It's a conspiracy on the part of Big Environment;
Let's consider the effect of EPA vapor pressure mandates on the price of gasoline. Energy Security Analysis Inc. senior consultant Mark Routt analogizes vapor pressure in gasoline to fizziness in soda pop. In the winter more fizziness (high vapor pressure) means that when you turn the ignition on a cold morning it sparks the gasoline and your car starts. However, in the summer you want "flatter" gasoline (less vapor pressure) because fizzier gasoline evaporates on hot days and contributes to smog. While EPA regulations help reduce smog, they also make it more costly to produce gasoline with lower vapor pressure. Lundberg estimates that summer blends can cost between 3 to 15 cents more to make than winter blends, depending on the exact formulation, time and place. [...] Routt suggests that the EPA relax its vapor pressure regulations allowing retailers to more slowly switch to summer blends. However, he doubts that this policy could ever be adopted since it would characterized by activists as "an attack on the environment."Every one of the six analysts I talked with pointed out that the federal ethanol mandate adds substantially to gasoline prices. Ethanol costs more per gallon than gasoline; it contains less energy per volume so a blend of 90 percent gas and 10 percent ethanol delivers 3 percent fewer miles per gallon; and ethanol has a higher vapor pressure which makes it even more expensive for refiners to meet EPA summertime vapor pressure maximums.
[...]
No new refineries have been built in the U.S. since the 1970s. Why? NIMBY, nobody wants an oil refinery in their neighborhood. Also, environmental regulations are much tighter than they used to be. Ritterbusch estimates that it would cost $5 to $7 billion and take 7 years to build a new refinery in the U.S. Routt says oil company executives who vividly recall the oil crash of the 1980s when refineries hemorrhaged money are reluctant to make such huge investments in a volatile energy market.
(Emphasis mine)
That well-known organ of big oil, New York Times;
Lawrence Goldstein, an energy analyst at the Energy Policy Research Foundation, an industry-financed group, has been warning for nearly a year that the government’s twin goals of encouraging refiners to increase production and promoting increased supplies of biofuels work against each other.“These two policies are not complementary,” Mr. Goldstein said. “These policies are in conflict.”
In addition, Mr. Goldstein said, an emphasis on ethanol might lead to increased volatility in fuel prices.
“If we get a bad corn crop, we will end up paying for it at the pump and on the food shelves,” he said. “We are not buying security. We are increasing volatility.”
h/t
You do realize that biofuels are low--in fact the idea has almost been abandoned--on the environmentalist's list of solutions, don't you?
You do realize also that none of the major environmental groups support using corn as a biofuel, don't you?
You do realize that the only groups who now support using corn to make biofuel are the Conservative Party and the Agribusiness astroturf groups like the Canadian Renewable Fuel Association, don't you?
Something I don't understand: poor Mexico had VW building ethanol Golf there for a decade now IIRC. Were they stupid?
Ethanol attracts moisture too - water in your fuel systems, even small amounts, will cost you in maintenance. Get CAA, water freezes - blocking gas lines.
From David Miller's Toronto site;
"The Suzuki Foundation has called Toronto the North American leader in combating climate change and the London-based Climate Group has listed us among the top five low-carbon leaders."
"In Toronto we are leading by:
promoting transit, green fleets and biofuels - all of our buses now run on biofuel, we are the second largest user of hybrid buses in North America and we now have over 170 hybrid and alternative fuel city-owned vehicles as part of our Green Fleet." David Miller.
Ooookay.
"You do realize that the only groups who now support using corn to make biofuel are the Conservative Party and the Agribusiness astroturf groups like the Canadian Renewable Fuel Association, don't you?" Robert McC
The change of heart must have been since Feb 2007,... not too long ago.
//www.toronto.ca/mayor_miller/speeches/climate.htm
That is what I like about the (fanaic)greenies.
Rant rant rant. Fix nothing themselves. Brow beat, brow beat. Others must fix. If it goes wrong ---- no, not like that. Rant rant. Do it differently. Dunno how, just do it.
Waiting to see Robbie standing beside David Suzuki as they chew out Miller.
Consumer Reports published an evaluation recently on Ethanol and it was not complimentary. They pretty much rejected it. They've been known to be pretty reliable except when they supported Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring" 'way back when.
Ethanol makes sense for spoiled crop.
Gives an out to farmers besides suicide.
It's coming, get used to it.
It's all Bush's fault. Somehow. Everything that's bad in the world is Bush's fault.
The Green Party of Canada (Dion's adopted party) desperately wants PM Harper's biofuel initiative to succeed.
"Calgary, Jan. 8 – The Green Party of Canada today challenged the new Environment Minister John Baird to give the federal government’s proposed biofuel initiative a fighting chance of survival by cutting it adrift from the doomed Clean Air Act." Green Party website.
If as, RM suggests, the greenies are about to abandon biofuels, could Kyoto be next ???
Car and Driver magazine had a really good article about a year ago on this....just like consumer reports, they ripped the theory to shreds.
Something along the lines of it takes one "unit" of other energy to make one "unit" of corn ethanol.
