BLOG

Rob:

Welcome to our podcast all about the car brought to you by Schierl Tire and Service. I'm your host Rob Hoffman, an auto service specialist with over 46 years of industry experience. On the ride with me today, our regular guest Bryan Call, a 42 year veteran of the industry. Hello Bryan.

Bryan:

Morning Rob. How are you doing today?

Rob:

Doing fine. And Bill Schierl a guy that logs a lot of Wisconsin miles and always comes back with a lot of great questions. Welcome back Bill.

Bill:

Glad to be in the car on such a great day.

Rob:

We also have a very special guest with us today traveling from distances afar. Bob Welch, executive director of the Wisconsin Biofuels Association. Thanks for joining us, Bob.

Bob:

Good morning guys.

Rob:

You know ethanol is really not a new idea. Ethanol's very first job was to power a primitive engine back in 1826. Yeah, I'm going way back with this one. Nicholas Otto, inventor of the modern day four cycle engine gave ethanol notoriety by using it to power his early example as well. Ethanol was also used as a lighting fuel in the mid 18 hundreds, but lost its momentum when the government started taxing it as liquor.

Bill:

I think we will learn that it can be that, so...

Rob:

I think we will. Fast forward to 1908, Henry Ford had the Model T of that year designed to burn ethanol. Yeah, so it's been around ethanol came back on the scene and in high demand during World War II because fossil fuels were hard to come by. And then in rolls the seventies, ethanol came back to the forefront because of the environmental concerns created by leaded gasoline. And the rest is history. And we're gonna learn more about this today and we've got a resident expert in here in our podcast today, Bob Welch. And Bob as the executive director of the W B A. What is your role in ethanol? I know it's a big wide, broad question, but give us a little, bring us up to speed.

Bob:

So I served 20 years in the legislature and was involved near the end of that term in really helping the ethanol industry get started for what we could do here in Wisconsin. And then when I left the legislature, one of my first clients was the Wisconsin Corn Growers Association. So I represented them and their number one thing they were going for back then was to get our ethanol industry up and running. And so in that role, and then later forming the Wisconsin Biofuels Association, which basically I helped create and then serve as the executive director. I was involved in citing some of the ethanol plants in the state. I've been involved really in every facet of it since the beginning of the industry here. And the modern ethanol industry began right around 2000. That's when the distillation process became, I'll just say advanced enough that instead of gasohol, which they used to call it, you could mix it right in with gasoline without a problem. And because of that distillation you could get basically 200 proof or 100% alcohol, all the water gone. And that for it doesn't have a problem with separation with gasoline. And so that was the beginning of the modern ethanol industry about 20 years ago. And then as the industry developed, we need a voice. And so I served the role of organizing the voice. I'm not always the voice myself. , we have a lot of people know more than me, but you get me today so...

Rob:

Hey, we've got the right guy here.

Bill:

You'll know more than all of us .

Bryan:

Combined.

Bill:

Yes.

Rob:

So really 20 years ago it was pretty recent history.

Bob:

Yeah. If you look at like the paper industry in this state and and the car industry and the oil industry, I mean we're not even a kindergarten yet. And what's fun about that is the technology, if you're into that kind of stuff, every year there's something new. And so you get 2.6 gallons of ethanol from a bushel of corn. Nope. Now you get two seven, now you get two eight, now you get two nine. I mean it's been compared to other things really quickly advancing in terms of the efficiencies in which you get out of a bushel of corn. So it's a bio refinery, it doesn't just produce ethanol. We'll get into that I'm sure. And every near, there's a different way to do it. There's a little advancement here. You walk through an ethanol plant and everywhere you look there's something interesting on how it's designed.

Bill:

And when you're saying a bushel of corn, are you talking about cobs or are you talking about stalk?

Bob:

I'm talking about kernel.

Bill:

Okay.

Bob:

So when you see a combine out in the field...

Bill:

Yep.

Bob:

What it's doing is it's cutting the cob off, it's shredding and putting back in the field the stalks so that they become an organic fertilizer. It's actually processing right in the field, that cob of corn and taking all the kernels off. That's why it's called a combine cuz it's a combination of things. And then the kernels go into a hopper and the cob is also ground up and distributed. So you end up with just the kernels and that's the feedstock for a lot of things in this country and in this world. But for ethanol, that's the feedstock.

