Posted on 05/13/2008 8:47:22 AM PDT by dvan
Well, I’ll be doggoned. I never thought I’d see such outspoken opposition to ethanol from such unlikely sources – such as many of the politicians who helped create this monstrous and expensive fraud in the first place.
Last Friday, a group of Republican senators, including presidential candidate John McCain, urged the Environmental Protection Agency to hold off enforcing legislation to increase ethanol production. There goes the Farm Belt vote!
Even the August New York Times – which has never failed to support a government solution to every real or perceived problem on the planet – now says “it is time to end an outdated tax break for corn ethanol.” Will wonders never cease?
All I can say is, it’s about time. It may not be true that ethanol will ultimately be recognized as “the largest scam in our nation’s history,” as one energy expert has declared. (See Gusher of Lies by Robert Bryce.) But any objective review of the facts will force one to concur with economist Walter Williams, who wrote that “politicians, corn farmers, and ethanol producers know they are running a cruel hoax on the American consumer. They are in it for the money.”
Think that’s too harsh? Let’s look at the facts.
Far from being energy efficient, ethanol may be the most energy inefficient fuel ever devised. First, corn is expensive to grow. It takes 1700 gallons of water to produce the corn to make one gallon of ethanol. Next, ethanol is expensive to ship. Because of its high water content, it corrodes pipelines. Thus, it must be carried to its destination by truck or rail.
By the way, this same high water content means ethanol will also cause more damage to automobile engines than regular gasoline – something to consider the next time you fill up. Ethanol is also 20-30% less efficient than gasoline, thus making it more expensive for every mile you drive.
When you consider everything necessary to produce one gallon of ethanol, it turns out that it takes more than a gallon of fossil fuel (oil and natural gas) to do it. Is that absurd, or what?
It’s no wonder that ethanol requires massive government subsidies for those who produce it – and government mandates to force us to use it. This year, ethanol subsidies amount to 51 cents per gallon. With seven billion gallons of ethanol scheduled to be produced this year, that is a $3.5 billion pot of payola for the hucksters.
No wonder that more than 30 million acres of U.S. farmland are now devoted to ethanol production. That means fewer acres to grow wheat, soybeans, or other crops – and thus higher prices for those grains, too. Of course, when grains go up, so do hundreds of other products, from bread and beef to chicken and cheese.
The insanity of our ethanol policies also means that U.S. food exports are declining – and the prices for everything we do send abroad are climbing. When the price of corn doubles in the U.S., so does the cost of tortillas in Mexico. When we begin rationing rice (as Costco and Sam’s Clubs did recently), it means there is less to sell abroad. (Did you know that the United States is the fourth-largest exporter of rice in the world? Until I began researching this piece, I didn’t.)
Current law will require the U.S. to produce (and us to burn) nearly five times more biofuel by 2022 than we do today – from 7.5 billion gallons to 36 billion gallons. Some 33 new ethanol plants are under construction today, with 60 more on the drawing boards, to meet these requirements.
But it ain’t gonna happen, folks. For once in my lifetime, the truth (that ethanol is an expensive fraud) is catching up with the lie. Even stricter government mandates and more expensive government subsidies won’t be enough to force this absurd concoction down our throats … or in our gas tanks.
It may be too early to celebrate victory for the free market – Uncle Sam will undoubtedly mail out millions more subsidy checks before that happy day arrives.
But I’m happy to report the ethanol tide is definitely turning.
Ethanol Madness is self curing. When your food bill is more than you can afford, people suddenly get “cured”..............
Plus, all those distilleries can use switchweeds, refuse and ag byproducts to brew their moonshine, no need to use OUR FOOD.
Environmental laws limiting domestic drilling
Law restricting refinery expansion
Laws requiring expensive and inefficiant ethanol
Federal taxes
Federal monetary policy driving down the value of the dollar.
A smart politician could run as a real Maverick and promise to work for substantial change in some or all of these areas. Or he could promise to fight Global Warming.
E85 is nuts, but smog is evil, MTBE is poison so now what?
