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.
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?
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!
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.
One of you chemists/engineers do the math for the rest of us.
How much energy does it take to produce a unit of ethanol? I think that cost is the big hidden item. Until someone posts a useable figure, let’s say ethanol costs (in terms of gallons of gasoline or BTU equivalents) oh, maybe .5 gal gasoline/per gallon ethonal, then we can create an equation that shows just how much MORE ethanol costs than just 40% less efficient than a gallon of regualr gasoline....
I’d be interested in the overall utility cost of ethanol per gallon from bare ground to end-state MPG in a E85 burning vehicle....
I will bet though, that it is much, much more than a gallon of gasoline costs to produce-even from our overseas monopolistic sources....
let us know, petro chemist!
best;
The only reason we even have that now is because the corn growers literally invented a market for their excess produce.
And they continually lobby their representatives to "protect" their interests.