Posted on 09/02/2016 5:02:02 AM PDT by Kaslin
Since it's been seven months since the Iowa caucuses and it'll be another three-plus years until that hell is fresh again, this is the best time to talk about ethanol.
Just in case you didn't know, ethanol is very popular in Iowa and other corn states, which is why most presidential candidates swear once every four years that they love ethanol so much they'd marry a jug of it if they could. If only for a moment, loyalty to this government moonshine becomes as fraught with political symbolism as a gay wedding in which both grooms refuse to wear American flag pins while declining to stand for the national anthem in support of our troops.
Thankfully, we don't have to worry about that for a little while, so let's tell the truth: Ethanol is stupid, wasteful and bad for cars (because it's corrosive and inefficient), the economy and the environment.
The main case for biofeuels is twofold. It's supposed to be better for the environment, particularly global warming, and lessen our dependence on foreign oil. The assumption was that converting plants into fuel was "carbon neutral," and since we can do that at home, every gallon of oil we replace with corn is one less we have to buy from overseas. The fact that it also lines the pockets of agribusinesses and the politicians who love them is supposed to be a total coincidence and irrelevant to this good and noble policy.
Nope.
A new study from the University of Michigan confirms what pretty much everyone knew all along. Researchers found that biofuels actually create more greenhouse gases than simply using petroleum, because plants only absorb a fraction of the carbon dioxide released by burning the fuels in the first place. Moreover, ethanol production and distribution is energy-intensive, throwing off even more greenhouse gases.
"When you look at what's actually happening on the land, you find that not enough carbon is being removed from the atmosphere to balance what's coming out of the tailpipe," University of Michigan professor John DeCicco said. "When it comes to the emissions that cause global warming, it turns out that biofuels are worse than gasoline."
A study last year by the University of Tennessee found that in the decade since the U.S. imposed the Renewable Fuel Standard -- and after $50 billion in subsidies -- corn-based ethanol "created more problems than solutions" and hampered research on other kinds of biofuels.
But even if you think, as I do, that caring for the environment means more than climate change, ethanol is a horror. Growing corn for inefficient fuel takes up farmland, raising food prices and encouraging deforestation. Science writer Matt Ridley has estimated that if all of our transport fuel came from biofuel, we would need 30 percent more land than all of the existing food-growing farmland we have today.
All of the corn we grow requires vast amounts of fertilizer, which runs into our waterways and out to the Gulf of Mexico. Every year that runoff creates a massive -- and growing -- dead zone that kills sea life in one of our most valuable fisheries. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Organization, "Habitats that would normally be teeming with life become, essentially, biological deserts." This year's dead zone will be the size of Connecticut, researchers say.
Meanwhile, in places such as Brazil, CO2-absorbing rainforests (among the biggest sources of biodiversity) are being clear-cut to make room for biofuel crops. The Nature Conservancy's Joseph Fargione estimated a few years ago that converting rainforests, peatlands, savannas or grasslands for biofuels releases 17 to 420 times more CO2 than it offsets by displacing petroleum or coal.
One hears a lot about the great jobs that ethanol creates here at home, but this is broken-window thinking. Frederic Bastiat famously explained in his essay on the broken window that it's silly to talk about the jobs created by a broken window -- you've got to hire people to replace it, right? -- unless you also take into account that the money spent on a new window could have been spent on something more productive.
Thanks to the shale oil revolution, America now has greater oil reserves than Saudi Arabia and Russia. Domestic oil production produces far more -- and far better paying -- jobs than ethanol production. Cheaper oil also cascades through the economy, creating more jobs. And we're better at producing oil in an environmentally safe way than most other countries. When we take production offline, we are in effect subsidizing foreign production.
But hey, the Iowa caucuses are important too.
Methanol from cellulose (or biomass) is the way to go. It can be mixed with ethanol and used in its pure form or blended with gasoline. Biomass is out of the human food chain, inexpensive (such as wood fiber and corn stover) and with the new technology, the methanol yield per ton of fiber could make America energy independent. Methanol can also be made from coal and natural gas. For a good treatment of the energy challenge to independence, here is what Dr. Robert Zubrin writes:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/sci.energy/EakceSO5TNU
I understand but whether conservative (principled or not) or liberal or whatever, ethanol when properly and studied in an unbiased fashion just does not measure up to the bullshit lies this government is foisting on us as an excuse to subsidize its use.
Me too.
