Posted on 12/06/2008 9:03:41 AM PST by jay1949
You are right, using corn-based ethanol IS less than useful.
The arguments against the use of corn to produce ethanol are all spelled out elsewhere, and I shall not much rehash them here. The arguments FOR the use of ethanol all boil down to a very few basic economic scraps - it helps out the bottom line of Archer-Daniels-Midland and A.E. Staley, both of whom have made large donations to certain interests in both the Congress and various Administrations in the past, and probably on a current basis.
Ethanol cannot be shipped by pipeline as may other fuels or fuel additives, but must be hauled in by tank car or tanker trucks, and combined with the petroleum-based fuel near the point of distribution and consumer purchase. But if sufficient supplies of ethanol were the immediate need, it would be both cheaper, and probably better on a geopolitical basis, to import ethanol from Brazil, dropping all tariffs now imposed upon it. Brazil has the production of ethanol from cane sugar down to a science, and has scaled up to the point of extremely good efficiency as well, in that they are actively looking for an export market. Until ethanol could be made from crop residue, its production should probably scaled back or dropped altogether in this country, and certainly not subsidized.
Ethanol does have certain advantages when used as a motor fuel, but economy is not necessarily one of them. The energy density per gallon of ethanol is much lower than gasoline, and probably not much better than burning propane or butane, two petroleum fractions that could or should be given much wider application, and also have the advantage of burning more cleanly and completely. When kept within a certain range of concentration, ethanol does take up any moisture in the fuel tank, and carries the water with it into the combustion chamber, where the water assists in burning up the excess carbon that otherwise would go out the exhaust stack as unburned particulate carbon, the “black smoke” out of a Diesel while accelerating.
As a fuel additive, ethanol has a number of advantages, but not so much as a primary fuel. Vehicles could be converted to run on 95% ethanol, but the prohibition against that is the same as always - people are prone to start drinking the stuff, which they will not do if it is adulterated with 15% gasoline.
For technical reasons, it is impossible to distill ethanol to greater than 95% content, the other 5% being water. There is a way to make 99% “absolute” ethanol, but it involves adulterating the ethanol with benzene, and redistilling it carefully, Most of the 1% is benzene, rather than water, effectively making the 99% “absolute” too poisonous for human consumption.
Even the 95% “pure” ethanol is poisonous to the human body in relatively small quantities.
What is Moonshine made from?
Why does the market need a hand from the government? Can't the market start sorting right here, right now?
What are we to do with our mountains and mountains for surplus corn and other feedstuffs? Plow them under?
There are a lot of good reason to be against ethanol, the fact that it comes from feedstuffs isn't one of them.
See my tagline. It's been true for over fifty years.
I think it is a bad idea; sorry if my post was confusing.
In Grassley’s case, the farmers of Iowa like it as do the ADM’s and big oil who are operating ethonal processing plants who constantly advertise that they are helping to make this a green planet. It’s all about money.
39$ +/- a few cents a barrel for north sea crude this AM.
No one is driving. Fewer are working and I suspect some tinfoil aspect of big oil trying to throw water on the greener option sorts.
Wild ride these times are !
“What kind of energy scheme can we dream up which will sound green but actually cause near- starvation and bankruptcy throughout the world?”
I know — let’s burn our food! Let’s make ethanol from an expensive food feedstock mandatory! After all, its stored solar energy, and sunshine is free, isn’t it?
As a former farmer, I can smell bull excrement from a mile away.
As part of an FFA project I had an experimental plot of my fathers land where I grew a test plot of corn. My highest yield, in 1965 was 94 bushels per acres.
A friend of mine bought that land later on. In 2005 he raised 200 bushels per acre ON THE ENTIRE FIELD, not just the small hand picked plot I used.
See my tagline, it's been true for more than 50 years.
I am anxious for cellulosic ethanol from woody plants to be perfected. We have to reduce biomass from western forests -which are overstocked, choked with vegetation and burning at extraoridnary rates. (This last summer, we lost 250,000 acres of forests in our county alone to fire.) Fire releases huge emissions of greenhouse gases and destroys younger healthy trees that sequester carbon. Finding a commercial value for biomass creates markets that can help offset the expense of removal. In turn, this helps reduce our depednence on foreign oil. The additive may appear to cost more and may require some subsidy, but I believe it would have a positive value if viewed from the perspective of an entire system.
As Rush has pointed out, ignorance is one of the most expensive commodities traded in these United States.
Your post is a good example of that (intentional) ignorance.
I would point out accurate studies that have debunked your BS, but you have already seen them posted here on FR with your (willfully) blind eyes.
Corn grow in Kansas using machines... that use more oil, made in Saudi Arabia, than the corn replaces.
Tough choice is right.
I agree, let'em starve. I'm serious, they've had 200 years to follow our example. To hell with them.
Let’s make ethanol from an expensive food feedstock mandatory! What are we to do with our mountians and mountains of surplus feedstocks? Plow them under?
There are a lot of good reasons to be against ethanol, why chose the lies to attack it then?
See my tagline, it's been true for more than 50 years.
See post 31
“Corn grow in Kansas using machines... that use more oil, made in Saudi Arabia, than the corn replaces.”
-
So.
Run the machines on ethanol.
Duh...
During WWI, the government encouraged farmers to grow more grain. Marginal lands in Texas, Kansas, Oklahoma and Colorado were plowed up and did well until the rains stopped.
The dust bowl from 1930 to 1940 was the result when the sky was black with dirt for nearly 10 years.
Government subsidies encourage massive misuse of our natural resources and do cause severe problems down the road.
For your information, the dry spell has begun in Colorado and likely the same problems in the area described above will be repeated and in addition, now that we have pivot irrigation, the Ogalala Aquifer is being depleted which has pretty much already happened in West Texas.
I noticed the drop in gasoline mileage years ago when Maryland first required ethanol. Pre-ethanol my 5-speed 4 cylinder Geo Storm got 32-33 mpg on my daily comute to work. After the introduction of the 10% ethanol, my average dropped to 28-29 mpg! And at the same time Congress was continuing to call for increase mileage cars with conversion to mileage decreasing ethanol!
The question will then become “How will the countries, already dealing with hunger, feed their people when the main staple of their diet becomes a very expensive commodity?”
scientific american has an article that says that ethanol made from switch grass can produce 5 times the energy that it takes to grow it. Something else to consider is that I would guess there is more cost in delivering the bread than in the grains in the bread. If it takes 2 pounds of wheat to make a 1 1/2 pound of bread there is 20 cents of wheat at 6 dollar wheat. If wheat doubles to 12 dollars the price of bread should go up 20 cents but if diesel goes from 2 dollars to 4 dollars you can bet the cost of delivery goes up more than 20 cents. If ethanol can reduce the demand on oil to the point that we can keep oil at 50 - 60 dollars per barrel opposed to 100 - 120 per then maybe we can keep diesel closer to 2 dollars than 4. Given time America can get the right blend of raw product and technology where we too can perfect ethanol production like the Brazilians
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