Posted on 10/20/2010 11:08:08 AM PDT by Graybeard58
Think fast: What ingredients were in the gasoline you bought last time you filled up your tank? Pure gasoline? A mix of gasoline and ethanol? What percentage of each? The one thing for sure is you probably didn't buy diesel, since you'd still be at the gasoline station, waiting for a tow truck, if you had.
Chances are, the gasoline you bought was 10 percent ethanol, a fuel derived from corn. Ethanol reduces fuel economy and damages engine components. Your car would run better and more efficiently with pure gasoline, and its engine would last longer.
It also would pollute less, not only because tailpipe emissions would be lower, but because a switch to pure gasoline would eliminate air pollution from growing corn, converting it to a motor fuel and transporting it to sites where it can be mixed with gasoline. Intensive corn production also pollutes waterways; pesticide and fertilizer runoff from cornfields, even more than last spring's BP oil spill, are blamed for "dead zones" in the Gulf of Mexico.
Madness? Absolutely. But in a twisted, political sort of way, federal support for ethanol production makes sense.
Last week, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced it will let retailers sell fuel comprised of 15 percent ethanol, a 50 percent increase from previous allowable levels. It is expected retailers will be told to place prominent labels on pumps dispensing this fuel because it can damage pre-2007 engines, especially small engines.
Mistakes assuredly will be made, as signs are placed on the wrong pumps or fuel is placed in the wrong tanks. Fuel with 15 percent ethanol "will get into products it shouldn't, and there'll be lawsuits," said Kris Kiser, executive vice president of the Outdoor Power Equipment Institute.
Noted The Wall Street Journal, in its Oct. 18 editorial "The Ethanol Bailout": "Maybe for the first time in history, Exxon and the Natural Resources Defense Council shook out on the same side of an issue — in opposition."
The Journal's editorial board and others believe the EPA made this change under instructions by its political masters in the Obama administration, who figure a sop to the ethanol industry will help endangered Democratic lawmakers from the Corn Belt in the Nov. 2 elections.
It's not an irrational calculation. Big Green won't vote Republican, and Big Oil won't vote Democratic anyway, so nailing down Big Corn's backing won't cost the Democrats support from other major constituencies.
In a time of remarkable advances in private transportation, the ethanol boondoggle stands as a disturbing distraction. European automakers are making great strides in clean-diesel technology, the Japanese continue to improve their gasoline-electric hybrid systems, and firms on all three continents are developing all-electric cars for the mass market. And what is ethanol contributing to this mix? Worse fuel economy, more smog and water pollution.
If the Republicans take over Congress after the Nov. 2 election, abolishing the ethanol mandate should be on their short list of reforms.
It’s not edible, is it?
Therefore - it’s destroying food for fuel.
Can I make what's left for dinner?
This is infuriating since no commercially produced vehicle on the road today can handle 15% ethanol. The big boxes are currently selling 15%, and many of their customers have taken their vehicles back to their dealers with major jet/orifices malfunctions. The entire ethanol scam is a fraud, but I repeat myself. I can’t wait to nail their hides to the barn door. sd
You couldn’t take corn before it was used for ethanol and have it for dinner first thing... corn used for ethanol production is not the same corn as used for direct human consumption. The corn used for ethanol production is field corn typically used to feed to livestock.
FACT: Wet mill ethanol production facilities are also know as corn refineries—and they also produce starch, corn sweeteners, and corn oil—all products that are used as food ingredients for human consumption.
Ethanol production also results in the production of distillers grains and gluten feed—both of which are fed to livestock as well, helping produce high quality meat products for distribution domestically and abroad.
It’s not food OR fuel. It’s food AND fuel.
Then such a wonderful substance should be able to stand on its own two feet in the marketplace and require no subsidy from the Federal Government.
End them. End them now.
No more bailouts. No more subsidies. For anyone.
Period.
LOL In Charleston, you can still get ethanol-free regular! That hasn’t lowered the cost of operating a boat too much though. :)
We'll all be driving clown cars, complaining that we aren't getting the 35.5 MPG and\or the 62 MPG as promised.
Growth Energy, a pro-ethanol coalition backed by POET, an ethanol producer, will be NASCAR marketing partner (FoxSports)(10-16-2010)
NASCAR has told Sprint Cup teams to prepare for E15 fuel blend for the 2011.
Sunoco Green E15 will be blended at Sunoco’s fuel facility in Marcus Hook, Pa., which provides high-performance race fuel to NASCAR teams at no cost to them.
The new fuel will be pumped directly from tankers at the track, rather than from on-site underground storage tanks.
More information at Jayki's web site
http://www.jayski.com/cupnews.htm
Ethanol is the worst in small engines. I have already lost a Toro 2 stroke snowblower engine to Ethanol. The piston blew through the cylinder head.
In addition to that, I have had to replace fuel lines on lawnmowers and my chainsaw. I have also had to replace the carburator on my Echo hedge trimmer and rebuild the carburator on my John Deere lawn tractor beacuse of gelling.
What I have learned is not to leave fuel in any of these machines for more than a few weeks , even if it is mixed with 2 cycle oil and fuel stabilizer. NEVER leave any fuel in over the winter(or summer with snowblowers). Drain the bowl of the carburator and run them dry.
That hasn’t lowered the cost of operating a boat too much though. :)
Ethanol-free 87 - 89 - 91 - 93 octane gasoline may or may not cut your operating cost, but it very well may save you a repair bill.
That is what the service department at my outboard motor dealer says, also the chain saw and mower repair shop says, also the service department at my gasoline generator repair shop says, plus other small engine repair shops.
Looking for ethanol-free gasoline try the web site pure-gas.org
There may be other sites like it on the Internet.
if there are lawsuits, I trust the Ethanol Council and Iowa Corn Producers Association will be named as co-defendants?
If you consider "Beef, It's what's for dinner..." then yes, you can.
I have a fuel injected 25 HP outboard motor.
When I ask the local service shop about running it dry, they said "the fuel injection system will cut off before it runs dry". So they suggest adding fuel stabilizer to the fuel winter and summer even though I use ethanol-free gasoline.
A fuel injector pump costs about $500 to replace. :(
You want to talk pollution, just watch a sugar cane field being burned sometime. The smoke is acrid, dark and stinks to high heaven. The black ash falls everywhere, staining roof shingles, canopies etc. It’s messy, stinky and dirty, hardly the overall method we’d want to have toward satisfying the sweet tooth of the nation or plant.
Personally, I’d rather have the corn syrup. Now ethanol, is another issue and except for the remark about fertilizers from corn, which I believe isn’t accurate, the author is correct on his assertions about this substance on engines.
The oil industry has been issuing warnings of their own over this past week against using this higher percentage of ethanol. But they will be ridiculed as being self-interested.
Some boat owners in Florida sued the marinas and local distributors for the damages caused by 10% ethanol.
They sued in the county courts as I recall. Cheaper than suing in Federal Court?
Yet, it is a source of energy, and as such, the more it is used the more efficiencies of scale will kick in.
The E85 engines are supposed to handle ethanol quite well.
Also, methanol, which can be produced from coal, is an area not fully open to us by virtue of the embargo on coal energy in this land blessed with super-abundant coal. There is a methanol plant in Kingsport, Tn. (http://www.netl.doe.gov/publications/press/1997/tl_kngs.html)
It would be good to be working on that alcohol-burning engine for the time when methanol can be used.
None of this factors in the cost of empowering foreign despots and then having to field armies around the world because of that. Nor does it factor in the enormous jobs creation that would take place if we did all our energy homegrown. Mining jobs, transport jobs, manufacturing jobs, etc.
Don’t write off alcohol too quickly. There are alternatives besides farmers planting today’s corn in today’s manner.
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