Rob:

So typically when a farmer is growing corn, does he or she know where that corn's going? Do they know they're growing for the ethanol industry or they just sell it and they don't know where it's going?

Bob:

So yes and no. So if you're near an ethanol plant, you may have a contract pre-sold to sell your corn to the ethanol plant. On the other hand, you may not pre-sell any of your corn and just play the market and sell to whoever's gonna be the highest bidder. Or you may sell directly to a grain elevator and then that grain elevator may have a contract with an ethanol plant. But the majority of corn in Wisconsin and in the country still is for feed. I mean this is one thing you always have to tell people growing up in farm country, I'm surprised I have to say this, but 95% may be a little higher of the corn you see growing in the field is not sweet corn. Sweet corn's a very small percentage of the market, a lot of it grown around Steven's Point here, but really not much beyond that. So if you're saying, well this is the corn I eat, it's not, this is the corn that your bacon comes from and your hamburger But it's not corn you eat, it's number two field corn and you can eat it but it wouldn't taste very good. And that's the vast majority of corn grown in this country and the world.

Bill:

So I think in talking about how the stock is produced, what is the typical ethanol plant? How have they developed? You had mentioned that there's a couple of them sites throughout the state, but how is that industry really developed and and who is the owner of these?

Bob:

Sure. So we have nine ethanol plants in Wisconsin making us right around seven, eight, ninth. Biggest state in the country. So Iowa's number one. And then you think of the Corn Belt, Illinois, Nebraska, but we're on the edge of the corn belt. So we have our share, we produce about 650 million gallons of ethanol a year. As I mentioned, they're bio refineries. And this is something that people need to understand when they talk about, well you're taking something that would be for food and you're using it for fuel. So what happens with a kernel of corn is what we do to make ethanol is digest the start. It's like you turn it into sugar and then it turns into ethanol and there's enzymes and yeast that do that. And if you go down to point brewery, they're doing the exact same thing. Right.

Rob:

See there we go back to liquor.

Bill:

Yes.

Bob:

Yep.

Bryan:

There it's called wort.

Bob:

It's called beer actually that's, we call it the beer. There's a beer tank and then we're monitoring and everything's computerized. These plants are huge and they can be run with four people cuz it's very automated...

Rob:

Oh my gosh.

Bob:

And it's constant flow. And you've got the beer tank filling up and also the fermentation tanks get to a certain level and they say, okay, that's the max alcohol, we're gonna get 17% or 18%, whatever it is. And they're always tweaking that, right? Trying to make that higher. And then when that ferment tank's ready, it empties into a beer tank, which is sort of the why they can do continuous process from there out. And then continuously that's feeding into the distillation towers where it turns into a hundred percent alcohol. So that's alcohol. Then you got the water that's all recycled. None of these plants have a water discharge. Everything's recycled. But starch is only about a third of the kernel of corn. So then what do you do with the rest? Well nothing goes to waste. So a third of it is turned into what's called dried distiller grain. And distiller's grain is a high protein animal feed very much in demand. And what people say, well you're taking feed off the market, we're not because what is sold back to farmers locally or exported all over the world, quite frankly is a high protein feed. And that's what they want. They don't need more start, they need protein. So we really made it a more condensed feed, which is why the export market loves it cuz it's cheaper to ship than corn if you're trying to get protein. So a third goes ethanol, a third goes to feed, and then a third is carbon dioxide. So a lot of the plants capture the carbon dioxide, maybe all of it, but a lot of it and use it for beer. Again, , we're back to beer, pop dry ice stuff. They use it in to eliminate oxygen when you're like wrapping cheese or wrapping beef. So it's a Biogen carbon dioxide. And as people talk more about the carbon stuff, it's like well we gotta still have some carbon dioxide in the industrial world because they use it. So we're not gonna bury it all underground where we're gonna have to keep using it and ethanol's the best place to get it from cuz it's a renewable source. I.

Rob:

I keep thinking about the old stills back in prohibition, , is it the same kinda thing except with a small scale?

Bob:

Yeah, yeah. If you wanted to take one of these ethanol plants and make vodka out of it, it's humongous , you could flood the market really quickly, .

Rob:

So is there ever a shortage of corn for ethanol? Is that a battle out there?

