Hey, Akin – how did you manage to write this without using the word “ethanol”?
47 Replies to “We Don’t Need No Stinking French Fry Grease”
Governments have put in place, regulations requiring the burning of ethanol in transportation fuel.
… burning food, to please the green lobby. Wow.
Turning perfectly good bourbon into gasoline is one of the dumbest ideas that the eco-tards ever came up with.
Next time when you drive on highway and see pick-up truck on the side of the road with a sign ‘Fresh corn on sale – 50% off’ , it may be Stephen Harper or another G20 leader who had listened to David Akin. What a fool!
You might remember that the Navy recently signed a fuel contract with Dynamic Fuels, a joint venture of Tyson and Syntroleum (NAS: SYNM) , which subcontracted a large amount of the production out to Solazyme (NAS: SZYM) .
The contract was worth $12 million for 450,000 gallons worth of biofuel. Basic math tells you how lousy the Navy is at basic math: Every gallon will cost it $26.67, or $1,120 per barrel’s worth. Even if costs are ever reduced to reasonable levels, which is doubtful, biofuel production demands vast swaths of arable land to produce any meaningful quantities.
There would be no shortage of corn if it wasn’t for the greenies and the stupid policies of our politicians.
Wait. So important policy making decisions *are* done at the G8 and G20 summits?
🙂
‘Why’, you ask, Kate?
Kory Teneycke Is VP of Sun News Network.
He was a lobbyist for The Canadian Renewable* Fuels Association.
Was director of communications for Stephen Harper.
Dots ?? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kory_Teneycke
The emergence of synthetic methanol created from natural gas eliminate any justification for using bourbon as auto fuel….cheaper too.
The enviros nemesis is fraking….no sortage of oil or natural gas….PEAK OIL is as redundant/debunked as flat earth theory or CO2 AGW.
Yeah,talk about avoiding mention of the elephant in the room… Thanks for that link ron.
btw,why did gasoline just jump eight cents a liter here in Kelowna withing the past two hours?
David Akin is the token liberal masquerading as a Sun News conservative. He is to the right of Warren Kinsella but nowhere near the political predilections of the rest of the team.
@ dmorris at August 8, 2012 8:14 PM
” just jump eight cents a liter ….”
Refinery fire in California. Any excuse will do to screw the public.
The emergence of synthetic methanol created from natural gas
Reality check: methanol has been made from natural gas for decades; it’s not synthetic and it’s not ’emerging’, it’s been around for a long time.
Ethonal is nasty stuff. If it get into a water way in large amounts it kills everything, and you can not clean it up.
I think this is true they bring this into Vancouver harbor by tanker. If it is true and there is a major spill you have a dead harbor.
No worries I am sure it will be fine.
Why did Akin study Journalsim?
Because Science involves math and thinking.
I heard a story about how our grocery bills will be going up 4% because of the bad harvest yada yada while driving the kids to a movie. I muttered ‘what about ethanol?’. I live in eastern Ontario. While some of the corn is grown for local consumption (great peaches and cream corn out here), the majority of the fields in my neighbourhood sport signs from ethanol producers. I don’t buy gas from the local gas dealer because he mixes ethanol in his fuels. When I first moved here ten years ago, I used their gas and experienced a a downtick in mileage per gallon. So we make food more expensive, make cars less fuel efficient, cultivate vast expanses of land with genetically modified corn seed and this makes for a greener planet? This is tail wagging the dog policy making at its worst.
Why not encourage farmers to grow economically viable products. Do not get me wrong. I love farmers. They are only doing what they can to survive. But growing corn to alleviate a fuel and global warming crisis that we do not have is just absolute insanity.
There’s OIL in the ground.
Use it for Pete’s sake!!!
I respect Mr Akin for his integrity but his intelligence is sometimes lacking, look how easily he was suckered into reporting on the Attawapiskat ‘housing crisis’ by the NDP MP.
As to the viability of biofuels, the amount of energy expended to produce 100,000joules worth of ethanol is more than 100,000joules! You need to put diesel in the tractor to till and plant the field, more diesel in the combine to harvest the corn, more diesel in the truck to carry the corn to the ethanol refinery. Once at the refinery the mash has to be heated with natural gas to ferment and then heated again to distill the ethanol to separate it from the water.
A gallon of ethanol is less dense (has less mass) than a gallon of gasoline and per unit of mass ethanol has less energy than gasoline so ethanol blend will give lower mileage than pure gasoline. There’s just less energy in it.
