Posted on 11/26/2008 6:37:38 AM PST by IbJensen
The use of ethanol and other renewable fuels supposedly helps gasoline burn cleaner creating less pollution. It also reduces America's reliance upon foreign oil.
Last Monday the Environmental Protection Agency increased the amount of renewable automobile fuels required to be sold in the United States next year from 7.8 percent to 10.2 percent of the 138.5 billion gallons of gasoline projected to be consumed. This mandate mainly directs that higher levels of ethanol be mixed with gasoline.
The higher standard is required by the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, a law that requires the increased use of renewable fuels each year in order to reach an annual use of 36 billion gallons by 2022. While burning cleaner gas is an admirable goal, the federal government's ethanol mandate has ensured that the American corn industry has consumers and businesses in a stranglehold without producing quantifiable benefits. In fact, some scientists now argue that there are few, if any, environmental benefits to using ethanol.
According to an April Hudson Institute report, "The Case for Ending Ethanol Subsidies," by Diana Furchtgott-Roth, "converting undeveloped land to cropland - in order to grow more corn and facilitate bio-fuel production - releases a massive amount of carbon dioxide. Only if bio-fuels are made from waste products or grown on abandoned agricultural lands does the production process actually reduce greenhouse gas emissions."
In addition, since ethanol separates from gasoline in the presence of water, the blends of ethanol and gasoline that we put in our cars cannot be transported through traditional petroleum pipelines. Instead, ethanol is shipped by rail, at greater cost than gasoline and mixed with gasoline near the point of distribution. That is why the 10 percent ethanol-gasoline blends are not available all over the country, only in major metropolitan areas.
Meanwhile American taxpayers subsidize the ethanol industry with $3 billion every year. These subsidies are given to corn farmers and ethanol producers no matter what the price of corn is on the market. These are extremely high because of the EPA requirement for biofuel usage. So many corn farmers have become wealthy from this two-tier system of subsidies and federal environmental mandates which inflate the price of corn on the open market.
Food prices around the world have risen dramatically in the last few years because of this system. Corn, beef, milk, butter, tortillas, gasoline and many other basic food commodities have become more expensive than ever because of the artificial government intervention in the market. This increase in food prices has hurt the world's poor more than anyone else but even middle-income American consumers have felt the pinch at the pump and the grocery store.
And then there is the question of energy independence, which is both an economic and a national security issue. Relying upon bio-fuels, predominantly ethanol, to make ourselves independent of foreign oil is a false hope. It has far less energy density than traditional gasoline, meaning nearly twice as much ethanol is required to equal the energy output of gasoline. We simply cannot convert enough of the land required to make ethanol into cornfields. There isn't enough land in America to do so.
Instead of releasing new federal mandates for ethanol consumption, Congress and EPA ought to overturn our artificial dependence on bio-fuels and begin building clean nuclear-energy power and coal plants, drilling for oil and natural gas in Alaska and off our coasts, and building more traditional petroleum refineries. Then we seriously could discuss the possibility of energy independence while working to clean up air pollution.
They wouldn't know an ear of corn from something Fido dropped on the stoop. (It would rhyme.)
I've read much regarding 'ethanol facts' and believe you have an ox being gored here.
Cattle feed is cattle feed, and improved by the process.
It's what happens to the corn sold for fuel that becomes expensive for Americans.
It's just too bad that excrement isn't profitably and inoffensively converted into fuel for autos as there would be an overabundance of the stuff just from the capitol of our nation.
Ethanol cleans up dirty gasoline fuel systems. Always replace your fuel filter if you switch from gasoline to ethanol.
There need be no seals or gas tanks in todays engines that are not ethanol ready. If there are, you have a beef with the manufacturer. I often drive my car in Minnesota with Ethanol in it. Never a freeze up.
The additive Heet used to be sold to clean up dirty fuel systems and to remove water from the gasoline system. I believe it was an alcohol based product. It has gotten my car running many times years ago when the gasoline and water mix in my tank froze up.
Ethanol mileage is slightly lower that gasoline in some cars. So what? It is still made in America, not purchased from our enemies.
Is that harvested together as a feed crop?
ETOH has been added at the 10% rate since the 70s, long before legislative mandate. I don’t disagree that congress directs many clueless ventures, but this is not one of them. This is a renewable fuel source that reduces dependency on middle east shieks.
We are still paying farmers billions of dollars to not farm their land, to prevent massive over production which crashes the markets. Some 30 million acres are currently idled in this program.
Food price increases were caused by high petroleum prices plus they increase periodically anyway to account for inflation.
In fact there is another factor coming that will impact food markets significantly. Green Algae fuel production, a technology that is now maturing, produces the by product green algae pulp. This has been used for centuries as a high protein people food and animal feed additive, as a pharmaceutical and in industrial chemicals.
It is just starting to compete with corn for some of these markets.
That is an engineering problem that has no excuse for existing. Complain to your car manufacturer.
American farmers have produced all the market can bear of food commodities, including corn for fuel and for food. There is no shortage, we even have vast capacity to produce more.
Price increases in food are attributable to the recent high cost bubble of petroleum products. see http://www.lecg.com/etea08 for more financial info.
Today we are finally beginning to utilize and process corn for best uses.