Bob:

You have to pay market rate and there are days when market rate of corn and market rate of ethanol aren't matching up. And so that's a constant management thing for our guys when they run these plants is how do you make money? We're very, very closely tied with corn growers. I still represent the corn growers and the ethanol industry. We are a team and the ethanol plants like corn growers making money. But some days when the corn price gets a little too high or the ethanol price gets a little too low, then the plants are upside down. And of course the best example of that was covid. Covid hits and people stop driving and all of a sudden their demand goes away and the price drops to nothing and they're sitting on a bunch of corn. You probably kept the plant open a while, but a lot of 'em plain shut down. But fortunately that didn't last forever and they were able to start back up again. And so they're all operating and some days they make money, some days they don't. It's like any other business. Right?

Bill:

So you had mentioned, I mean obviously in the state of Wisconsin, corn is the main fuel. So is there research, and I don't know why this is popping into my head, switchgrass and other fuel sources that are also biorenewable, but can you use that same fuel in the same plant or can you change out fuels?

Bob:

So there's been a lot of research done, including a lot of my guys who own these plants in Wisconsin are doing research to look at other possible ways to get the fuel. So one of our plants right now is using the fiber that's in the kernel to get more ethanol. And so that is considered cellulostic ethanol. It's not the sugar starch part of it, it's the fiber and it's a different process but it's sort of co-located with the plant. You have other purely dedicated plants to things like switchgrass and stuff like that. None of them have quite been economically, they're scientifically viable but they're not quite economically viable yet. And part of that is cuz all the great byproducts you get from the corn necessarily get from Switchgrass. I forgot there's one other thing that comes out of those bio refineries which is corn oil. So there's a way to extract the oil and then you could clean it up to make mazola out of it. But it's used for biodiesel right now it becomes a feed stock for biodiesel.

Rob:

Oh, interesting. So Bob, you mentioned that we're in the corn belt up here in Wisconsin. We're a part of that corn belt or on the edge of it. So most of the ethanol is produced in the Midwest. Is that true? And if, if it is, do we then export it out to the rest of our country?

Bob:

So yes and yes. The vast majority, not all, there's some in California, there's some in Oregon, there's some in Kentucky, there's some in down south. But the vast majority of ethanol is produced in the Midwest and it is exported to the rest of the country and pretty good chunk now five to 10% is being exported to the rest of the world. Canada buys a lot of ethanol from us. Mexico buys a lot of distillers grain from us. And so those two products are being exported every day.

Rob:

So the big question here, is there enough acreage for the future of ethanol?

Bob:

I'm really glad you asked that question because this is something that again, if people don't, didn't grow up in farm country, they don't understand. So when ethanol comes along, now something like 30 to 40% of the corn that has grown in the field starts off by going to an ethanol plant. Now as I mentioned, a lot of that comes back in the form of feed. So people say well you're taking 30% of the corn crop now you must be short of corn. Here's what's also happened though in the last 20 years the yield on corn has gone up by 50%. So you take 30 and 50 and they match 'em up. It's like, well we got more corn now than we had before ethanol with the same acres. And that trend line is just like this. It just keeps going up, up, up, up, up. So when I was a kid, now that's more than 20 years ago.

Rob:

Oh come on.

Bob:

You were getting 80, 90, a hundred bushels to an acre was a good yield. Now the average is 170 bushels to an acre and there's a lot of guys doing 200, 220, 250. So that 170 is we already know how to move it up and it's just a matter of people picking up that agronomy and getting the right hybrids in their field. A lot of it's because of the breeding of the corn and having a better corn that's drought resistant, that has higher yields, that works better. And just the agronomy that these farmers are high tech guys. Now this is not your father's farm. I mean this is guys running high tech equipment and you get these high yields. And so we were able to provide the entire amount and I'm not, this is not made up the entire amount that the ethanol industry use is a result of higher yields in the last 20 to 30 years. Which is kind of amazing when you think about it. So if there wasn't ethanol, we'd have one-third less acres planted in corn and a lot of farmers out of business. So it's been a real boon to the ag and rural community and it's a value added product. So you got, these plants are generally in rural areas so you're not only the farmers make more money cuz they don't have to ship the corn as far. So that's the first thing that happens. So there's more money stays in the community that way. Then you've got this value added product and the people that work at the plant and the people that drive the trucks. So the economic impact in the state of Wisconsin is over 4 billion a year. It's an amazing driver for like local economy.

Rob:

Oh clearly it's here to stay. A little bit of research that I had done is cars were designed to run on ethanol as early as 1978. And when I say designed a lot of the fuel system parts and pieces and materials are were I guess retooled or rethought to be able to accept ethanol back then. And I'm sure ethanol back then's a little different than it is today.

