Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Where's the Ethanol?

This question came about this weekend when Jenn and I were driving up to her mom's. Here in Oklahoma, the number of gas stations where you can get 100% gasoline quickly decreased and has gradually come back up just a little bit, with stations now advertising "100% Gasoline, No Ethanol." If possible, those are the places we go. What's the deal with stations in CA, MD and PA?

Also, I think it's ridiculous that 90% gas/10% ethanol costs $3.20 per gallon (the current price in Norman - a little rounding) while 100% gasoline costs $3.35'ish. That makes the price of ethanol:

3.20 = 0.1*Ethanol_price + 0.9*3.35
3.20 = 0.1*Ethanol_price + 3.015
Ethanol_price = 10*0.185
Ethanol_price = $1.85 per gallon

I'm pretty sure ethanol doesn't actually cost less than $2 per gallon if you want to run on pure ethanol. What gives? Yeah, it's a rhetorical question.

But, ethanol is an interesting jumping off point for the top down or bottom up debate on policy, energy independence, carbon emissions (why is ethanol "green"?), special interests, etc. But, it's not a cliff I'm going to jump off at this point.

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