Incidentally when Herr Diesel introduced his engine in 1900 it ran on peanut oil. The intention was that farmers could grow their fuel rather than have to buy expensive petroleum. The oil companies soon produced diesel fuel that was better and cheaper than producing your own biofuel. Now here we are, a hundred years after petroleum proved itself cheaper and better, all the green dreamers are trying to reverse a decision that has been decided in the marketplace already.
The cure for high prices is high prices – no need for political action other than to get out of the way. Artifical demand – read mandated ethanol content in fuel – certainly aggravates a low supply situation, but I the next five to ten years a collapse in fossil fuel prices will make those programs as dead as disco and carbon markets.
In 1/2 an hour Lisa Laflamme is going to tell CTV viewers to get ready for ‘soaring’ food prices.
I won’t be watching, but I’d be very surprised if she mentions the E word, either.
I believe there’s a method to their madness with SunNews featuring David Akin.
A constant reminder to its viewers of the stupidity of liberalism.
PEAK OIL is as redundant/debunked
Whoever says that has no idea about oil industry and oil production. Peak oil has nothing to do with ‘running out’. It simply means oil production cannot be ramped up anymore, that is, all new production coming online just keeps up with depletion in existing fields. We have been at that point for about seven years, although in fairness, the worldwide slow economy probably depressed demand.
Major producers like Mexico, Norway and the UK are in full production decline. To replace that production requires expensive, difficult technologies like those used in the Alberta oil sands, Bakken shales, and deep water.
I know Cornucopians like Bjorn Lomborg and Michael Lynch like to rattle about oil staying at 25$ a barrel until 2020 (or was it 20$ until 2025?) but they are clueless. At 25$ at least half the world’s producers lose money. Since oil is priced at the margins close to 100$ is here to stay.
Oil remains abundant, but is not cheap anymore, and will not be again. Which is good for Alberta and Canada.
I read this earlier today and was going to send Akin an e-mail then decided, what the hell – he’s too thick to get it anyway.
I don’t think he is malicious – just not very bright.
Green neck : you are very wrong.
Fracking costs are plummeting versus production levels worldwide. And huge new production is coming on in the next five years. The days of oil prices north of sixty (perhaps north of forty) are numbered and will remain that low for generations just as the natural gas market will remain flatlined for centuries (and for the same reason)..
What Aviator said. This was shoddy reporting at best and hiding the corn/ethanol factor at worst.
BTW Kate, well said in the comments.
Gord Tulk: you are very wrong. Disco is not dead! :))
Spot prices for corn are already flying in open air, futures are in this little beautiful bullish formation and running in front of USDA report. By the end of the year food prices may soar by 50%.
HA ha!
Sad and pathetic.
Using the picture of corn…… and skating right on by it’s use as biofuel….w..t..f?
Not waiting for the asteroid indeed!!!
This explains why I have always turned the channel when this lefty came on, Akin is pathetic and stupid, kind of like the reporters that have all day here in Alberta touted Seth Bornstein’s end of the world, because of glowball warming… 2 tenths of a degree rise in temps this July, along with some stupid study from the UofC on the longevity of ‘squirrels, and their certain demise because of glowball warming. there is no cure for the stupidity of a reporter, they are the energizer bunnies of dunces. Growing corn to make ethanol for fuel, is another example of the absolute stupidity of the environMENTALists, Thanks Suzuki, you got yours, hope your happy.
I like Akin but he did make a miss here. No reason to hate on him.
If Akin updates his article to include the bio-fuel angle …then you have a point.
If not ..then the point is on your head.
Xiat: corn has roughly doubled from it normal range. It may go higher still but a fifty percent increase in “food prices” seems unlikely. Some more simple products with little processing and packaging, yes, but a typical – what ever that might Mean – basket of food isn’t going to go up in price fifty percent.
There is nothing inherently wrong with burning corn as a motor fuel, provided it is not compulsory. There is something evil about government compulsion the ethanol mandate, as there is in any commercial endeavor.
However, it is my understanding that the complete removal of the ethanol mandate may have little change in the amount of ethanol fuel use. Apparently the economics favor ethanol as a way to enhance the octane of lower cost gasoline.
Woodporter said: “There is nothing inherently wrong with burning corn as a motor fuel, provided it is not compulsory.”