I tried straight gas in my car, expecting it to increase the mileage enough to offset the added expense.
After one tankful, zero mileage increase.
Went back to E-10.
Yes, thus the irony in the mandate for higher fuel economy and the concurrent push toward more ethanol in fuel blends. All I know is, I had a Jeep Cherokee that would consistently get me 18.5-19.5 MPG commuting with its straight 6 (depended on A/C use). When the stores in my area started running alcohol blended fuel, my MPG dropped to about 17.5-18.
In one way or another, even the most Pro-Ethanol site, government or otherwise, HAS to admit somewhere that the mileage efficiency suffers. To me this indisputable. Where I have seen these admissions, they have always been followed up with other extraneous benefits tied to “green,” “renewable,” or “replaces scarce oil.” All lies.
True. There would have to be a change in the design of fuel systems to protect against the corrosive effects of ethanol and methanol. That can be done. Cars that do not have the redesigned fuel systems will have to work on gasoline with a minimal ethanol/methanol blend.
To me co-products is the issue. It means that all the studies about cost, pollution, etc. are wrong.
They also don't take into account that the fermentation process also produces the dreaded.......CO2.....
Ethanol is not destructive to an engine designed to use ethanol....same as methanol.
Methanol, by the way is just another form of alcohol, and is one of the leading contenders in the field of clean coal since it is produced from coal.
And the dreaded FIREBALL!
:>)
Yeah, I worded it poorly. The methanol did, too. You could actually be disqualified from race day if, when they tested your methanol, it didn't clear quickly from the test, and too much moisture in the methanol would allow it to remain cloudy in that test. I can't remember what they did to test it, they mixed it with something, hell, maybe water, at a specific measurement. Too much moisture in your fuel, and the mix wouldn't clear, and they'd DQ you.
You had to store it sealed tightly in a drum, up off the ground for the best results. I'm not sure why up off the ground was supposed to work better, some said it would absorb moisture from the ground, but I'm not sure how that would be possible through a metal or plastic tank. Maybe sitting on cooler concrete allowed for it to attract moisture into a poorly sealed container. I don't know.
What is interesting, is that ethanol fuel has been around for a decade, and I bought my folks old RV, that has been around for 17 years. This thing has sat more than it's ever been driven. Every year it starts right up after sitting for six months or better. No problems. That being said, the EGR valve did go out on it a few years back, but I don't think it was the ethanol. It's never given me issues with power, starting, pulling or anything, and it's been running 10% ethanol fuel for at least 6 years now, that I know of.
However you may or may not be right I won’t question. What I know from very personal experience with ethanol additives in cars, trucks, small engines (2 and 4 cycle) tells me that it is nothing but crap when used as an additive. The less added the better if we have to have it. I’d hate to see what 15% or more is going to do now.
And just because a car manufacturer says “E85” doesn’t mean it is impervious. What it means is they’ve figured out what can make it past warranty and what won’t.
If you’ve ever had a car with malfunctioning TPMS sensors, you’d know that the TPMS sensors are government mandated and NOT covered under manufacturer’s warranty. On average is costs about $100 to replace a tire pressure sensor when the battery turns out to be a dud.
Your government at work “Here to help you.”
That's exactly so important that principled conservatives take a stand against it at all times, not just after elections. All others should too, but if principled conservatives don't, no one else will. And, the point is that a principled conservative did, indeed, take a stand against ethanol subsidies and still won the Iowa election. If others did the same, ethanol subsidies could be eliminated forever.
I’ve spent a LOT of time investigating ethanol as a gas additive, effect on engines of most any type and my only conclusion is that it is crap. It isn’t needed, in fact it is detrimental. It is all some government green subsidy ploy designed to make some people feel good and others very rich.
Unfortunately, the EPA pretty much requires ethanol in gas in many areas.
Even wholesale redesign still doesn’t compensate for the admitted inefficiency of ethanol versus gasoline. That fact is not a question.
That is why the EPA needs to be disestablished.
What you say is true I believe, but it isn’t a question of Cruz and what he did. It is a question about what I know and have experienced about ethanol. To subsidize ethanol use through direct dollars or by “no-taxing” or whatever makes no difference. We have a government agency that mandates its use and that is nothing but appeasing greenism borne out of politics and corruption.
I bought gas at a station in Durango, CO a few weeks ago. They were selling ethanol free right there at the pump for about $.30 more/gallon. I've never seen this anywhere else (I live about 1400 miles from Durango).
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