Oil, Gasoline, and Alternative-Energy Automobiles

The automobile industry has been around for 100+ years.  Car makers enjoy profits in the Billions while oil companies enjoy profits in the tens of Billions.


Any time gasoline prices rise more than gradually, there's an interest in alternative fuel sometimes starting with diesel.  Since the first Earth Day in 1970, if not before, renewable energy or at least more environmentally friendly energy sources have been contemplated.


The car industry would be largely unaffected by building cars to run on a different source of energy.  Mass-production would lead to their costing about the same as cars cost now and the business would be more-or-less unscathed. 


This is in sharp contrast to the change in the oil, refining, and gasoline industries.  Consider if ALL cars eventually use energy other than gasoline.  Even if diesel cars still exist, and planes, trains and even semi trucks still use gasoline, the profit margins for oil companies would be drastically cut.


So why would oil companies put a good faith effort into development of alternative energy fueled automobiles?  You must come to the conclusion that they would not.  In fact they have bought out countless patents from small companies for millions of dollars to keep that from happening.


Yet the oil companies still take tax cuts they will admit they do not need and do research into something they want to make sure never happens.


The current US president claimed while campaigning and reiterated every State of the Union address that he would stop the oil company tax cuts (or subsidies, subsidizing research into the abyss).  It never even came up as actionable until there was a Congressional Hearing (i.e. puppet show) about the tax cuts and questioning the oil moguls.  Moguls admit they do not need them and one said they would gladly give them up if the government would open up more land/ocean for oil drilling.  


The government is by no means held to an ultimatum, yet the tax cuts remain and more drilling still is not expanding (see my previous post for thoughts on how that would lower "cost" of gasoline).


The oil companies would pass on higher taxes to the consumer to pay for their "research" while keeping their profits the same.


CLEARLY, research into alternative fuel for cars needs to be done by someone outside of the oil industry.


Additionally I know for a fact that gasoline engines run on the gas fume mini explosions and waste a lot of the gasoline in doing so.  There could already be much more fuel efficient engines that use less gasoline, and there have been in years past.  It is not in everyone's interest to do so.

If it's cheaper, why isn't it being used?

There's a commercial telling how train transportation gets over 400 miles per gallon of fuel. The train can carry a large number of ConNex boxes, untold tons of goods.

The commercial doesn't say what type of fuel, the cost of that fuel, the difference in environment impact. But wouldn't it be cheaper to have tons of goods moving together for long distances and trucks only move to local warehouses, distributors, etc.?

Would actually working together get goods moved cheaper than all of these giant companies with billions in profit (and corporate jets) save money that MIGHT be passed along to the consumer and lessen dependence on foreign oil?

I say "might" because while COSTS are always passed along to consumers, savings aren't as quick to be shared.

(More on that line of thought in the next post)

Channing H.

Flex Fuel Vehicles, Where's the Ethanol

My dad has a Flex Fuel pickup truck. It's a 2001 Mazda. For all intents and purposes it's a Ford before Ford bought Mazda.

The truck will burn gasoline or ethanol. The problem is there wasn't anywhere to buy ethanol. Even now, the closest station is about 60 miles away.

Here's a link to find alternative fuel stations close to you:

http://www.afdc.energy.gov/afdc/locator/stations/

The cheapest source of ethanol would presumably be processed from corn. Supply and demand would seem to make it cheaper if much more were produced. If many people used ethanol to fuel their cars gas demand would go down and could cause its price to drop. That would be good but could curtail efforts to reduce dependence on foreign oil.

So mass production of corn into ethanol would likely make for cheaper ethanol which would be replacing the use of gasoline.

So 8 years later, why are we still not seeing ethanol on every corner along with gas as long as gas would still be in demand?

Is there not enough profit to be made from corn? Is it not insanely cheaper to grow and process corn than to drill, pump and refine oil?

Interestingly enough, corn is SO cheap that it is processed into a substitute for sugar. The US government subsidizes a large amount of corn farming (which means tax dollars pay for it). Over-processed High Fructose Corn Syrup seems to be perfectly fine for consumption, even processed with a genetically modified enzyme and a fungus that gets reused until it stops giving results to get maximum profit. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_fructose_corn_syrup.

So it sounds like the only reason we are still dependent on foreign oil is that we want to be.

Channing H.