Sadly, I must disagree. In a hungry world, burning food is a sin . If the corn is -spoiled- and can’t be consumed by people or animals, then burn it. If not, then you’re literally taking bread out of the mouths of poor people overseas by driving the prices up.
A government mandate to burn food is the very height of insanity. We will all now reap the whirlwind on this one.
As to octane ratings, you can fix that issue with -methanol- which does not come from food, and you can fix it with water injection. An engine does not have to be turbocharged or supercharged to benefit from water injection if the fuel is too low octane and making the engine ping.
Water is pretty cheap too, added bonus. 🙂
Gord Tulk:
I’ll bet serious money with you anytime that you are wrong.
Don’t believe everything you read from folks who want you to invest in their business. A lot of the hype on fracking is just that.
Fracking technology remains expensive and the wells deplete quickly. As to natural gas prices, they did go down precisely because the oil is priced so high. Most shale gas is wet, and the producers make their cash off the wet content. In the old days the dry gas would probably be just flared off.
So, does this mean the corn in a box of Kellogs will cost 15 cents instead of 10 cents?
Farmers are certainly efficient compared to the ‘value added’ chain (and attendant parasites in the form of excess government regulation) from the farmer to the consumer.
Fracking technology remains expensive and the wells deplete quickly.
Not as expensive as drilling six holes, as opposed to one hole with a horizontal leg. Effectively making one well into six.
The Phantom >
“Sadly, I must disagree. In a hungry world, burning food is a sin”
I disagree; western countries are under no obligation to feed the third world. World food aid has doubled and tripled the poor and starving populations of the third world in the last 3 decades.
Instead of a few starving 10 children families, we now have dozens of starving 10 children families. (Multiplied in the millions)
The only way to help the third world is to get them off western welfare.
“Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach him how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime”.
I disagree; western countries are under no obligation to feed the third world. World food aid has doubled and tripled the poor and starving populations of the third world in the last 3 decades.
Absolutely. Makes a lot of dictators rich, as well.
fiddle @ 9:54, that is about right.
If the corn is -spoiled- and can’t be consumed by people or animals, then burn it. If not, then you’re literally taking bread out of the mouths of poor people overseas by driving the prices up.
So, what are you going to do about it? Price by gov’t mandate?
Phantom
You might be stepping out onto a slippery slope with your compassion for the downtrodden. It could be argued that much of what we consume in the first world competes with the base survival needs of those poor folk.
As to water as an octane enhancement, although you might be quite technically correct, the practical limitations of this approach have caused it to be thoroughly rejected. And methanol has problems with energy density. Perhaps this or other issues has caused it to fail as a practical option.
My favorite idea is to get mandates and regulators out of the way and let the market work it out.
It could be argued that much of what we consume in the first world competes with the base survival needs of those poor folk.
Yeah, let’s see him give up the portion of his income that supports him beyond base survival.
After all, that’s what he advocates for farmers. Gotta keep that grain price down…
Gord Tulk…..50% is nothing, we are just not used to moves like this in food prices.
Ethanol Mandate – the ‘housing sub prime’ of agriculture ??
Mandate ‘house loan approval to all’ – which resulted in artificially high house demand and prices.
Everyone gets hurt when reality strikes.
Greenies are so high school they always think they discovered sex.
Fracking had been going on for 50 years. Horizontal drilling for over 30. These processes were invented and profitable when oil was cheap. So I think they can budget for it now.
Actually water/methanol injection is a venerable practice.
During WW2 most combatant nations employed this to boost power in aircraft engines for short periods…..short because of the inability to carry a lot and the problems of over-stressing engines engineered for a lower output.
The methanol fraction was employed largely to prevent freezing….
Methanol at that time was largely derived from destructive distillation of wood….wood alcohol…and used extensively as anti-freeze in radiators. Ethilene glycol was a new development at the time.
Woodporter said: “It could be argued that much of what we consume in the first world competes with the base survival needs of those poor folk.”
Maybe. But really, I’m making a moral argument not a practical one. Its just wrong and stupid to burn food when you don’t have to, extra particularly when it is being done as a political trick.
In the news of late it is revealed that large ethanol concerns are buying foreign corn. To burn. Its just flatly wrong, and has nothing to do with food aid or third world welfare as others suggested above.
Not to mention the whole ethanol thing is just one more stupid government policy that warps the market and makes yet another dangerous bubble to eat your savings when it pops.
