Posted on 10/06/2011 6:14:29 AM PDT by shortstop
Should we use ethanol for fuel?
Certainly.
Should we use corn to make that ethanol?
Certainly not.
Sure, we want to get over our need for foreign oil. Sure, we want to find a renewable fuel for our vehicles. Sure, ethanol could work just fine.
But don’t make it from corn.
Here’s what I’m talking about. The president and a bunch of powerful people in Congress have been working over recent years to hold up corn-based ethanol as the answer to our future energy-supply needs.
When he talks about it, the president says corn-based ethanol is our only hope of escaping the evils of OPEC. He says the only way we can ever become energy independent is through ethanol made from corn.
He’s wrong.
First of all, if energy independence is truly the objective – if our number one priority is freeing ourselves of foreign oil – the best and easiest option is to drill for our own. We have plenty of oil in Alaska and off the American coast. Environmentalists have that oil tied up and it sits now, wasted and unused beneath a mountain of fear and threatened lawsuits.
But about ethanol.
It is a biofuel created by fermentation. Essentially, you take something with some sort of sugar in it and you let yeast do it’s magic and – voila – you have something that can be coaxed into being a pretty good fuel.
The two biggest producers of ethanol for fuel in the world are the United States and Brazil. In Brazil it’s made from sugar cane and in the United States it’s made from corn.
That’s because Brazil has lots of sugar cane and the United States has lots of lobbyists.
Seriously. America makes its ethanol out of corn because corn farmers and corn-state politicians have lots of pull. If ethanol is made out of corn, the demand for and price of corn goes up dramatically and corn farmers – and giant corn-processing companies – make lots and lots of money.
The downside is that that lots and lots of money comes right out of the family budgets of lots and lots of people.
That’s because people eat corn.
And because some of the most productive farmland in America – and, consequently, in the world – is growing corn.
Right now, corn is an elemental staple of the American diet. We eat it processed in myriad ways. It is all through our food supply. And it is all through the food supply of the animals we eat.
So if the price of corn goes up – because the ethanol-driven demand for corn goes up – then the price of a large portion of the American diet will go up. Everything from corn flakes to soda pop to ground chuck will cost more.
And that will hurt.
But that won’t be the end of it.
As demand for corn increases, farmers will move increased acreage into corn production. You grow on your land the crop that will bring you the highest rate of return. Excluding marijuana. With ethanol demand, corn will pay better than most anything else a farmer can plant.
So fields that might otherwise be in other vegetables, grains and fodders will be pushed into corn production. The impact of that on the family food budget is that with fewer acres being planted into those other vegetables, grains and fodders, their supply will be decreased and their price will be increased.
That means corn-based ethanol bites your family’s budget in two ways.
And that’s exactly why great political pressure is being brought against our government to get it to continue to emphasize corn-based ethanol. That’s too bad because it is diverting attention away from alternative sources of ethanol.
Instead of using a prime food commodity for fuel, we should explore ways to generate ethanol from lower-value sugar and cellulose sources. Certain types of seemingly valueless grasses can be processed into ethanol. Advancing the technology to do that makes more sense than tapping into our food and food-producing topsoil.
Brazil uses sugar cane to make ethanol, and Brazilian biofuel is considered better than American biofuel. And while we may not want to put too many eggs in the sugar cane basket, its success is proof that there’s more than one way to skin a cat and more than one way to grow fuel for our cars.
So, ethanol is a great idea.
But corn-based ethanol is a terrible idea.
I love farmers, and appreciate what they do. But making farmers rich can’t be the priority of our national policy – that policy should be focused on making fuel and keeping family food budgets in line.
Until 80 years ago, most of our transportation was fueled by the soil – it came in the form of grass and hay that fed our horses. In the future we may go back to the soil again for our fuel.
But we will be better off if that is from low-value grasses instead of high-value corn.
Ask a boat owner how he likes ethanol, while he's annually having his engines dismantled and cleaned to remove the ethanol residue gunk.
+10
How about we use our own oil?
Insanity is a Federal government utilizing FOOD to provide energy while at the same time, more and more oil is being found under the ground of the USA.
I do not believe that can be classified as “FOREIGN OIL”.
Worst is the economic damage done to all types of gasoline engines by this crappy ETHANOL.
There is enough oil HERE for us to tell the rest of the world to use their oil in the breakfast cereal.
Ethanol is a non-starter in the US, imo. No matter the source.
It has very poor cold weather performance, for one thing. Below about 60 degrees, you need gasoline to start an ethanol powered car. Even in Brazil, cars sold in the regions that have cool weather, have a gasoline tank added for starting the car.
