Ethanol Ramblings

[evolutionmovement]

...Funny how Ethanol has become a 'political' fuel that the left say is supported by the right and the farmers yet the Obama campaign has received lots of dollars from the Ethanol PAC Hmmmmmmmm

Originally taken from the following post

Has nothing to do with 'left' or 'right' unless you want to politicize it. Federal farm subsidies have been going on though all administrations and parties. Ethanol is just the current apex of the shit we've been piling up for decades. The numbers are there. The research is easy for anyone to find. The problem with ethanol more than anything is that we're using corn and soy to produce it at the amazing respective yields of 30 and 50 gallons per acre per year. Until they move to cellulosic biomass and algae, it does more harm than good to make it. Hell, even Brazil's sugar is a better idea than corn and soy.

The Vertigro algae system is looking at a yield of 100,000 gallons/acre/year and grows best in deserts. OriginOil is making some promising progress on algae as well, with their design on locating algae production in waste water tanks near power plants, capturing the power plant's waste CO2 to supergrow the algae. Biomass utilizes what we now discard. With some respectably efficient cars and maybe some investment (I can't even imagine how far we could be with 1/10 what we've wasted in Iraq) we might actually have something to contribute to the world again in 10 years with our new-fuel expertise heartily pumping up a near-stagnant economy in both domestic and export situations and in 20 years we might not need the Arabs or other oil regimes at all. Let them eat themselves - that's how you beat them - not pissing them off while tossing them more money! OK, that rant went awry, but everything is connected and it's inseparable.

[Reiji Dorifuta]

Has nothing to do with 'left' or 'right' unless you want to politicize it. Federal farm subsidies have been going on though all administrations and parties. Ethanol is just the current apex of the shit we've been piling up for decades. The numbers are there. The research is easy for anyone to find. The problem with ethanol more than anything is that we're using corn and soy to produce it at the amazing respective yields of 30 and 50 gallons per acre per year. Until they move to cellulosic biomass and algae, it does more harm than good to make it. Hell, even Brazil's sugar is a better idea than corn and soy.

and to think, global famine rates are soaring

gee i wonder why [/sarcasm]

[evolutionmovement]

It's absolutely disgusting. Even a weasel knows not to shit where it eats. But beyond that, we've been subsidizing over-production of these staple crops and dumping them cheap on the world market for so long that poor nations have become dependent upon it at the expense of their own growers (who can't make a profit trying to compete with our cheap food and who then tend to turn to drug production - oh the US government is just so damn smart! Or maybe it's because the CIA makes so much money on illicit drug production as well). Now there's an inadequate domestic farming industry for many poor nations and people are starving. But I guess no one gives a shit about little people living pointless lives in countries fat Americans can't point to on a map with their chicken-greased fingers.

[Reiji Dorifuta]

And of course you have tons of advertisement and brainwashing radio waves that broadcast through the ears of the ignorant masses, helping the uninformed remain blind to the resources we are expending to produce this product, the energy we're wasting just to make this so-called 'miracle gas' go around,

and local oil companies jump for joy because now they're 'living off the land' and pocketing even more raw money. Of course they're federally funded, and funded well, to support their 'green ways', so the operations and plants come at little to no cost out-of-pocket for them.


It's sad, for the 19th and most of the first half of the 20th century, we were considered the best, pioneers of technology and industry, and great democratic leaders of the rest of the world, yet now we've become the laughing stock of the rest of the globe. Devouring millions of acres of farmland and dedicating them to 'green fuel' when so much of those crops can go to helping stop global famine is just the beginning, of course. Any educated folk should know the story from here on out.

It's pretty sad, how we're such a big, fat pig of a nation with so many who are just blindsided to the truth. Plus, those who know don't care. And those who care are either 'paid not to' if you get my drift, or have no power to make a change...

[/end how-much-our-nation-can-suck rant]

[evolutionmovement]

We've killed ourselves with a consumer image. When we lead the world, the attitude of people was one of pride in the entrepreneur, the innovator, the individual. Today, entrepreneur usually describes some useless financial douche who pushes around electronic representations of non-existent money as he swallows up companies, pumps them up, and sells them as a shell of what they could have been rather than someone with the vision to cultivate a great new product. People want to invent so they can be rich, not so they can come up with something new, perhaps something that will better the world. It's a shallow ideal that cannot support itself for long. I write my books because I HAD to, I was driven to, and when I finished the first one, expelling several of my own demons in the process, I reread it and realized someone else may like it, too. I don't expect to be rich from them, I do it because that's what I'm here for and if reading it helps someone else out, then I've done what I could. Don't get me wrong - I certainly want to make money off it - and beyond some small things, the more I make the more I can give away.