The 1.5 billion dollars Iowa Bioprocessing Center in Eddyville Iowa makes some 30 plus consumer foods, pharmaceuticals, industrial chemicals and animal feeds from corn, plus various fuels. They tip a semiload every 2 and a half minutes. This best use of our American resources is much better policy than just feeding all our corn to the hogs as we used to do.
“Ethanol production uses feed corn, which isn’t even digestible to humans. The by-product of ethanol production is -animal feed.”
Wow, that explains why chicken layer is ~$12 a sack as compared to just short of $5 I paid a few years ago.
There are a huge number of byproducts that have already been developed along with the energy production and thousands of labs are working on new products from waste materials.
Soon nearly all of our waste streams will be converted to fuels, and many many other products.
This is world wide in scope.
—nope—the oats was cut with a binder, put in shocks then threshed—the alfalfa grew up after the oats and was the hay crop next year-—
6.9l Navistar injector pump failed a couple of months after we went to 500ppm sulfur fuel. Truck was down for about 2 weeks because the pump shop was deluged with work. Almost $400 and I carried the pump in to them. The good news is that ate my Christmas bonus that year.
Dealer? $1500 if they had done it all? $2000?
And it helped how?
“And BTW, the same warning exists when using modern fuels with MTBU additive. It attacks rubber as well. MTBU”
Never seen ether spelled with a “U”. Live and learn.
” You certainly won’t blow an engine if your carb starts leaking fuel”
No it just burns to the ground.
No, I am suggesting that the producers of the ethanol do the right thing by turning trash into treasure rather than food into fuel. Just because we have the right to do something does not always make it the right thing to do.
—to further explain, it was usually a 3 or 4 year rotation, corn, oats, hay a year or two then plow that under, corn again-—now the corngrowers use enough fertilizer (of which natural gas is a constituent) to grow corn year after year—
“Farm states (including farmers) have pushed very hard for ethanol”
I happen to live in a farm state. Back in the 1980’s when interest rates were 16%, and crop prices were low I saw many farmers go out of business. they were the most productive domestic producers at that time, yet they were rewarded with bankruptcy. Nobody bailed them out.
Ethanol became a source of income that raised prices above the break even point for the first time since the 1960’s. It seems that even when we fed the World there were surpluses which kept prices low. For a farm to be profitable, It has to utilize every inch of tillable ground.
Property taxes are based upon overall productivity. so are the bank loans required to buy the expensive fertilizers, and diesel fuel, and expensive specialized machinery.
I fail to see how a surplus of corn production causes anyone to go hungry. We can continue to ship free, and taxpayer subsidized grain to Africa till hell freezes over, and people will still go hungry. If they want to burn their farms and run off or kill the workers they are not entitled to be given anything by America. Yet taxpayers subsidize free food to those places and nobody complains. But if the farmer makes any evil profits from the food he produces it is inhumane.
Ethanol is taking a surplus product, and converting it into two products. first we have the ethanol. Second we have distillers grains that is fed to livestock. I guess we could just feed the corn to the livestock and forget the other benefit of a value added product.
since the great floods of 93 and 95 I have seen tens of thousands of high grade acres of river bottom farm ground essentially confiscated by the Army Corps of enviroengineers. Wetlands are better than croplands they say. Swamps and mosquitoes are natures best. Those lands are no longer producing any crops. Yet the American farmer still produces surplus grains.
All food is costing more. not just grain based food. Why do we single out the higher cost of corn flakes and tortillas when fruits have increased in price too. When a farmer gets $1.00 a lb for his finished steer at the sale barn, who is making the big markup on the value added cuts of meat? The corn in the cow was already paid for by the farmer feeding the cow. That corn didn’t make the burger $2.50 a lb or the Tbone steaks $7.99 a lb or the roasts $5.99 a lb. So how can one justify the higher cost of beef when the corn was fed at the farm level?
Unfortunately the farm system has been under socialized management by government bureaucrats for years. The Chicago Board of Trade essentially is the commodity stock market for farm products. They dictate the price farmers get. They base those prices on speculation about crop plantings, droughts, floods etc. The price for those commodities is never peaking at the time of harvest. We hear about the record prices of grain. Farmers rarely get top price. Top price is earned by speculators who buy and trade large amounts of grain. Those are the people who drive up the cost of food. They also drive up the price of oil, copper, aluminum, sugar beets, potatoes etc.
All farmers are doing is trying to make a living. if they were in charge of trade policy and imports and exports of their products instead of the government, the prices would better reflect the actual cost of the food. for years government bought up milk and cheese surplus and gave it away in food stamps, and school lunches, and all the other things administered in the farm bill. the farm bill isn’t about farmers. it is about how the government can manage the food supply and keep food artificially cheap.
Government knows that when people are hungry, they complain more. So let the farm bill be the free lunch bill. Give the farmers a stipend token so they can keep in business. Then pass out the goods to food stamps. Pass out the goods to Africa. Give away our hard work. There are no big pensions in farm land. Do you think farmers enjoy subsidizing big pension plans when they buy that Chevy Truck or that John Deere Tractor? Do they have a choice? And those people have the gall to complain because food cost go up 5% over 5 years while the price of that truck went up over 10%.
Simply amazing.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.