Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Saving at the Pump

A great report out of Nebraska underscores my point from yesterday's post -- that ethanol is helping control prices at the gas pump. I think it is fantastic to watch the national average gasoline price of regular unleaded climb to $3.26 per gallon in the past week while a quick survey of gas stations here in central Iowa shows a price of around $3.05 per gallon -- a small decrease from last week!

And now, out of Nebraska, the conclusions are clear. With an average savings of 9 cents per gallon using E10 blends of gasoline compared to regular gasoline, the state of Nebraska saves consumers $4 million per month on ethanol! This is calculated by taking the gasoline usage in Nebraska, multiplying into the percentage that using ethanol (77%) and then multiplying that number by the average savings. Amazingly, most gas stations in Iowa offer between 10 to 13 cents per gallon savings on E10 blends and so the savings to the consumer could be even greater than $4 million per month. With E10 blends averaging 10 cents per gallon savings, it should definitely be the fuel of choice, even considering the 2.7% energy density deficit that it carries. All I can say is that although it sucks, filling up on E10 when it is priced at $2.99 sure doesn't feel that bad with other states paying a lot more for their gas.



http://www.mph-online.com/images/mph/208776/5055.jpg

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yeah, for all the positives and negatives that have been batted around about ethanol, I'm happy to use it not just for the savings but also to cut down in any way possible the use of oil we buy from others. I have a feeling the price of oil is being artificially jacked up. By the way, I was wondering if the alternative energy industry is in any way helping the diesel situation. Seems truckers are using thousands of dollars a month and the price keeps rising. Time to rejuvenate some rail lines, esp. for freight?
berfunkle

Anonymous said...

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The process itself is very simple, coal is activated to react in a complete atmosphere of natural gas, the resulting gases are fractionated to separate the well known components of coal, next the separated ethylene gas is brought in contact with saturated steam to produce ethanol, which will be refined to produce a motor grade ethanol.

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ethylene hydration. The net results are higher quality product, and higher yield of product ethanol. Also the process design has been kept very simple.

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