My grandfather still talks of some blacksmith in the '20's that built all the equipment for their ice farm (in the days of the ice box) out of junk cars and spare parts. Today, people would rather buy something than build one for cheaper, allowing others to think for them in the process, giving up their identity to an image of someone else's dream. This has been going on for so long and the insidious reach of marketing so prevalent that most people don't even know how to think anymore.

I'm building a car out of an airplane because their are no intelligent cars until/unless the Aptera comes out.

[entirelyturbo]

I was thinking about this today, and how if what you say is true Steve, this really is about the dumbest idea ever.

Not that I'm doubting you, but can you give a source on the 30-50 gals/yr/acre statistic?

If that's true, allow me, with simple arithmetic, to demonstrate how pointless E10 is.

If I drive 15,000 miles in my Honda, and assume it averages 30mpg on 100% gasoline, I will use 500 gallons of gas in one year.

Running on E10, going by those same stats, I will probably average about 28mpg (I've noticed mileage in my Honda decrease about 2mpg on E10, as have many others I've talked to).

So, driving 15,000 miles again, I will use 535.7 gallons of E10 a year.

Since E10 is 10% ethanol, I will use 53.57 gallons of ethanol a year.

So, according to your statistic... you mean, ME, MYSELF, I ALONE will be using MORE than an entire acre of farmland's ethanol yield in one year... provided your best-case scenario? With a Honda Fit???

I can get better mileage in this car, but that won't really change the outcome that much.

And because I will still be using 482.13 gallons of gasoline, all this is to save 17.87 gallons of gas a year??? That's not even two tanks!

Are we really that stupid?

And even though it's not a FL mandate yet, I can't find a gas station that doesn't sell E10 anymore.

[evolutionmovement]

I'd have to dig it up, but it was in a tech article discussing a company that had a breakthrough in vertical algae farming and I also discussed it with my uncle who's now a consultant for the DoA and worked for them for years prior. He's now a big guy regulating the poultry industry and he's big into all the agriculture stuff.

But corn and soy-based ethanol is considered Gen I biofuel and expected to be supplanted by far better Gen II (like algae and biomass) as soon as technology allows. But I don't think Gen I ethanol should be expanded beyond an additive for knock resistance at most.

[Legacy777]

You want to know what else.....the government has set mandates on how much bio fuel must be used. We can refine more gasoline then we have ethanol to blend with. So essentially the government is restricting how much gasoline is refined and ultimately the price.....

Food based ethanol, especially corn is horrible.

[93forestpearl]

For a while I though about making myself some auxiliary fuel and timing maps for E85, but when I found out more about how bad it is, my conscious won't let me do it. Yah its cheap race gas, but its doing nothing but hurting our country.


I know a lot of people that don't care about any of that, and all they do care about is how fast their car ultimately is. They only see what affects their pocket book, so that's how they act.



At least Charles Branson is investing in the Algae growing now, because he built a few ethanol plants before realising the error in that thinking.

[entirelyturbo]

Wow... stupid me. Allow me to make it look even worse.

Since, from what I can tell, gas prices aren't affecting this country as bad as they should, as I still see PLENTY of SUVs driving around, let's halve my original MPG statistic.

Let's say I drive an SUV that averages 15mpg on 100% gas, and drops the same 2mpg on E10. I'm still driving 15,000 miles a year.

I'd use 1000 gallons of 100% gas, and 1153.8 gallons of E10.

I'd use 115.38 gallons of ethanol, which would be the annual yield of OVER TWO ACRES of crops.

But here's the best part...

I'd use 1038.42 gallons of gas. I'd use 38.42 MORE gallons of gas running E10 than I would running straight gas.

So, as you all have said, I would burn up two acres of perfectly good crops that could be used for more philanthropic uses. But in the process, I would burn MORE gasoline!

[evolutionmovement]

And there's no shortage of oil (yet), just refining capacity. The oil we will be getting more of will just be harder to get and be dirtier, requiring more refining (like most of Iraq's oil that sits in docked oil tankers rented for STORAGE since no one wants the dirtier oil from there).

Drilling in Alaska and even the offshore drilling is a political game of BS (big surprise) and the oil companies don't even want the Alaskan oil (which is said not to amount to much anyway) due to the harsh environment, expense to build the site and connection pipe line. And the government shouldn't want it either for the terrorist risk alone.

North Dakota's supposed to have a huge reserve. There was a great interview with an oil industry consultant on Charlie Rose a few weeks back.

But I think the goal here should be getting cars and homes off oil altogether.

[evolutionmovement]

OK, I looked up the gallons per acre to double check my source and found it WRONG (I think they missed/left off a 0). However, it still sucks and I can't find many sources that agree. Going by the multiple sources, the yield from an acre of corn is anywhere from 230 to 300 gallons of ethanol. Brazil's sugar cane nets something around 660 gallons/acre and switchgrass can get about 1000 gallons. Miscanthus grass in a biomass trial run is getting 1500 gallons.

