1826 |
Samuel Morey developed an engine that ran on ethanol and turpentine. |
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1860 |
German engine inventor Nicholas Otto used ethanol as the fuel in one of his engines. Otto is best known for his development of a modern internal combustion engine (the Otto Cycle) in 1876. |
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1862 |
The Union Congress put a $2 per gallon excise tax on ethanol to help pay for the Civil War. Prior to the Civil War, ethanol was a major illuminating oil in the United States. After the tax was imposed, ethanol cost too much to be used this way. |
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1896 | Henry Ford built his first automobile, the quadricycle, to run on pure ethanol. | |
1906 | Over 50 years after imposing the tax on ethanol, Congress removed it, making ethanol an alternative to gasoline as a motor fuel. | |
1908 | Henry Ford produced the Model T. As a flexible fuel vehicle, it could run on ethanol, gasoline, or a combination of the two. | |
1917 - 1918 | The need for fuel during World War I drove up ethanol demand to 50-60 million gallons per year. | |
1920's | Gasoline became the motor fuel of choice. Standard Oil began adding ethanol to gasoline to increase octane and reduce engine knocking. | |
1930's | Fuel ethanol gained a market in the Midwest. Over 2,000 gasoline stations in the Midwest sold gasohol, which was gasoline blended with between 6% and 12% ethanol. | |
1941-1945 | Ethanol production for fuel use increased, due to a massive wartime increase in demand for fuel, but most of the increased demand for ethanol was for non-fuel wartime uses. | |
1945-1978 | Once World War II ended, with reduced need for war materials and with the low price of fuel, ethanol use as a fuel was drastically reduced. From the late 1940's until the late 1970's, virtually no commercial fuel ethanol was available anywhere in the U.S. | |
1974 | The first of many legislative actions to promote ethanol as a fuel, the Solar Energy Research, Development, and Demonstration Act led to research and development of the conversion of cellulose and other organic materials (including wastes) into useful energy or fuels. To this day, there is still not a commercial plant using cellulose as the feedstock. | |
1975 | U.S. begins to phase out lead in gasoline. Ethanol becomes more attractive as a possible octane booster for gasoline. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued the initial regulations requiring reduced levels of lead in gasoline in early 1973. By 1986 no lead was to be allowed in motor gasoline. | |
1978 | The first time gasohol was defined, it was in the Energy Tax Act of 1978. Gasohol was defined as a blend of gasoline with at least 10 percent alcohol by volume, excluding alcohol made from petroleum, natural gas or coal. For this reason, all ethanol to be blended into gasoline is produced from renewable biomass feedstocks. The Federal excise tax on gasoline at the time was 4 cents per gallon. This law amounted to a 40 cents per gallon subsidy for every gallon of ethanol blended into gasoline. | |
1979 |
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1980 - 1984 |
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1983 | The Surface Transportation Assistance Act increased the ethanol subsidy to 50 cents per gallon. | |
1984 |
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1985 |
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1988 |
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1990 |
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1992 |
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1995 |
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1995 - 1996 | With a poor corn crop and the doubling of corn prices in the mid-1990s to $5 a bushel, some States passed subsidies to keep the ethanol industry solvent. | |
1997 | Major U.S. auto manufacturers began mass production of flexible-fueled vehicle models capable of operating on E-85, gasoline, or both. Depsite their ability to use E-85, most of these vehicles used gasoline as their only fuel because of the scarcity of E-85 stations. | |
1998 | The ethanol subsidy is extended through 2007 but will be gradually reduced. The ethanol subsidy of 54 cents per gallon will be reduced gradually to 51 cents per gallon in 2005. | |
1999 | Some States began to pass bans on MTBE use in motor gasoline because traces of it were showing up in drinking water sources, presumably from leaking gasoline storage tanks. Because ethanol and ETBE are the main alternatives to MTBE as an oxygenate in gasoline, these bans will increase the need for ethanol as they go into effect. | |
2000 | EPA recommended that MTBE should be phased out nationally. | |
2001 | A 1998 law reduced the ethanol subsidy to 53 cents per gallon starting January 1, 2001. | |
2002 |
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2003 |
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Last Revised: November 2005
TODAY |
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Still In The Future
Cellulose: There has yet to be a commercial plant using cellulose from agricultural or municipal wastes as a feedstock, instead of the more traditional feedstocks. The ethanol from the cellulose process is complex and costly and is still currently in the research and development stage. In recent years, pilot plants have proven the technical feasibility. Several North American companies have considered building factories that would convert the cellulose from organic plant wastes into ethanol.
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