In 2011 alone, more than 200 scientists wrote to the European Commission, condemning the EU biofuels mandate. Meanwhile, ethanol looked like another apparently permanent drain on a U.S. national treasury already $17 trillion in the red. This to “support” well-to-do corn farmers who have only a few votes, even as the many thousands of dairy, livestock, and poultry farmers were being harmed even more severely by ethanol than consumers.
Now, even Democrats on Capitol Hill are turning against ethanol. Staunch California Democrat Dianne Feinstein and a group of like-minded Senators recently introduced a bill to eliminate the corn ethanol mandate.
Environmental groups have even sought my help in getting rid of the mandate, indicating near-desperation to eliminate their own costly Green mistake.
Related: Review finds biofuels may be an energy sink instead of an energy source
Still believing that ethanol comes from french fry grease?
…and just what do you think should be done with used fryer oil? Would you rather see it dumped in a landfill instead of making it into a pollution reducing fuel additive?
Corn Ethanol is a big mistake. Get your facts straight, details are important for credibility.
If the anti-President, the B. Hussien, knows this is a harmful subsidy for the nation, and he reads about it in the newspapers, he won’t sign the bill into law. He’ll want to continue to harm America.
He’s not on your side America, he’s against you.
It ain’t a mistake if sold in 40oz/32 oz bottles.
There is enough methanol to give gasoline the same affect as the old tetraethyl lead….
Ethanol produced as a by-product of sugar or corn fructose(corn syrup manufacture is okay to enhance gasoline…..anything more than 8-10% is a stupid waste.
Livestock feed can readily absorb the used French fry grease. Those who wish to use it as diesel…well…. everybody should have a hobby of their own choice…
Northie, it’s not a “fact”, it’s a metaphor, as you have been told dozens of times in the past. I guess Aspies really don’t get it.
And people weren’t throwing used fryer grease in the landfill prior to the development of the biodiesel craze. There were, and still are, recycling companies that would buy the used oil from restaurants, and use for manufacturing glycerin, and animal feed, and many other products derived from glycerin. Growing up in Vancouver, I remember seeing gray trucks running around with “West Coast Reduction” on the doors. I was puzzled about it, and asked my father, who explained that they collected used restaurant grease, and dead livestock, and other such material, and made it into useful products. The industry has been around for a long time.
By the way, how do you dispose of the glycerin and spent methoxide from your home biodiesel reactor?
The collection tubs, I don’t know what they’re actually called, are located behind most restaurants out west here… beside the cardboard recycling bin, and the normal garbage bin.
They’re not often seen unless you’re trying to seek out free parking, or gain an advantage through traffic.
I have a rototiller, a tractor lawn mower, and a couple of snow machines that need their carburetors rebuilt this summer. Thank goodness I can get ethanol free gas for my boat.
Not to mention that it decreases the driving range of your vehicle. My GM truck is built to run on e85, if I so chose, but it goes further on 100% gasoline, by about 30%.
How about “We Don’t Need No Government Mandated Moonshine.”
For those here who oppose adding ethanol to gasoline, I ask what you propose be done?
Corn growers have lots of votes in small swing states like IOwa – states that have two senators just like the big states. And they far outnumber dairy farmers.
Poltically-speaking the subsidy makes all kinds of sense.
Canola cooking oil makes excellent bio-degradable mosquito larva control in standing water such as dugouts, etc. Corn oil probably does the same.
“For those here who oppose adding ethanol to gasoline, I ask what you propose be done?”
Two words: laissez-faire (Fr. leave alone)
“Corn growers have lots of votes in small swing states like IOwa – states that have two senators just like the big states. And they far outnumber dairy farmers.
Poltically-speaking the subsidy makes all kinds of sense.”
These are the same people behind the American obesity epidemic when they decided that Americans should eat like Italian peasants with the “Food Pyramid” which said most of your calories should come from … wait for it… grains.
Who was the head of the Senate committee that came up with that? Wheat state Senator George McGovern. He probably killed more Americans with that one than he saved working against the Viet Nam War.
Food Pyramid and Ethanol are the two best arguments against the electoral college, IMHO.
‘For those here who oppose adding ethanol to gasoline, I ask what you propose be done?’
Since it is environmentally costly, we don’t need it to have oil independence, it harms small engines, it probably increases the carbon footprint of the country, I suggest that the best thing to do is stop digging and end it. The same way we now avoid the toxic food pyramid, a change that happened from the bottom up, not the top down, BTW.
Oh my god.
THAT boondoggle. The unholy alliance of farmers, big business and the greenies. At the the first two are in it honestly yet cynically for the money.
What kills me about it is that EVERYONE who can do math ( or thinks about it objectively looking at the facts) knows it is a huge money pit with down-right evil ( I’m not saying that lightly either) side effects.
Seriously, the dead give-away it’s a *bad* idea is that it needs subsidies.
And YET, the moronic greens fell for this, hook, line and sinker, and it’s taken them YEARS to realize they conned.
