Click the Pic
Ask and ye shall receive....
Posted on 03/16/2009 1:37:35 PM PDT by neverdem
These days, it's routine for businesses to fail, get rescued by the government, and then continue to fail. But ethanol, which survives only because of its iron lung of subsidies and mandates, is a special case. Naturally, the industry is demanding even more government life support.
Corn ethanol producers -- led by Wesley Clark, the retired general turned chairman of a new biofuels lobbying outfit called Growth Energy -- want the Obama Administration to make their guaranteed market even larger. Recall that the 2007 energy bill requires refiners to mix 36 billion gallons into the gasoline supply by 2022. The quotas, which ratchet up each year, are arbitrary, but evidently no one in Congress wondered what might happen if the economy didn't cooperate.
Now the recession is hammering demand for gas. The Energy Information Administration notes that U.S. consumption fell nearly 7% in 2008 and expects another 2.2% drop this year. That comes as great news for President Obama, who is achieving his carbon-reduction goals even without a new carbon tax, but the irony is that the ethanol industry is part of the wider collateral damage.
Americans are unlikely to use enough gas next year to absorb the 13 billion gallons of ethanol that Congress mandated, because current regulations limit the ethanol content in each gallon of gas at 10%. The industry is asking that this cap be lifted to 15% or even 20%. That way, more ethanol can be mixed with less gas, and producers won't end up with a glut that the government does not require anyone to buy.
The ethanol boosters aren't troubled that only a fraction of the 240 million cars and trucks on the road today can run with ethanol blends higher than 10%. It can damage engines and corrode automotive pipes, as well as...
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Queue the “Captian Obvious” graphic...
Boat owners hate it most of all!
I can only repeat my tagline.
I like ethanol...as a beverage.
Everyone knows you cannot get the same mileage from Ethanol, or E-10 for that matter. What is typically omitted, like with electric cars, is the cost of production, both labor and the dreaded nonpolluting CO2.
Ethanol is a wonderful thing!..............in a glass................
Click the Pic
Ask and ye shall receive....
how can the car makers meet the new CAFE standards if ethanol mixture is going to increase to %15 ?
I like it too. I even have some yeast slaves making me a batch in the living room as I FReep.
A pure alcohol burning engine would not only blow any gasoline powered engine away from the stop light, it's more efficient, AND clean.
Plus, at $1.28 a gallon, it's cheap too.
If only the auto companies would offer pure ethanol engines in those states where ethanol is readily available, I don't see why we can't have both, a CHOICE for those who want it. The market will take care of itself, especially when all the anti alcohol people realize how dead wrong they are about ethanol, and rush out to buy that alcohol burning hemi, and relive days thought to be long gone.
Can you source that number? The Department of energy only shows 12,347 barrels for the year.
Why? 10% ethanol is neither here nor there, except for a little extra octane. No, it doesn't"absorb" water from the air. it will clean out the gas tank though. Obviosly, you know nothing about ethanol except the lies that are floating around that it "absorbs water from the air". What it DOES do, is expose gas retailers who mix water into their gas to make a few extra bucks. Ethanol (25% or more) when mixed in water laced gasoline causes the water to separate back out.
You do know that drinking ethanol will kill you, right?
It’s just corn juice isn’t it?
JK
I've heard it's something like 10 to 25 percent less mileage depending on the percentage of Ethanol. Funny, they don't factor that in when they talk about polution.
True, it is one thing to do when the oil fields run out, but from a polution standpoint it's not good.
everyone "Knows" nothing. E10 actually improves gas mileage because it improves the octane rating of gasoline. Higher blends, 25% or more, do not improve gas mileage. In fact it makes it worse. it's of no benefit at all at 25% or higher. A pure alcohol engine however, will get better gas mileage than a gasoline engine. That's because you can run much higher compression ratios on alcohol only, and the ignition timing is completely different. The only problem with alcohol comes from trying to blend it with gasoline. Dumbest idea ever.
Lets also not forget how ethanol helped to royal screw the farming/food production world! As a farmer, I watched my feed priced jump from 280/ton to 550/ton in a one year period due in a large part to the price of corn skyrocketing due to ethanol production.
Also, I see it daily, more farmers are putting in corn, hoping to cash in on that crop and neglecting traditional crops they have raised, such as cotton, soybeans, and peanuts. Something tells me this will cause a shortage of these other products in the future. Not immediately, but one day we’ll wonder where all the cotton went when we look out over the corn fields.
Mark my words, burning our food will rank a huge mistake one day. Thats not to say I’m against biofuels, but not something we need to feed our own people, not something like corn, which goes into pretty much everything. its one of the reasons a bottle of coke costs $1.59 now instead of $.89. The spike in corn prices sent everything with corn-based sweeteners though the roof last year.
Actual facts are not important. It’s the sincerity with which they are believed that counts.
25% better if the engine was built to run alcohol only (E85)
E85 is pure alcohol denatured to make it undrinkable as required by law to avoid the alcohol tax.
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.