[Richard]

And I bet the politicians who thought all along that this was a good idea will still keep their jobs and act like they were doing something good. They're supposed to do the homework and investigate this crap before it screws us. We're supposed to be the dumb shits and they've got their Ivy League education to show for what? This is what happens when screwy idealogy and wishful thinking replaces responsibility and duty. At the end of the day, what they do is supposed to help us, not fuck us. Why is it every time they, the "wise ones", come up with a fix to a problem, it gets watered down, filled with pork, has it's balls cut off, and eventually fails while simultaneously creating a few more problems for us to get fucked by? I'm surprised this congress even has the approval ratings they have to be quite honest. The 11 or so percent of Americans who think these shitforbrains are doing good are who??? The far-fringe kooks who are happy they got federal money for some stupid "Save the rare red-breasted speckled nutsac wart" or whatever? The people who get to suck off the tertiary teat of power to make their living? Or the completely oblivious, possibly medicated, "disadvantaged" American minority (blacks, hispanics, single mother, elderly SS recipient) who just loves their Senator or Congressman for signing a bill to increase their government controlled, taxpayer subsidized, dependence inducing, freedom robbing form of welfare??? Why do we keep looking for solutions to our problems from the very same people who create them? Government has gotten so bureaucratic and big that they couldn't find their way out of a cardboard box with a map and a boxcutter. They have their hands so far into our daily lives it's sickening. Freedom my ass, this is not what the forefathers intended! We're moving steadily towards a +40% tax rate people! Revolutions have started for less than 30%! I never had the "pleasure" of living under a Jimmy Carter but I have this sneaky suspicion that we're all going to find out what it's like real soon, and I don't think it's going to be fun.

Government is not the answer to our problem. Government IS the problem.

[evolutionmovement]

The Founding Fathers would undoubtedly be disgusted. I'm all for multiple secessions. The entire government needs to be removed. The problem is finding someone to replace them with. It reminds me of the final days of the Roman Republic. There was a reason it became an empire and I see the potential for the cycle repeating. Who, I ask, is our Julius Caesar or Hadrian or Octavian? All I imagine we'll find are Neros, Caligulas, and Tiberiuses.

Maybe everything just needs to start anew. www.evolutionmovement.org

[impreza_GC8]

I don't get fuel with Ethanol added. I will drive to other gas stations. I don't mind too terribly much for my RS but I def do care with my turbo Outback. But I follow the same rules with both cars and go to the greatest lengths to avoid Ethanol gas. I am proud to say neither of my vehicles has ever tasted a drop of ethanol (that I know of!).

[evolutionmovement]

Sorry, man, but ethanol is mandated in all auto fuel to 10%. The other crap they sell is a higher percentage ethanol.

[impreza_GC8]

^^^ Ah, right. I understand they have been adding it in small amounts or whatever but the places that advertise it as having the extra ethanol in it I avoid. I guess I was incorrect in saying that my cars have never had ethanol. They've never had the ethanol gas that has lots of it.

[Richard]

We're mandated 10% ethanol in southeastern Wisconsin by the Clean Air Act or something, though if i went two counties over I can still find places that advertize 100% gas, or for just premium at least. I was in Iowa last week and almost every station sells both 100% and 90% gas, as well as e85. At least the bastards that force it down our throat get a choice. If I had a choice here in Wisconsin, I would gladly pay up to $0.25/gal more for real fuel.

[555BCTurbo]

Bring on the soybean-based Biodiesel!

[entirelyturbo]

All I imagine we'll find are Neros, Caligulas, and Tiberiuses.

We have Tiberiuses already.

They're called Catholic priests.

Bring on the soybean-based Biodiesel!

But how will our government EVER survive without the road taxes on gasoline???

[Richard]

Why is it so important to make sure a bloated, wasteful, irresponsible government continues to do business as usual while we cope with the times?

[evolutionmovement]

It isn't, but it makes the masses feel safe, which is more important to them than free. I'm all for separate states (even though MA legislature generally sucks balls) or small federations (New England, PNW, Texas or SW, etc.) running themselves with a 'Federal' government little more than a business that controls pooled money to support interstate commerce, interstate police, and a common (smaller) military. I'd like the system to be something akin to the EU in concept, where every state or federation would be more like their own country, but with travel and transport expedited much like it is today. That's how it was originally and I think it should return to that, but this time we need to be more vigilant to see that it doesn't degenerate into a huge federal government with overriding control over all.