Bob:

Correct.

Rob:

We've come a long way. What I learned also is more than 98% of all US gasoline contains ethanol today. Am I accurate with that research?

Bob:

Oh yeah, yeah.

Rob:

Okay.

Bob:

Yeah. So almost everybody is buying E10, that's the regular gas now. Few people want to use premium, that's fine. That doesn't have ethanol in usually. Although there is premium with ethanol too. But...

Rob:

That's what I heard.

Bob:

Yeah, a lot of it doesn't. And now what we're really pushing is E15, which is marketed as unleaded 88 and that is really coming on strong and of course we like it cuz it's a little more market share but it's a better fuel. It burns cleaner, it burns more efficiently and it's cheaper, which is always great . So...

Rob:

Absolutely.

Bob:

We're pushing the E15 right now.

Bryan:

So how does the ethanol work with small engines, lawnmowers, weed whackers, things like that.

Bob:

Yeah. So everything in your garage, just about every toy. I have 'em all... Willl run on E10 without any problem. Now I've had long conversations with the folks at Briggs and Stratton and I don't mean to pick on them but it's just an example,

Bill:

It's a well-known brand of what we're talking about of small engines.

Bob:

Yeah, yeah. Like I'm talking like the really small ones on a more you would buy at Menards, right? There's not a lot of wiggle room in their specs when they're building that engine for that price they can build it for, which is kind of amazing how inexpensive those things are. So they're forced by the federal government to create that engine to kind of E zero and I would say even a more pure form of gasoline if you can say that. And so that spec of gas is what they have to build it to. So E10 then becomes sort of more on the edge of that spec. So it works but it's maybe not tuned exactly to E10. So some guys say well I gotta go premium cuz that's, well you don't have to and I have every chainsaw and lawn mower, I mean I run 'em all on E10, it doesn't have a problem. But E15 now this new fuel, well we haven't gotten these engines speced for that. So I can say as Bob will it run? Yeah, it'll run As the executive director of the Wisconsin Biofuels Association, I have to say you're not supposed to use E15 in your small engines. It's not approved by the EPA. So it's a small part of the overall market as you guys know. So we're not out there pushing it and I think they're always gonna be an option at these stations. I assume there's always gonna be an option if people want to buy that premium. They can.

Bill:

As long as the demand is there, they'll be the product available.

Bob:

Exactly. Exactly. So yeah, for E15 now almost I think 98% of all vehicles made now are not only allowed by the EPA to burn it because any vehicle from 2000 till today is allowed to burn E15.

Rob:

Good information.

Bob:

Their warranties are now covering E15 for like 98% of the new vehicles made. So we've got the auto market lined up for E15, good to go. I mean if you're driving an older vehicle, you know more about old vehicles than I do probably. So most people on the road are driving something less than 20 years old. You can fill up with E 15 no problem.

Rob:

You know, we'll come back after our road trip and talk a little bit about those old vehicles, those classic cars. I've actually got an older vehicle too so we'll get back into that. But as with every, all about the car podcast, we always break away. We hop back in the big S U V and we go on a Wisconsin road trip to an interesting destination. We've been talking about fermentation this morning and that just completely relates to, in my opinion, wine.

Bill:

Yes.

Rob:

So...

Bill:

One of the fermentations, yes.

Rob:

One of the fermentations, one of the best places to go for wine in my opinion is DoorCounty Wisconsin in the beautiful state up in the northeast corner, long peninsula. And they really got it together when it comes to wine and quite frankly all kinds of liquor up there. And you can hook up with a trolley company, not really a rail trolley, but it's the buses that look like trolleys and you can take wine tours and why not leave the driving to them when you're sipping wine? And I think they go, I believe the premier wine tour. They'll hit about four to five different wineries and you can taste that wine and it's just, it's a great countryside and I've done it several times. I was given originally as a gift my wife and I and went up and did that and it's just a great time. They stop at a restaurant and it's worth every dime you pay for that tour.

Bill:

I have not done that. I've toured the wineries but I've never done the trolley through Door County Trolley, which great fun since I would agree.

Rob:

It is fun.

Bill:

Leaving the driving to somebody else on those is beneficial for sure.

Rob:

Bob, what's your experience with Door County and the wine? Have you been up there?

Bob:

I'd like my alcohol a little more distilled.

