The Ethanol Papers - Paperturn manuscript - Flipbook - Page 586
stations that were owned by Rockefeller’s other oil companies were able to remain the dominant filling stations in every geographic market.
Consequently, the world’s largest companies in the automobile business and
automobile fuel business had the exclusive on the only product of its kind. This
came at a time when alcohol production and consumption were illegal throughout America, so the other oil companies couldn’t easily develop a gasoline
blended fuel that could be used in the new high compression engines. And because America happened to have more cars and more paved roads than anywhere else in the world, this made an extremely rich and powerful Standard Oil
even more rich and powerful. Being extremely rich and powerful means you can
buy more politicians, more voters, more media spokespeople, and more advertising. By the time America shook off the despised effects of the 18th Amendment in 1933, gasoline was enthroned as the king of fuels. See that, he who
has the gold, rules.
Bryce definitely overreached here. The two laws of thermodynamics are no
more relevant as to why fossil fuels are our primary fuels today then a couple
of farts in a hurricane. Using complicated theories of mechanical actions to explain the domination of fossil fuels is simply wishful revisionist history to ennoble
what was nothing more than consumer purchasing decisions brought on by a
string of concurrent sociological and political events.
The inventions of the internal combustion engine and the first automobiles came
before the discovery that the oily black goop (oil) found in Pennsylvania could
be used to create fuels. The discovery of oil and gasoline didn’t beget the internal combustion engine. In fact, it would be correct to say that it is ethanol (alcohol) that begat the high-performance engine because, without it or a substance
that could emulate the properties of ethanol, a high-compression engine
wouldn’t have been possible. If the world relied only on pre-leaded gasoline the
automobile world might not have even advanced past the Ford Model T.
On the other hand, there’s no reason to not believe that had oil not been discovered that America and the world would not have gone on its merry way improving upon and inventing additional ICE machines that were powered by ethanol. The ethanol of today is the same ethanol of the 19th century. Ethanol can
power the biggest, fastest automobile engines without needing a poison additive like tetraethyl lead.
Again, using the laws of thermodynamics or the laws of physics to justify our
continued reliance on the use of gasoline and oil-based diesel is just an
