The new bill being debated about continuing ethanol subsidy which is due a week behind the Presidential election looks like it will pass. Both parties are in favor. I would be apposed if it were the same old tired bad idea corn distillery. What we have here is a turn away in part from corn, with 1/2 of the product being cellulose product,mostly corn stover. There is a massive supply, there is even guidelines of harvest, allowing some stover to stay and develop tilth in the soil. Apparently it is championed by farmers and the industry. There seems to be an adadge that advances are won with cost and effort. Well the high corn cost, born equally by livestock raisers, and the consumer, may not be in vain. While the amount of ethanol is still and most likely be a drivel of amount of oil we need to survive, it is significant. We are actually decreasing our oil consummtion. Thanks to a depression, CAFE standards, use of natural gas. The dinosaurs of corn distillerys are mostly on their last legs, only the well run facilities will be around. I doubt whether anyone can get a loan to construct one! The cellulose conversion, is robust, and being done by DuPont, and others, with there own money, I might add. It seems a good thing, anybody else see trouble I don't?
Ethanol going forward
- Thread starter oldandnew
- Start date
morrismike
New member
They should just let this die.
Seawolftoo
Member
costs more in repairs to engines with ethanol than its worth in energy independence
Dog Gun Time
Member
If Chevron, Exxon or some private enterprise wants to pursue ethanol, more power to them but the United States government has no business being involved in funding it. If the government can't make a profit running a brothel and selling whiskey (see Mustang Ranch) and spends $25 billion a year on maintaining vacant and/or unused buildings, needs less money to spend not more.
roosterreaper
New member
Personaly, I'm waiting for natural gas to become more available at filling stations. It works in all internal combustion engines and just needs a conversion kit/tank. It's domestic, cleaner and cheap. Bring it on!
Seawolftoo
Member
and natural gas doesn't require a massive subsidy to be sold ......
morrismike
New member
Natural Gas can easily be make into gasoline or diesel. The liquid fuels have all sorts of advantages over CNG. Now a compressor system in your garage would be another matter altogether
This is exactly right! And especially true in older outboard boat motors. Ethanol in fuel can be the death of them if not treated correctly.
Besides being hard on engines, fuel mileage suffers from it as well. Compare your mileage to the "high octane" ethanol fuel that Caseys General Stores sell to "regular unleaded" at BP or Conoco/phillips. Also you will notice a huge difference in the way your vehicle runs as well.
They make a compressor that sits in your garage, and you get a tax credit to install it. Is low pressure, requires an evening to fill up. Hooks to your domestic natural gas line. If everybody uses one, the CNG will jack up the price to compensate! As said, it is here now, the ecological disaster is already here, why not use it.
morrismike
New member
and you feel ethanol is a better option? why?
I never said ethanol is a better option. I wish it would go away with the first rising tide. terrible cost to water, non efficient conversion, the autos here don't like it, the worse part is the corn. Burning your food is the fool's errand. I have posted many posts supporting CNG, because it's here, now. I have stated here that ethanol is a joke. Here's the thing, our politicians OWN the ethanol plants, usually in their close families, no conflict there, it's insane but it's here to stay. blast the enviornment, 8 gallons of fresh water for each gallon of ethanol. food cost quadrupled. What I am saying, is using ground up corn stalks is better. It's not perfect, but better than corn. Now you show me something that is. We are not willing to risk nuclear energy, despite it's safety record. If we did, that it's closer to neutral except for rod disposal. We supported ethanol subsidy, yet let bio-diesel on it's own, despite it's better conversion. Why is that? Politicians, here in Missouri, the idiots have mandatory inclusion of ethanol, better yet they use "splash blending". Today you get 10% ethanol in your tank, next week it's 75% ethanol, you know because you get about 8 miles to the gallon and your check engine light is on. A Chevrolet dealer told me that they are dicontinuing "flex fueled" cars, because the public wouldn't buy them. Your going to have a lot of farmer chopping at the bit when their corn prices go to 2.00 a bushel on that $5000+ dollar rowcrop ground. so we'll have to subsidize them. The heading was a point of thought for discussion, since none us are trading our car and hoofing it. Only joke equal to ethanol is electric cars, we subsidze those too!
