Pushing ethanol is either ignorance or intentional damage to the health and well being of the people of the world. It will reduce food supplies and raise the price of transportation and those food supplies.
I have heard you should not attribute to malice what simple stupidity or incompetence can explain.
I no longer accept that.
When the brown stuff in the field oozes up between my toes I know I am barefoot and not paying attention to where I am walking.
There is too much brown stuff to attribute to stupidity or incompetence.
Here is an ethanol story.
Part one: the farmer.
It is a nice day, it is spring, the chance of frost is past, and it is time to plant crops.
The farmer fills the fuel tank on his tractor with gas or diesel.
He then prepares his field for planting.
A day or two passes.
The farmer fills the fuel tank on his tractor with gas or diesel. He then plants his field with corn.
Some more days go by.
The farmer fills the fuel tank on his tractor with gas or diesel. He then fertilizes his corn field.
Time goes by and the corn he planted sprouts.
The farmer fills the fuel tank on his tractor with gas or diesel. He then cultivates his corn field.
Time goes by and the corn grows high and it is time to harvest.
The farmer fills the fuel tank on his tractor with gas or diesel. Unless he has a harvester; if he has a harvester the farmer fills the fuel tank on his harvester with gas or diesel and he harvests his corn.
The farmer sells his corn on the open market.
Counting on government subsidies, an ethanol producer bids up the price and buys the corn.
The corn bought for ethanol is not available for food.
The supply of corn for food goes down; the price of corn for food goes up.
Part two: the plot sickens.
The ethanol producer transports the corn to his plant.
He goes through the fermentation process; which requires a lot of heat and a lot of water.
The heat comes from natural gas or the electric power grid.
The water would have been better used elsewhere.
He has a lot of waste plant fiber that has very little food value which he sells to feed lots.
He sells the ethanol to oil companies who are forced by the government to use it to dilute their gasoline.
The consumer buys this diluted gasoline.
If the consumer was getting 20 miles per gallon from pure gasoline; he will now be getting 20% less mileage than he did on that pure gasoline.
He will have to buy more of this diluted gasoline to get home.
He has now bought about 1.5 gallons of fuel to go as far as 1 gallon of gas would have taken him.
If you do the math; pure gasoline would have been cheaper.
Ethanol will destroy the fiberglass fuel tanks in boats.
Your lawn mower will not run for long on ethanol polluted gasoline.
Ethanol has a “shelf live” of 90 days.
It takes 1.5 gallons of ethanol to equal the power of 1 gallon of gasoline.
Using a source of food to power a vehicle is at the very least depraved indifference.
If you add up the points above you will see that it takes more than a gallon of gas (or diesel) to make a gallon of ethanol.
You will not get as much out of ethanol as you put into it.
The government gets taxes on each gallon of fuel you buy; if they can force you to buy more gallons they get more taxes.
This is the third time in my lifetime that ethanol has been pushed by the government.
It is still as criminally stupid now as it was the first time.
To end this story, consider this.
Our vehicle would have gone 20 miles on a gallon of gasoline.
We used 1.5 gallons of ethanol to go 20 miles.
It took 1.5 gallons of gasoline to make that gallon of ethanol.
That means it took 1.5 gallons of gasoline AND 1.5 gallons of ethanol to go 20 miles.
That is three gallons.
The government got taxes on 3 gallons of fuel.
The bottom line is that someone is going hungry because of some uniCORN dream that has no basis in reality and is total economic nonsense.
Very good explanation, Al.
If every part of it is true, it should go viral soon.
If any part of it is not, I’m sure you’ll hear about it.
Any chance you could go back through it and link to a source for each fact?
Because, if you do that, this nice quick and easy read turns into a powerful source for info.
Nan G
I can do that, and will be glad to.
Here is one for starters.
“Ethanol Fuel from Corn Faulted as ‘Unsustainable Subsidized Food Burning’”
http://healthandenergy.com/ethanol.htm
Excellent article Al, but we on the internet always use the caveat “but”, like Nan says with documentation you could become a powerful voice against the rainbows and flowers crowd.
Documentation is the problem that our president refuses to confront and it is going to contribute to the condemnation of his legacy; consequently, if you have the documentation to support your premise you will rain on their parade.
