Billions of gallons of ethanol put in the gasoline but hand sanitizer sold out

Most regular gas sold to motorists contains 10% ethanol.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimates that in 2018, the 142.86 billion gallons of finished motor gasoline consumed in the United States contained about 14.38 billion gallons of fuel ethanol, equal to about 10% of the total volume of finished motor gasoline consumption.May 14, 2019








Food vs. fuel - Wikipedia

 

well if everyone in the world suddenly bought ten times the gas they normally use, we would probably be seeing shortages there until the manufacturers got caught up too.

 

Can I wash my hands with gas though?

 

Yes. It's a seriously bad idea since it soaks directly into your skin, but it will take grease or paint off of your hands instantly!

Oh, and don't smoke.

 

Sure... But it's only 10% alcohol.

 

Technically twice as strong as most lagers!

 

Lol, true. However, the remaining ingredients are NOT water. It's also completely toxic and will kill anything on your hands. Even if you don't light it!

 

Ethanol lowers gasoline quality. Shoe has a point. Use less ethanol for gas, and more for hand sanitizer during these times

 

It's no surprise the fuel manufacturers would do their best to cut America's vehicular heroin. At 10% I have to wonder how many actual gallons are being wasted on this.

The estimate is 384 million gallons of gasoline per day. (2015 number)
This would mean that 38.4 million gallons of that is ethanol.
It takes 26 pounds of corn to make 1 gallon of ethanol. And that doesn't include the energy and fermentation costs.
There's 12,000 pounds of corn kernels per acre of corn.
So 461 gallons of ethanol per acre of corn.

It takes 8,329 acres of corn to produce the ethanol used in gasoline per day in the US. About 13 square miles.

It costs about $238 to produce each acre, so about $1,982,302.

It's sold for 10% of the cost of the gasoline for this model to work. So if 384,000,000 gallons are sold for $2.359 each, the bill is $905,856,000 for the fuel overall.

The 10% ethanol is $90,585,600. Not bad for a $1.9 million investment.

That's raw cost and doesn't cover refining, transport, exploration and personnel costs.

So I wonder what the margin is for hand sanitizer. Gasoline avoids packaging costs, but the ethanol in sanitizer is far more than 10% of its value. Too complicated for me at this point.

 

Don't get any ideas, Commercial ethanol is highly poisonous, not to mention the gasoline.

 

Tho whole idea is purely to conserve our dwindling oil supplies. It is not intended to save money.

 

Well damn. And here I was about to walk to Mobil with a couple of mugs.

 

So burn hand sanitizer in your car....

 

Standard sanitizer at 35% ethanol kills bacteria, but not viruses, so the 70% strength is used in operating rooms. It has its problems, since the glycerin needed to prevent it from cracking the skin lasts after the ethanol has evaporated.
Putting it into commercial production would cost millions, not least because additional blow molding machines and tools would be required to manufacture the containers. This would take time and the market would die within a year.
People seem to forget that soap and hot water kills AND washes the virus spores away far better than any sanitizer.

 

Oh it's not about saving money at all. That same 10% in gasoline would cost more. The ethanol is clearly its own profit driver, but it's risk factors are very high. Locusts don't dig into the earth to lap up crude oil. And oil doesn't mold.

I have always scoffed at people who drive massive SUVs and Dually trucks as daily commuter vehicles. It's just so asinine. And they don't have a scratch or speck of dirt on them. And the driver's wearing a white shirt and a tie. Sounds like a stereotype, but I've been seeing it for more than 20 years.

Where I agree with Europe is the gasoline taxes. Gas should be $7 a gallon in the US. Gridlock traffic would vanish overnight. Fuel consumption would drop below 50%.

Oil companies would go out of business. Lobbyists and politicians would lose kickbacks. Air would be cleaner. Stress would dispersed!

Quixotic

 

I think that you may be ignoring the cost of production of the finished fuel. The ethanol has to be emulsified with the gasoline and lubricants added to prevent damage and case hardening of piston rings and valves, whereas traditional gasoline only requires a few simple additives after running off the fractional distillation plant at the refinery.

 

Perhaps, but it runs against that "why bother" wall as well.

I admit, I only know ways to burn fuel.

With the exception of ethanol. I have a still, and I use it.

 

The future will have a lot of twists and turns. When mineral oil dries up. ethanol sees to be the only alternative for use in spark ignition engines.
Bio Diesel will be fine for road traffic, but what about the container ships that need the higher calorific value of heavy (2000 second) fuel.?
Perhaps, as in the latest military carriers, compact nuclear reactors will take over.

Thought or the day. How about windmills on the ships to generate power for electric propulsion.... Sailing ships with a 21st century twist.
PS, I wonder whether anyone has ever given this idea any serious thought. Perhaps simply as supplementary energy in the first trials.

 

If only the energy of alcohol could produce alcohol . I own a corn farm , and the ethanol plants are
close by . Propane fuels the production . Diesel fuels our tractors . We have some newer tractors ,
and their fuel filters do not like soy-diesel . Still , the computer-controlled engine systems have
greatly improved efficiencies . Oh , the designers ...

 

It's amazing how many ships still rely on combustion systems for propulsion. There are some places where this can work efficiently such as electric boats that use gas turbines for power production. The thrusters are reversible electric drives. Smaller ships like frigates and antisubmarine platforms utilize this because it's easily managed and doesn't suffer power band issues that have long recovery times. But also because an electric drive can operate very quietly.

I was on an oil-burning cruiser when I was a Navy slave. We burned #6 bunker oil and had 2 steam turbines. I never had any interest in the nuclear side which I admit was very career limiting. That is, until the late 90s when gas turbine peaking plants were going up all over the US. For 20 years I hung out on the fossil side though mostly in control systems and water treatment. I rarely got to turn a wrench, but I made more than some of the engineers. It's a cyclical industry.

As for sails, I had an uncle who wrote about cameras and sailing for magazines. And he wrote about deep water oil exploration to score deep pocket paydays. He used to take his modest 35' out just beyond being able to see Miami, deploy a sea anchor and spend his time writing. If there was no wind, he had a single cylinder Yanmar diesel that could get him back very slowly. So he preferred the sails.

My other uncle was a diver for a salvage company. He wanted to be able to turn a key and get the hell out of wherever he was and back home. He had no respect for sails. There's a practical aspect to either point of view. However, speed becomes the real breakpoint. Can you imagine a container ship listing 20 degrees to maintain speed while tacking into the wind to keep the building-sized sails fed? Then comes a storm, made substantially worse by all that sail footage. I admit, I don't care much for sails. But I do agree they could be used for hauling fright that doesn't have to meet a demanding schedule.

Or they could augment the thruster system to save fuel, then collapse or fold over the containers to actually shield the ship from the storm.

Really though, it seems like we'd find more efficient ways to do this. AOC's train to Hawaii is not such a bad idea!

 

a number of years ago a catamaran was built with sail and an upright wind turbine . you had to lower sail to unfold the "wings" of the turbine