Ethanol requirement

sedan said:
If cattle eat the field corn and we eat the cattle, it's still part of the equation.

The bottom line is that corn used for ethanol is corn NOT used to feed livestock, and the increased demand drives up the price.

Meanwhile, making ethanol made from corn is a grossly inefficient process that consumes nearly as much energy as it produces.

It benefits farmers who grow corn, and almost no one else.
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Using your logic, regarding the cattle eating the corn and then we eat the cattle, is a strawman; unless you can prove that cows are bing killed or starving, because the feed is going to make fuel.

I was never arguing the efficiency of making the fuel.
I was refuting the argument that the human's food source was being neglected; because their was less to use to feed humans.
 
leaningright said:
To those saying that the corn used for ethanol is not used or is different from corn grown for human consumption, that misses the point entirely. They could grow something else that is for human consumption on the land they're growing this corn on.

Now to what Rune says up here...and is exactly right on. I have two boats, one has a 1994 115 HP motor on it and the other has a 1987 150 HP engine on it. I am concerned for these and for my mowers and tractor, not to mention my bike. Ethanol laced fuel does go bad quickly and cannot be stored well. It gets fewer miles to the gallon and less horse power no matter what you use it in. Feed the hungry and make real gasoline.
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Then lets bulldoze down the cities in Oklahoma; because all that land could be used to grow more wheat, corn, cattle, pigs, sheep, etc.
 
Mott the Hoople said:
Not really, no. Is it ok for one person to dump a little bit of toxic pollution into the air I breath? How about 100 people? How about 100,000 people? How about 10,000,000 people?

That's why we have these sort of environmental regulations.

LR's using the same argument that was used when tetraethyl lead was prohibited. It was wrong then and it's wrong now.
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I can't speak for the US but there is usually one or two garages in most UK towns that have a lead free high octane fuel for vintage cars.
 
Mott the Hoople said:
Yes....but take you and multiply it a few million times and you have a serious problem. That's how we get back to your argument that this is an invasion of your rights by the government when it's really the other way around and the reason why we have a government with federal powers. Your actions are an invasion of our right to not be exposed to harmful levels of hazardous air pollutants.

Your argument was wrong when they were removing tetraethyl lead from gasoline and it's wrong now.
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Driving a car daily is one thing but using a chainsaw or an outboard occasionally is totally another, mountains and molehills spring to mind.
 
Aoxomoxoa said:
Driving a car daily is one thing but using a chainsaw or an outboard occasionally is totally another, mountains and molehills spring to mind.
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Not when you consider a couple of factors. Modern cars have emission control systems and combined with oxygenated fuels emit 100 to 1000 times less emissions than they have in the past. Most small, particularly two stroke, engines don't have these emission controls. Though they are used intermitantly they do emit 100 to 1000 times more emissions and when you multiply that by tens of millions of users then you're talking about a considerable volume of non-point source pollution that does have an environmental impact.

Again, that's not the main issue here. Were not talking about non-compliant small engines vs motor vehicles or the use of ethanol as an alternative fuel.

The main point of the discussion is it an over reach by the government to require oxygenating additives for gasoline to prevent the emission of hazardous air pollutants?

Considering the scope of the problem I say hell yes they do. Vehicle emissions of hazardous air pollutants is still a substantial problem given the progress that has been made.
 
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Mott the Hoople said:
My parents live on the eastern end of the corn belt in rural west Ohio. There's a significant number of ethanol plants in the county. They all can operate on corn and other cellulosic materials. Which one is used depends on cost, availability and ease of processing. Corn is preferred, even though the cost to purchase it is relatively high compared to other cellulosic materials, it requires less beneficiation prior to processing. That is, it's easier to use.
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Back in the late 60's, there was a farmer who raised pigs.
A lot of pigs.
Took what was a risk at that time and invested in the ability to produce methane from all the pig shit.

His entire farm ran on methane.
The vehicles used it, the house was heated and cooled by it (methane burning electrical generator).
He had the only farm that had a heated and cooled barn/shed for his pigs and it was huge.
Pig shit was washed down through perforated metal floors, into troughs that fed into collector containers.
These were then emptied into his processing containers.
 
Mott the Hoople said:
Not when you consider a couple of factors. Modern cars have emission control systems and combined with oxygenated fuels emit 100 to 1000 times less emissions than they have in the past. Most small, particularly two stroke, engines don't have these emission controls. Though they are used intermitantly they do emit 100 to 1000 times and when you multiply that by tens of millions of users then you're talking about a considerable volume on non-point source pollution.

Again, that's not the main issue here. Were not talking about non-compliant small engines vs motor vehicles or the use of ethanol as an alternative fuel.

The main point of the discussion is it an over reach by the government to require oxygenating additives for gasoline to prevent the emission of hazardous air pollutants?

Considering the scope of the problem I say hell yes they do. Vehicle emissions of hazardous air pollutants is still a substantial problem given the progress that has been made.
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Man, you had better not drive. Or use electricity of any kind.
 
Mott the Hoople said:
Not when you consider a couple of factors. Modern cars have emission control systems and combined with oxygenated fuels emit 100 to 1000 times less emissions than they have in the past. Most small, particularly two stroke, engines don't have these emission controls. Though they are used intermitantly they do emit 100 to 1000 times and when you multiply that by tens of millions of users then you're talking about a considerable volume on non-point source pollution.

Again, that's not the main issue here. Were not talking about non-compliant small engines vs motor vehicles or the use of ethanol as an alternative fuel.

The main point of the discussion is it an over reach by the government to require oxygenating additives for gasoline to prevent the emission of hazardous air pollutants?