The reason for doing the right thing is because its the right thing, not because it’ll maximize your profit right this instant. Profit will come along presently, no doubt.
As to the much more fun issue of water injection, I direct your attention to Snow Performance and their water injection kits. If the US regulators are allowed to keep on the way they are going, you’re going to see this tech from the factory on new cars really soon. Gas and diesel engines will all be going turbocharged just to meet existing CARB efficiency demands, they are going to need water/methanol to cope with low octane pump gas in high compression engines not to mention turbo durability issues.
I’m putting one on my truck as soon as I can afford it, they can get you about 10% to 15% improvement in fuel consumption on a turbo diesel. Added benefits are lower exhaust particulates, lower exhaust gas temperature particularly when towing, higher intake air density and boost pressure (those are a good thing in a diesel) and healthy kick-in-the-pants horsepower increase.
Important to note that while the methanol portion is a fuel, the primary contribution it makes is in combustion efficiency, not just additional BTUs. Best results are reported at ~50/50 water/methanol, you still get good economy and horsepower increase with plain water.
Incidentally I hear that the reason the Big Three went with urea-injected particle catcher cans in the exhaust instead of water/methanol injection was regulatory, not practicality. Urea/filter system was an easier sell to the CARB pinheads than convincing them the engine itself would run more cleanly.
I of course am most concerned with eeeevile particulates, he said piously. Extra horsepower for racing blinged-out Hondas at stoplights never crossed my mind. ~:D (There’s really nothing like shutting down some random Ricky Rice Racer with a four-door long box pickup truck. The shocked look on the face when you blow past them, it never gets old.)
Most of the corn grown in the US is used for feed in the industrial meat business. That’s been going on for decades. It’s not our responsibility to feed the starving billions.
Remember when all those celebs raised millions for the starving Ethiopians?
Most of the money went to aid organization “overhead”, bribes to government officials, and to warlords for arms.
Since then the population of Ethiopia has doubled and moved to urban slums where they can not feed themselves.
Meddling only makes it worse.
People should contribute to solving problems in their own country first.
Governments have put in place, regulations requiring the burning of ethanol in transportation fuel.
… burning food, to please the green lobby. Wow.
Turning perfectly good bourbon into gasoline is one of the dumbest ideas that the eco-tards ever came up with.
Next time when you drive on highway and see pick-up truck on the side of the road with a sign ‘Fresh corn on sale – 50% off’ , it may be Stephen Harper or another G20 leader who had listened to David Akin. What a fool!
You might remember that the Navy recently signed a fuel contract with Dynamic Fuels, a joint venture of Tyson and Syntroleum (NAS: SYNM) , which subcontracted a large amount of the production out to Solazyme (NAS: SZYM) .
The contract was worth $12 million for 450,000 gallons worth of biofuel. Basic math tells you how lousy the Navy is at basic math: Every gallon will cost it $26.67, or $1,120 per barrel’s worth. Even if costs are ever reduced to reasonable levels, which is doubtful, biofuel production demands vast swaths of arable land to produce any meaningful quantities.
There would be no shortage of corn if it wasn’t for the greenies and the stupid policies of our politicians.
Wait. So important policy making decisions *are* done at the G8 and G20 summits?
🙂
‘Why’, you ask, Kate?
Kory Teneycke Is VP of Sun News Network.
He was a lobbyist for The Canadian Renewable* Fuels Association.
Was director of communications for Stephen Harper.
Dots ??
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kory_Teneycke
The emergence of synthetic methanol created from natural gas eliminate any justification for using bourbon as auto fuel….cheaper too.
The enviros nemesis is fraking….no sortage of oil or natural gas….PEAK OIL is as redundant/debunked as flat earth theory or CO2 AGW.
Yeah,talk about avoiding mention of the elephant in the room… Thanks for that link ron.
btw,why did gasoline just jump eight cents a liter here in Kelowna withing the past two hours?
David Akin is the token liberal masquerading as a Sun News conservative. He is to the right of Warren Kinsella but nowhere near the political predilections of the rest of the team.
@ dmorris at August 8, 2012 8:14 PM
” just jump eight cents a liter ….”
Refinery fire in California. Any excuse will do to screw the public.
The emergence of synthetic methanol created from natural gas
Reality check: methanol has been made from natural gas for decades; it’s not synthetic and it’s not ’emerging’, it’s been around for a long time.
