Ethanol = lower prices

[manning]

Well maybe, a big maybe at that if at all.

And at what price??

Just heard on the news the warning that food prices this year may sky rocket because corn is being diverted to ethanol production.

What a mess!!!!!!!

 

[BillSears]

Ethanol really isn't a great source of energy. It takes almost as much energy to make ethanol as the ethanol produces. You get about 2/3rd of the normal gas mileage with ethanol. The subsidies for ethanol production are huge...

Ethanol isn't the answer to our energy needs.

http://zfacts.com/p/60.html

http://www.motherjones.com/news/special_reports/1995/07/ethanol.html?welcome=true

 

[Charade]

I was just reading my Pop Science and they had two interesting articles. One was using algae as a bio fuel and a new type of battery that will charge in minutes instead of hours. The battery is already used in some cordless power tools.

They said that it would take an algae "farm" the size of Arizona to provide all the fuel for the entire US.

 

[Cheshire Figment]

Another undisclosed poroblem about Ethanol is it takes four or five gallons of water in the production of the one gallon of alcohol. There was a report in the St Petersburg (FL) paper a couple of weeks ago that a company that wanted to build an ethanol plant in the Tampa Bay area was telling the Water Management District that they would initially need an allotment of about 200,000 gallons per day, increasing to 500,000 gallons per day in a few years. And this is in an area subject to water shortages.

 

[crazyme5kids]

CNN had an interesting show the other day called "We Were Warned", about our dependence on oil. It talked about alternative fuels for cars such as ethanol (Richard Branson, of Virgin Airlines fame is sinking a ton of money into the technology) and interestingly using sugar cane for fuel. Brazil is leaps and bounds ahead, using alternative fuel (sugar cane derived).

It was a really interesting show and I would recommend trying to see it if they show it again.

 

[John VN]

Sugar is better than corn, however, the corn lobby is larger and has more political clout.

Much too much false hype when it comes to alternative fuels.

 

[crazyme5kids]

You know what doesn't make sense to me? Electric cars, the you that you must plug in to recharge. My electric bill is high enough as it is, I couldn't imagine what it would be if I had a car like that.

The show I mentioned spoke about the oil industry, not slamming it though which was a nice change.

 

[powellrj]

You know what doesn't make sense to me? Electric cars, the you that you must plug in to recharge. My electric bill is high enough as it is, I couldn't imagine what it would be if I had a car like that.

The show I mentioned spoke about the oil industry, not slamming it though which was a nice change.

There was a reality show on awhile back that was about Ed Bagley Jr and how he truly lives his green life. He has an electric car, but he gets the energy from solar panels. It was really interesting to see what goes into living with solar energy and how he manufactures energy that they use. He only drives the solar car locally and drives a hybrid car for longer trips.

 

[Charade]

You know what doesn't make sense to me? Electric cars, the you that you must plug in to recharge. My electric bill is high enough as it is, I couldn't imagine what it would be if I had a car like that.

.

But the question is, would a "fill up" (a full charge) of electricity cost the same as a tank of gas. Even if they were the same amount, why would it matter if the charge was on your electric bill or on a debit/cc card? If it were more, I could understand the complaint but I think it would be a lot less.

 

[John VN]

But the question is, would a "fill up" (a full charge) of electricity cost the same as a tank of gas. Even if they were the same amount, why would it matter if the charge was on your electric bill or on a debit/cc card? If it were more, I could understand the complaint but I think it would be a lot less.

The concern should be the costs to produce the electric power and the resulting energy received from those costs and the costs to produce the electric car and the efficiency of the car.

All this hybrid and ethanol talk means nothing if the costs to produce the product and then use the product still impacts the overall picture in a negative way.

Solar, thermal, wind, wave and other natural renewable energy sources are really the only ones that will be there in the future without us depleting the sources.

Hope this made sense.

 

[manning]

Relating to cost.

We are seeing E-85 (85% alcohol,15% gas) being sold in the midwest.

