North Central US | Joelt - 1/14/2026 09:31
Honest question: take a trip of any length and you’ll pass at least one gas station with a sign advertising ‘ETHANOL FREE GAS.’ How do we overcome that kind of sentiment?
At this point you don't, not without massive investment from the ethanol side and the ethanol side is run by the same people who reuse rusty nails they found in the junk pile for cotter keys.
Ethanol's reputation is radioactive. People like having stuff they don't have to take care of, stuff they can park and come back to 6 months to a year later and start and go. On old gas they could do that. Now they can't. It doesn't matter if that is true or not, the public sees it that way.
People here very frequently blame the oil companies, citing poor quality gasoline blended with e10, yet ignoring e85, as by that logic e85 shouldn't have any problems or significantly less yet it has the same problems-you have people on this very forum advocating to use e85 to clean and strip things.
The ethanol industry would have to come up with something, an additive package, a cracking, a reformulation, something to solve Ethanol's problems, then they would have to launch one heck of a massive campaign and really sell it.
The public doesn't care that you corn farmers who use it in your wife's car, a lawn mower, and an EFI auger engine don't have any problems with it.
The public doesn't care that its cheaper, not with its current reputation. It isn't cheaper in most of the country.
The public can't do $/mile math. They can only do MPG math because their car tell them. Ethanol has less energy so they get less MPG which to them is bad.
The public doesn't care its used in racing. Your Daddy's Oldsmobile isn't a race car and neither are theirs.
The public doesn't care about clean air, those that do have went and bought an EV.
The public doesn't care about diversified fuel independence, the US is energy independent, we have been since 2019.
The market doesn't actually need more fuel. If you look at US fuel consumption it has leveled off with our current regulations even with more vehicles.
The public sees Ethanol as nothing but a product of the farm lobby, another farm subsidy.
The public sees the studies and reports that say Ethanol takes more fuel to make than it produces.
The public sees absolutely no relevant marketing or information about it for them.
The biggest problem now is ethanol is now a luxury product. People have to actually want it. Ethanol has to sell itself as something you want.
Ethanol doesn't do that. It doesn't do anything. It sits there and expects to be bought with no effort, in a market entirely dependent on selling one's self.
You can call me a shill, oil barron, paid, ethanol hater, in the end, I don't like ethanol for its disadvantages and I especially do not like how it sat here the last 30 years and did nothing. We can grow corn where I am at profitably now. Imagine if Ethanol actually worked on improving itself, it could have meant big $$$ for us, but instead the only market we have is via a cow or selling to people who have cows.
Edited by GS2 1/14/2026 13:21
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Nationwide E-15 would soak up another 2 billion bu.