Al, perhaps you should ask Curt or one of the mystics like Mata if they would insert the documentation at the precise points in the post. You can become a powerful voice if we sharpen your edge a little.
I prefer to use Ethanol in its undiluted-by-gasoline form to power my partying, especially if it’s been stored in charred oak barrels for several years or even decades.
There are plenty of alternate sources for fermentable source stock besides using corn or other food stock. Studies have been done using sugar beets as a source stock, and the results are very promising. “Based on sugar beet yields in France, one acre of sugar beets could produce approximately 750
gallons of ethanol per acre and an acre of sugarcane in Brazil could produce 590 gallons of
ethanol per acre. U.S. corn production produces roughly 370 to 430 gallons of ethanol per acre,
depending upon corn yields.” (from http://www.usda.gov/oce/reports/energy/EthanolSugarFeasibilityReport3.pdf )
Skookum #4
I will do that.
This link could be placed after “Someone goes hungry”.
@Smokey Behr:
One of those alternative sources of source stock for ethanol is switchgrass. I’ve posted about it previously, although quite a while ago. It is a native american grass of which there is only one planting ever and a continued harvesting. From that point, it merely needs a little additional fertilizer throughout the life of the field one harvests from.
It has been rated by some to provide 1,150 gallons of ethanol per acre, and can be harvested several times per year.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=grass-makes-better-ethanol-than-corn
Further, one of the drawbacks of corn-based ethanol is it’s acidity, and due to that, the corrosive nature of it towards metal engine products. This is why certain engines are made specifically for it(“flex-fuel vehicles”), and that trying to run fuel of 15% ethanol destroys the engines of vehicles made in the 90’s or earlier. Switchgrass, however, does not share this same drawback, at least to the extent that corn-based ethanol does.
All in all, switchgrass, to me, seems to be a much better bio-source for ethanol than corn. It’s one drawback, at this point in time, is that it’s a cellulosic material, and that current production plants do not have the ability to process it. Score another point in the bad column for the corn-based crowd, who have obstructed any such non-corn based ethanol plants from being built, particularly in the midwest.
40% of the corn crop goes to making fuel less efficient.
And the price of food is climbing skyward.
Ethanol policy is the one place that I part company with conservative ideology. There are a few flaws in your argument and if I could I would like to highlight a few.
First, all the fuel that you say is used in the tractors to grow the corn is for off-road use and is thus not taxed. So even if it was true that it took 1.5 gallons of gas to produce 1.5 gallons of ethanol, the government would not have collected 3 gallons worth of taxes.
Next, I would like to look at the argument that more corn foe ethanol means less corn for food. Just out of curiosity, have you considered that farmers might plant more corn to make up for the increased demand? I know the next point of argument will be that more corn acres means less of some other crop, but if you look at the numbers the USDA provides it shows that argument to be false. The USDA maintains a count of the number of acres devoted to the principal crops, generally crops that store without processing such as corn, soybeans, wheat, etc. A look at that number shows that the number of acres devoted to the principal crops is in constant flux. For instance in 1995, 318 million acres were devoted to principal crops and in 1996, 333 million acres. That is a swing of 15 million acres in one year and that was before ethanol was being produced in any significant quantity.
Also keep in mind that switching crops to cash in on high corn prices comes with some very large expenses and a harsh learning curve. For instance if a farmer wanted to switch from growing tomatoes to growing corn, he would leave a rather expensive tomato harvester sitting idle and have to purchase a rather expensive corn harvester. And he would be well versed on the problems associated with growing tomatoes but not so much for corn. He would have to learn the best time to plant, how to deal with common problems such as pests, and how much and when to fertilize. All that to cash in on high prices that might not last more than this year.
Another point I would like to look at is the notion that ethanol is to blame for high corn prices. We have had high corn prices in the past before ethanol was produced in significant quantities. The problem is they don’t look all that high because they haven’t been adjusted for inflation. For instance, according to the USDA, the average price for corn in 1974 was $3.02. Looks like a bargain compared to today’s price, but once that number is adjusted for inflation it becomes $13.20. Once adjusted for inflation, all the years from 1972-1980 have higher average prices for the year than what corn costs now.
Just a couple of other quick notes….
“It takes 1.5 gallons of ethanol to equal the power of 1 gallon of gasoline.”