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roosterreaper
New member
We should call electric cars what they really are...coal powered cars...the people that think electric cars are really clean are the same people that think the grocery stores grow steak in cellophane wrappers without hurting animals.
1pheas4
Moderator
Yes. This is the case with wind and all other "environmental" friendly industries too. They have their hands in it in some way or another, so push the industry anyway possible. Pull some strings, make some new laws, regulations, close traditional plants down, don't let them expand and do it all in the name of saving the environment---so costs go up for the consumer and alternative energy looks more appealing, despite how much it costs. Do whatever needs to be done to push that industry and make $. Politicians are out for themselves.
They don't give a rats-a$$ about your health, environment, your constitutional rights, and so on. It's all an act, or, as O&N stated, "a joke".
It's all about the $. As the saying goes; Just follow the money.
(a few years back--If I remember correctly '09
) Seemingly over night, much of our gov't and major corporations went "green". Ironic how so many politicians and major corporations were on board with this movement within a blink of an eye. Those pushing it had to have a hand full of cash within that industry in some way or another. Behind the scenes they had to be talking. How else could this movement take hold so fast. Team work!!! Roosterreper, you post is spot on my friend. "coal cars". The electricity that electric cars are burning up is not generated by solar panels.
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kansashunting
New member
I talked to a student studying Cellulosic fuel, dudes got me convinced. Ethanol is a waste of money and resources. Miscanthus giganteus is the way to go, very little water, little fertilizer, and the most efficient. imagine if the government spent the amount of money to research cellulosic ethanol as it does to subsidize corn ethanol, we'd have all the kinks worked out and fields of twenty foot grass dotted around the country.
Seawolftoo
Member
Production of ethanol would not occur without a gummit subsidy as it costs more to produce than it can be sold for in the market even at current prices. We are paying for the destruction of habitat for birds and our small engines to be destroyed and for much higher food prices
Dog Gun Time
Member
Time to stop subsidizing failure and cut off the flow of tax payer dollars into the "green graveyard".
AtTheMurph
Well-known member
Yes. This is the case with wind and all other "environmental" friendly industries too. They have their hands in it in some way or another, so push the industry anyway possible. Pull some strings, make some new laws, regulations, close traditional plants down, don't let them expand and do it all in the name of saving the environment---so costs go up for the consumer and alternative energy looks more appealing, despite how much it costs. Do whatever needs to be done to push that industry and make $. Politicians are out for themselves.
They don't give a rats-a$$ about your health, environment, your constitutional rights, and so on. It's all an act, or, as O&N stated, "a joke".
It's all about the $. As the saying goes; Just follow the money.
(a few years back--If I remember correctly '09
Roosterreper, you post is spot on my friend. "coal cars". The electricity that electric cars are burning up is not generated by solar panels.
Green = Red
If anyone really does the research behind the people pushing the "green" agenda you keep running into all the same types of people. Many call the greens socialist or communists but I call them totalitarians because in the end that's what they end up being.
corn ethanol,wind and solar are all just the steps we take to move forward (away from oil) . the problem seems to be that we've stalled out. yes let's try something else now. :cheers:
AtTheMurph
Well-known member
Why does the government need to subsidize this research and under what authority?
If cellulosic ethanol is a good idea then the free market will produce it. Government won't have to decide that it's a good idea only to abandon it later after discovering they didn't quite get it right will they?
Sort of like all those pretty windmills I get to see each time I go to hunt. Each costs $3 million to construct yet none of them will ever produce $3 million worth of electricity. To me that seems like a bad deal that makes me poorer because my tax dollars go to subsidize those and I pay a hell of alot in taxes!
It's simple math on those windmills. Everyone knows it. So my question is who makes the difference?