Ethanol's dirty little secret

mvn

http://business.financialpost.com/2013/11/12/the-secret-dirty-cost-of-obamas-green-energy-push/?__lsa=ca4c-5dd4

Mark

212rowboat

people who can only think about as far in front of them as their nose is the reason that crap was ever considered..

good article.

it didn't cover, however, other impacts, such as food costs.. drought forces farmers to feed cattle less, harvest more often, and shorten this years (and last years) harvest in order to meet the mandated demand for ethanol production.. the ethanol production cuts into the feed available.. the feed not being available causes farmers to slaughter cattle sooner than usual, and takes longer for younger cattle to reach slaughter size at the appropriate time.. which means to us: higher cost of food due to less production and stable demand..

to tie this thread in with the diesel debate-

there is a fella in the northeast who has figured out how to turn algae into oil, and fire compression engines (i.e., diesel) with it.. the crop of algae renews every thirty days on ponds formulated to grow it.. it gives almost a 3:1 ratio.. for every three gallons of algae, you can extract a gallon of oil... that is pretty dang slick, no? .. totally renewable in thirty days... diesel engines can run it readily, though not as efficiently as petroleum based oil...

it's a dang great start.. as technology surrounding compression fired engines improves and becomes more common on the road and water, and then this crap is being made meets somewhere in the middle- we'll lessen our dependency and take matters in our own hands..

Glassguy54

Obama is not entirely to blame here. The corn state senators are in it up to their eyballs. They are the ones who steer this misguided policy. Here in Iowa recently, there has been a change at the pumps to encourage MORE ethanol consumption. Used to be, 10% ethanol was cheapest at the pump. Regular grade with no ethanol was 10 cents more per gal, and 91 octane premium with no ethanol, was 20 cents more per gal. They are now pushing up the percentage of etahnol to near 15%.  It is still the cheapest per gal at the pump. Reg w/o ethanol, 20 cents more per gal, and premium, now 50 cents more per gal!!!Thank you Senator Grassley!

TikiHut2

That's right on par with what we've been paying down in SW Fl "IF" you can find E0/rec fuel. last time I checked it was $4 gal for 90octane E0/rec fuel, and reg E10 was $3.40ish. $4.65 at the avg marina for valvetech E0 reg

 

Nobody who thinks it through is happy with any part of the ethanol boondoggle while BOTH parties AND the corporations' who run the refineries and farm it all are up to their necks in it. Avoiding it as much as possible is all we can do.

 

 

212rowboat

I've said it here before.. left or right, politicians are disconnected from the people they serve, believing the people serve them, and every one of them is on the take until proven otherwise... Ethanol, bridges to nowhere, you name it.. even of it starts honest in concept, it gets corrupted whilst they whittle their personal wealth away from our tax dollars.

Michael T

You guys sure have it right  -it's the friggin corn lobby that is pushing that cr*p. BTW the production of corn to make that junk really IS harmful to the environment and humans in general. Huge amounts of water and fertilizer to grow the corn, huge amounts of water, energy and chemicals to produce ethanol. Less actual food grwon.....and a raft of science, boating and popular mechanics magazines have all shown that vehicles using ethanol based fuels travel less distance per gallon and can not pull as much weight - not to mention the damage it does to all motors. It IS one of the biggest con jobs and lies of the modern era! As for 15% ethanol - deadly! Shame on the ba*ta*ds! :-( MT 

Black_Diamond

The corn lobby wants ethanol in diesel. Huge problem because diesel then becomes a class 1 flammable item like gasoline.

212rowboat

corn lobby needs to stick with e i e i o... 

the funniest thing about the entire fuel debate(s):  legislators want to make gasoline more bio, and diesel less... the argument for bio in gas detracts from the argument for bio in diesel, but those clowns act like that fact doesn't exist.. it's all about money.. there is zero logic to it anymore.. they don't want me making my own fuel for my truck out of recycled and bio's such as algae squeeze- that's illegal.. but.. they want corn to grow the alcohol for gasoline.. go figure. 

Dream_Inn

Guys, I've moved this to the non-boating category.  If it didn't start that way, well it's heading that way.