Nothing to discuss, its all true, the Ethanol fuel plan is a complete con job on the American public, its designed to not accomplish a damn thing, except raise prices on corn and cause more fuel consumption. The offshoot of that, is that it also raises prices on everything else, less corn for food and livestock, raising prices yet again. We couldn't produce enough Ethanol from corn, or even Sugar Beets (what should be used to make Ethanol), to make much of a difference in US consumption of oil, its all a sham designed to raise prices, sad, but its the reality of our government, notice it was in the Energy Bill of 2005, Republican Congress and Republican Moronic President, that should be your answer. Raising prices on energy was priority number one, adding Ethanol actually increases the need for more gasoline, because it lowers the mileage you would get with regular gasoline without Ethanol.
although i dont like to get into politics or greenie crap on this site sometimes i cant help it. im usually in the minority but on this one i think more and more americans are waking up to the reasoning that grinding up food crops for fuel is not a good thing. on my trip yesterday to metropolis i notice that my fuel had 10 percent ethanol whether i wanted it or not. that small amount did not seem to hurt my mileage.it runs cooler , you get less mpgs with straight ethanol. it raises the lprice of food. it hurts poor folks. it hurt anyother farmer or rancher that uses it to feed livestock etc. anyway its a total rip off for this country. now if it was made from kudzooo. well, now youre talking!
I beg to differ. Before the craziness of 2005, Minnesota ethanol for Minnesota drivers worked just fine. Locally producing & consuming it was helping to advance technology. E10 had been the standard fuel since the 90's. Progress was being made. But then the desperation set in, targeting ethanol an easy solution to the Big-3 woes. It became a victim, exploited before the on-going R&D had been completed. .
You can beg to differ all you want, Ethanol R&D is old science, the need and amount of need was already known in 2005, knowing that we couldn't produce enough to make a difference to oil consumption was fact. Pushing and FUNDING had ulterior motives, motives that are coming to the forefront now. Example: Ray Atkinson is the director of corporate communications for Pilgrim's Pride, which announced this week it will layoff 11-hundred people around the country, because the feed they use that's made from corn has gotten so expensive "Pilgrims Pride buys about 324-million bushels of corn a year. A one cent rise in the price of corn is three million dollars plus to the bottom line," says Atkinson, who also says the reason corn prices are rising is because of higher production costs for ethanol gas, which comes from corn. "Its really happened in the last couple of years with the ethanol policies coming into affect and the mandates that the government has put in place for blending ethanol with gasoline," says Atkinson. The cost of corn is expected to continue to rise, and Ray Atkinson estimates there will be another seven hundred million dollar increase in Pilgrims Pride's grain cost this year. He says other companies will also feel the pinch. "Every food company uses grain in some way, whether they are making chicken or beef, and pork, or whether they are another kind of company for instance makers of soft drinks use high fructose corn syrup," continues Atkinson
While I'm an ethanol skeptic, it's mostly because of the implementation by Washington and Detroit...going from corn to celluose ethanol in a sustainable way would be a vast improvement.
Which wouldn't raise prices, the real reason, only advantage would be non food crop, but wouldn't help farmers, particularly corn farmers, reason two. Ethanol funding had other motives, like I said, it wasn't to help prices or lower oil consumption, doesn't take a rocket science to realize that.
I would think it affects all of us, not just the middle of the country. Using MY water, using MY edible crops, raising prices on MY items, and not least, using MY taxes. I don't see where I am getting anything good in return. Ethanol is loser, just as hydrogen for cars is. Well, it does depend on your perspective, meaning, as a farmer, ethanol is a winner, and to the oil/fossil fuel companies, hydrogen is a winner. All I see from the agri-busines is the ethanol is green and good flag. All others see double red flags. Hmmm, just follow who's getting the money and you can understand why ethanol is still being subsidized. I'm for moving away from burning stuff to get me around. I want my renewable energy-derived EV which is shown to be MUCH more efficient than ICEs. why can't we go that direction? i mean, faster than the 12 years ago when we had a few EVs, backwards a few steps the past 8 years, then forward a little to todays new lithium battery tech.
People seem to be forgetting that the effort was to establish ways of producing fuel using waste & unneeded biomaterial. .
There's a big difference between being told something and witnessing it firsthand. I sure am glad the history of hybrids is well documented by those who participated, as it was happening. .
I'm with John on this. I can well remember when it was mandated to remove lead from gasoline, there was crying that the world will end without that lead in the gas, but we survived quite well. Now there's the mandate to use ethanol rather than some product of a few multinational mega corporations and the whining has started again, but as John pointed out, we've been using it here in MN for years with no ill effects. Oh yea, there's one benefit to E10 for those of us living in the north, ethanol absorbs any moisture in your gas tank, eliminating the need for gasline antifreeze in the winter
Still NOT THE POINT, If we converted ALL THE CORN to Ethanol, it wouldn't even make a dent in oil use and it wouldn't help the dependency on foreign oil, and thats the point. All that happens with funding and promoting Ethanol, is a few people get rich, corn farmers gain a little, so therefore want to produce more corn and forget other crops, livestock farmers loose, consumers loose and the country loses because prices for corn for animals rises very high, and the ability for using corn as a food crop diminishes greatly. And other crops, wheat and the like, are grown in smaller quantities, wheat in fact is on the verge of having to be imported, for the first time in history, the US can't produce enough wheat for itself.
Ethanol is better than MTBE, but the focused push on it is diverting resources other possible replacements.
