever for food even after you take the ethanol earmarked corn out of the mix, it is cleaner.. I'm a Florida resident and would love the local economic boost if part of that 700billion a year could go to my local sugar farmers. since the C02 is used by the plants growing there is a HUGE net carbon advantage. we need a mix of alternatives, I know it's "in fashion" to hate ethanol. but it works and we need the options. the fact that it IS cleaner higher octane, and better for the car.. (no soot), and emits A LOT less carcinogens over petrol.

I'm shocked even amongst a group of supposedly educated ABG readers there is so much incorrect anti-ethanol crud being repeated, and repeated, and repeated.. until people start to believe it. even if you don't see the environmental advantage there is no denying it helps control fuel prices.

September 14 2008 at 1:21 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

1 reply to ltclloyd's comment

Paul Sallmen

ltclloyd said..: "I'm shocked even amongst a group of supposedly educated ABG readers there is so much incorrect anti-ethanol crud being repeated, and repeated, and repeated"

Actually I believe that a lot of the readers are very educated and they quite correctly should be guarded about the viability of ethanol. The comments about the fact that ethanol requires so much fertilizer (and therefore fossil fuels), has to be trucked, fuel economy worsens (less energy storage), has increased food costs and aggravated poverty in developing countries, are all valid questions to ask. The topic of cellulostic ethanol could be a viable alternative as it would entail changing garbage to ethanol. However, I question the scale of putting an E85 tank all across America. What if the market never really develops for E85? In Canada, we have a lot of E85 capable vehicles (only big 3 - I notice the Japanese and German manufacturers have not bought into E85), but not an E85 pump in sight. A more reasonable solution would be to try a sampling of E85 pumps in a few urban areas. If cellulostic ethanol becomes a reality, then maybe it could be expanded. However, if the market for E85 shrivels up, taxpayers will only be stuck paying for a few E85 pumps in a few isolated areas, not across the whole country!

As for the $7500 subsidy for the Volt, yes, I do agree it is rather high. Perhaps a subsidy more inline with Hybrids, or perhaps, just slightly higher. However if the Volt does prove to be reliable (as the Toyota Prius), it will sell (even without the subsidy) in progressively increasing numbers as the years go by. I hope it will be a success.

I agree with an above poster that GM should go high end with EVs like Tesla. I think a Corvette EV would sell in light numbers as a niche vehicle (much like Tesla's Roadster). GM wouldn't necessarily make a lot of money initially, but they would gain valuable real world experience about EVs. Then they could expand to a Cadillac EV. This would also improve GM's PR image which as been tarnished (to say the least!) about how they treated their EV1s.

September 14 2008 at 3:12 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

fnc

Fairies and butterflies aren't going to swoop down and magically deposit an E85 pump in each and every gas station, that's for sure. You and I filling up our tank at the conventional gas pump next to it will be footing the bill for it. And it'll proceed to sit there like an expensive piece of sculptural tribute to failed government policy when there just isn't any ethanol to go into the storage tank beneath it.

September 13 2008 at 3:38 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Stefan Feer

They can install all the E85 pumps they want. I still won't buy the stuff, and anyone who has a grain of sense won't either. In the end, the market will kill off the worthless shit like ethanol and hydrogen and leave only the viable alternatives to gasoline cars standing.

As batteries come down in price due to increases in PHEV and EREV production, and new advances make longer-lasting, faster-charging, higher-energy-density batteries possible, we will see BEVs and EV quick-charge stations take over the market. This may not solve our climate woes (after all, coal is incredibly cheap), but it will solve our gas-price woes. I just hope this idiot country doesn't elect Dumbass McGee and his sidekick PsychoBitch, 'cause if we do, our country will go bankrupt long before EVs start taking over the roads.

September 13 2008 at 1:07 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Joseph

"Meanwhile House speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has committed to inserting funding for $25 billion in federally guaranteed loans to automakers to help pay for the transition to more efficient vehicles. That funding will be attached to some bill that is guaranteed to pass and be signed by the president."

Woah! Did anyone notice this? Isn't a big deal that the government is going to give the auto comapnies a 25 BILLION dollar loan? This deserves its own post.

September 13 2008 at 12:02 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

1 reply to Joseph's comment

Bill

With several hundred thousand votes at stake, you can bet either party would be glad to "loan" $100 billion to domestic automakers.

September 13 2008 at 3:27 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

gorr

They exactly put in practice all over the world policies that im opposing and they didn't or impede policies, like many chatters here too, that im supporting. The trick is to know that there is sufficient ressources here on earth for 60 billions peoples, maybe more but peoples and goverments oppose that and suggests some castastrophy instead because they feel they are not productive. It's a philosophic war, good technologies exists in quantity but people don't feel they deserve it.

September 13 2008 at 11:21 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

corny

GM 's sudden stewardship of the environment is simply a way to continue to make gas guzzlers thanks to E85 an extremely inefficient fuel. The CAFE standards call for all car companies to achieve an average MPG for all vehicles. I believe the most recent number is 27 MPG. Well if you make the biggest money off of 10 miles per gallon SUV's you would hate to say good bye to them wouldn't you?
The CAFE standards has a loophole, that being that an E85 vehicle operating on E85 miles per gallon are ONLY figured against the actual amount of gasoline in the blend (15%) if you divide 100% fuel by 15% gasoline you get the multiplier to the mpg (666) therefore a gas guzzling 10 MPG SUV is given credit for 66.6 MPG. If you sell one SUV like this you can have 5 vehicles only achieving 20 MPG and this gas guzzling SUV and you average more than 27 MPG overall while not one of their vehicles really met the standard.
GM is not the only one taking advantage of this free ride Ford and Chrysler are too. The big three are heading down the toilet and this is just their hands clinging to the rim.

September 13 2008 at 9:38 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply