Posted on 04/14/2017 12:54:16 PM PDT by Forgotten Amendments
America's long war on fossil fuels is destroying the famed American prairie.
According to a report by the Organic Consumers Association, 95% of the 240 million acres of prairie land that once blanketed the middle of our country, from Texas to North Dakota, already is gone. Only isolated pockets of prairie tall grass, some 35 million acres set aside for soil and wildlife conservation, remain. And that — largely in the Great Plains — is at risk of being destroyed.
Among the factors most responsible for this tragic loss of our prairie heritage is the federal renewable fuel standard, a congressional mandate requiring refiners to mix renewable fuel (mostly corn-based ethanol) with U.S. gasoline, diesel, jet fuel and heating oil products.
(Excerpt) Read more at investors.com ...
Just fly-over country to liberals and law makers anyway.
Mixing in ethanol to stretch your fuel supplies, is like mixing in filet mignon to stretch you ground beef supplies............
Complete b.s. Native prairie was long gone before the ethanol boom started about ten years ago.
If anything, prairie preservation and restoration is more common now than ever.
Bing Bing Bing! We have a winner.
Is it worth Iowa?
Back in the 30’s we planted wheat because the price of wheat was up. The prairies were covered in it. Then the crash came which caused the dust bowl because we had plowed up all of the indigenous grasses that held the topsoil. It’s a vicious cycle.
Thanks for posting this. I remember it was environmental hypocrite and Vice President Al gore who cast the tie breaking vote which got it passed in the Senate.
We can make ethanol from coal 30% cheaper than corn. Sell the corn to China.
Ethanol has a lower energy content than gasoline. Therefore, when you add ethanol to gasoline you’ll actually lower the miles per gallon.
Go into a crowded parking lot. Count all the cars (yours is probably one) with that black soot around the gas cap. Thanks Ethanol!
And the energy to produce the corn based ethanol is awful close to the energy content of the ethanol itself.
The only biofuel currently available that makes any sense is biodiesel. Current ultra low sulfur diesel has poor top of cylinder lubricity, not good for the engine. Even a 2% biodiesel restores the lubricity, and then some. Higher percentages of biodiesel has gelling problems in cold climates.
Most ethanol plants make more money selling the leftover DDGS than they do from ethanol.
A vicious cycle, but it sucks when the government is behind the mess. Other crops (wheat, beans, etc.) are/have been replaced by corn which is now an artificial “cash” crop.
So less of the other stuff - food prices go up. And of course the corn is up too (competing with ethanol corn).
Corn is also a HUGE user of water, three times more than wheat and grains, and 10 times more than beans. I guess the depletion of the Ogalla Aquifer isn’t in style with the Greenies anymore.
Corn also requires a lot more fertilizers which can pollute.
So let’s mobilize all the tree (prairie grass) huggers to stage protest rallies around the high ethanol gas pumps.
95% of 240 million would leave 12 million, but then they say there’s 35 million acres in conservation reserves. Which means they’re lying. Which means ignore the article.
What is renewable about ethanol? Once you put it in your gas tank it burns and cannot be used again.
Overlooked the most important point, YOU! Ethanol ruins YOUR fuel system in your car. Degrades it long term sometimes $1000s of dollars!
Ethanol voids car warrenties.
Locate an ethanol free source in the city, if possible.
Buy several gasoline cans.
Store ethanol free gas at home.
Dilute your fuel after fill up, back down to 10% or even 5% ethanol.
I tried to factor that in when setting the AFR on the injection system. Turns out, 10% ethanol-doped gasoline has a stoichiometric ratio of 14.0:1, which ultimately required running a somewhat richer AFR with the injection system.
It's probably why the original carb didn't work so well. As a consequence, the fuel mileage is less. But the EFI now performs well. Used an old Sun Engine diagnosis machine to dial in the EFI, which also puts out less hydrocarbons than the carb. The plugs run cleaner and the engine develops a nice power curve up to 5500 rpm.
I got this info from a study done by a scientific subcommittee of the EPA itself. Although the cats. are supposed to chemically reduce both nitrogen and sulfur oxides, under certain conditions they actually partially oxidize ethanol to produce these aldehydes.
I've seen the same sort of behavior when working with platinum and palladium catalysts in the lab.
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