Bill:

Fair enough.

Bob:

Wanna talk about a whiskey tour...

Rob:

There we go.

Bob:

That we can go...

Rob:

There we go.

Bob:

Good. But Door county's a beautiful place for sure.

Rob:

It is. They really have their own little culture up there. What's really interesting on the trolley tour is you get a probably full of very interesting people. So it's interesting you meet some good people, you meet some people that really enjoy their wine.

Bill:

Yep.

Rob:

And it makes a fun time for sure.

Bill:

What's also really just interesting about that area geography wise is what they've been able to do coming back to horticulture and the hybridization, if that's an actual word, that of the grape vines and making them be able to grow in cooler climates and still be having a successful product in the end tasty product.

Rob:

Absolutely. And what a lot of people don't know is they're not just cherries...

Bill:

Right.

Rob:

Which big on cherries up in door county, but also plumbs and apples just orchards everywhere. It's absolutely amazing to see these working orchards as you drive through Door County. Well let's get back into it. Let's come back into the podcast and let's learn a little bit more about ethanol And we have Bob here, our resident expert today. Thanks again Bob for being here. So let's talk a little bit about classic cars, older technology and how that fits with ethanol. I have an older vehicle so when I pull up to the pumps, I always put the full premium fuel into it. Am I doing the right thing?

Bob:

Yeah, I I'm not gonna tell you not to. I think that every old car has its own personality. I think they do.

Rob:

They do. They Do.

Bob:

It lasted that long and if you're comfortable doing that, I'm not gonna argue with you. It does bring up a couple of myths that I could bust. So people say that ethanol's corrosive, that is a hundred percent not true.

Rob:

Oh good.

Bob:

They say it's a solvent. Yes, that's a hundred percent true. It's a great solvent. And so if you have parts where a solvent might affect 'em, well maybe that's an issue. But if you think it's gonna corrode something more than gasoline is much more corrosive than ethanol is. And the other thing is, we mentioned this I think before we went on the air, ethanol got a bad rap when it first came on the scene because it said, well I put in ethanol and now I got gunk, my carbuerator's plugged up and that that ethanol is no good. But what happens is gasoline is not a pure thing, right? Gasoline is refined but it contains like 26 different things and every by a gallon today you buy a gallon tomorrow both from mobile, it's gonna be a little different. Ethanol's a molecule, it is a pure thing. Gasoline's a little different. Well gasoline has impurities in it and those built up as sort of like gunk, we'll call it, but like varnish basically, right? So you put ethanol in that tank whether it's underground at a station or in your tank in your car and that ethanol goes to work on that gunk and after a while it'll clean it up and it'll be as good as new. But in the meantime that gunk is starting to get suspended and therefore you get the plugged carburetors and all the problem.

Rob:

So ethanol took the blame here.

Bob:

They took the blame.

Rob:

Unfortunately.

Bob:

For cleaning up those old tanks.

Rob:

Yeah, yeah.

Bob:

So what they did, as you guys know, is they said, well if you're gonna start putting E10 in these tanks, now you gotta get 'em clean. And that solved the problem for the most part. Didn't solve the problem in your older vehicle maybe that's gonna have some of that gunk in it. So you have to make sure that that's the problem. Now again, these newer vehicles, they're burning ethanol from the beginning. You're not gonna have that problem. The other big myth, and this is only kind of related but comes up all the time, well I can't put it in my boat because you know that ethanol attracts water. Well that's just ridiculous. .

Rob:

So that's...

Bob:

It does not attract water.

Rob:

Not true. Okay.

Bob:

Not attract water.

Rob:

Another myth busted

Rob:

There's no science to that at all. Here's what happens When you have a tank that has got gasoline in on, especially in a boat, you're gonna get some condensation just like your glass in my water bottle here has got condensation. So that condensation, when you've got a pure gas, it separates and it sits there and it doesn't affect things as long as you don't get right to the bottom of that tank. Right? But if you did get to the bottom of the tank, you'd have a huge problem. So what people do is they put heat in, right? You know what heat is, it's alcohol because it combines with the water and then it blends with the gasoline. So if you got a lot of water in an old tank again and you put that ethanol in, it's gonna suck a lot of that water in and blend it in with the gas. And now you have a much lower quality gas because you had a lot of water building up over the years. And again, if you start out with your mercury marine and start putting ethanol in right from the beginning, you're not gonna have any problem like that. In fact, you're gonna have a cleaner burning fuel on your boat.