Actually that would be BTU content, not power. And it takes about 1.3 gallons of gasloine to equal the BTU content of a gallon of diesel. If this were such an important fact we wouldn’t be arguing over ethanol versus gasloine and would instead all be driving diesels.
“You will not get as much out of ethanol as you put into it.”
Almost all current energy balance studies show ethanol to have a positive energy balance.
“It took 1.5 gallons of gasoline to make that gallon of ethanol.”
If this were true how could ethanol sell for less than gasoline? I know the rebuttal, the subsidy. But the subsidy is payed to the company that blends the gasoline and ethanol together. In most cases that is at the terminal not the ethanol plant. So the wholesale price of ethanol doesn’t reflect the subsidy and at the moment the wholesale price of ethanol is $2.62 and the wholesale price of gasoline is $3.29, both for May delivery on CBOT.
“He has a lot of waste plant fiber that has very little food value which he sells to feed lots.”
That waste plant fiber you refer to is more generally called Distillers Dried Grains (DDG) and is traded on the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT). It is currently selling for $112.8 per ton for May delivery. How many other waste products do you know of that are traded on CBOT?
“If every pot growing hippie would just shut off their grow lamps for a day we would save enough energy to propel a million automobiles for a year.” (algore)
@drjohn:
That, of course is another drawback of using corn for ethanol. Crops such as switchgrass can be grown in fields that are never used for corn, and as such, do not impact food crops to anywhere near the extent that corn does.
I once told my mother-in-law that corn farmers were ‘greedy’. It was one of the few times that my words have run in conflict with my values. The farmer has a right to grow whatever he/she wants, whenever they want, for whatever use they want. It is their land(except when it’s government land they use). The real problem is a government that has allowed the ‘equality of opportunity’ to fail, concerning crops for ethanol. By the government promoting corn as the source of choice for ethanol, other crops for such use cannot hope to compete, and sometimes cannot compete at all, due to the subsidies given within the corn-based ethanol industry that prevent other crops from being used.
It is the economics, essentially the give-aways by the government, that promote such a boondoggle, and force the economic choices the farmers take in growing corn for ethanol, over that of food crops.
@Al Cooper:
Pimental was known for questionable substitutions and using outdated information.
For instance, in the link that you provide….
“An acre of U.S. corn yields about 7,110 pounds of corn for processing into 328 gallons of ethanol.”
There are 56 pounds in a bushel of corn so 7,110 / 56 = 127 bu8shels per acre. The last time yields were that low was in 1996 when the yield was 126.7 bushels per acre. The 2010 yield was 152.8 bushels per acre.
It is also worth noting that 328 gallons / 126 bushels = 2.6 gallons per bushel. The industry average now is more like 2.85 gallons per bushel.
So at best the link you point to describes the energy balance of ethanol from corn in the late 1990s. I don’t know exactly which study this link is pointing to as Pimental did several ethanol energy balance studies over the years but I always have questions about whether the methods he uses are the same as when the energy balance of petroleum products are evaluated. For instance since Pimental counted the energy used to produce the tractor used to grow the corn against ethanol, was the energy used to produce the drilling rig counted against petroleum? And since Pimental even counts the calories consumed by the farmer against ethanol, are the calories of rig workers counted against petroleum?
@drjohn:
That number doesn’t take into account that a portion of the corn that goes to making ethanol goes back to the food supply as Distillers Dried Grains (DDG). That is how the USDA up until recently reported corn usage in it’s monthly crop usage reports. The USDA has since changed to wording to reflect that 40% of the corn crop goes to making ethanol and associated co-products.
In general, a bushel of corn will produce about 2.85 gallons of ethanol and 17 pounds of DDGs.
mus302 #12
Thank you for your comments.
Can you give me links reguarding your opinoin of Pimental?
@ mus302, DDG can be used to feed Chickens, Cattle and Hogs, However, If the Federal Subsides/Tax Credits were removed from Ethanol Production the process would be cost prohibitive for the return on the investment.
