Energy Ministry Invests Bt40m To Promote Gasohol

[george]

Energy Ministry invests Bt40m to promote gasohol

BANGKOK: -- Realizing that gasohol consumption in Thailand is still below the target, the Ministry of Energy plans to spend another Bt40 million on producing advertisements and launching public campaigns to boost the popularity of the oil among the motorists, a ranking ministry official said.

Chavalit Pichalai, deputy director-general of the Energy Policy and Planning Office, said the ministry had earlier spent Bt40 million on ads and campaigns to stimulate motorists to switch to using gasohol.

A survey conducted this April found that about half of the owners of automobiles manufactured after 1995 and which could easily use gasohol are still reluctant to use the alternative fuel, Mr. Chavalit said.

Even though price of gasoline is higher than gasohol at about Bt2.70-3.30 a litre, motorists still do not have a full confidence to fill their tanks with the latter so there is a need for the ministry to launch a fresh campaign, he said.

The ministry believes that sales of gasohol will rise to 10 million litres per day by the end of this year against an earlier forecast of about 8 million liters daily -- if motorists gain more confidence in using gasohol.

Despite the advertising campaign, it is difficult to see hope for the ministry target being achieved. Currently, its daily sales stand at about 4.3 million litres.

--TNA 2007-06-24

[astral]

Roll it out and reduce the reliance on oil.

[scubasteve]

Instead of spending 40 million Baht on advertising,why not reduce the price of Gasahol,even further,then you will see the Thais,'''''''''' converting over''''''''''''.Logic eh??.

[Heng]

There's already a 5 Baht difference.... which means the product is already likely already close to loss making at this price level, considering that it's still 90% benzene, no? What you get is people who are in poor financial shape using it.

[Carmine6]

Instead of spending 40 million Baht on advertising,why not reduce the price of Gasahol,even further,then you will see the Thais,'''''''''' converting over''''''''''''.Logic eh??.

Say you want to knock 4 baht off the price. You could discount 10 million liters with 40 million baht. Daily sales are at 4.3 million liters, meaning you could discount for not quite 3 days.

[Mid]

PTT may market super-premium petrol

June 26, 2007 : Last updated 06:54 pm (Thai local time)

PTT is studying a plan to market super-premium petrol at its premium service stations, to accommodate luxury cars that cannot run on gasohol.

The plan may pave way for the scrapping of octane-95 petrol.

"Right now, we're importฌing octane100 petrol for sports cars. It's not difficult for the marketing of this super-premium fuel, but we need to study the feasibility, because the market is quite small," Krisanapol Komolboon, execฌutive vice president for the oil business, told a seminar on the future of gasohol Tuesday.

The Nation

[MrSnrang]

Why didn't they donate this money to alternative fuel research? I'm sure a million dollars could help.

What about that whole thing of promoting hybrids here? Lower the <deleted> TAX!

I don't get it. Why don't they do something that wouldn't cost them a baht and would actually be progress?

[mogoso]

Why didn't they donate this money to alternative fuel research? I'm sure a million dollars could help.

What about that whole thing of promoting hybrids here? Lower the <deleted> TAX!

I don't get it. Why don't they do something that wouldn't cost them a baht and would actually be progress?

What could be cheaper and less polluting than air? A French manufaturer will be sending the first of 8000 cars that operate on compressed air to India. I'm curious as to how well they'll operate. I believe they have a range of 125 miles per charge and 70 mph is top speed.

Honda will be sending 1200 compressed natural gas cars to New York and California as a market experiment. They can be filled at your home (if you've a filling station attached to you natural gas line, (optional equipment) ) Natural gas is basically a nonpolluter and the cost per energy equalvalent is $1.20 cents per gallon.

BTW govt's love taxes. I live in GA a non oil producing state, but if I lived in CA, an oil producing state, I'd pay almost a dollar more per gallon CA loves taxing people

[mogoso]

Instead of spending 40 million Baht on advertising,why not reduce the price of Gasahol,even further,then you will see the Thais,'''''''''' converting over''''''''''''.Logic eh??.

Water is one resource we all take for granted. How much water is used during the growth cycle to produce one gallon of ethanol? Doesn't gasahol pollute? Maybe a little better tha gas but we can do better.

[MrSnrang]

Why didn't they donate this money to alternative fuel research? I'm sure a million dollars could help.