Rob:

Interesting. Now this may be another myth to bust, but in a little bit of research that I did, when it comes to older cars, their fuel systems, the soft parts as they call 'em, were a lot different. So a lot of rubber hoses, things like that. Whereas the solvent, whereas ethanol as a solvent might cause some damage, might pick us some things of the rubber along the way.

Bill:

The big thing is it's gonna dry out my engine, whatever that meant.

Bob:

I'm just gonna say I don't know for sure.

Rob:

Okay, gotcha.

Bob:

One thing we've just tried to say is you got an old classic car you wanna put premium in, I don't care , right? I'll take the other 95% of the market and...

Rob:

Yeah, good point.

New Speaker:

Exxon can have that 5%. They're so different, right? You'd have to know every single one and oh no this one it's not gonna affect. But that one it is and it's like okay, just go ahead. Put premium in it.

Rob:

Every single classic car is different,

Bill:

Right? I mean there was some article that I once read about the fact of like if you have that and you wanna use ethanol, go through the engine and replace those parts with newer mechanisms that are acceptable to using ethanol. Well there's not very many people who are gonna break down their classic car engine and rebuild it to do that.

Bob:

And some of those products probably don't need to be replaced but you'd have to look at 'em to see maybe. And remember most of those are designed for leaded gas even that's why you go for premium cuz even unleaded maybe isn't as great for 'em as they should be.

Rob:

Ah, good point. I kind of wanna reel back to the small engine conversation. And you had talked about the engines in your garage, the chainsaws, the lawnmowers, things like that. One thing that's really popular today are the ATVs and UTVs. There's an engine there that's kind of between that car engine, today's automotive engine and the small engines in your garage. What are your recommendations for fuel in those?

Bob:

So I'm burning E10, which is by the book.

Rob:

Okay.

Bob:

It's not legal for me to put E15 in them. I might do it anyway...

Rob:

You mentioned you had toys, so I'm assuming you have one of these ATV ETVs?

Bob:

I do. I have an ATV and it's the work kind. It's a John Deere one. I would've no problem putting in E15 if it was legal but you're not supposed to, you're supposed to put E10 and then it runs fine on E10. No problem.

Rob:

Okay, so goes along with the same philosophy you had with the small engine in the garage.

Bob:

Yep.

Bryan:

How does E85?

Bob:

Well lemme tell you about E85. So E85 is really interesting. So that's, as you might guess, that's 85% ethanol. So it's way more ethanol and gas is just in it to help with a few things that make the engine work a little better. We're having a little bit of gas in there. Brazil burns E98, it's almost completely ethanol. So you can burn straight ethanol if the engine is tuned, right. So what happens is you got a a suburban or I used to have a mercury mariner that was 85 flex fuel engine manufacturers had to put like a hundred dollars part in there so that it had an oxygen sensor cuz and again now this is above my pay grade, but I'll try to explain

Rob:

And you're doing pretty well though

Bob:

ethanol has a lot more oxygen in it. So when your sensor for your fuel injector says oh there's a lot of oxygen that they go, we gotta balance that. So they put more fuel in and therefore you lose mileage. And so an E85 Flex fuel vehicle has a sensor that adjusts rather than do that. And so you don't lose as much mileage. But the frustrating thing for the ethanol industry is even these flex fuel vehicles were still optimized for E10 and so you were not getting as good a gas mileage cuz they didn't have the compression. So this is where I'm gonna get into something that I think is really important for anyone out there whom knows engines better than me, you will hear the oil companies who have a lot more money than we do. beat us up by saying, well ethanol has less BTUs than the gas so you're not gonna get as good a mileage. I'm just gonna say this, BTUs don't matter. What matters is how does it run, what's the efficiency? Because every engine is kind of inefficient. And so if you can increase efficiency, you increase mileage, you increase power. And what happens is ethanol is 114, octane gas is 80. So if you wanna have a highly compressed engine that runs efficiently, you gotta up your octane. If we can get gas up to 98 octane instead of where it's at right now, 87, these car manufacturers can get 30 miles to the gallon like in a truck. I mean just like regular average could be 30 miles to the gallon instead of 23 or whatever it is because they can do a high compression engine with a turbocharger and you can get a lot better performance. So if we could tune these cars to that, we can produce E30 cuz it's what you'd need 30% alcohol to get to that high octane. Now you can get octane from other things, but the other things have two problems. The other things are like benzene and taluene that are added to gas. They're very highly carcinogenic so it's bad for ya. And they're not cheap. So even though they're in that oil to begin with and they refine 'em out and then add 'em back, it's more expensive than ethanol. We're working with car makers to try to make that base engine now a more highly highly compressed higher performance engine to get the mileage up. And if we can do that, we'll be selling more ethanol. And of course the oil companies will fight us every step of the way cuz it's all market share. But your air will be cleaner too cuz our ethanol is very clean and these benzene and stuff, they're killers, they're bad for you.

