Posted on 07/12/2010 8:26:24 AM PDT by epithermal
Last week, Tom Waterman, the editor and publisher of The Ethanol Monitor, published a list of the top ten enemies of ethanol. Here’s the list:
#10: Business Week/Ed Wallace (Bloomberg)
#9: GRIST
#8: “Big Oil”
#7: Grocery Manufacturers Association
#6: David Pimentel
#5: Robert Rapier
#4: Tim Searchinger
#3: Wall Street Journal (editorial board)
#2: California Air Resources Board
#1: Time Magazine (Michael Grunwald)
Of course, Waterman can write whatever he likes, but the fact that the ethanol boosters would produce a list of enemies is indicative of just how paranoid the ethanol scammers are getting. And their nuttiness appears to be rising along with their efforts to vacuum up yet more taxpayer subsidies in the wake of the BP blowout.
DON’T BURN YOUR FOOD
What makes you think that the corn that’s grown today has nutritional value? Unless you consider high fructose corn syrup to be nutritional.”””””
There are many uses for corn.
It is a major ingredient in cold cereals.
It is a major ingredient in your pet foods.
It is used to fatten up beef cattle prior to being processed as food in your grocery store & restaurant.
It is used to feed chickens & produce both eggs & meat.
It is used as feed for swine to creat FOOD.
Then there is the fact that millions of acres of soybeans—alfalfa for feeding dairy cattle to produce MILK—wheat-oats- & other grain items were switched over to CORN production for Ethanol.
That drove up the prices of those items.
When there is a drilling rig on land & the well is productive- a pipeline can carry the crude to the refinery for finished products of many kinds.
When you are processing corn for Ethanol, it must be TRUCKED to the Ethanol refinery- thereby costing more money & producing more CARBON by products that the Greenies hate.
To top off all of these FACTS:
The amount of BTU’s produced by ONE GALLON of Ethanol amounts to 66.66667% of the amount of BTU’s produced by ONE GALLON of simple gasoline.
Therefore, to get the same useful horsepower out of your car/truck engine, you will burn 50 % MORE Ethanol to get the same amount of BTU’s.
All the way around-—==STUPID STUPID STUPID.
YOU DON”T BURN YOUR FOOD SUPPLY!!!!
Me, too. I mix the fuel in one gallon batches, or two gallons if I know I have a really big job. And I run the chain saws or weed whackers until they are empty. Or if necessary, I pour the gas back out of them.
I have found that if you have a bit of 40:1 mix and it’s getting stale, you can add it to your car’s gas tank and burn it up that way. A little bit of two cycle oil in the gas doesn’t seem to hurt, and the car is better able to deal with it than leaving it to rot the small engines.
And our local boatyard sent out a letter this year complaining about what it does to outboard engines. Ugly stuff, destructive and useless to anyone but the scammers.”
I have owned one of my vehicles since 1980.
I have owned the other since 1986.
I have kept records of my mileage on each of these vehicles religiously.
Since the mandatory introduction of Ethanol in the gas I am allowed to purchase—my vehicles have declined a minimum of 13% in gas mileage.
I have had other problems with fuel lines & problems with winter starting.
As far as I am concerned——it is crap.
Most cows, pigs, and chickens are fed with coproducts produced by the ethanol industry. Distiller’s grains account for the majority of the composition of pelletized and granular animal feeds, and a type of syrup (not hi-fructose corn syrup) which is one of the most common hog feeds out there.
What is less commonly known about the ethanol industry is that it produces enough animal feed in the form of distiller’s grains to feed all the cattle in all the feed lots in the entire country.
Each 56 pound bushel of #2 corn produces about 2.8 gallons of ethanol, 17 pounds of distiller’s grains, and 17 pounds of carbon dioxide. The majority of the syrup produced is usually put back through onto the distiller’s grains to increase the protein content to > 25% on a w/w basis, and fat to > 8%.
The average dry grind ethanol plant produces about 60MM gallons of ethanol per year, consuming abou 21MM bushels of corn (1.17 billion pounds), and producing 357 million pounds of animal feed per year, per plant. Most wet mills are sized at > 110MM gallons per year and would 668 million pounds of feed a year, not to mention other coproducts such as corn oil, corn syrup,
The ethanol industry could disappear tomorrow and improve the gas supply, but it would also eradicate tens of billions of pounds of prepared animal feed from the supply like which would have to be produced some other way.
The acres used for ethanol production could be used for pasture. No matter how you look at it, ethanol production raises the price and lowers the availability of food.”
Doubtful it would be turn back into ‘pasture’.
Pasture usually is the later usage of alfalfa or oat fields, not corn fields.
In any event, those corn fields could be turned back into wheat-oats-alfalfa-soybeans-sweet peas, etc.
Well I thought I was #1 but it was an honor just to be nominated.
The ethanol industry could disappear tomorrow and improve the gas supply, but it would also eradicate tens of billions of pounds of prepared animal feed from the supply like which would have to be produced some other way.””
Those by-products of the Ethanol production have found a market—
But—
feeds for animals were produced in many ways before anyone even came up with the idea of Ethanol.
Distiller’s grains have been a key component of animal feed since the early 1920’s. They originally came from large distilleries (hence the name), but as time marched on the number of animals out there grew exponentially, and the ethanol industry has met the demand. If that supply of DDG’s were to disappear then it would leave an enormous void in the food chain. There is not enough pasture land to feed the cows in this country, let alone the hogs, chickens, fowl, etc.
I’m not overly for or against the ethanol industry, but it does bother me when facts are deliberately omited by those pushing an agenda. The coproducts produeced by the ethanol industry are of an enormous value and are never included in computations about the benefits/drawbacks of the ethanol industry.
Another often omited point is that the #2 corn used to make ethanol is not fit for human consumption. It’s not a food/fuel issue because it is not food to begin with, in the sense that we know it. That 56 pound bushell of corn contains 14% moisture, whereas the DDG feed has about 6% and a much higher protein/fat concentration then straight corn giving it a greater nutritional value.
I have no objections to having an ethanol industry, if it is useful. But I strongly object to:
a) making it mandatory.
b) subsidizing it with taxpayer money.
c) forcing me to wreck my small engines when I use it.
Alcohol in gasoline is a lousy idea. Maybe they could make vodka out of it or something—but not at my expense, please.
Can I be one of your enemies? I was disappointed not to see my name on your list.
You see, I think burning ethanol, when we have oil to make fuel for hundreds of years, is asinine.
You may quote me on that.
If you’re interested in biofuels take a look at butanol. It’s a superior additive that doesn’t have the drawbacks of ethanol. More BTU’s, less hydroscopic, can be used in diesel, renewable, etc.
There are a number of companies working on fermentable butanol from GMO bacteria including Gevo Inc, and a Dupont/BP joint venture.
In 10 years it could replace ethanol as a fuel oxygenator.
Not without huge increases in farm subsidies.
What should be done with the mountains, and mountains, and moutains of surplus food and food stuffs?
See my tagline, it's more true this year than any.
That tells the tale accurately, we should use it to burn as fuel before it is used to feed them.
The rest of the world has had a hundred years to learn how to grow so much food they couldn’t possible eat it all. For decades we’ve sent missionaries out, they been rejected.
See my tagline, NONE of our surpluses should be used elsewhere, unless we’re paid for it.
LET THEM STARVE.
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