MUS302,
Currently corn prices are at a record high price, which is impacting the price of beef, pork, chicken and dairy products. Why is corn at such high prices? Because the carryout (the amount in store at the end of the crop year) is at a record low level of 589 million bushels. This sounds like a lot, but it is not even what is in the pipeline (trucks, rail cars, barges) on any given day. It gets even worse next year, projected carryout for next year is expected to tighten again, in spite of near record acreage. Why? Ethanol production consumes 40% of all bushels produced in the US. Tight supplies force human food grains like wheat to be used as animal feed. All this takes place because of a 50 cent per gallon tax incentive for ethanol from the U.S. government. Ethanol is a waste of taxpayer money and provides a double whammy in the form of higher food prices. It is hard enough on those in this country who barely scrape by. If you are in a Third World country spending 50 to 75% of your income on food, double or tripling the price of food leads to political instability. One of the prime motivators for Middle East unrest has been the skyrocketing price of food. A wise old grain trader once told me “A hungry man will fight”. Brother, was he right! Now, imagine what will happen if a drought occurs in the U.S. this year. ……Apocalypse.
@Buffalobob, #10:
Alternately, if we ended the largely pointless marijuana prohibition we would save around $14 billion per year in enforcement costs, add a taxable commodity to the legitimate marketplace, and put a significant portion of the criminal Mexican cartels out of business overnight. Also, the sale of cookies would probably go up.
Yes legalizing drugs and registering addicts and casual users could make the work force more productive and the highways (no pun intended) safer. Give them all the drugs they want, just so potential employers know they are users and insurance companies can rate them appropriately. It’s a possibility the use of drugs would be a ticket to a non-productive lifestyle and a reason to be socially ostracized. Associating with a licensed user or dating an addict could become such a negative factor that Americans would lose their fascination with illicit drugs.
@Al Cooper:
USDA yield data can be found here.
http://www.nass.usda.gov/Statistics_by_Subject/index.php
One Pimental study that I have bookmarked is his 2003 study.
http://www.college.wustl.edu/~anthro/articles/pimentel-ethanol.pdf
In it you can see all the energy inputs such as that required to produce the farm machinery, the food for the labor, and the energy to build the ethanol plant.
In it you will also see what I mean about questionable substitutions. Such as…
“The DDG generally
is used as a substitute for soybean feed that
has 49% protein (Stanton, 1999). Soybean production
for livestock production is more energy efficient
than corn production because little or no nitrogen
fertilizer is needed for the production of this legume
(Pimentel and others, 2002). Only 2.1 kg of 49% soybean
protein is required to provide the equivalent of
3.3 kg of DDG. Thus, the credit fossil energy per gallon
of ethanol produced is about 6,728BTU(Pimentel
and others, 2002).”
If you want to find the BTU content of something, you burn it and measure the heat given off. Instead he chose to substitute another product of differing quantity and assigned to it the BTU content of the energy inputs needed to produce it instead of it’s actual BTU content.
And in the footnotes and credits you get a glimpse of what I mean by out of date information.
Also note that he estimates the yield at 8590 kg per hectacre. 8590 * 2.2 / 2.5 = 7559 pounds per acre. So this study is most likely newer than the information provided in the link you posted.
Nan G
&
Skookum
I gave Curt some links and he kindly added them to this post.
Thank you for your suggestions.
@Old Trooper 2:
“DDG can be used to feed Chickens, Cattle and Hogs, However, If the Federal Subsides/Tax Credits were removed from Ethanol Production the process would be cost prohibitive for the return on the investment. ”
Are you referring to the ethanol production process or in making livestock feed in this manner?
mus302
Thank you for that about Pimental.
Even if you “break even”, one gallon to one gallon, in the end you have still used two gallons to go 20 miles.
You have simply converted one form of fuel to another and in the process reduced farm land available for food. You still need to address the huge use of water needed to produce ethanol. Ethanol does not store well and can not be sent through pipelines; it must go by tanker truck which costs more to move. Less BTUs is less BTUs no matter how you spin it. Even Al Gore said ethanol was a mistake.
@ The Ethanol Industry in General. The DDG product would not be in existence in quantity without the Process.
Water used to make ethanol.
http://acad.carleton.edu/projects/ethanol/EthanolandWaterFAQs.htm
@Corn Trader:
“Currently corn prices are at a record high price, which is impacting the price of beef, pork, chicken and dairy products.”
Even if corn just went up by the amount of inflation each year, each year would be a record high price. We are only at record high prices because the numbers that corn sold for in the past haven’t been adjusted to today’s dollars.
Gold prices are at record high levels also.
“Why is corn at such high prices?”
At least in part for the same reason gold prices are so high, a weak dollar.
