Posted on 03/11/2015 6:59:16 AM PDT by thackney
Anybody that needs food should hate turning corn into an unneeded, inefficient, and except for specific needs or applications, a lackluster source of energy.
Our Marathon station up the street sells non-ethonal gas - for about 45 cents more a gallon than regular.
So now that a mega-celebrity realizes the utter foolishness and destructiveness of ethanol, maybe somebody in government can be made to listen.
Personally, if I could find the one person responsible for its infestation in our fuel supply, I’d slap him upside the head with a 2by4.
It makes me mad as hell to have pay up to .30 cents more per gallon for gasoline without ethanol in it, or add up to .40 cents per gallon for a preservative for the ethanol crap.
And Scott Walker supports the mandates for the use of this crap.
Or at least as long as he campaigns in Iowa, he does.
Yes, everyone who has studied this issue know these facts. The question is “how do we get rid of this damn ethanol use mandate?”
Another government fiasco caused by the idiots in DC.
>>Last week, I went to start up one of my Duesenbergs
Poor Jay Leno. Must be hell to deal with this on one of your Duesenbergs.
(Cue the huge manatee meme!)
But wait just one little minute! Those people in Iowa are entitled to that money they get for Corn Ethanol!
Just ask them.
I certainly agree, concur and empathize with Leno. In addition to vehicle issues, all of my lawn tools, tractors, blowers, weed eaters and edgers have been ruined because of ethanol in the gasoline.
Leno is right on the mark with regard to food prices as well.
Ethanol is a real noxious problem and needs to be banished from gasoline, pronto.
He’s a car enthusiast. He should now what crap Ethanol is.
Even in the New York Times:
End the Ethanol Rip-Off
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/10/opinion/end-the-ethanol-rip-off.html?_r=0
MARCH 10, 2015
...The tax is hidden because, on paper, it appears as a clean-energy mandate. Federal law currently requires fuel retailers to blend about 13 billion gallons of corn ethanol per year into the gasoline they sell to the public, making the gas more expensive. This year, that mandate, known as the Renewable Fuel Standard, will impose about $10 billion in additional fuel costs on motorists.
Congress created the Renewable Fuel Standard in 2005 with several goals in mind: energy security, rural economic development and environmental protection. But the indirect environmental costs involved, including growing, harvesting and processing corn into fuel, are significant. Ethanol diverts corn from the food supply, driving up food costs; it promotes inefficient and harmful land-use strategies; and it can damage small engines. But a more fundamental problem is its high cost when compared with conventional gasoline. And that higher cost is directly related to its lower energy density.
Ethanol contains about 76,000 B.T.U.s per gallon. Gasoline contains about 114,000 B.T.U.s per gallon. Therefore, to get the same amount of energy contained in a gallon of gasoline, a motorist must buy about 1.5 gallons of ethanol.
Fueleconomy.gov, a site run by the federal government, advises that vehicles running on the most common form of ethanol-blended fuel, E10 (which contains 10 percent ethanol and 90 percent gasoline), will typically get “3 percent to 4 percent fewer miles per gallon” than they would if they were running on pure gasoline. That mileage penalty — in essence, a tax — must be paid at the pump through the purchase of additional fuel.
And that takes us to the cost issue. Since 1982, officials in Nebraska (which is the second-largest ethanol producer, behind Iowa) have been monitoring monthly and annual wholesale, or “rack,” prices for ethanol and gasoline at fuel depots in Omaha. In December 2014, the rack price of a gallon of ethanol was $2.40, while a gallon of unleaded gasoline was $1.73. But recall that we need 1.5 gallons of ethanol to match the energy contained in a gallon of gasoline. That means you would need to pay about $3.60 to get the same amount of energy as from a gallon of gasoline, making ethanol about twice as expensive....
Excerpted
This really isn't about Jay Leno.
If anyone is interested, you can make gasoline more stable for storage by washing it with water. Put a half gallon of water and three gallons of gas in a five gallon container, and shake a couple time over the course of a few hours. The alcohol and many of the bad hygroscopic additives will go in to the water layer, and the gas layer will be dryer and cleaner than it was before you started.
You do lose a couple octane numbers.
I do this for my chainsaw and lawnmower gas.
In Leno’s case, he can certainly afford to avoid the problem if he chose to. There are non ethanol gas sources in California. And his argument is tailored to the old car enthusiast. But it lacks the best argument - gas prices and taxes are higher because of the ethanol blending. Gas which is blended lowers the miles per gallon results in cars. It is costing the consumer with little benefit.
Course, he is in California, and blended gas is unlikely to ever disappear for the mainline gas stations, and if anything, the blending will be increased no matter how many cars are destroyed.
That’s why on automobiles built since the middle 1990’s, the entire fuel delivery system has used far better materials to prevent the type of corrosion Jay Leno experiences with older cars.
It is not just vintage cars that are effected by ethanol. Despite new cars being made with ethanol resistant fuel systems ethanol is still corroding them. I used ethanol laced gas in by 1995 Blazer and ended up having to replace the fuel injectors as they were eaten through. There is now a push to increase ethanol in gasoline from 10% to 15%. The EPA claims there will be no harm, but manufactures say other wise.
Ethanol is hygroscopic. Doesn’t just absorb water. It sucks it right out of the air. I keep it out of my car if possible.
Premium straight gasoline sells for $.50 over 87 oxy here.
Dear Scott,
Don't come asking for my vote, you won't get it.
If he answers that he'd use ethanol if his rigs ran on gasoline, then look him in the eye and ask him if he'd use the ethanol blend if his equipment were hypothetically gasoline-powered. If nothing else, you'll be able to identify the ones who can lie convincingly.
Mr. niteowl77
*"Farmer" is a somewhat obsolete and quaint term for the big operators.
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