I am sure I am off but the gist(spelling) of the article was-we are producing this stuff for....pick one.
Sh--s and giggles
exersize and fresh air
practice for something else.
A true big gov't make work project, compromising the economy as well.
Me sad now.
Don't be thinking you're going to get rid of this new welfare program anytime in the next 40 or 50 years. This has Crow Rate, ACOA, CBC, SOW, AECL, CIDA and GWOT written all over it.
The Conservatives just did a judo flip on their supporters' wallets. A betrayal worthy of Turdeau I. Speaking of which ... now that there isn't a single party in Canada who wants anything to do with free markets, how long d'you think it'll be before people realize that if socialism is the way to go, better put a real socialist in charge?
Plenty of additional refining capacity has been added in the past couple of decades in both Canada and the United States.
1) Existing refineries have been retrofitted with advanced control systems that allow for much higher availability. This allows for much greater product output with only minimal additional investment.
2) Existing refineries have seen new units added, and debottlenecking, which improves efficiency and production without requiring new sites, new utilities, etc.
The industry is being responsible in meeting the challenges of the energy demands. The truth is, however, that there are major efficiency improvements in the pipeline for cars and trucks, already available, that could cut down consumption by 20-30% over existing technologies. Read up on direct injection, and homogenous charge combustion sometime. Against a backdrop of impending substantial efficiency improvements in the use of energy, why on earth would any oil company, responsible to its shareholders, make large capital investments in greenfield refineries? EPA rules or no EPA rules, this is simply a question of economics.
When were paying $5:00 a gallon people should tell GREENPEACE to TAKE A HIKE and FEED THEMSELVES TO THE POLAR BEARS
Jeff K, said, amoung other things. . .
** A true big gov't make work project, compromising the economy as well.**
That is what it looks like since bio-fuel production is not really practical in a stand alone sense..
Yet it is good for farming and there is no stronger lobby than the Cargill Monsanto Agra-business lobby.
Thousands of bio-fuel refineries have been operating for 20 years and more throughout North American and more so in South America.
Brazil runs 80% bio-fuels and 20% gasoline in public vehicles. Their main bio source is sugar cane and that is far more efficient a source than our sweet or fodder corn.
Municipalities and utilities crews use bio-fuels a lot. They do in Courtenay, and I was just talking to a municipal guy in Duncan / Nanaimo and they use a lot of bio-fuel there as well.
Bio-fuel is an emergency alternate to petrolium in times of military emergency, so practical or not, lobby power and strategic alternate advantage suggests bio-fuel will be with us for a long time to come. = TG
Concerning gas prices.
I watched the senate hearings on gasoline prices about a week ago on c-span. They were reviewing committee reports on the problem and questioning the committee.
In the end, it all came down to supply and demand and where companies choose to put their money. Which is basically what the last paragraph from the comment by Mark is saying.
A couple of interesting points from the hearings:
1. Only 50% of the refining capacity of the huge BP refinery in Texas City is back on-line after the huge fire that killed 15 people in 2005 (and wounded hundreds).
2. Several other refineries have had fires and have had to be upgraded - reducing gas supply.
3. Something like 50% (I can't remember the exact number) of refineries in the US need light sweet crude (lsc) oil. This means that these refineries can only buy oil from countries that produce lsc.
4. Saudi Arabia does not have lsc. Realizing that they were losing market share in the US for their oil they decided to build their own refinery - which is due to be fully on-line next year (ie. they will now be exporting gas to the US).
5. A recommendation for the US gov't to stop buying oil and gas on the open market (for strategic reserves, etc.) and move to coal oil to help drive that industry - and really be strategic.
Concerning ethanol.
I agree with the comment by aj in calgary. It's coming and fast. The US has made a decision and they are moving. There is going to be alot of R&D on efficiency (maybe plants genetically modified for ethanol - not food - to make them yield more or grow in new climates, etc. - who knows).
The US situation is not applicable to Canada ( maybe only Ontraio) we have national refining capacity, cheap/pure oil and swift cheap delivery systems...we also have 3 levels og government who wallow in the excesses of the retail chain...there is no equivilence in the US for the percentace governments in Canada take out of the retail price, and tax along the supply chain right to the wellhead.
Canadains are being screwed by retail gouging which is pretexed on flims envio BS and false supply scarcity...the government is not curious because they profit from the gouging...this ain't rocket science kids...get used to the fact you live in a kleptocracy....Americans have problems with special interests damaging the suply chain with court injunctions....up here no such thing happens...expansions of Alberta and Sask refining capacity could easily service all of Canada's needs with spare capacity ...but 3 levels of government who dip their beaks it the pump do not want regional supply gaps resolved...or price gouging investigated.
The US market has totally different factors impacting its consumer prices...Canada has intrenched greed in government impacting most of our commodity markets.
HO HO HEY HEY WE DONT NEED THE EPA.GREENPEACE GO HOME GREENPEACE GO HOME GREENPEACE GO HOME SQUAWK SQUAWK IM ONE IRRITATED BIRD