“Because the carryout (the amount in store at the end of the crop year) is at a record low level of 589 million bushels. This sounds like a lot, but it is not even what is in the pipeline (trucks, rail cars, barges) on any given day. It gets even worse next year, projected carryout for next year is expected to tighten again, in spite of near record acreage. Why? Ethanol production consumes 40% of all bushels produced in the US. ”
Sounds pretty reasonable when viewed by itself but if you remember correctly corn prices took off when the news was filtering in that the wheat harvest in Russia was hurt by drought over the summer. The carryout wouldn’t be as low as it is if the Russian wheat harvest was of normal size. And that has nothing to do with ethanol.
It is worth noting that if there wasn’t any ethanol production, the corn harvest would be much smaller to begin with.
And you also forget that 40% produces both feed and ethanol.
“All this takes place because of a 50 cent per gallon tax incentive for ethanol from the U.S. government.”
45 cents.
“If you are in a Third World country spending 50 to 75% of your income on food, double or tripling the price of food leads to political instability.”
I thought only liberals used emotional pleas. The other side of this coin is that cheap commodity prices push poor farmers in third world countries out of business. And relative to the population, there are more farmers in third world countries than there are here. So in effect you are making the argument that we should starve American farmers so that we can drive poor third world farmers out of business.
“One of the prime motivators for Middle East unrest has been the skyrocketing price of food.”
That kinda shows that it is bad to be dependent on other countries for your basic needs. We are just as vulnerable when it comes to oil as they are to food. If it makes you feel any better look at ethanol and the way that it links the food and energy markets as a form of mutually assured destruction.
“A wise old grain trader once told me “A hungry man will fight”. Brother, was he right! Now, imagine what will happen if a drought occurs in the U.S. this year. ”
Considering that we are talking about a carryout that is 6 months away, the market would have time to react. But I would pose the same question what would happen if we had a drought in the US and didn’t have the additional acres that have come along as a response to the demand from ethanol? In other words let’s say that with ethanol production we harvest 13 billion bushels, 9 goes to food and 4 goes to ethanol. Then we have a drought that cuts the harvest by 1/3. We still have enough to feed everybody if we don’t produce ethanol. But if we weren’t producing ethanol and only harvest 10 billion bushels, 9 for food and 1 for stocks and giving away as food aid and such. Then a drought hits that cuts the harvest by a third and uh-oh not enough to feed everyone.
@Greg:
Aha! I thought I smelled hemp burning….
Light up another reefer and lay some more words of wisdom on me Gregory ;^)
@Greg:
And then we’d kill the planet with global warming!
(sarc)
Of course there’s also the fuel used to grow the seed corn for planting the corn that will be used to make ethanol.
Skookum, if the government started giving personal drug use related info to private insurance company’s would that lead to more corruption? Seems like something warren buffet would lobby for… It also sounds like an expensive big government operation.
I’m skeptical on the constitutionality of such an idea. Also we register sex offenders and some people act like that’s a good thing, even though it doesn’t work on those crazy people. “the chair” would be a much better option for sex offenders. I can’t say I hold drug users to the same scrutiny I hold sex offenders. So I’m not in favor of registering drug users. Closing off the boarder sounds like a good way to stop drugs, but it won’t change peoples behavior, change will take place when people turn off the TV and start raising there kids again. Just my thoughts on the subject.
Maybe we should get Afghanistan into the Ethanol business. That way the farmers could grow their poppies and Marajuna and not use or sell them as recreational drugs.
@Al Cooper:
“Even if you “break even”, one gallon to one gallon, in the end you have still used two gallons to go 20 miles.”
Wouldn’t the math work out about the same for oil since for every gallon of oil that goes into a refinery you get one gallon of finished product out the other side. So to go 20 miles it would require 1 gallon of gasoline and 1 gallon of oil.
Think about it, it doesn’t quite work that way.
“You have simply converted one form of fuel to another and in the process reduced farm land available for food.”
Wouldn’t that be about the same situation as electricity? You can’t plug your computer into a chunk of coal but once the energy in that coal is converted to electricity you are in business.
That second part sounds kinda like the liberal philosophy that for every dollar you make that is one less dollar for me to make. But while we are looking at this from this perspective, wouldn’t it also then be true that land devoted to producing cotton reduces the amount of land available to produce food? Are you now going to be against clothing made from cotton? What about land used to grow landscape plants, cut flowers, timber, and sod?