After being roundly chastised by some Euroweenie on this forum for taking the immoral position that the free market should determine the viability of alternative fuels, I can now delight in saying, “I told you so!”
It would be interesting to know the names of the behind-the-scenes operatives who spearheaded the ethanol debacle (such debacles always have people pushing them hard). What federal departments do they work in? What representatives and senators do they work for? What lobbying firms do they work for? Etc.
One of the other hand, isn't this a way to solve the problem of obesity?
Whether ethanol as a transportation fuel is a good idea or a bad idea, this author has a horribly poor grasp of the facts.
Ethanol has no water content.
Ethanol (produced from corn) has a 1.7 : 1 energy exchange. (It takes 1 unit of energy to produce 1.7 units of ethanol).
The company I work for is starting to produce ethanol blends. Mostly pressured by the envirowhackjobs that say gasoline is causing global warming, etc.
Ethanol...don't use it, don't want it. I'll convert to biodiesel before going to ethanol.
What does a good grasp of the facts look like?
This is a messy world, and anyone who thinks that anyone, any group of persons, can create a totally rational system that will produce justice for all, is a fool. We must not forget that “Utopia.” translates as “Nowhere.”
When your gas tank is half full, what is in the other half?
water?
Environmentalism is a religion, and we know from history that when the elites convert to a religion, they will use whatever force is necessary to impose it on the rest of us.
Another reason would be that all the media and financial cable channels is hyping the oil prices. Every time the news is turned on it's "oil reached a new record high today", or if it isn't a new record, it's "oil prices fell today, but the gas prices remain high due to...". The more they talk the more it's going to get worse. Same with global warming, Barack Obama, etc.
MOISTURE LADEN MAKE-UP AIR!
Quick, someone tell balding eagle.
And Chip is a friend and he has NEVER had a bad grasp on facts or anything else for that matter.
--there wasn't anything "behind the scenes" about it---it included virtually every elected official in the corn belt , practically every major print and electronic media outlet and any of the distillers with production capacity such as ADM along with some scam artists who got investors interested in it---
But surely there were government mole-people doing the grunt work to make it happen, right? And some of those people were no doubt at high levels? Those are the names I’d like to see in print.
Ethanol absorbs water out of air. Thus it doesn't matter that the Ethanol you put into your tank is 100% water free, while it sits in your tank it absorbs water.
Once again the foreign oil lobby wins out here and in congress by defeating development of renewable fuels and domestic competition. Any one care to bet on the direction of energy and food prices now?
The whole article is a scam.
So did MTBE.
Is that Cornholio pumpin’ gas in that toon?
Fair enough. But, in the case of Ethanol, if a little works well, then it does NOT follow that a lot works better. Ethanol contains 28% (or so) less BTU's than gasoline. On a 1 for 1 basis, there's no possible way that it can be more efficient.
BTW, arguing with these true believers is worthless. Might as well try to convince a Prius owner that they may not have made the best choice.
-—nahhh-you can’t see them . They’re all flying around in invisible black helicopters-—
(laugh) I heard one earlier this morning!!!
Tom Harkin wanted to spend hundreds of millions of tax dollars building an ethanol pipeline..... that would corrode and be useless.
What I don't like is the lengths that Prius owners go to justify their purchase. My wife's uncle bought one and he raves and raves about the gas mileage he gets. 99% of the miles he drives are on the interstate...the mileage has nothing to do with the "hybrid technology" and everything to do with the fact that the Prius uses a hamster wheel for an engine.
I actually had a coworker brag on his Honda Civic hybrid that "It gets 30 mpg's, but the real number is actually higher than that becuase it cuts off at stoplights!" I didn't have the heart to tell him that if you put 10 gallons of gas in your car and go 300 miles, then your gas mileage is 30 miles per gallon, regardless of whether your car idles at stoplights, or not. Meanwhile, the same guy sunk about 8 grand more into his car than I did into mine (I drive a Ford SUV). He gets about 5-6 mpgs more than I do. He'll be driving that car in his retirement, before he sees a return on his investment.