Bryan:

I had a suburban that you mentioned and experimenting with E85, it was a flex fuel vehicle. I can definitely tell the difference in performance.

Rob:

In what way Bryan?

Bryan:

Smoother running more power. It made a definite difference. But fuel economy...

Bob:

The fuel economy wasn't good. I know.

Bryan:

Yeah.

Bob:

I had the same problem. And what I did when I had flex fuel, I would burn E50 a lot because you still got some of that performance, you still got price break. And I did that by mixing.

Bill:

I was gonna say, you had to be blending it.

Bob:

put in 85 then that's enough of that. And right about there you got just hit a sweet spot and you didn't lose much in miles per gallon. And the the cost benefit was really great, but not everybody's gonna do that. And now because the way Washington has regulated the car makers, they're not making as many flex fuel vehicles right now, which is kind of disturbing for us. So I'd be really pitching E85, but it's hard to find a vehicle these days that burns it. So...

Bill:

Do you feel that there is that, I mean obviously going directly over E85 and what you mentioned is really the push for electric.

Bob:

Yeah. Now here I want to talk a little bit about that because it again drives me crazy, right? So you've got electric vehicles and I'm not gonna beat up electric vehicles. It may sound like I am, but I'm not But...

Bill:

This is just one opinion and not the full all about the car. Here's our disqualifier , this is Bob's opinion .

Bob:

You've got all these environmental guys saying, we gotta go all electric, all electric, California, we're gonna go all electric. Well right now electricity in Wisconsin is like 40% coal and like 50% natural gas and maybe 10% renewable. So you got a coal fired vehicle out there.

Rob:

I see where this is going. Yeah.

Bob:

That is not saving the earth there. I mean that is not any better. Whereas ethanol, we are 42% less carbon than gasoline now. And every day it gets better. Every day it gets better. We are committed as an industry to get to net zero. And we'll be doing that by taking our carbon dioxide, which I said we produce and injecting into the ground. There are two pipeline projects going on right now centered on Iowa. But that whole technology is brand new technology. But if we can start reserving that carbon dioxide, then we get to net zero and our farmers are all doing more efficiencies so that helps the carbon score. So every day we get better. Every day oil and gasoline gets worse because they have to harder time to find it. And I don't think we're gonna have enough solar and wind in my lifetime to be anywhere near half even the electric electricity. It takes a lot of time and a lot of acres to build all the solar fields and all the wind. It's coming, but it not coming that fast. So I'm not saying you shouldn't do electric, I'm just saying ethanol's here right now. And those savings, you don't have to wait till you buy your Tesla. You can get those savings right now. Just start with buying unleaded 88 and getting a little bit of your helping the planet right there by getting more ethanol in your tank and less gasoline

Bryan:

Injecting the carbon dioxide into the ground. What does that do for us? Why is that?

Bob:

So, if you take carbon dioxide, whether it's from fossil fuels or whether it's from a biogenic source, ours is renewable, right? I mean carbon dioxide is a product that escapes. I mentioned we use some of it, but we don't use all of it. So it escapes, it goes back into the atmosphere. Our corn plants are growing, they suck it back in. So it's a cycle when you burn gasoline and when you burn coal, it goes, there's no cycle, right? I mean that cycle started 75 million years ago and it's not come back that quick. So we are a much better carbon dioxide, but because we're centered in the Midwest, we have a chance to capture that carbon dioxide. So the idea is they're gonna build these pipelines, take the carbon dioxide, take it to a place where they put it down like a mile underground and down there it's sort of like hardens. I'm just gonna say it turns into limestone. That's not exactly right, but that's the best way to think about it. And so that it's put away forever. And if you do that, there's some government credits for that because the government's trying to promote less carbon. And so that's kind of the impetus of it.