“You still need to address the huge use of water needed to produce ethanol.”
The link that you posted about ethanol’s water use is regional, seems to be somewhat outdated and has no context. Check out this study.
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es800367m
Keep in mind that only about 15% of the corn grown in this country is irrigated.
“Ethanol does not store well and can not be sent through pipelines; it must go by tanker truck which costs more to move.”
Doesn’t store well? Never had any problems personally.
Can’t be shipped trough pipelines? More like isn’t generally shipped through pipelines.
http://oilspot2.dtnenergy.com/e_article001272177.cfm?x=b11,0,w
Actually most ethanol is shipped by rail.
Costs more to move?
True but there is still more petroleum products moved by rail, barge and truck than ethanol. According to the American Petroleum Institute, pipelines carry about 68% of the petroleum and petroleum products moved domestically. About 27% of the remainder is moved by water and about 5% by truck or rail.
http://www.api.org/aboutoilgas/sectors/pipeline/flexibility.cfm
“Less BTUs is less BTUs no matter how you spin it.”
True.
“Even Al Gore said ethanol was a mistake.”
But the important thing is, he was for it before he was against it.
Dad(RIP) ran a 6600 acre farm in SE Saskatchewan. He had contracts for foundation, registered, and certified seed in wheat, flax, mustard, and barley. He grew for seed purposes mostly and attracted just about any kind of government inspector imaginable. Yearly fuel, ferlizer(liquid), and herbicide bills totaled well over a quarter million a year. You can imagine the equipment and manpower involved. There were no subsidies and dad didn’t want any because he knew they were counter productive. In the 55 years he farmed as a seed grower, can you imagine the number of people he fed indirectly, of course?
@Old Trooper 2:
“The Ethanol Industry in General. The DDG product would not be in existence in quantity without the Process. ”
Not in the quantities it is available today but the process is no different than making whiskey. Whiskey makers also produce Distillers Grains that have been fed to livestock probably since the process of distillation was discovered.
Ethanol is an energy waste, when used as fuel. When used as an intoxicant – well, mankind has approved this use for millenia. Make mine Scotch. or beer. But don’t go making either from corn. just sayin’.
@mus302: Corn doesn’t go up by the amount of inflation each year. My father sold corn in the 1970s for $3/bushel. That was the price of corn before the ethanol kick started.
@mus302:
Both of those conditions are due to the acidity of the ethanol. Typically, stainless steel is used for storage tanks and piping on site for pure ethanol. Some plastics are ok to use, while others degrade rapidly. This acidity, even at a 15% mix with crude-oil based fuel, is why the typical 90’s auto cannot run long on this fuel before having to have major engine work done. There are other, much less acidic, ethanols formed from other feed stocks, that do not have these same issues. But, as far as Al’s above assertions that you don’t agree with, he is right.
@Randy:
I never said that corn had gone up by the rate of inflation, but I did say that if it had been we would still be having record high prices each year.
Yeah, corn sold for $3 per bushel in the 1970s. But what would something else that cost $3 dollars in the 1970s cost today?
@johngalt:
According to wikkipedia ethanol has an acidity rating of 15.9. Weak acids range from -2 to 12 with strong acids being less than -2. It is corrosive but for different reasons. Those reasons would not change based on the feedstock it is made from. Unlike gasoline, ethanol is a consistent product. Ethanol has the molecular formula of C2H5OH. No matter the feedstock pure ethanol consists of C2H5OH and a certain percentage of water. Perhaps when said other ethanols you were thinking of one of the other alcohols such as methanol, propanol, or butanol.
Fuels change over time and they aren’t always backwards compatible. You can of course run unleaded gasoline in a car designed to run on leaded gasoline but valve seat damage will eventually occur. But we made it through that fuel change, surely we can make it through another.
But to date the testing that has come out suggests that E15 is safe for 1994 through 2000 cars anyway.
http://www.ricardo.com/en-gb/News–Media/Press-releases/News-releases1/2010/Ricardo-research-shows-E15-poses-minimal-risk-to-older-vehicles/
Al must be a smart guy.
@mus302
Using Wilkipedia to prove points? For shame!
I see no source for your “testing that has come out”.