Ethonal is nasty stuff. If it get into a water way in large amounts it kills everything, and you can not clean it up.
I think this is true they bring this into Vancouver harbor by tanker. If it is true and there is a major spill you have a dead harbor.
No worries I am sure it will be fine.
Why did Akin study Journalsim?
Because Science involves math and thinking.
I heard a story about how our grocery bills will be going up 4% because of the bad harvest yada yada while driving the kids to a movie. I muttered ‘what about ethanol?’. I live in eastern Ontario. While some of the corn is grown for local consumption (great peaches and cream corn out here), the majority of the fields in my neighbourhood sport signs from ethanol producers. I don’t buy gas from the local gas dealer because he mixes ethanol in his fuels. When I first moved here ten years ago, I used their gas and experienced a a downtick in mileage per gallon. So we make food more expensive, make cars less fuel efficient, cultivate vast expanses of land with genetically modified corn seed and this makes for a greener planet? This is tail wagging the dog policy making at its worst.
Why not encourage farmers to grow economically viable products. Do not get me wrong. I love farmers. They are only doing what they can to survive. But growing corn to alleviate a fuel and global warming crisis that we do not have is just absolute insanity.
There’s OIL in the ground.
Use it for Pete’s sake!!!
I respect Mr Akin for his integrity but his intelligence is sometimes lacking, look how easily he was suckered into reporting on the Attawapiskat ‘housing crisis’ by the NDP MP.
As to the viability of biofuels, the amount of energy expended to produce 100,000joules worth of ethanol is more than 100,000joules! You need to put diesel in the tractor to till and plant the field, more diesel in the combine to harvest the corn, more diesel in the truck to carry the corn to the ethanol refinery. Once at the refinery the mash has to be heated with natural gas to ferment and then heated again to distill the ethanol to separate it from the water.
A gallon of ethanol is less dense (has less mass) than a gallon of gasoline and per unit of mass ethanol has less energy than gasoline so ethanol blend will give lower mileage than pure gasoline. There’s just less energy in it.
Incidentally when Herr Diesel introduced his engine in 1900 it ran on peanut oil. The intention was that farmers could grow their fuel rather than have to buy expensive petroleum. The oil companies soon produced diesel fuel that was better and cheaper than producing your own biofuel. Now here we are, a hundred years after petroleum proved itself cheaper and better, all the green dreamers are trying to reverse a decision that has been decided in the marketplace already.
The cure for high prices is high prices – no need for political action other than to get out of the way. Artifical demand – read mandated ethanol content in fuel – certainly aggravates a low supply situation, but I the next five to ten years a collapse in fossil fuel prices will make those programs as dead as disco and carbon markets.
In 1/2 an hour Lisa Laflamme is going to tell CTV viewers to get ready for ‘soaring’ food prices.
I won’t be watching, but I’d be very surprised if she mentions the E word, either.
I believe there’s a method to their madness with SunNews featuring David Akin.
A constant reminder to its viewers of the stupidity of liberalism.
PEAK OIL is as redundant/debunked
Whoever says that has no idea about oil industry and oil production. Peak oil has nothing to do with ‘running out’. It simply means oil production cannot be ramped up anymore, that is, all new production coming online just keeps up with depletion in existing fields. We have been at that point for about seven years, although in fairness, the worldwide slow economy probably depressed demand.
Major producers like Mexico, Norway and the UK are in full production decline. To replace that production requires expensive, difficult technologies like those used in the Alberta oil sands, Bakken shales, and deep water.
I know Cornucopians like Bjorn Lomborg and Michael Lynch like to rattle about oil staying at 25$ a barrel until 2020 (or was it 20$ until 2025?) but they are clueless. At 25$ at least half the world’s producers lose money. Since oil is priced at the margins close to 100$ is here to stay.
Oil remains abundant, but is not cheap anymore, and will not be again. Which is good for Alberta and Canada.
I read this earlier today and was going to send Akin an e-mail then decided, what the hell – he’s too thick to get it anyway.
I don’t think he is malicious – just not very bright.
Green neck : you are very wrong.
Fracking costs are plummeting versus production levels worldwide. And huge new production is coming on in the next five years. The days of oil prices north of sixty (perhaps north of forty) are numbered and will remain that low for generations just as the natural gas market will remain flatlined for centuries (and for the same reason)..
What Aviator said. This was shoddy reporting at best and hiding the corn/ethanol factor at worst.
