Posted on 10/20/2010 11:08:08 AM PDT by Graybeard58
Think fast: What ingredients were in the gasoline you bought last time you filled up your tank? Pure gasoline? A mix of gasoline and ethanol? What percentage of each? The one thing for sure is you probably didn't buy diesel, since you'd still be at the gasoline station, waiting for a tow truck, if you had.
Chances are, the gasoline you bought was 10 percent ethanol, a fuel derived from corn. Ethanol reduces fuel economy and damages engine components. Your car would run better and more efficiently with pure gasoline, and its engine would last longer.
It also would pollute less, not only because tailpipe emissions would be lower, but because a switch to pure gasoline would eliminate air pollution from growing corn, converting it to a motor fuel and transporting it to sites where it can be mixed with gasoline. Intensive corn production also pollutes waterways; pesticide and fertilizer runoff from cornfields, even more than last spring's BP oil spill, are blamed for "dead zones" in the Gulf of Mexico.
Madness? Absolutely. But in a twisted, political sort of way, federal support for ethanol production makes sense.
Last week, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced it will let retailers sell fuel comprised of 15 percent ethanol, a 50 percent increase from previous allowable levels. It is expected retailers will be told to place prominent labels on pumps dispensing this fuel because it can damage pre-2007 engines, especially small engines.
Mistakes assuredly will be made, as signs are placed on the wrong pumps or fuel is placed in the wrong tanks. Fuel with 15 percent ethanol "will get into products it shouldn't, and there'll be lawsuits," said Kris Kiser, executive vice president of the Outdoor Power Equipment Institute.
Noted The Wall Street Journal, in its Oct. 18 editorial "The Ethanol Bailout": "Maybe for the first time in history, Exxon and the Natural Resources Defense Council shook out on the same side of an issue — in opposition."
The Journal's editorial board and others believe the EPA made this change under instructions by its political masters in the Obama administration, who figure a sop to the ethanol industry will help endangered Democratic lawmakers from the Corn Belt in the Nov. 2 elections.
It's not an irrational calculation. Big Green won't vote Republican, and Big Oil won't vote Democratic anyway, so nailing down Big Corn's backing won't cost the Democrats support from other major constituencies.
In a time of remarkable advances in private transportation, the ethanol boondoggle stands as a disturbing distraction. European automakers are making great strides in clean-diesel technology, the Japanese continue to improve their gasoline-electric hybrid systems, and firms on all three continents are developing all-electric cars for the mass market. And what is ethanol contributing to this mix? Worse fuel economy, more smog and water pollution.
If the Republicans take over Congress after the Nov. 2 election, abolishing the ethanol mandate should be on their short list of reforms.
Ping to a Republican-American Editorial.
If you want on or off this ping list, let me know.
Republicans will certainly have their work cut out for them.
President Bush fell short of my expectations in a lot of these areas.
Ethanol fraud BTTT
And just exactly what is ‘pure gasoline’? By definition, gasoline is a cocktail of various petroleum derivitives decided on by the refinery and regulated by the government to be “within certain ranges.”
While we are at it, let’s also get rid of the subsidy for HFCS (High Fructose Corn Syrup) and quit penalizing the use of cane sugar.
No food for fuel!
How many people die from malnutrition each day? The US federal government is complicit in each one of these deaths by taking corn (used in virtual all food now, it seems, HFCS, corn meal, etc) out of their bellies and into my gas tank.
Agreed.
Thank you President Bush! Bio fuel mandates were perhaps Bush’s greatest hit. The 2005 and 2007 energy bills mandated huge amounts of biofuels mixed into the fuel supply. Despite almost universal agreement that corn-based ethanol is not part of the long-term solution for transportation, Bush and law makers on both sides supported the outrageous mandates. This new pronouncement has taken the mandate to a new level of intolerance. The EPA is requiring ethanol levels that will destroy engines. Most individuals will simply not be informed about this issue until their engines require costly repairs.
Energy madness will bankrupt us. Corn-based ethanol is just one boondoggle in a staggering list of energy boondoggles enacted by politicians who want to control the energy industry.
>>The one thing for sure is you probably didn’t buy diesel, since you’d still be at the gasoline station, waiting for a tow truck, if you had. <<
I did that once in the early 80’s with my Saab. Fortunately the gas station had a hose, so I just siphoned the 16 gallons of diesel out into the street drain*, refilled my tank with gas, and I was off.
*Times were different then. :)
All this stuff is designed to destroy our economy.
>>>No food for fuel!
When you use corn to make ethanol, there’s noting left? Gee... I had no idea.
Its also heavily subsidized... meaning less corn for food= higher food prices.
Other food prices also shoot up because other crops don’t get planted in favor of subsidized corn
And our boats!
Excellent, as usual.
While it is true, that BTU per BTU that ethanol can’t compete with petroleum in terms of price, there is another consideration.
That consideration is the enormous transfer of wealth and power to the Middle East islamofascists and the huge military costs this imposes on our nation.
Somehow that should be factored into the cost analysis as well.
If a mix of everything like natural gas and ethanol and whatever could get us to the point where we can have access to truly clean coal, then we will go a very long way toward disempowering the middle east despots.
Ethonol is subsidized.
Food prices will go up. Other foods don’t get planted as much to make way for subsidized corn so those food prices also go up.
No More subsidies
Toyota does not recommend blended gasoline
Toyota allows the use of oxygenate blended gasoline where the oxygenate content is up to 10% ethanol or 15% MTBE
That would be 10%.
NOT 15%.
I will be looking for ØbamaGas to appear shortly at all the local gas stations.
I will also be looking for individual and class action lawsuits to link up with.
.
WOW!!! I had assumed it was on their list to abolish Ethanol. Shame on me for assuming. Thanks for the ping Graybeard.
Why? All Ethanol does is destroy your engine.
Ethanol is not, as far as I know, a petroleum derivative. Once you've added that to the cocktail, it's no longer just gasoline.
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