The Ethanol Papers - Paperturn manuscript - Flipbook - Page 527
All other issues are irrelevant contrivances, not dissimilar to investing in "derivatives," rather than whole stocks and bonds. Or, try this analogy: Some people
love a sport because of its diverse ways to place a wager, rather than just the
competitive fun or beauty of the game. A problem arises when you confuse a
team or individual player's ability to deliver a winning game with a team or player's ability to deliver a winning bet. In other words, judging the ethanol industry
on a superfluous feature like renewable information numbers is a monumental
waste of time.
When the internal combustion engine was invented, alcohol mixed with wood
turpentine was the fuel used. When the diesel engine was invented a fuel produced from peanuts was used. Neither device required a fuel produced from
petroleum oil. There is/was nothing about petroleum fuels that enhance engine
performance. Everything about petroleum oil fuels reeks of health dangers and
environmental damage - and when I say it "reeks of health dangers and environmental damage" I mean it figuratively and literally.
So, right away, issues #1, #4, and #5 in my above list make petroleum oil fuels
a bad choice.
In America, because of excessive taxes on alcohol production, the nascent petroleum oil industry was able to take advantage of the situation and make great
strides to become a primary fuel source as ICE and vehicle technology advanced. Elsewhere, in other leading industrial countries, ethanol (alcohol) fuels
were competitive to the new petrol fuel gasoline. However, almost everywhere,
ethanol was the fuel of choice for motor sports participants regardless of cost
because it provided better engine performance.
With the freeing of alcohol's bondage to extreme taxation in the U.S. in 1907,
which resulted in making ethanol as inexpensive as gasoline, ethanol was set
to take a dominant or at least a very prominent role as the "fuel of the future"
because high compression engines required the higher octane provided by ethanol (as compared to conventional gasoline that caused engine knock). In fact,
the General Motors' scientists that created leaded gasoline believed that ethanol was the "fuel of the future."
SEE: Exemplars and Case Studies - Tetraethyllead: Kettering and Midgley
However, upon discovering that their discovery (leaded gasoline) could be patented and be eventually worth billions of dollars, they changed direction and
pushed their home brew over ethanol and ethanol-gasoline blends.
SEE: The Rise & Fall of General Motors and the Subjugation of the Industrialized
World
