U.S. CHRONICLES: Gasohol
U.S. CHRONICLES: Gasohol
U.S. CHRONICLES: Gasohol
U.S. CHRONICLES: Gasohol
Pile of ears of corn. Dan Dawson near his home-built still. Rudimentary still made with coffee can. Better homemade still which farmer says produces five gallons an hour of fuel grade alcohol. Dan Dawson with Dick Arnold, The Maryland County Commissioner, reviewing blueprints of a still which he is going to design to heat a county office building in Maryland. Furnace pilot with blue flame, an alcohol canister linked to this pilot in a test setup. Dan Dawson says that the county wants to set up the still for fuel as a prototype and offer it to other municipalities. Dick Arnold, The Maryland County Commissioner says that the county felt it was time for somebody to take a small step to lead the country away from the Middle East's oil supplies.
U.S. CHRONICLES: Gasohol
Farmer demonstrating an alcohol still.
U.S. CHRONICLES: Gasohol
The farmer discusses forming a gasohol cooperative in Virginia, importance of having an outlet for small farmers to get into the gasohol market.
U.S. CHRONICLES: Gasohol
Farmer demonstrating an alcohol still.
U.S. CHRONICLES: Gasohol
Virginia Bourbon Distillery, which is used to bring the farmers' home-stilled alcohol up from 160 to close to 200 proof. Barrels of Bourbon on a flatbed truck. Bourbon pouring out the barrel. Bottles of Bourbon on a conveyor in bottling plant. Closeup of machine that screws bottle tops onto the bottles of Bourbon. Line worker inspecting the bottles on the conveyor. Bottles spinning through the machine that puts labels on them. 32.40 Large still in the distillery. Still columns labeled "MALT" "RYE" and "CORN". Wooden-lined fermenting tanks in the distillery. Copper column of the still.
U.S. CHRONICLES: Gasohol
Robert E Lee, VP Smith Bowman Distillery, says that the Distillery's position on gasohol is that the energy crisis is here to stay, and people know that Ethanol works as fuel, it's a bonus that the Distillery can profit. He says the still is having no problems selling its Ethanol, but there could be problems if the Auto makers start mass-marketing electric cars.
U.S. CHRONICLES: Gasohol
Fuel oil tanks on scaffolds, tanker truck.
U.S. CHRONICLES: Gasohol
The owner of this fuel depot discusses the gasohol trade, says gasohol is on the ascent because gasoline prices have doubled in the past year.
U.S. CHRONICLES: Gasohol
Small Gulf Gas Station. Gasohol pump
U.S. CHRONICLES: Gasohol
Bill Brooks, Gas Station Owner says that he owns his station so the oil company can't dictate his policies, but most other station operators just lease a franchise, so they might have more trouble selling Gasohol or using independent wholesalers.
U.S. CHRONICLES: Gasohol
Car filling up at gas station.
U.S. CHRONICLES: Gasohol
Mobil and Exxon and other gas station signs and logos.
U.S. CHRONICLES: Gasohol
Senate Antitrust Committee hearing to investigate whether oil companies violated the law by barring dealers from selling independently produced Gasohol. Representative Tom Daschle (D South Dakota). franchise agreements clearly show why gasohol cannot be sold freely at 84% of our retail outlets today. For example, consider the agreement in a typical franchise that states any dispenser pump tank or other container Wayne Konitchek, Connecticut Gas Retailers Association confirms this testimony, The major oil companies own these lessee stations, as Congressman Daschle testified today, 84% of the total stations in this country are owned like that. So all they have to do is very simply, they keep the dealers from selling gasohol. They hold their own dealers off the market and they sit back and they look. Well, when we see a demand for the product, when we see a public demand then we ll sell gasohol. There never will be this public demand as long as the major oil companies can control the dealers stations through leases and rents. It s like asking the candle maker to go out and invent the electric light bulb. It s not going to happen.
U.S. CHRONICLES: Gasohol
Wayne Konitchek, Connecticut Gas Retailers Association, says that the big oil companies only care about profits, and are only inventing other justifications not to sell Gasohol to conceal their interests in monopoly.
U.S. CHRONICLES: Gasohol
Mo Campbell, Gasohol marketer says that the big oil companies are trying to lock out Gasohol at every level of the game.
U.S. CHRONICLES: Gasohol
Bill Brooks, Gas Station Owner at his station, wearing uniform jumpsuit, describes Gulf Oil threatening to remove his pumps when he planned to start selling Gasohol, so he would have had to buy his own pumps. He got results by threatening to make bad publicity for Gulf Oil over the threat, so Gulf sold him the pumps outright for a dollar.
U.S. CHRONICLES: Gasohol
Gulf's Disclaimer sign on a Gasohol pump which tells customers that this is not a Gulf product. Gas pump and hose.
U.S. CHRONICLES: Gasohol
Mobil Oil rounded gas pumps. V.O.-MOBIL considers its pump shape a proprietary trademark, so dealers who want to sell Gasohol have to buy a conversion kit to change the shape of the pump at cost of $400.
U.S. CHRONICLES: Gasohol
Senate Antitrust Committee hearing. Senator Howard Metzenbaum (D Ohio). This thing that we received today telling them how to do it (i.e. change the gas pump). How recently was this put out? Joseph Hinton, Mobil Oil offers obfuscation and deception. That s the President s position as related to grain. Actually this whole Gasohol thing has evolved over the last few months. In the early going we knew little about it and really didn t know about alcohol supplies and so forth. So we re working on a learning curve in recent weeks with the new interest in the production of Gasohol we ve put this together and are in the process of disseminating that to the field right now.
U.S. CHRONICLES: Gasohol
People pumping gas.
U.S. CHRONICLES: Gasohol
Credit card Carbon machine at a gas station.
U.S. CHRONICLES: Gasohol
Bill Brooks, Gas Station Owner says that Gulf Oil sent him a letter that credit cards could not be used for the sale of Gasohol but the Congress is investigating this maneuver.
U.S. CHRONICLES: Gasohol
Representative Berkley Bedell (D Iowa). We asked them (Oil Companies) to come to the hearing so that we could question them before our hearing. And very fortunately before the hearing came up they changed their minds and decided that they would allow credit cards to be used.
U.S. CHRONICLES: Gasohol
Texaco pumps in gas station with Gasohol signs, Texaco being the only major oil company to market its own brand of Gasohol.
U.S. CHRONICLES: Gasohol
William Tell, Senior VP Texaco. Our policy at the present time is not to permit the charge on our Texaco credit card of a Gasohol product that we do not make. When someone when someone comes into a Texaco station their expectation would be that they re purchasing a Texaco gasoline, not somebody else s gasoline.
U.S. CHRONICLES: Gasohol
Number wheels on gas pump.