For E-85 to be economically competitive to gasoline it should sell 28% cheaper than gas. The reason is that E-85 gets 28% less mileage than gas.

So far, I haven't seen that price difference.

Alcohol does not have the BTU output that gasoline has, thus less mileage per gallon.

 

[reeeoga]

Just to make you feel better: I was in a Citgo plant last week and Monday. They are about half way through their Spring rebuild. So their gas production should be up to about 97% of max by the end of June.

And yes they are spending several million to do this rebuild.

Take this post any way you want.

 

[Tyler's Dad]

Relating to cost.

We are seeing E-85 (85% alcohol,15% gas) being sold in the midwest.

For E-85 to be economically competitive to gasoline it should sell 28% cheaper than gas. The reason is that E-85 gets 28% less mileage than gas.

So far, I haven't seen that price difference.

Alcohol does not have the BTU output that gasoline has, thus less mileage per gallon.

The reason you see this is that most states have strong enough oil lobbies that make it illegal to be more than $.50-$.60/ gallon cheaper for E85. With gas as expensive as it is, there is no way to get it down and stay inside the legal guidelines.

Alternative fuels from corn, solar power, and even sugar are probably not the long term answer, but they are a start. They are cheaper, they help rely upon American farmers, instead of foreign oil, and they provide a jumping point from where the real answer will come from. The problem isn't the new types of fuels, the problem is we haven't actually decided to be serious about the research yet.

 

[Geoff_M]

There was a reality show on awhile back that was about Ed Bagley Jr and how he truly lives his green life. He has an electric car, but he gets the energy from solar panels.

He certainly wouldn't be driving his solar powered-charged electric car much in the Winter here in Michigan with our lack of sunny days! I'd also bet that most people don't have the capital assets that Ed does to pay for all of this gadgetry. I think the investigation into alternatives to the Mid-eastern "oil ticks" is a great thing, I just don't think Ed is the "model" for the masses right now.

 

[SamIAm21]

The Many Myths of Ethanol
By John Stossel
Wednesday, May 23, 2007

No doubt about it, if there were a Miss Energy Pageant, Miss Ethanol would win hands down. Everyone loves ethanol.

"Ramp up the availability of ethanol," says Hillary Clinton.

Graphic shows percentage of population within five miles of an ethanol station by state; 2c x 3 3/8 inches; 96.3 mm x 86 mm "Ethanol makes a lot of sense," says John McCain.

"The economics of ethanol make more and more sense," says Mitt Romney.

"We've got to get serious about ethanol," says Rudolph Giuliani.

And the media love ethanol. "60 Minutes" called it "the solution."

Clinton, Romney, Barack Obama and John Edwards not only believe ethanol is the elixir that will give us cheap energy, end our dependence on Middle East oil sheiks, and reverse global warming, they also want you and me -- as taxpayers -- to subsidize it.

When everyone in politics jumps on a bandwagon like ethanol, I start to wonder if there's something wrong with it. And there is. Except for that fact that ethanol comes from corn, nothing you're told about it is true. As the Cato Institute's energy expert Jerry Taylor said on a recent "Myths" edition of "20/20," the case for ethanol is based on a baker's dozen myths.

A simple question first. If ethanol's so good, why does it need government subsidies? Shouldn't producers be eager to make it, knowing that thrilled consumers will reward them with profits?

But consumers won't reward them, because without subsidies, ethanol would cost much more than gasoline.

The claim that using ethanol will save energy is another myth. Studies show that the amount of energy ethanol produces and the amount needed to make it are roughly the same. "It takes a lot of fossil fuels to make the fertilizer, to run the tractor, to build the silo, to get that corn to a processing plant, to run the processing plant," Taylor says.

And because ethanol degrades, it can't be moved in pipelines the way that gasoline is. So many more big, polluting trucks will be needed to haul it.

