Trump attacks Ted Cruz for not supporting ethanol subsidies

Donald Trump attacked Ted Cruz for not supporting ethanol subsidies. He said in Iowa on Friday, "Oil companies give him a lot of money, so he's for oil."

The thing about oil and gas is, it doesn't require big subsidies, because it's the cheapest and most efficient form of fuel for cars. Ethanol, on the other hand, does require big government subsidies, because it is highly uneconomical. Ethanol is much more expensive than oil and gas and, gallon for gallon, produces much less energy than gasoline. That's why the government has to hand over billions in subsidies to big agri-businesses to keep it going. And that's also why the government has to force oil companies to blend ethanol in with their fuels. Because without government coercion, oil companies wouldn't do it, and the price of gasoline would be substantially lower than it is now.

Additionally, ethanol actually acts as a corrosive on car engines. It slowly degrades car parts over time.

But the worst thing about ethanol is that not only does it require taxpayer subsidies, and not only does it raise the price of blended gas, but it also raises the price of many different kinds of foods. Ethanol is made with corn - a lot of it. And when a lot of corn production is diverted to ethanol, there is less corn available to use for food. Corn is heavily used as a sweetener in many food products. By raising the price of corn, the price of many different kinds of foods are raised.

That is what subsidizing ethanol gives us. That is what Donald Trump is for and Ted Cruz is against. Ted Cruz is starting to lead in some Iowa polls, and he's doing it without this kind of pandering...

IMHO It is the hygroscopic property of ethanol that has caused a whole lot of damage to the aluminum components of your equipment. Of course the fuel tank, feed/supply are very different between your chainsaw and your car/truck. Ethanol doesn't just absorb moisture (water) from the air. Pre 10% Ethanol, I would wager that many, many fuel containers throughout this great land of ours had some water trapped, below the gasoline, at the very bottom. This includes the gas tank in your car and, more importantly, the tanks at your local gas station. This water ordinarily presented no problem because it stayed at the bottom of the tank and did not get picked up by the pump nor did it mix itself into the gasoline. Until 10% Ethanol came along. That Ethanol, being hygroscopic, not only absorbs moisture out of the air, it grabbed every bit of water that normally resided in the bottoms of tanks, mixed it with the fuel, which allowed it in to the pump pick-up and delivered it throughout your fuel system. The first sign was automotive aluminum fuel pumps eating themselves left and right, leaving cars broken down all over the place! It was the water damaging the aluminum.

This was my theory back when I was in the business during the intro of 10% Ethanol and all the breakdowns began. On the bright side, I'll betcha there isn't nearly the amount water in the bottoms of tanks as there used to be. So hopefully, that random fill-up at the wrong gas station at the wrong time that was mostly water, won't happen anymore. Of course all the dispersment of all the water in all the tanks that are where the consumer gets their gas reeked havoc on machinery for that consumer/owner/operator.

It was a case of the fuel being incompatible with the components of fuel driven machines.

>>Hygroscopic<<

First of all, In Maine, we practically live underwater. It rains a lot, we have a lot of foggy/rain in the Spring and Fall, and we have blue air (90% humidity) in the Summer.

When they first introduced ethanol up here, I did a little research, including with the Maine Snowmobile Association regarding blowing up sleds. The director informed me that there were no real problems to blame on the new alchofuel, and that sleds blew up no more than with the regular gas. He said “they blow up because they blow up. They hold them WOT over 100 MPH, for extended periods of time...BOOM shacka-lacka-lacka!

I also spoke to the Maine Oil Dealers association and a couple of gasoline transporter drivers. (Regarding your comments on gas station underground tanks) I asked: Where do they make the fuel? He said that they get regular 83 octane unleaded at the dock and add the alcohol here...in Maine.

I asked him about when you pump gas into your car, you need to vent the underground tank or you would draw a vacuum. Where are the vents? He said “You see those pipes over there?” He pointed to some vertical pipes which looked like inverted “Js”.

I asked; “Do they have some kind of driers in those tubes...to absorb the water?” He said, “Are you kidding me?”

I completely agree that the metal damage is probably from water, and contend that once any rubber parts are replaced with neoprene, there should be no more problems as long as you keep water out of your gas.

My conclusions after years of gasahol experience, under the worst conditions imaginable (other than actual ocean/marine applications)

Curiously enough, one of my first summer jobs was working for a crew installing "vapor recovery manifolds" on the inground gas station tanks. This was early '70s when the vapor recovery hoses showed up on the pump handles. They had figured out that every time a near empty vehicle tank was refilled, it pushed that much amount of fumes out into the atmosphere. Now picture the same thing happening when the tanker comes to fill the underground tanks. Again the underground tanks push as much vapor into the atmosphere as is added in gasoline by the tanker. In my state, they didn't want this going on anymore. I watched when a tanker came to fill the underground tanks. The vapors were pushed out of the vent stand pipes that stood at a height well above the station. It was incredible to watch. The fumes were clear to see in their foggy way. We installed manifolds on the tops of the underground tanks that recovered the vapors back into the fuel storage system. These "vapors" actually reverted back into liquid gasoline. And we laid in the piping that ran to each pump and connected to the fuel pump nozzles to recover as much of the vapor it could as you filled your tank.

I ran the jackhammer, exchanging the pointer bit for the spade bit as necessary as I sliced through pavement and concrete. One time, they had dug down to expose the top of an underground tank so that they could attach the manifold to it. But they couldn't budge the screw-cap that plugged the hole where the manifold was to tie in. Try as they might with their largest monkey wrenches and leverage it would not budge. I walked/slide down into the hole with my jackhammer, dragging its air hose behind and got on top of that tank. I set the pointer bit of my jackhammer to strike the screw plug so as to budge it counter clockwise. Grown men ran, scrambling out of that hole, fleeing for their lives when they realized what I was going to do. And then I did it. I leaned on the hammer with my belly and squeezed the handle triggers. I had no intention of letting go of the hand triggers until that cap screw budged. And it did finally relent, and I unscrewed it just enough to know that the grown men who had flown for their lives could come back and manage the rest. I was only 17 but I had been running that jackhammer so much that summer that I knew what I was capable of accomplishing with it.

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