The writer from Fort Ripley is right about wasted spending and it is the subsidizing of ethanol from the corn seed to the pump.
It has been proven by its use and study that the product uses more energy to produce than what it provides.
Ethanol blends reduce gas mileage and horsepower by 12 to 20 percent. It works against miles per gallon mandates. Producing requires huge amounts of water and can actually do harm to the water supply. It has been shown it does not help to clean the air, but may actually be polluting it. These things are verified by a number of tech institutes like MIT.
Ethanol will kill small engines like chain saws, outboard motors, snowmobiles, etc. It gunks up carburetors and burns holes in pistons. It is called a mechanics "best friend."
Consider that it has raised the price of feed for farmers in the dairy cattle, cattle, hog and poultry business. It put some out of business. The higher production costs are passed to you at the market.
When you talk about cuts and waste, why not cut something we don't need?
We know that the waste here is north of ten billion dollars.
You got the guts to ask your representative to vote against the welfare check for ethanol?
John Orr
Deerwood
Comments (24)
Add commentYou are completely off
John,
You are way off on about everything in your article. I am not sure why people like you feel it is necessary to continue spreading falsities and lies about a homegrown and domestic product that is lessening our countries dependence on foreign oil. Ethanol adds good paying jobs and tax revenues to the economy and is bettering our environment as it burns 52% cleaner than gasoline according to the EPA.
You say it has been proven that it takes more energy to produce ethanol than it puts out but fail to site a source. Actually, according to the USDA, ethanol has a positive net energy gain of 2.3 to 1. http://technorati.com/lifestyle/green/article/msu-professor-corn-ethanol...
Saying ethanol reduces horse power is absolutely ludicrous. Ethanol boost horsepower big time, just ask NASCAR or INDY racing.
It takes just under 4 gallons of water (and most of it is recycled) to produce a gallon of ethanol while its takes around 40 gallons of water to produce a gallon of gasoline.
When exactly have you seen that VEETC will cost $10 billion? Because it is only around $6 billion and please compare that to the $200 billion plus that oil companies receive annually.
Drank a lot of kool-aid did ya???
Johnjames----wow, you must have drank the whole pitcher of ethanol kool aid when they passed it around because you sure are and have been suckered in big time by it all---can I interest you in some ocean front property I have in Arizona?? or maybe the London Bridge, I have a huge tower in Chicago I would sell you also!!
Mr Orr,
Your facts are right on,the public needs to wake up on this [filtered word] ethanol scam!!!!!!!!!
The only thing ethanol hurts
The only thing ethanol hurts is heavy oil investers.They are improving the ways of producing it dailey.You think the cost and the water used to day is bad,you should have seen it just
a few years ago when it was first being produced. Ethanol is our fuel of the future,as the prices of oil reach unafordable leavels.
Ethanol/gas mix will not damage a properly running lawn mower.
Because ethanol mix produces a higher octane rating,we can use higher compression engines,that povide better mileage.
Thier is no damage to propely adjusted engines from ethanol use.
ethanol waste
I wonder how the supporters will feel when we have a major food shortage. Will it be, oh well we got better mileage?
Water facts
A study by the Univ of Minnesota under Professor Sangwon Suh, etc showed that nationwide it takes 162 gallons of water to make a gallon of ethanol. As you go west toward drier states, the amount rises. In Kansas and Nebraska it's 500 gallons of water per gallon of ethanol. And we're using a third of our corn crop for ethanol, and it adds a trivial amount to our fuel supply.
Corn ethanol is a $6 billion annual scam which taxpayers are stuck with.
Rolf
Subsidies
Subsidies for the oil and gas industry are mainly depreciation allowances which reduce tax. Despite those, the oil and gas industry is the largest tax paying industry in the U.S.
Ethanol and wind both lose money, so they don't pay taxes. They need large direct taxpayer handouts to survive.
'the oil and gas industry is the largest tax paying industry
Exxon paid no income tax to the US govt in 2009 despite $35 biliion in pofits. (accordin to EXX, it was actually owed $46 million by the IRS, against $15.1 billion in foreign taxes owed).
Here's a list of oil-related activities subsidized by the US govt.
1. Intangible drilling costs.
2. Deduction for tertiary injectants.
3. Percentage depletion allowance.
4. Passive investments.
5. Domestic manufacturing tax deduction.
6. Geological and geophysical expenditures.
7. Foreign tax credit.
8. Enhanced oil recovery credit.
9. Marginal well production.
Resources and taxes
Exon made nearly all its 2009 profits overseas and paid $15 billion in taxes to foreign governments. This is a loophole that should be plugged.And allowances and deductions are available to industries generally. Two of the three largest ethanol producers went bankrupt, so they didn't get to use deductions and so need handouts.