More bad news: The increased push for ethanol has already led to a sharp increase in corn growing -- which means much more land must be plowed. That means much more fertilizer, more water used on farms and more pesticides.

This makes ethanol the "solution"?

But won't it at least get us unhooked from Middle East oil? Wouldn't that be worth the other costs? Another myth. A University of Minnesota study shows that even turning all of America's corn into ethanol would meet only 12 percent of our gasoline demand. As Taylor told an energy conference last March, "For corn ethanol to completely displace gasoline consumption in this country, we would need to appropriate all cropland in the United States, turn it completely over to corn-ethanol production, and then find 20 percent more land on top of that for cultivation."

OK, but it will cut down on air pollution, right? Wrong again. Studies indicate that the standard mixture of 90 percent ethanol and 10 percent gasoline pollutes worse than gasoline.

Well, then, the ethanol champs must be right when they say it will reduce greenhouse gases and reverse global warming.

Nope. "Virtually all studies show that the greenhouse gases associated with ethanol are about the same as those associated with conventional gasoline once we examine the entire life cycle of the two fuels," Taylor says.

Surely, ethanol must be good for something. And here we finally have a fact. It is good for something -- or at least someone: corn farmers and processors of ethanol, such as Archer Daniels Midland, the big food processor known for its savvy at getting subsidies out of the taxpayers.

And it's good for vote-hungry presidential hopefuls. Iowa is a key state in the presidential-nomination sweepstakes, and we all know what they grow in Iowa. Sen. Clinton voted against ethanol 17 times until she started running for president. Coincidence?

"It's no mystery that people who want to be president support the corn ethanol program," Taylor says. "If you're not willing to sacrifice children to the corn god, you will not get out of the Iowa primary with more than one percent of the vote, Right now the closest thing we have to a state religion in the United States isn't Christianity. It's corn."

I like John Stossel and I think he's pretty fair about most things, so when I read this column, it really opened my eyes to the serious problems with ethanol. It's not the answer.

 

[manning]

[qoute] we would need to appropriate all cropland in the United States, turn it completely over to corn-ethanol production, and then find 20 percent more land on top of that for cultivation." [/quote]


Forget about finding 20% more land. I live in dupage county Illinois. This county at one time was known for farming, like Illinois nice rich black soil.

Now there isn't one farm in dupage county. We have a county fair each year and the standing joke is we have to rent the animals for it. It's amazing how fast farm land is giving way to housing development.

At one time farmers said don't touch my land I want to be a farmer. Now they say don't touch my land until the price is right to sell.

Someone said if we were smart we would build our houses in the desert and leave the fertile land for farming.

 

[Chicago526]

Ethanol really isn't a great source of energy. It takes almost as much energy to make ethanol as the ethanol produces. You get about 2/3rd of the normal gas mileage with ethanol. The subsidies for ethanol production are huge...

Ethanol isn't the answer to our energy needs.

http://zfacts.com/p/60.html

http://www.motherjones.com/news/special_reports/1995/07/ethanol.html?welcome=true

I agree 100%. Venezuala uses sugar beats or sugar cane (can't remember which) and that works much better than corn based ethanol.

 

[mickeyfan2]

Ethanol really isn't a great source of energy. It takes almost as much energy to make ethanol as the ethanol produces. You get about 2/3rd of the normal gas mileage with ethanol. The subsidies for ethanol production are huge...

Ethanol isn't the answer to our energy needs.

http://zfacts.com/p/60.html

http://www.motherjones.com/news/special_reports/1995/07/ethanol.html?welcome=true

Not to mention the amount of water needed to produce it.

 

[crazyme5kids]

But the question is, would a "fill up" (a full charge) of electricity cost the same as a tank of gas. Even if they were the same amount, why would it matter if the charge was on your electric bill or on a debit/cc card? If it were more, I could understand the complaint but I think it would be a lot less.

Good point, but I guess it would depend on what electric rates are in the area where you live. Our rates are high, but your right it could cost the same.