BTW Kate, well said in the comments.
Gord Tulk: you are very wrong. Disco is not dead! :))
Spot prices for corn are already flying in open air, futures are in this little beautiful bullish formation and running in front of USDA report. By the end of the year food prices may soar by 50%.
HA ha!
Sad and pathetic.
Using the picture of corn…… and skating right on by it’s use as biofuel….w..t..f?
Not waiting for the asteroid indeed!!!
This explains why I have always turned the channel when this lefty came on, Akin is pathetic and stupid, kind of like the reporters that have all day here in Alberta touted Seth Bornstein’s end of the world, because of glowball warming… 2 tenths of a degree rise in temps this July, along with some stupid study from the UofC on the longevity of ‘squirrels, and their certain demise because of glowball warming. there is no cure for the stupidity of a reporter, they are the energizer bunnies of dunces. Growing corn to make ethanol for fuel, is another example of the absolute stupidity of the environMENTALists, Thanks Suzuki, you got yours, hope your happy.
I like Akin but he did make a miss here. No reason to hate on him.
If Akin updates his article to include the bio-fuel angle …then you have a point.
If not ..then the point is on your head.
Xiat: corn has roughly doubled from it normal range. It may go higher still but a fifty percent increase in “food prices” seems unlikely. Some more simple products with little processing and packaging, yes, but a typical – what ever that might Mean – basket of food isn’t going to go up in price fifty percent.
There is nothing inherently wrong with burning corn as a motor fuel, provided it is not compulsory. There is something evil about government compulsion the ethanol mandate, as there is in any commercial endeavor.
However, it is my understanding that the complete removal of the ethanol mandate may have little change in the amount of ethanol fuel use. Apparently the economics favor ethanol as a way to enhance the octane of lower cost gasoline.
Woodporter said: “There is nothing inherently wrong with burning corn as a motor fuel, provided it is not compulsory.”
Sadly, I must disagree. In a hungry world, burning food is a sin . If the corn is -spoiled- and can’t be consumed by people or animals, then burn it. If not, then you’re literally taking bread out of the mouths of poor people overseas by driving the prices up.
A government mandate to burn food is the very height of insanity. We will all now reap the whirlwind on this one.
As to octane ratings, you can fix that issue with -methanol- which does not come from food, and you can fix it with water injection. An engine does not have to be turbocharged or supercharged to benefit from water injection if the fuel is too low octane and making the engine ping.
Water is pretty cheap too, added bonus. 🙂
Gord Tulk:
I’ll bet serious money with you anytime that you are wrong.
Don’t believe everything you read from folks who want you to invest in their business. A lot of the hype on fracking is just that.
Fracking technology remains expensive and the wells deplete quickly. As to natural gas prices, they did go down precisely because the oil is priced so high. Most shale gas is wet, and the producers make their cash off the wet content. In the old days the dry gas would probably be just flared off.
So, does this mean the corn in a box of Kellogs will cost 15 cents instead of 10 cents?
Farmers are certainly efficient compared to the ‘value added’ chain (and attendant parasites in the form of excess government regulation) from the farmer to the consumer.
Fracking technology remains expensive and the wells deplete quickly.
Not as expensive as drilling six holes, as opposed to one hole with a horizontal leg. Effectively making one well into six.
The Phantom >
“Sadly, I must disagree. In a hungry world, burning food is a sin”
I disagree; western countries are under no obligation to feed the third world. World food aid has doubled and tripled the poor and starving populations of the third world in the last 3 decades.
Instead of a few starving 10 children families, we now have dozens of starving 10 children families. (Multiplied in the millions)
The only way to help the third world is to get them off western welfare.
“Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach him how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime”.
I disagree; western countries are under no obligation to feed the third world. World food aid has doubled and tripled the poor and starving populations of the third world in the last 3 decades.
Absolutely. Makes a lot of dictators rich, as well.
fiddle @ 9:54, that is about right.
If the corn is -spoiled- and can’t be consumed by people or animals, then burn it. If not, then you’re literally taking bread out of the mouths of poor people overseas by driving the prices up.
So, what are you going to do about it? Price by gov’t mandate?
Phantom
You might be stepping out onto a slippery slope with your compassion for the downtrodden. It could be argued that much of what we consume in the first world competes with the base survival needs of those poor folk.
