Re-Fueling America’s Economy for Unprecedented Growth
Chapter 2: “The Very Bumpy Road to Energy Independence”
By Marc J. Rauch, Exec. VP/Co-Founder, THE AUTO CHANNEL marcrauch@earthlink.net
Most people believe that gasoline is our primary engine fuel because it’s the best fuel for the job. In truth, gasoline’s rise to a dominant market position had nothing to do with its quality as a fuel. Gasoline achieved dominance in spite of its inferior performance characteristics.
Background – The need for speed and power
In the early years of the automobile industry there was uncertainty on which fuel and what type of engine would power the new vehicles. There was steam, electric and internal combustion. Although steam power had proven its viability in the first stationary engines and in the first round of land and sea vehicles or vessels, by the late 1800’s diesel was already replacing steam because of its ability to produce higher torque (needed to move heavy vehicles/vessels) and because it simplified the process of locomotion by not requiring a team of men to start the coal or wood fires to keep the water boiling. By comparison, diesel allowed faster starting and required less continuous attention to keep the engine running.
Electric motors could also provide high torque. But those motors required a constant flow of electricity, something that could only be guaranteed if the vehicle was tethered to an electrical source.
The internal combustion engine (ICE) was the solution. There were two types available: spark ignited and compressed hot air ignited. While spark ignited internal combustion engines are most commonly associated with gasoline, ethanol, methanol, compressed natural gas and propane also work. Compressed hot air ignited ICE uses diesel fuel.
The two most available fuels for spark ignited ICE’s were liquid: alcohol (ethanol or methanol) and gasoline. Alcohol enjoyed wide support from automobile pioneers like Henry Ford and General Motors’ top scientists because it could be produced almost anywhere by almost anyone. Alcohol fuels also produced superior performance compared to gasoline. Alcohol-powered engines allowed for higher piston compression, which deliver more speed and power. Gasoline caused a knock in high compression engines that would literally “knock” the engine to destruction. Only low compression, lower speed engines could safely use gasoline.
Unfortunately alcohol suffered from two major impediments to universal acceptance as a pure engine fuel. The first was cost. Alcohol production has been heavily taxed since the founding of the United States. The Federal tax on alcohol reached new heights during the American Civil War, rising to over $2 per gallon. Needless to say this was a devastatingly high tax. Kerosene was also taxed to help pay war costs: an insignificant 10 cents per gallon. So it’s easy to understand why kerosene became so popular.
The alcohol tax was not retired until Theodore Roosevelt’s presidency about 40 years later when the Free Alcohol Act brought the price of corn ethanol down to 14 cents per gallon and molasses ethanol to 9.5 cents per gallon (versus gasoline at 22 cents per gallon).
The second of the two impediments to acceptance of alcohol as a universal engine fuel was, ironically, alcohol’s easy production and ubiquitous availability: it is too simple and easy to make.
By the late 1800’s, the heavy tax on alcohol helped one man and his oil company rise to world wide prominence – John D. Rockefeller and Standard Oil. Ethanol was his nemesis.
The money paid to politicians by Rockefeller catapulted support for the 18th Amendment to the Constitution (the Volstead Act) over the top, insuring its passage. Consequently, in the crucial period just after World War I, as Americans were adopting a whole new mobile lifestyle, the one fuel that could challenge Rockefeller’s gasoline on both a cost and performance basis – alcohol – was declared illegal. Ethanol was rendered dead as a competitor on the commercial battlefield.
Before and during Prohibition, Henry Ford expressed his belief that alcohol (ethanol) was the fuel of the future. His Model T, the product that gave birth to moving assembly line production, was designed and built to use ethanol or gasoline by giving the driver an adjustable carburetor and spark advance controls that optimized the performance of the fuel used.
Even after Prohibition commenced, General Motors’s top scientists continued in their belief that ethanol was the fuel of the future. In 1921, however, GM’s scientists discovered that adding tetraethyl lead to gasoline subdued the knock and that new lead-gasoline fuel could be used in advanced higher compression engines. The new formulated leaded gasoline gave GM a unique process that they could patent. By combining their process with similar processes being tested by DuPont Chemicals and Standard Oil, GM would receive three cents on every gallon of leaded gasoline sold anywhere in the world. They quickly determined that their share of profits in the sale of leaded gasoline would be worth many billions of dollars over the next couple of decades.
The financial and political power that came from joining the world’s largest automobile maker with the world’s largest oil and chemical companies crowned petroleum oil gasoline as the dominant fuel. American consumers had no choice in the matter and our politicians were only too happy to take money from Big Oil to secure the chains of our bondage to gasoline.
Meanwhile, on a global level, ethanol continued to experience strong acceptance, and in some cases strong preference in cash-starved nations.
By 1932 America was fed up with the societal ills caused by Prohibition (quite paradoxical when you consider that Prohibition was meant to cure society’s problems). Even oil company executives like John Rockefeller, Jr. championed for repeal of the 18th Amendment.
Although by 1933 it was again legal to produce and drink alcohol, the ethanol industry was never able to recover the gains it made after the passing of the Free Alcohol Act in 1906. With the 10-plus year absence, Americans forgot there was a better fuel. Except for a relatively brief period in the early days of World War II, when supplies of everything were short and ethanol became a hot topic of discussion, the ethanol amnesia would continue for the next four decades until the oil embargo crisis of the early 1970’s sent Americans scrambling for an alternative fuel.
Next up: Ethanol emerges as a hometown favorite; the oil industry fiercely defends against ethanol; the case for not producing corn ethanol