This country is too vast with too many regional variances for one government to properly rule over so the natural progression is for an ever-larger group to tend to all their concerns and, of course, the ever-increasing concerns of the federal government itself. In an ideal situation, there's no way to govern so that everyone is equally satisfied. Like Toyota, the best you can do trying to please everybody is to water everything down so much that you please nobody, but can generally leave people content. Unfortunately, our government isn't even like Toyota - it's more like Daewoo.

[SubaruNation]

i only buy my gas from the 2 places in town that dont have it mixed in at all.

and yeah i totally believe your statistics about the ethanol steve.

this stage will only last for like 3-5 more years before we become more energy conscious individuals and realize what is going on (as a society...hopefully ), which will happen after battery technology gets a little better.

im pulling for electric vehicles, they will be the disruptive technology and force change.

[Legacy777]

Sorry, man, but ethanol is mandated in all auto fuel to 10%. The other crap they sell is a higher percentage ethanol.

I believe that's based on the total percentage of fuel sold. So you can still have places that don't have 10% ethanol. Seattle area doesn't, Pennsylvania doesn't, and I'm sure there are other places. More and more states are using ethanol....but not everywhere has it.

On that note.....Texas was trying to reduce the amount of ethanol being used due to higher costs for feed stock and the like for farmers.



EPA denies Texas request to temporarily cut federal ethanol requirements.
The Washington Post (8/8, A3, Eilperin) reports that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) "denied a request by Texas to temporarily cut federal ethanol requirements for the nation's fuel supply, saying the state had not proved that the recent rise in corn prices is severely hurting its economy." The federal law requires that "nine billion gallons of ethanol and biodiesel...be blended into gasoline between Sept. 1, 2008, and Aug. 31, 2009, to meet a national Renewable Fuels Standard." Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) wanted to cut the number of required gallons in half because "the mandate is hurting livestock producers and increasing food costs." But, in its decision (pdf), the agency said that it "'recognizes that a number of factors have contributed to high corn, food, and fuel prices as a nation,' [and] it does not believe the renewable fuels requirement is 'causing severe economic harm' to Texas."

The New York Times (8/8, C4, Wald) adds, "The effect of the decision on fuel and food markets is hard to determine." While "high energy prices have led to even more ethanol production than the quota required," increasing prices for corn "made some ethanol operations unprofitable, especially as oil prices started to fall. So ending the quota might not have reduced the use of ethanol, but it might decline even with the quotas remaining in place."

The Wall Street Journal (8/8, A3, Hughes, et al.) called the decision "a victory for U.S. corn growers and ethanol makers. But it is unlikely to settle the broader debate over U.S. biofuels policy and the degree to which the U.S. should continue to subsidize alternative fuels such as corn-based ethanol." Following the decision, "groups representing poultry producers, livestock farmers, and other industries vowed to take their case to Congress and the next presidential administration."

The AP (8/8, Blaney) notes that Gov. "Perry called the decision 'a mistake' and 'bad public policy.'" He said that he was "greatly disappointed with the EPA's inability to look past the good intentions of this policy to see the significant harm it is doing to farmers, ranchers, and American households."

Bloomberg (8/8, Seeley, Elsibai) explains that "[t]he decision ensures ethanol producers such as Poet LLC, in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and Archer Daniels Midland Co., in Decatur, Illinois, will continue to have demand for their fuel. It is a blow to refiners and livestock producers who have fought the increased mandates because of higher costs."

The Houston Chronicle (8/8, Clanton), the Washington Times (8/8, Hill), U.S. News & World Report (8/7, Garber), the U.K.'s Guardian (8/8, Schor), and the Los Angeles Times's (8/7, Gerstenzang) Countdown to Crawford blog also covered the story.

Daschle in talks to become adviser to RFA. The Financial Times (8/8, Kirchgaessner) reports that former Democratic Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (S.D.) "is in talks to become an adviser to the Renewable Fuels Association (RFA), the most powerful ethanol lobby in the U.S. capital." While Daschle "said he would not serve as a lobbyist nor meet legislators on the RFA's behalf," he said that "he would advise the lobby group on addressing concerns about ethanol's impact on the environment and food prices as well as how the industry could make a transition from the initial phase of ethanol production to 'something more sophisticated and more diverse.'"

[evolutionmovement]

Yeah, that looks like it varies by state. I wasn't sure with the wording if states could still set their minimums or if that had been overridden by a Federal target. Guess that would make sense as different climates require different blends, but I wasn't sure if that would affect a minimum requirement. Plus, CA has been pushing to move away from MTBE as an octane-boosting additive and ethanol seems to be the ready substitute (could have been used instead of lead back when anti-knock compounds were first being added), though that's a state thing, I would expect the rest of the country to follow. But then, with the gas prices, who knows? I guess the federal government hasn't become quite as omniscient as I thought. Yet.