As to water as an octane enhancement, although you might be quite technically correct, the practical limitations of this approach have caused it to be thoroughly rejected. And methanol has problems with energy density. Perhaps this or other issues has caused it to fail as a practical option.
My favorite idea is to get mandates and regulators out of the way and let the market work it out.
It could be argued that much of what we consume in the first world competes with the base survival needs of those poor folk.
Yeah, let’s see him give up the portion of his income that supports him beyond base survival.
After all, that’s what he advocates for farmers. Gotta keep that grain price down…
Gord Tulk…..50% is nothing, we are just not used to moves like this in food prices.
Ethanol Mandate – the ‘housing sub prime’ of agriculture ??
Mandate ‘house loan approval to all’ – which resulted in artificially high house demand and prices.
Everyone gets hurt when reality strikes.
Greenies are so high school they always think they discovered sex.
Fracking had been going on for 50 years. Horizontal drilling for over 30. These processes were invented and profitable when oil was cheap. So I think they can budget for it now.
Actually water/methanol injection is a venerable practice.
During WW2 most combatant nations employed this to boost power in aircraft engines for short periods…..short because of the inability to carry a lot and the problems of over-stressing engines engineered for a lower output.
The methanol fraction was employed largely to prevent freezing….
Methanol at that time was largely derived from destructive distillation of wood….wood alcohol…and used extensively as anti-freeze in radiators. Ethilene glycol was a new development at the time.
Woodporter said: “It could be argued that much of what we consume in the first world competes with the base survival needs of those poor folk.”
Maybe. But really, I’m making a moral argument not a practical one. Its just wrong and stupid to burn food when you don’t have to, extra particularly when it is being done as a political trick.
In the news of late it is revealed that large ethanol concerns are buying foreign corn. To burn. Its just flatly wrong, and has nothing to do with food aid or third world welfare as others suggested above.
Not to mention the whole ethanol thing is just one more stupid government policy that warps the market and makes yet another dangerous bubble to eat your savings when it pops.
The reason for doing the right thing is because its the right thing, not because it’ll maximize your profit right this instant. Profit will come along presently, no doubt.
As to the much more fun issue of water injection, I direct your attention to Snow Performance and their water injection kits. If the US regulators are allowed to keep on the way they are going, you’re going to see this tech from the factory on new cars really soon. Gas and diesel engines will all be going turbocharged just to meet existing CARB efficiency demands, they are going to need water/methanol to cope with low octane pump gas in high compression engines not to mention turbo durability issues.
I’m putting one on my truck as soon as I can afford it, they can get you about 10% to 15% improvement in fuel consumption on a turbo diesel. Added benefits are lower exhaust particulates, lower exhaust gas temperature particularly when towing, higher intake air density and boost pressure (those are a good thing in a diesel) and healthy kick-in-the-pants horsepower increase.
Important to note that while the methanol portion is a fuel, the primary contribution it makes is in combustion efficiency, not just additional BTUs. Best results are reported at ~50/50 water/methanol, you still get good economy and horsepower increase with plain water.
Incidentally I hear that the reason the Big Three went with urea-injected particle catcher cans in the exhaust instead of water/methanol injection was regulatory, not practicality. Urea/filter system was an easier sell to the CARB pinheads than convincing them the engine itself would run more cleanly.
I of course am most concerned with eeeevile particulates, he said piously. Extra horsepower for racing blinged-out Hondas at stoplights never crossed my mind. ~:D (There’s really nothing like shutting down some random Ricky Rice Racer with a four-door long box pickup truck. The shocked look on the face when you blow past them, it never gets old.)
Akin did not mention genius Obama who steadfastly refuses to back off corn/Ethanol which consumes 40% of the US corn crop … really smart … burn food for fuel.
http://www.nptelegraph.com/news/livestock-farmers-seek-pause-in-ethanol-production/article_f84d45c4-e267-11e1-a40a-001a4bcf887a.html
I have never trusted Akin … and don’t bother to watch his news show.
Most of the corn grown in the US is used for feed in the industrial meat business. That’s been going on for decades. It’s not our responsibility to feed the starving billions.
Remember when all those celebs raised millions for the starving Ethiopians?
Most of the money went to aid organization “overhead”, bribes to government officials, and to warlords for arms.
Since then the population of Ethiopia has doubled and moved to urban slums where they can not feed themselves.
Meddling only makes it worse.
People should contribute to solving problems in their own country first.