So is it: “screw those people who drive older cars!”? And what about our two-stroke mowers and other landscaping oriented equipment?
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25936782/ns/business-consumer_news/
I just had to have my rototiller rebuilt thanks to damage caused by 10% ethanol gas. I suppose the far-left enviro-wacko reply would be: “screw those environment destroying two-stroke gas burners too!”?
http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/alternative-fuel/biofuels/e15-gasoline-damage-engine
http://www.ehow.com/how_2175751_make-car-engine-ethanol-ready.html
I’ve had to replace the rubber fuel lines on my older RV three times now in as many years because the rubber was dissolved from the inside out. I’ve also had to replace the carburetor and both fuel pumps. Now I learn from my mechanic that the cause of all this damage was most likely due to the 10% ethanol content gasoline.
And what about small aircraft? Are you fine with them falling out of the sky thanks to EPA mandates of ethanol?
What I really want to know is: Anybody know where to get NON-ethanol gasoline?
Do you know what the greatest threat to the farmer is? Its not inclement weather or poor farming practices or poor markets(including distribution). Its the know it all government, that has all the answers. Farmers subsidize that folly of so called experts. Subsidies will never work without the taxpayer. Your precedent says, ok, tax the rich guys because we need more play money. You screw up agriculture, you go hungry.
Here’s another. You screw up the oil industry, you will starve. How basic does it get?
@mus302:
Yes, it isn’t the acidity of ethanol. My mind was wandering last nite and I substituted acidity for solvency by mistake. However, Al was still correct about his assertions I pointed out. The solvency of ethanol eats away most kinds of rubber and plastic, and even aluminum, which is what is damaging to engine parts. Also, the solvency of ethanol tends to free up gunk and crud in older engines, plugging up filters and small passages where it collects, and can damage engines by reducing lubrication. Most fuel injected engines made prior to the 2000’s used a certain type of fuel injector that tended to become useless due to the solvency of the ethanol in fuel. Many engine components had to be reworked to cope with this disadvantage of ethanol fuels particularly when using E85 and similar mixes.
E10 is not near as destructive to engine components, however, the water associative properties of ethanol tend to separate the ethanol out of gasoline, creating layers within a fuel tank. Then, not only is the ethanol-water mix barely, if at all, of acceptable use for combustion, but the gasoline octane drops, sometimes to the detriment of combustion as well, causing detonation within the engine. This is a particular concern with older vehicles and their gas tanks that tend to be more open to atmosphere and collect water vapor, along with cars that sit idle for extended periods of time.
@Ditto:
Well, you know, it is quick and easy.
I posted a link to a Ricardo press release concerning a study Ricardo conducted.
http://www.energy.gov/news/archives/6640.htm
Actually the far left enviro wackos are against ethanol these days so you are standing shoulder to shoulder with them. I wonder what engined failed from before ethanol came along.
I have never had a problem with any of my equipment that could be associated with ethanol although I did have a string trimmer that that quit functioning properly after I started using ethanol. Maybe it was the ethanol that caused the problem and not the fact that I ran over it with the truck.
Here is a picture of some of my equipment that has been running E10 since 2006.
Again I wonder what it was that caused fuel links to get hard and brittle and carbs to need rebuilding before ethanol came along.
Actually the EPA didn’t mandate ethanol, congress did. First in 2005 then upped it in 2007. And they only mandate a certain volume of ethanol be blended into the fuel supply. So fuel suppliers are still free to sell 100% gasoline if they choose. And if I am not mistaken the FAA has not approved ethanol in fuel used for aviation.
Try a marina. Expect to pay more.
@johngalt:
I am somewhat at a loss for what the main point of this is. So let me just make a few points.
Yes, ethanol is a solvent. And a good one.
“Also, the solvency of ethanol tends to free up gunk and crud in older engines, plugging up filters and small passages where it collects, and can damage engines by reducing lubrication.”
Crud left behind by gasoline. This is the point that always gets me. Gasoline evaporates and leaves behind crud. Then ethanol dissolves that crud and it plugs up the filter. But we don’t blame gasoline for leaving the crud just ethanol for coming along and cleaning it out.
Oh and by the way if your fuel system and your lubricating system are some how interconnected (except of course on a 2 stroke) you have bigger issues than fuel choice.