What about that whole thing of promoting hybrids here? Lower the <deleted> TAX!

I don't get it. Why don't they do something that wouldn't cost them a baht and would actually be progress?

What could be cheaper and less polluting than air? A French manufaturer will be sending the first of 8000 cars that operate on compressed air to India. I'm curious as to how well they'll operate. I believe they have a range of 125 miles per charge and 70 mph is top speed.

Honda will be sending 1200 compressed natural gas cars to New York and California as a market experiment. They can be filled at your home (if you've a filling station attached to you natural gas line, (optional equipment) ) Natural gas is basically a nonpolluter and the cost per energy equalvalent is $1.20 cents per gallon.

BTW govt's love taxes. I live in GA a non oil producing state, but if I lived in CA, an oil producing state, I'd pay almost a dollar more per gallon CA loves taxing people

I agree with natural gas but not so much with the compressed air cars. Natural gas is good but probably not too sustainable but I have to say no to the air car concept. I doubt they could ever utilize the energy they say they can and the energy to compress the air has to come from somewhere.

CA's tax is kinda justified since it's supposed to keep people from gas-guzzlers but the import tax here makes energy-efficient cars an unfeasible idea. It is, I believe somewhere around 300% for every car. Quite a bit more than a dollar a gallon.

[mogoso]

What could be cheaper and less polluting than air? A French manufaturer will be sending the first of 8000 cars that operate on compressed air to India. I'm curious as to how well they'll operate. I believe they have a range of 125 miles per charge and 70 mph is top speed.

Honda will be sending 1200 compressed natural gas cars to New York and California as a market experiment. They can be filled at your home (if you've a filling station attached to you natural gas line, (optional equipment) ) Natural gas is basically a nonpolluter and the cost per energy equalvalent is $1.20 cents per gallon.

BTW govt's love taxes. I live in GA a non oil producing state, but if I lived in CA, an oil producing state, I'd pay almost a dollar more per gallon CA loves taxing people

I agree with natural gas but not so much with the compressed air cars. Natural gas is good but probably not too sustainable but I have to say no to the air car concept. I doubt they could ever utilize the energy they say they can and the energy to compress the air has to come from somewhere.

CA's tax is kinda justified since it's supposed to keep people from gas-guzzlers but the import tax here makes energy-efficient cars an unfeasible idea. It is, I believe somewhere around 300% for every car. Quite a bit more than a dollar a gallon.

It doesn't take alot of energy to compress air, or a lot of time. Did you ever have a scuba tank?

As for the tax in CA to prevent gas guzzlers, that seems not to deter a sizeable percentage of the population from driving their SUV's. Where I live in GA it seems to be the bigger the better for our illegal immigrants. Although US gas comsumption was up 2.5% last year, I wonder how much it'd be down without the added burden of 15 million illegal immigrants that have poured across our borders unchecked by a president aligned with big business wanting cheap labor and democrats thinking they'll gain their votes, and stay in power for the forseeable future.

Natural gas can also be a green gas recovered by various means, methane digesters, garbage produces gas that can be recovered, but the biggest potential to obtain gas will be from natural gas hydrates. Where a country such as Japan has no oil deposits, but has vast deposits of Nat Gas Hyd in their surrounding ocean

[Jimjim]

Is gasohol an alternative to alcohol?

[thai_narak]

fact: gasohol mileage is 3% less than gasoline

let's do the math...

if i have a car say with a compression of 10:1 (to make it simple) and have a 50 liter tank it would run 500km consuming the whole tank using gasoline. knowing that gasohol runs 3% less, then same tank would take me only 485km down the road. so the difference of 15km (or compression down to 9.7:1). therefore, to run 500km using gasohol you have buy an additional 1.56 liters of gasohol.

price difference of 3 baht:

gasohol = 51.56 liters x 26.69 baht = 1,376 baht

gasoline = 50 liters x 29.99 baht = 1,499.5 baht

savings from gasohol: 123.5 baht/tank or approx. 2,964 baht/year (if you buy a full tank 2x a month)

risk from using gasohol:

ethanol readily mixes with water. if the tanks storing it has water in it, the ethanol will separate from gasoline. this result in the damage to the engine.

i will not risk my engine's (V6) health for that little savings. if the engine is damaged, the repair costs (let say 50,000 baht for a normal sedan car) would cover your gasohol saving for 16 years!