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Some choice; grow food to feed people or feed cars. Let the market decide. If well off people are willing to pay more for gasahol than poor people for tortillas then I guess the poor folks will have to eat their beans straight.
This is wrong on so many levels I cannot list then here but you can start by looking up soil erosion.
Quite surprised as it always was reported that ethanol can't be transferred via pipeline.
Noit in teh lines made to ship crude oil. There uis also a line to bring sand tars from cananda tot eh gulf coast refibneries but again it will take some years to come inot production.By then i really look for natural gas being ex-pnaded on LNG shipment to use for transportation and replace fuel oils for heating in many areas.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Omaha Rocks
Exactly.
And people who know what was going on KNOW that that price surge in mid 2008 was all artificial. It had nothing to do with supply and demand. It was market manipulation.
...and now Big Oil is buying ethanol plants. Interesting.
There are a lot of subsidies and tax advantages that come with investment in alternative fuels, which probably explains the Big Oil diversification into corn ethanol. It isn't a secret that this is basically a stop-gap technology that isn't going to get us where we need to go, but it has been so heavily incentivised that big companies with the money for the initial investment would be stupid not to get involved.
Location: Visitation between Wal-Mart & Home Depot
8,309 posts, read 38,779,335 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by GregW
Some choice; grow food to feed people or feed cars. Let the market decide. If well off people are willing to pay more for gasahol than poor people for tortillas then I guess the poor folks will have to eat their beans straight.
This is wrong on so many levels I cannot list then here but you can start by looking up soil erosion.
The amount of corn that this nation produces is truly astounding (as is the amount that simply rots in transport ships or in massive silos). I do not think we are in much danger of running out of tortillas by attempting to force 10% ethanol blends down the nation's collective throat.
That said, we do not have the arable land to supplant our current demand for gasoline. Annual corn production has been in the 10-15 Billion bushel range recently and we would burn through all of it well before we replaced 1/4 of the volume of gasoline consumed in a year.
Unless our lawmakers are much more stupid than anyone can imagine, we will never get to a point where we have to choose between masa and ethanol.
There are a lot of subsidies and tax advantages that come with investment in alternative fuels, which probably explains the Big Oil diversification into corn ethanol. It isn't a secret that this is basically a stop-gap technology that isn't going to get us where we need to go, but it has been so heavily incentivised that big companies with the money for the initial investment would be stupid not to get involved.
Right.
Ethanol - particularly corn ethanol - will not solve our energy needs. However, if we can get "10% here and 10% there" I'm all for it.
The bottom line is that the overwhelming majority of anti-ethanol hype is nothing more than Big Oil propaganda. And when Big Oil has a controlling interest in the corn ethanol industry, we'll suddenly start hearing that ethanol is actually a good thing.
We have 10% ETOH gasoline around here in New Hampshire. Main advantage is no more condensed water in the fuel. No need to buy gas line anti freeze - AKA alcohol.
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8,309 posts, read 38,779,335 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by GregW
We have 10% ETOH gasoline around here in New Hampshire. Main advantage is no more condensed water in the fuel. No need to buy gas line anti freeze - AKA alcohol.
That's interesting.
Apparently the 10% ethanol fuels are pretty hard on 2-stroke engines. Landscaping equipment and older outboard boat motors don't seem to like it much. Also, I noticed that the gas stations in my area have removed the "May Contain 10% Ethanol" notices and replaced them with "Contains 10% Ethanol".
Apparently the 10% ethanol fuels are pretty hard on 2-stroke engines. Landscaping equipment and older outboard boat motors don't seem to like it much. Also, I noticed that the gas stations in my area have removed the "May Contain 10% Ethanol" notices and replaced them with "Contains 10% Ethanol".
I keep hearing that about Ethanol Blend Gasoline and small engines, but that has never been my experience.
Years ago my sons & I had a lawn-care business. Most of the time we ran 5 mowers and I have no idea how many trimmers & blowers. We ran 89 Octane 10% Ethanol Blend Gas in everything - from the line trimmers to the truck. We never had any fuel-related issues with anything.
I think what's most apt to cause problems for small engines is the oil. A lot of people either forget to mix oil with the gas, or mix it incorrectly, or just use crappy oil - and that is the death of a lot of 2-cycle engines. And I can't even begin to count how many people never change or even check the oil in their mowers - and never change the air filter.
So while it's true that there are people who talk about Ethanol being hard on small equipment, I didn't have that experience. I know that's anecdotal evidence, but it's what I found.
There are a lot of subsidies and tax advantages that come with investment in alternative fuels, which probably explains the Big Oil diversification into corn ethanol. It isn't a secret that this is basically a stop-gap technology that isn't going to get us where we need to go, but it has been so heavily incentivised that big companies with the money for the initial investment would be stupid not to get involved.
But in teh end it is teh fact that congress has mandated it usage and now refuseds to mandate more that will kill ethnol usage. It atkes too cuh energy to produce it and its milaeage in even combined fuels means its more expensive. it will remain a very minor (less tha !5) alternative fuel. natural ags has a much netter future in transportation and will start to be very targeted towrds the commercial market and in mass tranportation.
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