As to the ethanol scam, this is a finite earth with nearly 7 billon people to feed. When we add a few hundred million vehicles to the dinner table, something is going to hurt - like a lot of hungry people.
I wonder how many gallons of
I wonder how many gallons of ethanol was made at the univ. of minnesota last year,that makes thier profs such experts.
we are are working at using what is left over from the wheat plant,after the wheat has been harvested ,millions of acres of it in the midwest.When this is worked out,the result will be,no extra use of water,and not a drop of food used to make ethanol.
Thier are millions of acres of land that could be put to use,growing new types of corn that require a lot less water to produce bumper crops.we can grow enough corn for ethanol and food,and still have some to export.
true, ethanol has required subsidizing,but the government,and the people can see what is happening to oil,and its use because of price and enviromental damage and we need a substitute and most small companies dont have the money to start, and need substities.
ethanol is the fuel of the future,and oil people need to realise
that thier greed has reached up an bit them on the as.
Oh ya, I havent noticed the
Oh ya, I havent noticed the price on corn based products in grocery stores going up any more than all other groceries.
The moonshine delusion
When you scoop up left over stalks, leaves, etc to try to make moonshine for our gas tanks, you leave the soil unprotected from wind and water erosion. And that left over material needs to decay and enrich the soil. Without it you have dump lots of chemical fertilizers on the land. The nitrogen and phosphorous ends up in the Mississippi and you get all those dead zones.
The best way to get energy from corn is to eat it. Leave the stills to the bootleggers.
Clean Coal
I understand the Chinese and US are collaborating on coal gasification (injecting oxygen-laden air and other chems into coal seams and capturing the gas which arises, separating out the CO2, etc,). I think there are a couple of experimental plants in China and one going up in Texas. Any thoughts on this, rolf?
Cheyenne * CBM(coal bed methane)
The U.S. is the leader in extracting methane gas from coal beds. Coal has a lot of methane as coal miners discover to their misfortune. The process is not experimental.
China is short of gas and wants to develop its sizable coal beds for gas. China and the U.S. have signed an agreement to jointly develop 15 large-scale Chinese coal bed methane projects as part of the second Strategic Economic Dialogue held in Washington, D.C.
This is probably what you are talking about. There isn't much CO2 in the CBM gas. And the CBM gas is considered "sweet gas", free of things like hydrogen sulfide.
Rolf
Whenever business gets to
Whenever business gets to externalize costs it's getting subsidized. That applies to over pumping aquifers for ethanol production or not accounting for carbon costs in oil production and use.
Underground Coal gasification
Rolf, is this link available to you? The article "Clean Energy is Dirty Coal" was published in the December issue of The Atlantic.
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/12/dirty-coal-clean-fut...
"The group has sponsored research on sequestration, on post-combustion capture, and on the “cleanest” of the emerging pre-combustion coal technologies—“underground coal gasification.” In this process, jets of air (or pure oxygen), sometimes with steam or various chemicals, are blasted into coal seams deep underground. They interact chemically with the coal to produce a gas that flows back up a pipe and can be burned. It leaves in the ground much of the carbon, sulfur, nitrogen, and other elements that create greenhouse gases and other pollutants when coal is burned."
They are building two new
They are building two new coal fired power plants in southern kansas,right in the heart of the wheat country.When the sulfer dioxide destroys a few thousand acres of wheat,like it destroyed the pecans in Texas,I dont want to be any where around. I sure wouldent want to have any money invested in them. Those old farm boys down thier will have them out of thier in no time.
Coal gasification is far to
Coal gasification is far to expensive, probably do better tapping land fills lol.
North America has more natural gas deposits under it than any place on earth. Are gas is probably the best and cheapest thing we have.Why would anyone want to use a more costly way of obtaining it,unless they owned a coal mine.
Coal gasification
There are two economical approaches to getting a combustible gas from coal in situ - despite comments from Jackpo, our would-be geologist.
I mentioned CBM where you basically stick a pipe down in the coal. Water comes out or is pumped. The pressure is lowered and natural gas, mostly methane, follows from the cracks and pores. This is being done in a number of areas.
The approach in the Atlantic magazine involves pumping down oxygen, steam etc and starting a fire in the coal. This produces coal gas, mostly hydrogen and carbon monoxide. The Chinese are active here in a coop program with the US.
Both of these techniques are just slightly profitable at current low ($4.30) gas prices but they will become very big as time goes on. We, China, Russia, and India are going to use coal for a long time and this is a better way of doing it.
Ethanol has nothing to do with electric power and a small future in transportation.
Rolf
Good info, as always, Rolf.
Good info, as always, Rolf. Thanks.
The only reason China is
The only reason China is using coal gasification,is because the practicaly no oil or gas deposits,but plenty of coal.
No rolf I am no geologist,but i am not that dumb either .