In the 70's, they were wanting to get the Alaskan pipeline built, and that was the quickest way they could get public support for building it.
Now, it's just plain greed.

 

?
10 percent ethanol and maybe 1-2 percent additives still leaves 88-89 percent gasoline. As it is, the modern refinery is designed to create gasoline from every by-product possible.

Jim

 

True. Too bad they have the refineries running at less than 75% capacity, if they even have it running at all..........

Record high gas/diesel prices, and record high oil company profits. Must be a connection there somewhere, but darned if I can figger it out........

I wish the feds would quit trying to force corn based ethanol on us. The cost of producing corm based ethanol is higher than the cost of gasoline, so the feds pay a subsidy to keep it artificially lower than gas. Sugar based ethanol, on the other hand, is far cheaper to produce........

 

OK, but do you remember when gas was actually brownish/reddish in color instead of clear? It looks like lightly-tinted water now... I still say there's something fishy going on there... Or are they somehow filtering gasoline to make it look that way?

 

I remember when red dye was added to regular leaded gasoline and orange dye was added to premium leaded gasoline. Unleaded fuel had no dye added so it was clear. But "clear" is a relative term. It can be completely colorless to yellowish.

It's been a long time since I worked in a fuel refinery. But we were putting MTBE in premium unleaded a long time ago. It was used as an octane booster. MTBE was 125 octane. But the way it was used was to blend it into the feedstock going into the furnace and reactors to make the gasoline blend stock (reformate.) Along with the main ingredient, desulfurized naptha, a little butane and a whole lot of hydrogen.

We never used any ethanol, so I don't know for sure or not if it is blended into the feedstock the same way as MTBE or blended with the reformate product. With the affinity for water that ethanol fuels have, I'm thinking maybe the latter.

 

Huh, ok... I wasn't aware that dyes were ever used in gasoline - thanks for clearing that up for me...

Seems like I remember reading somewhere that MTBE cause damage to rubber fuel lines - or something like that...

 

Yes, that was an acepted fact. Even the oil companys that used it in their products had a disclaimer on the pumps. MTBE is METHYL TERTIARY BUTYL ETHER. It even sounds bad.

 

MTBE contaminated a bunch of water supplies, I remember one of my teachers in Maine had to stop using their well water and some company had to supply them with bottled drinking water.

 

Yes. Due to all the leaking gasoline station tanks, MTBE turned into a huge environmental disaster. I have to wonder though, if MTBE was blended into the process before or after reforming the feedstock. Perhaps it does not matter. But I have to think that any alcohol or either products blended into the reformate feedstock before hydrogen catalitic reforming would result in a product that is not miscible with water.