Quote:
Originally Posted by BetterRed
Ethanol's what I had in mind. Down here the motor fuel is branded E10. I believe they use corn, rapeseed, sorghum, cotton-seed and anything else they can get (usually low grade) to make it. We drink the ethanol made from sugar in Bundy-and-Cokes 
Not sure it is economical now, it was 'all the go' when WTI was over USD100 a barrel. |
It's usually corn or soybeans used for that in the US.
I'm amused by peanut butter. The vast majority (except the "organic" variety sold at rather higher prices) doesn't have peanut oil in the mix. The peanuts made into peanut butter are roasted, crushed, and the peanut oil is collected and sold as a separate product. (Chinese restaurants, for example, use peanut oil in woks when stir frying.) The crushed peanuts used in peanut butter have some combination of cottonseed, rapeseed, or soybean oil replacing the peanut oil (and just what's in that mix will be determined by prices at the time it is procured.) Actual peanut oil is more valuable sold separately.
Economics won't be the only factor involved in doing in adding ethanal to gasoline. Desire on the part of governments to reduce dependence on foreign oil in places that don't produce their own will come into play. Some European countries, for example, impose high petrol taxes to encourage car owners to buy less, and "economy" cars are the norm.
I doubt it's actually economic in the US, which does produce its own oil, but there is strong political pressure to reduce fossil fuel usage, and the alcohol used for this is a renewable resource. In NYC, ConEd electric utility vehicles all seem to be biodiesel powered, and MTA buses are increasingly hybrid or powered by natural gas which is non-polluting. (ConEd's generating plants are not oil-fired. They've gone to natural gas.)
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Dennis