Re: Why is the supply of E85 fuel so tightly controlled?

Saab C900 Viggenist wrote:
>
>The price of E85 at the outlet he buys from in Forrestville (Sydney) is
>A$1.05 per litre at present (I guess it does vary a little over time).
The
>only reason I could think of for why it's being so tightly regulated is
that
>there are exclusive agreements in place with Manildra Corp for supply of
the
>ethanol going into the fuel mixture, and that the government has
basically
>removed it's excise (which accounts for a large degree of the much lower
>price) as a 'sweetener' to big business and government departments to
>kick-start the interest in high-concentration ethanol blend fuels in Oz.
>
>Does anyone know any more about this?

<cross post deleted>

There is no exclusive arrangement with Manildra (and never was).

Currently ethanol blended fuels attract the same excise as petrol
(38.143¢ a litre).  Local ethanol producers, of which there are
several, are paid a subsidy of 38.143¢ a litre (which effectively
offsets the fuel excise component).  There have also been substantial
GovCo grants towards the cost of setting up ethanol manufacturing
facilities.

The downside for the consumer (apart from the cost of the grants and
subsidy) is the energy content of ethanol, which is around 40% lower
then petrol... 27MJ/kg vs 43MJ/kg (note that these figures are based
on mass, not volume).  All other things being equal (octane ratings,
etc) fuel consumption is directly pro****tional to energy content.

Hence E85 has around 30% lower energy content than petrol and you'd
therefore expect to use 30% more under the same operating conditions.
To provide the same value it needs to be 30% cheaper than petrol.
(Apart from what GovCo hands out from our taxes.)

The same comparison (based on energy content) also applies to E10,
which almost never provides the same value as petrol.

-- 
John H