It's Final -- Corn Ethanol Is Of No Use

Forbes ^ | 4/20/2014 | James Conca

[Vince Ferrer]

OK, can we please stop pretending biofuel made from corn is helping the planet and the environment? With huge subsidies for ethanol in gasoline, with all States now selling gasoline having some ethanol blend, and a general misconception that these biofuels are green, corn ethanol has taken on a $30 billion/yr life of its own.

[Vince Ferrer]

If we want to extend our gasoline, there are other ways to do it. One, we can make ethanol from coal instead of corn, at a price about 30% cheaper, which leaves corn for eating. Or we can mix ammonia into gasoline as an additive instead of ethanol. We can make that from methane, or even water and air.

[Paladin2]

Ethanol is WAY better than Methanol, but as a gasoline substitute, it's retarded.

WAY better to drink than to burn in vehicular engines.

Ethanol is good to clear out water in fuel systems during the winter, but that is it.

<<1% needed.

[wiggen]

sense from the UN? improbable.

[Delta 21]

I hear ya.

[Republican1795.]

Not only that but it was taking up too much farm land.

[Free Vulcan]

What subsidies? The blender credit expired a few years ago.

[Free Vulcan]

I didn’t realized farmers found a way to grow ethanol directly.

[pallis]

It’s a leftist policy, and it has a large, heavily subsidized constituency, so don’t expect ethanol polluted gasoline to go away anytime soon.

[fella]

"I didn’t realized farmers found a way to grow ethanol directly."

the farmers making ethanol directly is what the "Whisky Rebellion" was all about.

[9YearLurker]

Who needs subsidies when the market is mandated to use it anyway? Taxpayers are subsidizing it at the pump.

[devolve]

- Why are we putting booze in our gas tanks when Hillary will just drink it?

[Drago]

Exactly! Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) mandates ethanol production from corn for fuel use.

[jonrick46]

The more corn ethanol they put in my gasoline, the worse gas mileage I get in my car. I am paying for that lower gas mileage.

[windsorknot]

Just one of many silly government decisions that citizens must suffer to satisfy some narrow constituency.

[Jumper]

Ethanol is a political construct, and as such it serves two purposes. The diversion of food crops into energy production allows America to reduce the world's food supply at the same time it reduces imports of fuel, primarily affecting those same nations who dislike us on a political level. We can see the effects of this price hike in the remaining food supply in the form of the Arab Spring revolts in places like Egypt where food prices soared.

It gives this American great pleasure to know that those who hate us are starving as we reduce our imports from their region of the world.

[Cboldt]

EPA mandates for clean emissions require some sort of oxegenate in the fuel. MTBE eneded up being a political nightmare with each contamination event (stuff tastes like turpentine, but isn't all that harmful), and ethanol is next in line.

[ronnie raygun]

List please of politicians who pushed this scam on all of us and filled thier pockets

[DH]

You have to realize that:

Huge corporate farmers mainly vote democrat.

Huge corporate farmers give freely to the democrats.

Huge corporate farmers receive massive farm subsidies from democrat rules and regulations.

The pseudo need for ethanol “ginned up” by the enviro-nazis forces the American people to utilize the products produced by the Huge corporate farmers through laws and regulations specifically designed to put money in their pockets by the democrats...who will, in turn, receive donations back from those farmers to ensure a continuing mandatory use of the products they produce.

During the great depression farmers were the first to receive what we now call today...corporate welfare. Now, it is SOP for all who allow the government to tell them: When to plant, what to plant, how much to plant, and what chemicals they will utilize to control insects and weeds, and finally.....the price they will sell the crop for.

[Gen.Blather]

We have alcohol in gas because we were taken to court by a foreign country and accused of subsidizing our farmers, which is a violation of the global agreement on tariffs and taxes (GATT.) We were found guilty which enabled all of our trading partners to retaliate. But there was a clause in the GATT allowing us to do things for defense. So, reducing the amount of gas used became a national defense priority, which is legal. They put alcohol in gas and pumped billions of dollars to farmers. And, that is how this incredible stupidity started.

[DaveA37]

So the “environist” want to be rid of ethanol? The best way to accomplish that is to get the Keystone pipeline going. You won’t need ethanol any longer and, we can turn our local ethanol plant from processing corn to processing POTATO’S and we all know potato’s make really good vodka.