Here in the US, E85 is actually reduced to E70 in areas with cool weather, but it is still sold as E85. E85 makes a flex fuel vehicle difficult to start in the cold, so they have to add more gasoline to the blend in the fall and winter.
Even in Florida, you would likely need a gasoline reservoir to start your ethanol powered car at times.
In general, it’s not a good idea to burn your food.
This is the obvious solution. We have more oil than Saudi Arabia so we need to use it and not save it for the new world order.
This alcohol gas is dangerous as when you open a hot gas can it can boil over and cause a serious flammable spill.
They can’t eat oil.
Why not fix the price of one barrel of oil at one bushel of corn, wheat, or whatever grain we have a surplus of and oil producers need?
They have OPEC don’t we have GPEC?
The marketplace should determine if ethanol is a good idea however produced. Is optical computing a good idea? Is quantum computing a good idea? The marketplace makes these decisions. Government mandates are a recipe for economic ruin. Corn-based ethanol is an economic, environmental, and moral disaster. Yet it politically it seems almost as untouchable as Social Security. This country is collapsing over politically unstoppable but economically unsustainable policies. For corn-based ethanol, both the left and right agree that it is a disaster. Yet, the corn lobby still maintains political power. 12 billion gallons of ethanal blended into the fuel supply. Corn prices skyrocketing. Engines choking from ethanol poisoning. When will the madness stop?
Stupid or intentionally evil?
I say the latter, taking advantage of the former.
Ethanol put my favorite bread bakery out of business.
Michigan’s oldest bakery, opened in 1872, closed in 2008.
Burghardt’s bakery, formerly on St. Antoine Street in Detroit (1872), Holcomb Street (1930), and later of Livonia officially closed up shop due to Ethanol subsidies. They simply couldn’t make it anymore due to the costs of business in Michigan and, more significantly, the cost of flour due to increased subsidies for ethanol. They had a “Thanks Ethanol” sign in their front window.
Burghardt’s made outstanding german sourdough rye bread and was a great Michigan tradition.
Thanks State of Michigan and US Governments for killing a thriving business!
Ethanol, from whatever source, is a poor fuel as it has about 40% less energy per volume than gasoline. Combine ethanol with gasoline in any proportion makes a mixture with less energy than the same volume of gasoline and means MORE fuel is consumed. Flex fuel vehicles using the highly promoted 85% ethanol/gasoline mix get far less miles per gallon... as low as 12-15 mpg. A year ago the State of South Dakota discontinued using E85 in its flex fuel fleet because the cost of operation was too high. This was despite E85, because of government subsidies, costing about 20% less per gallon than gasoline.
I was once scolded by someone here when I commented on an ethanol thread that it was a stupid idea for us to burn food for fuel.
They stated that “field corn” was not used by humans for food so I shouldn’t be getting so upset. Must have been a city boy, because us hillbillies wouldn’t have said such a dumb thing.
Field corn is used as animal feed...where do tasty burgers come from? Cows...who eat field corn. As do chickens, hogs, etc. Ergo, it’s ‘food’, we just indirectly ingest it. Feed prices have soared because of this dumbass ethanol nonsense.
Drill, baby, drill!
I like your assessment.
Ethanol byproducts are placed back in the food chain...feed. They are called DDG’s or Distillers Dry Goods. Only the starch is used to create ethanol. The protein remains. Ergo the food(protein) is not burned.
Not a perfect and highly efficent process, but not near as evil as ethanol haters would like you to believe.
IMO, the problem is blending it with gasoline across the country. That created an artificial demand.
Gasoline is around $3 not $4. Where I live it’s $3.24
Ethanol has tons of other problems. It likes water, it has less energy content, it will damage older vehicles and small engines, and when corrected for energy efficiency, there’s no price advantage at all...
No - we should be going SHALE crazy.
Want to hit unemployment hard? Open up mineral rights and relax bogus shale environmental restrictions. An energy boom will be an economic boom.
“How about we trade our surplus corn, grain and veggie supply for their oil at comparable prices.”
Now all we need to do is actually make that happen without depressing corn prices globally, and we’ll have accomplished something.
Remember, it was the corn production industry, not the gummint, that initiated the ethanol movement.
And just for the record: The national average price for a box of corn flakes is now $3.73, and of that, the amount received by the farmer that produces the corn that goes into it is 3.5 cents. The portion of corn used for fuels has been steadily increasing, and 95% of corn farms are owned by individual families.
Just a few facts that you might want to consider before advocating that an entire industry be turned upside-down.
I too agree with your assessment, but the boiling over issue might just be real.
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