Archive for September 2025

Takeaway Number 3: Blurring Boundaries The rules of the renewable fuels game are increasingly being set more by politics and less by science and economics. The most direct evidence of this trend is the hijacking of a thermodynamic constant called the Equivalence Value for use as a political tool. The Equivalence Value is the ratio…

This Editorial from yesterday’s Wall Street Journal is titled : The Wrong Way to Help Farmers – To ease tariff pain in the Farm Belt, Trump is doubling down on the ethanol mandate that will raise fuel costs for everyone else. It is a confusing editorial about a confusing topic. Let’s dissect its 3-part subtitle:…

See other posts in this series, Economics of Refinery Octane: The last three years have seen historic changes in the U.S. octane market. The wholesale value of octane, the primary yardstick of gasoline quality and price, spiked threefold in July 2022, followed by another year of high and volatile values in 2023. The numbers for…