West of Mpls MN about 50 miles on Hwy 12 | All it takes is money given to the right politicians to gain market share.
https://www.mnbiofuels.org/media-mba/blog/item/1611:the-war-against-...
In a recent feature by Automobile Magazine, the publication traces the roots of the war against ethanol to 1921 when ethanol was considered as an additive to gasoline to pervent engine-knocking as well as it's capability to support higher compression.
General Motors' (GM) then mechanical engineer, Thomas Midgley said the benefits of using ethanol, according to the article, were " clean burning and freedom from any carbon deposit...tremendously high compression under which alcohol will operate without knocking ...Because of the possible high compression, the available horsepower is much greater with alcohol than with gasoline."
In fact, the article adds, Midgley even drove a car powered with E30 (!!) to a meeting of the Society of Automotive Engineers in Indianapolis in 1920 to prove his point. Yes, E30 was available in 1920.
Nonetheless, GM had a research lab that was also developing another solution to prevent engine-knocking. That solution? Lead.
"Though better petroleum stock and advancements in refining technology - chiefly the process known as catalytic cracking - might have obviated the need for additives, the industry was loath to spend money where none had to be spent. Additives that cost little and required no capital investment were attractive fixes, and (Charles) Kettering's GM lab, sensing profits, experimented with several. This attracted the interest of its corporate masters at DuPont and the busybodies at Standard Oil of New Jersey, which joined the new business they setup to sell their preferred choice: lead," the article said.
And why lead and not ethanol?
The article offered the following: "Ethanol could not be patented, and Standard hated it because it direcly displaced gasoline."
So there you have it, Big Oil has been threatened by ethanol for nearly a century.
And interestingly enough, many scientists and engineers today still echo what Midgley said back in 1920. Will we finally listen to them or continue to bend to Big Oil's will?
https://www.motortrend.com/news/war-against-ethanol-part-ii-history
It is "a universal assumption that [ethyl] alcohol in some form will be a constituent of the motor fuel of the future."
Back in Indianapolis, Midgley was euphoric. "Alcohol," he told the assembled engineers, "has tremendous advantages and minor disadvantages," all of which he described as surmountable. The benefits included "clean burning and freedom from any carbon deposit ... [and the] tremendously high compression under which alcohol will operate without knocking. ... Because of the possible high compression, the available horsepower is much greater with alcohol than with gasoline."
Midgley closed the case for ethanol with a hopeful prognostication that might sound familiar to today's biofuels advocates: "From our cellulose waste products on the farm such as straw, cornstalks, corn cobs, and all similar sorts of material we throw away, we can get, by present known methods, enough alcohol to run all our automotive equipment in the United States."
Even after the GM lab's discovery that a deadly, little-known compound called tetraethyl lead stopped knock in engines in 1921, Midgley was still singing ethanol's praises: "[I]t is well known that alcohol ... improves the combustion characteristics of the fuel." And he added, "As the reserves of petroleum in this country become more and more depleted, the use ... of alcohol in commercial motor fuels will probably be greatly extended."
Additives that cost little and required no capital investment were attractive fixes, and Kettering's GM lab, sensing profits, experimented with several. This attracted the interest of its corporate masters at DuPont and the busybodies at Standard Oil of New Jersey, which joined the new business they setup to sell their preferred choice: lead. In the end, the company took a different route than the one Midgley and his boss strongly recommended that afternoon in Indianapolis. Ethanol could not be patented, and Standard hated it because it directly displaced gasoline.
By the mid-1920s, ethyl alcohol was blended with gasoline in every industrialized nation in the world, except the U.S. We chose lead as our additive of choice, and it was ubiquitous here before it was spread around the world. In the beginning, we were told we urgently needed to save fuel, and our corporate leaders told us untruthfully, as it turned out, that lead was the only way. Speaking in favor of lead in April 1925, Midgley was both apocalyptic and strangely forgetful: "Conservation of petroleum due to the increased mileage obtainable by using a non-knocking gasoline in high-compression motors; the reduction of carbon-monoxide contamination of the atmosphere due to increased efficiency of combustion and reduced first cost of automotive apparatus are some of the benefits. ... So far as science knows at the present time, tetraethyl lead is the only material available which can bring about these results, which are of vital importance to the continued economical use by the general public of all automotive equipment. ... "
I will always be a Ford customer... |
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