Please don't misunderstand me, I think that Hybrids have excellent application - particular in the city (taxicabs, etc) where their technology actually has an opportunity to be used. I also think that if someone wants to buy one.....Great! Just don't lie to yourself (and everyone else) about why you're really getting it. Owning a hybrid doesn't make you superior in any way; you're not saving the world one gallon of gasoline at a time. There's no difference between a person who buys a Prius, and one who buys a Mustang, or a HumVee....bottom line, they're just purchasing the vehicle because they want one.
and because some politicians and foreign govts find it useful for the U.S. economy to be damaged. The rats like it high.
With a loss of 11% mpg using ethanol and 25-30% mpg using e85, I prefer regular gas please.
I am not a scientist of any sort.
This is the biggest scam since Social Security.
Thanks
Ethanol replaced MTBE. Agreed that neither should be mandated.
MTBE spillage at gas stations destroyed more than 10,000 private wells in CA alone, which is why it was replaced with ethanol.
Civic story is just too funny, by the way....
Environmentalists pressed for the laws requiring MTBE to be added.
Yes they did.
Similarly, the claim is made that ethanol can't move through pipelines because it is allegedly so water laden that it corrodes pipes. Here's a news flash: The water supply to the author's house is delivered by a pipeline. ethanol is largely delivered by rail and truck because it isn't imported at a few choke points and then distributed to major inland terminals; it's production is widely dispersed. Where does the author think his imagined ethanol pipelines should run from and to?
First, the bad news about ethanol. Ethanol fires are evidently harder to control than gasoline fires.
Ethanol fires hard to control 1Hopefully, ways will be developed to make controlling ethanol fires easier.
Ethanol fires hard to control 2
On the brighter side concerning ethanol, there's now evidence that people might get as much, or more, bang per buck for their gas dollars with gas / ethanol mixtures.
Gas-competitive gas / ethanol mixturesAlso, I was surprised by the introduction of a machine for making home-made ethanol.
EFuel100In stark contrast to the 1700 gallons of water required to make one gallon of corn-based ethanol as indicated by the OP, the EFuel100 uses only 170 gallons of water to produce 35 gallons of ethanol. In other words, the EFuel100 uses less than 1% as much water as corn ethanol, under five gallons, to produce one gallon of ethanol (corrections welcome).
But watch out for fines for violating biofuel regulations.
Fines for violating biofuel regulationsFinally, progress is being made in the development of other non-corn ethanol production technologies as well.
Non-corn ethanol
What about the claims of 20-30% less BTUs and “it takes more than a gallon of fossil fuel (oil and natural gas) “?
Can't speak to that. I'd wonder what happens as their batteries reach the end of their lives. Do they go in one POP, or slowly wear down until they're useless, or a little bit of both? And are they covered under warranty? And how reliable is all of the technology that goes along with it? If you look at a standard, fairly modern car (and ever had electrical problems with it :-) ), the *really* expensive pieces are the computer technology......I'd want to know how much of the hybrid's is covered under warranty, and for how long?
I'd look at the type of driving that you do. Lots (lots!) of city, stop-and-go driving? A Hybrid might be a good choice. Otherwise, you're paying to haul around a very heavy battery pack, with an underpowered motor.
That's just my $0.02, from an engineer's viewpoint.
The figure for how much fossil fuel is consumed in producing a gallon of ethanol has no basis in fact; the author seems to have seen it somewhere and liked it so he repeated it.
BUT - that may be because 1) There weren't any problems. or 2) He won't admit to himself and others that his new baby has any problems. So it's a little hard to tell.
Coworker has had a bunch of issues with his Honda hybrid. He bought it loaded; near as I can tell the probs have been with all the whizbangs (GPS, satellite radio, heated seats) that came along with it. No complaints - that I know of - on the hybrid/drivetrain. I *am* sure of the service calls though, because I need to cover for his behind while he's out at the dealer getting it serviced.
For what it's worth....
Ethanol ping.
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