Posted on 12/13/2007 12:06:48 PM PST by neverdem
This is nonsense. Alcohol is not the solution. It only makes the problem worse and raises the price of food.
He is absolutely correct that we need to find alternatives to paying the Saudis to corrupt and destroy our world, but this ain’t it. We need to get real and stop pursuing trendy, imaginary solutions.
Ford offers “FFV” versions of several cars at no additional cost ... basically it’s just a software change to allow running the injectors at a longer pulse rate to allow for the much lower energy density of the alcohol fuel...
What bothers me is this bozo fails to understand that at a production cost of $1.50 a gallon and cutting your fuel economy in half you have gained nothing.. We need to drill across the US... use corn for food (duh!) and tell the environmentalists to take a hike as they offer no real solutions.
Not true. In order to make fuel from food, the amount of total raw material will be increased by increased production. Only a part of that increased production can be converted to fuel (the oil fraction in the case of soybeans for biodiesel, the sugar fraction in the case of corn ethanol). The rest of the increased production goes into the food chain as supplementary protein additives. The end result will be that overall food prices will drop. The current spike in food prices is due to the fact that total production hasn't been increased to catch up to the new demand---but that is strictly temporary.
""We have the coal reserves."
It is very easy to make methanol from coal.
Subsidized, corn derived ethanol isn't smart, IMHO. There are other biofuels.
In my part of the cornbelt, we receive a little over 40 inches of rainfall per year, or over a million gallons per acre. That rain pretty much falls whether I grow corn or not.
While mixes reduce gasoline, even the max of the bio/hyrdo blends still require at least 15% gasoline AND their fuel economy is in the toilet. A gallon of E85 just doesn’t have remotely the BTU as a gallon of gasoline or deisel.. Adjusting mileage to price, while you spend less at the pump for that gallon of E85, you also get far fewer MPG...
If reducing energy dependence on foreign nations is a priority then mandating e85 fuel vehicles is justifiable, but in terms of saving $$, I wouldn’t hold my breath. Larger tanks are needed to get the same range, which also means more weight being moved down the road etc etc. At best you would be looking at a wash in terms of cost.
Absolutely correct. Ethanol is a dead end pipe dream. The poster above showed just one of the reasons why.
Economics deals with the allocation and use of scarce resources that have multiple purposes.
Corn has OTHER uses...if corn is used to make ethanol for fuel, there is that much less available for cows to eat to produce milk and meat...and the prices of those PLUS the price of things like vegetable oil and corn itself go up.
“Go electric and power the grid with nuke plants.” - You got it. There are also additions that can be made to electrical powered vehicles with new pneumatic systems for that extra torque people like me need when dealing with the sheeple on the highway.
Drink don't drive?
I’m not an engineer, so excuse this question if it is moronic.
I thought I remember reading that fuels such as ethanol, alcohol, ethane, and methane were considered for the internal combustion engine 100 years ago, but none had the energy potential (????) of gasoline, and all of the alternative fuels were far more corrosive than gasoline on engine parts, gaskets, and so forth.
?????? Is my memory correct on this?
I would think that the market would always gravitate towards the most expedient choice among alternatives, which in this case would be the most energy per gallon plus the least wear and tear. Someone straighten me out on this.
Throw it out on the market has left us with $90+ barrels of oil and a lousy trade deficit, not to mention a shrinking value of the dollar. Shale oil and tar sands were supposed to be viable at $70 barrels of oil.
Not only that, but there is a difference between creating an car that can run on E85 and creating one that will run efficiently on E85.
It can and is being done, but I'm pretty sure he is underestimating the costs.
However, the biggest point he is ignoring is that we simply cannot produce enough ethanol using current methods. Ethanol will remain a niche market until making ethanol form cellulose becomes viable.
So we would be forcing the cars to be produced now, for something that would likely become viable in close to a decade.
There's no reason to put E85 pumps at every gas station, because we can't supply enough ethanol for more than a small percentage of gas stations.
The reason that auto manufacturers aren't making more cars that will run on E85 is because there isn't much demand. There isn't much demand, because there isn't much E85.
If and when it becomes possible to produce E85 on a much more massive scale, the auto industry will react accordingly.
We don't need the government stepping in and forcing auto manufacturers to include technology that people can't take advantage of yet.
Which since ethanol is less energy dense than gasoline and is more expensive to transport to stations, it is noticeably more expensive per amount of energy provided.
You are correct.
Also, even if all of our farmland was converted to growing corn for ethanol, this is only enough to replace about 10% of the gasoline we use.
We’re already getting blamed by the UN for “crimes against humanity” because US ethanol subsidies have caused food prices up more than 20%.
There were already riots in Mexico City and other large Central and South American cities as a result.
Sugar cane can provide about 6 times the energy, but this won’t go anywhere once Americans have to pay more for sugar.
Use the purchasing power of the Feds. How many trucks does the post office use? How many verticals does the Fed Govt use? The Feds can simply start buying FFV vehicles. Each year the % of vehicles the Feds buy would be increased. Get State Govts to do the same thing. The infrastructure to support those vehicles will develop. The cost per unit for those FFV vehicles will drop making them assessable to average buyers. As they become more cost effective, more drivers will switch to them.
We did not become an Oil economy over night, we will not stop being one over night. This is a problem that can only be solved by an evolution, not by a revolution.
We should not rule out any form of energy production, from Tar Sands to Oil Shale to Nukes to Alternatives
This has been our whole problem. Each interest group has their own “fix” and refuses to consider anything but their own parochial interests. To solve this problem you need leadership with a broad vision, not one fixated on appeasing this or that special interest group.
Isn’t gasoline transported to the station in the same way as ethanol?
Isn’t gasoline transported to the station in the same way as ethanol?
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