Considering the scope of the problem I say hell yes they do. Vehicle emissions of hazardous air pollutants is still a substantial problem given the progress that has been made.
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I wonder why we can allow high octane lead free petrol in this country for old engines and vintage cars?
 
Thing1 said:
Man, you had better not drive. Or use electricity of any kind.
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That's not his point either.

His point is - if you are using fossil fuels, try to use fuels that aren't quite as bad to the environment. And that the govt can regulate that, as otherwise we'd have the "tragedy of the commons" that I'm sure everyone on this forum discussed in their economics classes.
 
leaningright said:
I don't know about the rest of you, but when I invest in something I use it until it can no longer be used. My riding lawn mower is 17 years old, my chainsaw is over 20 years old and my weed eater is 12 years old. My truck is a '97 model (I run ethanol fuel in it) and the Tahoe is an '04. I have no plans to replace them in the near future. I have a couple of boats whose motors and fuel lines are over 20 years old or right there at it. While I don't mind putting ethanol laced fuel in my vehicles that I drive often, I am not too keen on putting it in my boats and small engines. I drive 30 miles or more out of my way and pay a few more cents per gallon to get to a gas station that advertises fuel with no ethanol. I can at least be assured that it is better than the 10% stuff they sell at Walmart even if there might be some amount of ethanol in it. I've had that stuff go bad in a gas can between mowings last summer. I'm sorry Mott, I'm going to be dragged kicking and screaming into this era of new fuel.
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I've got a 750 Norton that when I get around to working on it, I'm going to have to decide if I want to have to add additives to the fuel (every time I gas up) or else have the valves hardened.
 
USFREEDOM911 said:
Back in the late 60's, there was a farmer who raised pigs.
A lot of pigs.
Took what was a risk at that time and invested in the ability to produce methane from all the pig shit.

His entire farm ran on methane.
The vehicles used it, the house was heated and cooled by it (methane burning electrical generator).
He had the only farm that had a heated and cooled barn/shed for his pigs and it was huge.
Pig shit was washed down through perforated metal floors, into troughs that fed into collector containers.
These were then emptied into his processing containers.
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I saw a dirty jobs program where a dairy farmer did something similar. He invented a process using cow manure that created seeding pots. Providing a container and a biodegradable nutrient source all in one package. Rowe said it was genius.....if you could consider someone who worked with cow poo for a living a genius. LOL
 
tekkychick said:
That's not his point either.

His point is - if you are using fossil fuels, try to use fuels that aren't quite as bad to the environment. And that the govt can regulate that, as otherwise we'd have the "tragedy of the commons" that I'm sure everyone on this forum discussed in their economics classes.
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If it's not his point, don't tell LR that he's "jeopardizing lives" with his chainsaw, or tell him he HAS to replace his lawnmower.

How far should gov't regulation go? Should people on a fixed income regularly have to replace their cars, lawnmowers, et al.? Should jobs be lost as we increase mandates?
 
Mott the Hoople said:
You're just factually wrong Rune. The same thing was said when they removed tetraethyl lead. Well guess what? They engineered engine knocking problems away so that adding tetraethyl lead was no longer required. Was this a problem for older cars? Sure.....but was that worth the price of getting lead pollutants out of the environment? Absolutely it was.

The same applies to un-oxygenated gasoline. How can you possibly rationalize it's use? Do you realize that without oxygenation gasoline combustion is only about 75% complete. Did you know that gasoline is from 5 to 10% benzene by composition? Are you aware that benzene is not only highly toxic but is a proven carcinogen at parts per million levels of exposure?

The health and safety and environmental advantages of oxygenated gasoline is certainly justification enough for adding ethanol to gasoline, regardless of the arguments for ethanol as an alternative fuel. Ethanol is also a far safer oxygenator than MTBE too.
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First of all, we shouldn't be burning gasoline at all, or any other petroleum product.
2. I am not in favor of using MTBE either, any more than you, in fact I an highly opposed to it due it it's potential to poison potable water supplies.
3. You are still ignoring the fact that we need to import more oil, and hence burn more oil when we add ethanol to gasoline.
4. You seem to think it is fine that starvation among the extremely poor is correlated to the amount of ethanol produced from corn. Additionally the cost of food for everyone has risen, world wide, not just those who are extremely poor. In fact the cost of food which for untold centuries had amounted to approximately 1/3 of the average person's income, dropped to just 10% of the average person's income as a result of the industrial revolution by 1900 and stayed so until ethanol was mandated as a fuel additive. It has now returned to 1/3 of the average person's income, a serious cause of our anemic economy, and a major downpressor on the lower middle class and poor of this country as well.

IIRC we have 500 million fallow pulpwood acres. There is no reason not to put that land back into production as a carbon sink and producing methanol, a better fuel additive than ethanol
without impinging on food producing acres. Considering also that adding methanol to plant oil is the easiest way to create biodiesel, the lack of wholesale production and utilization of methanol
is illogical.

By the way, I already stated that removing lead from gasoline was worth the cost of rebuilding all the old engines. Lead allowed engines to use soft valve seats. Without the lead hardened valve seats must be installed and since it is stupid to do the top end of an engine and not the bottom at the same time, the cost of conversation is a complete rebuild.

Not breathing lead; priceless.
 
Thing1 said:
If it's not his point, don't tell LR that he's "jeopardizing lives" with his chainsaw, or tell him he HAS to replace his lawnmower.

How far should gov't regulation go? Should people on a fixed income regularly have to replace their cars, lawnmowers, et al.? Should jobs be lost as we increase mandates?
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Thats a straw man. I didn't say that. I said it os not an over reach by government to regulate fuel composition to protect himan health safety and the environment.
 
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