Bill:

If there are different parts like that just leaps to my head as like where you inject that into the ground, there's gotta be some type of chemistry in the ground where it is more beneficial to actually have it converted to some type of other hard matter.

Bob:

It's very rare, I think where you can find the right places to do it. So it's, yeah, there's a lot of science that I can't explain this morning. . .

Bill:

Fair enough.

Bob:

But I know you gotta find the right geology or it won't work.

Rob:

A lot of science going on here. .

Bob:

Yes.

Rob:

I'm trying to keep up

Bill:

Similarly to where we store our nuclear waste.

Bryan:

Nowhere have I heard anything about hops

Rob:

No.

Rob:

Well, like with anything, there's pros and cons of any technology or any modern day processes. Let's go through and talk a little bit about those and we can do some more myth busting. Some of the pros that I had come up with ethanol, the whole ethanol industry in use was it's very cost effective.

Bob:

So one of the things that we get, what attack us on is saying, well, you're mandated. Well, they used to say we're subsidized, we have not subsidized, we don't get any money from the government. That doesn't happen. But there is kind of a national policy where the oil companies that blend gasoline have to use a certain amount of ethanol. And there's a reason for that. The oil industry, as you know, is mostly integrated vertically pretty well. You guys are in the business, you get it, you're independent, quick trips, independent, but there's a lot that aren't most, the vast majority of the stores are not owned by, but are controlled by mobile and BP and all these guys. And so...

Bill:

Wisconsin is just a very, a rather unique state where the independent gasoline stations is still very strong.

Bob:

Yeah.

Bill:

And that listeners would not assume that because, if they've not lived anywhere else, there is a lot of, as you're saying, corporate stores.

Bob:

Yeah. And even the independents, if they got that Exxon sign up there, they're beholden to them and they gotta do what Exxon tells 'em. So here we are, it's a very small industry and we're going to say, look, we, our fuel is cheaper, your consumers will like it, you should start selling it. And a lot of the independents said, yeah, it's a good idea. But then right across the street is the BP station where he's goes to his supplier and says, Hey, my guy across the street at the store is selling this stuff. He's kicking my butt. I wanna sell it, but I don't care. We're not letting you buy, sell that. And so economics wouldn't work the way it normally would. And so that's why we had to go and get the renewable fuel standard to get this done. And it's really been nice to represent an industry where you have that, but you still can say, but my product is still cheaper. Because sometimes when things get regulated then they get more expensive. But that didn't happen. So right now ethanol is about a dollar 50 cheaper a gallon. And I'm sure you guys follow this every day, but I mean it was up and down, but during the height of the inflation of gas when it was, I took a picture, you know, it's $4.39 here and for E10, E15, $4.24. So 15 cents less just for that 5%, 5% extra ethanol. And then they have premium here, $5.20 with no ethanol. So it's a lot, there's a big savings for consumers that comes out of this. And that's not going away. Farmers are efficient and they're gonna grow corn until they lose money. So they end up growing corn usually for like just above break even. And it's sad to say, but that's the nature of farming. And so you're gonna have that corn price float right there and then Ethanol's gonna be able to make money just on top of that same way. And because we know gasoline, they're not making more of it, we are gonna end up always being cheaper than gasoline always. And that's great for consumers, it's great for the planet, as I said. And that why wouldn't you if you could buy something cheaper and it's, it's green and not just carbon, but air pollution now, less of these benzines and all these things floating around in the air. It's kind of like a super product. I mean it's just fun to be able to, to represent it.

Rob:

And another great product, of course is, as you mentioned, it's a renewable energy. It's something that doesn't occur naturally, something that we've created and we can keep creating that we're not digging deeper into the earth for the fossil fuel.

Bob:

Yeah, fossil fuels, I mean, I'm not one of these guys that believes they're gone tomorrow, but there is a finite amount of them at some point and that means they get more expensive generally. And ethanol is renewable and we can grow corn every year and we do . We're gonna do it.

Rob:

Well. we've learned a lot today about our renewable and environmentally friendly fuel ethanol. Thank you Bob Welch for joining us today and sharing your knowledge on the impact that ethanol will make in our future. We hope to have you ride along next time on all about the car. To listen to previous episodes, find additional resources, or to simply send us a message, head to all about the car podcast dot com. We'll see you next time. The views expressed in this episode are those of our guests and may not reflect those of their affiliated businesses. Schierl Tire and Service, it's owners or its associates.