How dumb do you have to be? Pretty soon, within my lifetime I’m guess ( slow learners), they’ll have a similar epiphany about Wind and Solar ( on a large scale) as it exists now.
Rizwan, I couldn’t agree more. Let the market decide what ethanol will be used. No subsidies, no mandate.
That means that farmers are free to grow corn wherever they desire, including on pasture land, and they may sell their corn to any buyer of their choosing, including ethanol producers. That means fuel retailers are free to blend as much ethanol as they think their market will accept.
Other than the mandate, this pretty well describes the current situation in the U.S. And the mandate is somewhat irrelevant now, as they want to blend in excess of the mandate due to current market pricing.
As for those on here grousing about subsidies for corn to ethanol, you now have your wish.
The subsidies have been repealed. Gone. Pfft. Have been for years.
MY SUGGESTION/QUESTION; If all the subsidy money spent on the Climate Change Slyience had been directed towards the Science of clean, safe development of Nuclear Energy in various size reactors to meet the electricity needs; would we be able to provide this now?
The large subsidy recipients such as G.E.; G.M./Ford/Fiat-Chrysler/Toyota/Honda/Hyundai/VolksWagon/Cherry and many of the weapon manufactures; and I imagine agricultural equipment manufacturers; would now be promoting alternative energy sources. Would it be safe?
let’s face t! the Globull Warmists think we are doomed (Easter Island scenario) anyways. The global nuclear proliferation has already been let out of the bag, as it were. Establishing standards for safe nuclear devices capable for market penetration has been proven with the safe 2fpproliferation of explosive tanks of very volatile gasoline every year. Tanks of gasoline for 15 million and more new cars every year.
I guess this is what I would do Rizwan. Cheers;
Tim said: “My GM truck is built to run on e85, if I so chose, but it goes further on 100% gasoline, by about 30%.”
Sad to hear, tim. You should trade for a Ford flex fuel truck. They do much better than that. It is not so hard to do, as they can now control ignition timing and other engine parameters to take advantage of the significantly higher octane rating of ethanol. I hear credible reports of about a 15 to 17 percent difference. At that,and with the current pricing structures of ethanol vs RBOB, E85 should and will come out much further ahead.
The end of the subsidy in 2011 is a bit of a red herring, unless they also eliminated the mandate to force everyone to have a minimum percent of ethanol in the fuel, which they did not. There is still a minimum of 15 billion gallons of ethanol per year in the US, mandated by the EPA. Your market pricing is driven by a mandated minimum quantity, not by the market.
Greg, not as I see the current situation. Yes the mandate exists, but with RBOB a buck higher than ethanol, it pays very well to blend as much as possible, mandate or not. Last I heard, they are blending in excess of the mandate.
Who am I going to believe, the sticker on my 2014 GMC with the yellow gas cap, or some blog commenter who apparently has something to gain from forcing me to buy his crop crap against my will.
Fortunately, it is now possible to get ethanol free premium around here, has been for a couple of months, and it is worth the price to me just on general principles. I also like the increased range. Plus, once I finish cleaning out several carburetors, I plan to use it in all my small engines. Ethanol related repairs has cost me several hundred dollars over the past few years, from $175 to my boat, to hundreds of dollars to have the snow machine carbs cleaned EVERY fall, not to mention chain saw and ice auger repairs. That is why I am learning to do it myself.
” Last I heard, they are blending in excess of the mandate.”
As long as they post the ethanol contamination so I can avoid it, whatever. I saw an ad on MSNBC which claimed that ethanol was BETTER for engines. Have to hand it to them for cojones.
In Canada ethanol producers are by law required to spike the product with gasoline to poison it, presumably because it has more value as something else that is taxed more heavily.
More likely the ethanol poisoning was coerced by the Americans in their prohibition period during which they poisoned their own industrial ethanol and thereby killed thousands of Americans.
http://tinyurl.com/y8jpvcl
By the way, how do you dispose of the glycerin and spent methoxide from your home biodiesel reactor?
The methoxide is used up in the reaction, and the non-toxic glycerol byproduct has many uses including hand and bathroom cleaner, greenhouse thermal mass, and weed killer. It’s also mixed with the oil sludge and sawdust, packed into milk cartons and burned as fuel in the woodstove.
There are no rendering companies outside of cities so in most small towns the UFO used to be thrown in the dumpster with the other restaurant waste.
Premium grade gasoline has much less ethanol than regular. You can see how much by mixing a sample with water, shaking it and letting it settle. The alcohol prefers to be in water and the increase in the height of the water/alcohol mix can be used to calculate the percent of alcohol. This method can also be used to ‘clean’ the alcohol from gasoline.
No, it’s not a ‘metaphor’, its a silly mistake.
Failing to understand the significant and important differences between corn ethanol and biodiesel is like failing to understand the differences between dog breeds. All dogs are not the same are they?
It absolutely is a metaphor. Do you not realize it is extremely churlish of you to go on insisting that our hostess here, who is a very smart woman, isn’t smart enough to recognize the difference between biodiesel and fuel ethanol?
Of course you’re entitled to your opinion.
Have a nice day now.