I was just about out of gas in the Anchovy-mobile so I pulled into the nearest gas station, which happened to be a Husky station. I’d never fueled up at a Husky station before, at least not in the city. The pumps have green trim, and there, right on the pump, it says: “Mother Nature’s Fuel”. I’m not making this up. I asked myself, what are these folks trying to sell here? Am I expected to believe their gas is any different than the gas from any other station, extracted differently, refined differently?
Fortunately in 2010 we have search engines, so I plugged “mother nature’s fuel husky” into the Google-bar on my browser.
Who knew? Not only does it keep my engine clean. Not only does it prevent pre-ignition. Not only does it prevent gas line freezing. Not only does it represent a boost for the economy. Not only does Husky purchase more than 2 million bushels of wheat from farmers throughout the west. It’s also better for the environment. Wow, it even reduces greenhouse gas emissions and uses up all that nasty surplus grain. I think I’m going to go get me a bigger car, one that uses up more of that good gasoline. I’m going to go get me a Rocket 88.
You’ve know them early jalopies you’ve heard the noise they make, let me introduce my new Rocket 88….
27th Street 
Greenwashing at its finest.
I think you’re trying to flush Candy Minx out of the woodwork with this post. I’m sure she’e with Salvelinas F. on this topic. The poor Mexicans have watched the price of their tortillas skyrocket, because so much corn has been used for biofuels, too.
Har!
IMHO the use of ethanol as fuel needs a worldwide ban right away for a number of reasons:
1. It is generally considered that it takes more energy in total to produce a gallon of ethanol than the amount of energy in the ethanol.
In a 2005 study, Cornell University researcher David Pimental factored in the energy needed to grow crops and convert them to biofuels and concluded that producing ethanol from corn required 29 percent more energy than ethanol is capable of generating. Pimental found similar problems with making biodiesel from soybeans.
“There is just no energy benefit to using plant biomass for liquid fuel,” Pimentel says.
2.Ethanol contains 34% less potential energy than gasoline. That means you need more of it to drive a mile than you need gasoline.
3.To produce biofuel you need biomass (and you have to ferment it and then distill it). To get biomass you have to grow it and transport it to the production plant. The kinds of biomass that require lower expenditure of energy for transportation need to be grown on decent quality farmland and it directly replaces food production. If the entire US corn crop were to be used for ethanol production the total output would replace only 12% of American gasoline usage and of course if all the corn were used for ethanol the continent would basically starve.
4.Increasing the amount of farmland in play would require deforstation on a mind boggling scale. Even though ethanol use now isnt much past the experimental stage it has already driven up demand for corn and wheat and caused huge price increases worldwide (have you noticed that a loaf of wonder bread costs $2.79 instead of 89 cents). Farmers are already knocking down woodlots and orchards so they can plant more corn. This is not good. A global increase in the amount of farmland in play will also mean a global increase in fertilizers and pesticides polluting lakes rivers and oceans.
5.Ethanol is considered corrosive to current internal combustion engines and the stuff decreases the life of your engine. It is likely that an engine can be designed that will survive ethanol fairly well but I dont think that new sort of engine will work well with gasoline.
6. Interestingly it might be possible for ethanol be be an environmentally good deal on a micro scale. To make it a good deal you have to ferment only stuff that is now total waste and you have to make the energy used to transport the biomass zero. That can be done by allowing individual farmers to produce ethanol from crop residue and waste right on their farm for use on the farm. That technology exists and is proven but will never be used. The issue is that ethanol is essentially corn liquor and there is no way on earth that the folks at Jack Daniels or Seagrams will allow a still on every farm even if it would allow farmers to produce what would be inexpensive fuel.
Are you trying to tell me that the oil companies are not operating for the common good? How can I believe that when it says “Mother Nature’s Fuel” right there on the pump. Mother Nature is always right.
Why is it I think that Rocket 88 isn’t in my future after all? Rats.
I dont think the Rocket 88 has room for 2 Newfs. Your next car needs to be a cube van with enough room to hold an extra Newf or two just in case…
good point