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Posted on 04/08/2015 8:17:45 PM PDT by SoConPubbie
As anyone with a lick of sense would know, if you imbibe too much alcohol, you will pay a terrible price the following day. The aftermath can be a terrible master.
Each year in the New Year’s Day edition of newspapers throughout the country there are always numerous recipes for drinks, potions, and concoctions to ameliorate the effects of over indulgence during New Year’s Eve festivities. While some may temporarily dull the pain of a good old-fashioned hangover, the best option is moderation, if not total abstinence, the night before.
Here in America we have a problem. We’re strung out with an alcohol addiction. Following the format for Alcohol Anonymous meetings, members of Congress should be required to stand up in front of their peers each session and announce, “My name is Congressperson (name withheld to protect the guilty) and I am an ethanol guzzling idiot.”
Recently, the 2016 presidential election campaigning got off to a semi-official start as the Republican wannabes made the trek to Iowa to test the political caucus waters. The event has, for some time, been the first in the nation, and in recent years the primary issue has been ethanol subsidies for the nation’s number one corn producer. It was interesting in this most recent exchange with potential candidates that the only one with guts enough to criticize the ethanol issue was Senator Ted Cruz. He will probably have to get his mother to move to Iowa in order to get a single vote.
The use of ethanol as a fuel for automobiles has been around since earliest times. Henry Ford’s first car in 1896 was designed to run on pure ethanol. His revolutionary Model T ran on ethanol, gasoline or any combination of the two. The lower price of gasoline made this option irrelevant by the early 1930s, but the addition of ethanol to the nation’s gasoline supply began again in the late 1970s following the purported gasoline shortage earlier in the decade. There was a problem, however. Just like the 1930s, ethanol was much more expensive. By the 1990s, clean air concerns and government subsidies made it a viable alternative.
I’ve seen figures that ethanol costs motorists $10 billion more for fuel each year in the U.S. In addition, diversion of corn away from food production drives up grocery prices, as well as the cost animal feed. Lucrative subsidies have also encouraged farmers to expand corn acreage to land ill-suited to tillage. In addition, ethanol damages some engines, especially in higher percentages.
The greatest selling point of ethanol has been cleaner air, but that too has been debunked. It has been proven that when you factor in lower BTU efficiency, along with the tillage and fertilizer costs to produce it, it is actually dirtier for the environment than gasoline.
Republican and Democrats alike seem to have ransomed their souls to either the greedy ethanol producers or the environmental wackos. It is time to end this ill-conceived and disastrous bipartisan fiasco, and begin the detoxification of both houses of congress. There’s a lot of folks who have tried to vilify Ted Cruz as a wacko extremist, but I think it’s refreshing to see at least someone with the guts to stand up to the ethanol lobby. Congress has the ethanol addiction, and we the consumers get the hangover.
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CRUZ or LOSE!
We’re sitting on a continent-worth of coal. We should be gasifying it like Sasol has successfully been doing in SA for decades.
We’re also sitting on a continent of natural gas. Without being forced to use it, like we are with ethanol, the trucking industry is switching to it with increasing rapidity. Why?
It lowers their costs. The stuff is cheaper than gasoline and/or ethanol. Plus, it burns much cleaner than either. This helps to lower the truckers’ maintenance costs on their rigs.
Trucking companies are reporting that tear downs of engines after burning natural gas reveal less wear and lower carbon buildup on engine parts compared to diesel engines torn down with the same number of miles on them.
Companies are buying new rigs designed to run on natural gas, and some are also converting some of their present diesel tractors to it. It’s much less expensive to convert diesel engines to gas than it is to convert gasoline engines.
So natural gas may not be commonly burned in our passenger cars anytime soon, but the move to natural gas in heavy trucks is on in a big way. Some of the companies making the switch are Ryder, Waste Management, Central Freight Lines, UPS, Wal Mart, Office Depot and Lowe’s.
The two biggest roadblocks to the natural gas transportation revolution are the refueling infrastructure (which is spotty compared to the number of diesel truck stops) and the higher cost of rigs with natural gas engines.
I would more than wllingly drive a nat gas Suv....how about you?
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