“Many engine components had to be reworked to cope with this disadvantage of ethanol fuels particularly when using E85 and similar mixes.”
Fuel system and computer. The fuel lines would need to be resistant to high blend ethanol and the fuel injectors would need a higher flow rate. That’s about it.
http://www.epa.gov/otaq/regs/fuels/rfg/waterphs.pdf
This was posted today; concerns ethanol’s effect on food.
@Al Cooper #45:
It amazes me that I would find, in a conservative blog, the use of starvation in the third world to smear a current energy policy. I am sure that no one wants to see anyone in the world starve but just like the idea of the US being the world’s peacekeeper is wearing thin, so is the idea that we need to feed all the countries in the world that can’t support their citizens now despite their populations increasing at a frightening rate.
I have no statistics to support my claim, but I suspect that the increased use of corn for ethanol would be largely offset by continued agricultural use of the farmland that is lost to us every year. Much of this land is converted to residences caused by the booming population here and will NEVER revert to agriculture in any forseeable future. Plus, of course, there is also the reason stated by Oilman below which keeps the market from determining what is grown, and where–
@mus302:
There are many forms of far-left ‘enviro-wackos’ some fully support the use of ethanol, some do not simply because they want the subsidy programs to end so that the funds can be applied to their pet entitlement programs .
One press release of one study made by a pro-renewable energy group with a predetermined bias is not conclusive proof.
Again, your link is inconclusive because there is no indication of WHEN the tested equipment was manufactured. There are millions of gasoline-powered vehicles and equipment still in use today that were manufactured prior to 2001. Contrary to the belief of limousine-liberals, millions of Americans are still wholly dependent on older vehicles and equipment, and can not afford to simply buy a new “Hybrid van” Therefore, the poor will suffer from the effects of a pro-ethanol agenda, regardless of the elite’s “let them eat cake” attitude.
The fuel lines and carburetor plastics on my rototiller and RV did not get “hard and brittle,” they were eaten away, (dissolved, disintegrated) and made soft. As the rubber was eaten down from the inside to the reinforcement threads, the lines ballooned and burst, dumping fuel all over the engine and ground. We were lucky that there wasn’t a fire and that this did not happened when we were out in the middle of nowhere. The plastic on the carburetor float was soft enough to be pushed around with your fingernail.
I note that you ignore the fact that pilots have experienced aircraft problems due using ethanol adulterated fuel. The FAA hasn’t “approved it” but neither have they prohibited it.
I propose that the pro-ethanol crowd know full well of the facts that it can and has damaged/disabled vehicles and equipment manufactured prior to 2006. Just like “cash-for-clunkers” this is most likely a means of forceful removal of ‘antiquated and obsolete” gasoline-powered equipment owned by the people, by purposeful planned destruction of said equipment. Did the EPA ever warn the public of the damage that ethanol-blended fuels may cause? No. Removing lead from gas failed to get older vehicles off the road because it could be easily worked around with fuel additives and hardened valves. It is not possible nor practical for ethanol to be un-blended from gasoline and, as (you recognize,) it can be very inconvenient to find and acquire non-ethanol fuel. This is not the first time that politicians have pulled devious methods to support and force a political agenda.
@mus302:
As I said, it’s the solvency of ethanol, and in E85 blends, meaning 85% ethanol, that solvency is quite high. Older vehicles used plastics and rubbers and other gasket materials that are particularly susceptible to this solvency. Newer vehicles are not, and as for the computers, it’s for the ‘FlexFuel’ vehicles that automatically recognize the mix of fuel one puts in the engine, be it E85, E10, or straight gasoline, and adjusts the vehicles combustion appropriately. It is not an easy thing, nor an inexpensive thing, to convert a vehicle over so that it may run on E85 without issue.
Who’s a big supporter of ethanol subsidies?
Would you believe Grover Norquist?
This strikes me as rather bizarre. Apparently Norquist views the elimination of tax loopholes as tax increases. His position on ethanol subsidies being one example.
I’m curious. Who do conservative proponents of fiscal responsibility favor on this one? Grover Norquist or Tom Coburn?
@Greg:
Not in favor of any subsidies for anything. All they do is add an artificial advantage to those businesses receiving them, without having to stand on their own, in the marketplace.
Also, Norquist is completely wrong. They are NOT tax increases, and neither are the elimination of loopholes.