High Noon for Energy Supply at the Strait of Hormuz

by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest) ... Renewable fuels aren’t perfect. They’re not glamorous. But they’re here. Domestic. Deployable. Real. And in a moment of where resilience counts, they may be the only thing standing between us and a fuel system too brittle to bend.

Because what we need now aren’t just fuels that are clean or cheap. We need fuels that are scalable, fleet-compliant, affordable and available.

And that means we need more than just price and supply curves. Because in all the fierce debate around EVs, ethanol, and gasoline, one truth quietly endures: Our energy system doesn’t run on fuel alone. It runs on belief.

To understand why renewable fuels like ethanol remain marginalized—despite strong economic and environmental performance—we have to look deeper than market signals or policy briefs. We need a diagnostic lens that sees what the numbers can’t: how symbols persist, how systems resist, and why belief keeps outrunning reality.

Today, let’s use that lens to examine the so-called “pure plays” at the ends of the fuel spectrum—straight gasoline and electric vehicles. Why does gasoline still resonate with those who crave “freedom from mandates and high prices”? Why do EVs appeal to those who want “freedom from emissions and high consequence”? Why does an optimal middle path—renewable fuels—struggle to connect, symbolically, with the public?

Gasoline: The Illusion of Choice

To see GTESI in action, we don’t need to look to the future. We can start at the pump. Three options, three nozzles, three flavors of belief:

But something strange happens when you follow the math. That last 10% of “pure gasoline” in E0? It costs nearly three times more per unit than the other 90%. Supplying octane with aromatics is vastly more expensive than, say, using E30 to produce an affordable premium fuel.

It’s a profound price signal distortion—a case where belief, not performance, sets the value. Not because it’s cleaner. Not because it’s more efficient. But because it feels like freedom. Like tradition. Like control.

Renewable Fuels: The Overlooked Contender

If gasoline runs on identity and EVs rise on status, renewable fuels like ethanol suffer from something harder to overcome: invisibility.

E85, E30, E15—blends like these often offer better emissions profiles, better costs per mile, and better thermodynamic efficiency than their more glamorous rivals. But try to find E30 at a typical fuel station. Try to see it advertised. Try to hear a story about it that doesn’t begin with “subsidy.”

In GTESI terms, ethanol blends often score high on Entropy Export Delta (EED)—they burn cleaner, run cheaper, and are made close to home. But they score low on Information Persistence Rate (IPR), because no one’s telling their story. There’s no Tesla mystique. No Super Bowl ad. Just the quiet hum of Midwestern yield. Meanwhile, the system they’re trying to enter is locked.

Let’s take one example: E30. It can deliver the same octane as premium gasoline—91—but for about $0.76 less per gallon, if priced fairly. Yet premium sells everywhere, and E30 is nearly impossible to find. Why?

The structures that control blending, branding, and distribution don’t just happen to favor petroleum. They were engineered to serve it.

And the profit margins that arise—captured by refiners and middlemen—lock the public into a symbolic fuel caste system, not through performance, but through narrative monopolization.

What We Value—and What We Miss

When we step back, a pattern emerges. Whether it’s gasoline, EVs, or renewable fuels, the public doesn’t always reward what works. It rewards what feels right.

Here’s the real irony: the best-performing fuels from a thermodynamic and environmental standpoint—like E30—are often the least supported. Not because they don’t work, but because they don’t shine in the symbolic theater.

What we’ve built is a system optimized for signal, not substance. And that’s a dangerous way to manage energy, climate, or adaptation.

If we want to change that, we’ll need more than better fuels. We’ll need better stories, better structures, and a deeper understanding of what makes persistence possible.

If the Strait of Hormuz remains the O.K. Corral, then we need to ask a deeper question: In a moment of global stress, who shows up? And if renewable fuels are already here—already scalable, already persistent—why aren’t we treating them as our strategic swing barrel? That’s where we’ll turn next.

In Part II, “The Swing Producer,” tomorrow in the Digest, we’ll examine how renewable fuels operate as the liquidity lever of our energy system—quiet first responders in a world where volatility tests what truly persists. READ MORE