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Hybrid Vehicles Hybrid Vehicles - Archived Discussions Will ethanol E85 catch on in the US? Will we Live Green and Go Yellow? 
2104 messages, Last post on Oct 27, 2006 at 5:34 AM
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Replying to: socala4 (Jun 15, 2006 1:25 pm) You must have a very serious memory problem. I thought we had this conversation at least twice in the last couple days. Maybe I should ask you where is this ethanol plant that is using Switchgrass to produce ethanol? I would be happy to give it a bit of publicity. I think ethanol from any waste biomass is Great. Corn growing is not Great for the planet.
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Replying to: john1701a (Jun 15, 2006 12:35 pm) And where might they be located? Late last year in Goldfield, Iowa, a refinery began pumping out a stream of ethanol, which supporters call the clean, renewable fuel of the future. There's just one twist: The plant is burning 300 tons of coal a day to turn corn into ethanol - the first US plant of its kind to use coal instead of cleaner natural gas. An hour south of Goldfield, another coal-fired ethanol plant is under construction in Nevada, Iowa. At least three other such refineries are being built in Montana, North Dakota, and Minnesota. Coal Cloud over the Midwest Maybe one is coming to your city!!! |
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Replying to: gagrice (Jun 15, 2006 2:09 pm) And where is all this biodiesel that we are supposed to use? And how would we use it when the vast majority of cars sold in the US operate on gasoline? Let's try this one more time -- none of these products are here yet, or in wide distribution. All of them are just talk unless the cost, resource and distribution issues are sorted out. It's amazing that you don't acknowledge these obvious issues. When I ask you how this is all supposed to happen, your answer is, "Biodiesel is the answer," but it is just chatter unless you deal with the issues. Very basic: I can't buy biodiesel, my car doesn't use it, anyway, and virtually everyone else in the United States is in the same situation. So how would you change this?
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Replying to: socala4 (Jun 15, 2006 2:15 pm) What would you call the mandate to force us all to use ethanol in our gas? For not being here yet I find 4.5 billion gallons of ethanol more than a pittance. I have never said that biodiesel is widely used. I don't care if anyone uses biodiesel. I don't like being forced to use ethanol made from an invasive crop like corn. If you and seniorjose want to run ethanol straight into your tank, hey go for it. Just don't try to force me to use that inferior fuel. That seems to be your position. Or is it just to argue over nothing? How about, we argue over whether GM gets more miles from a gallon of E85 than Ford.
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Replying to: gagrice (Jun 15, 2006 2:24 pm) Incidentally, you critiqued another poster for taking the exact same position, but in respect to E85 (wants it out there, but doesn't care if anyone actually uses it.) Given that both of you are clearly devotees of one answer and highly critical of another, that's a rather incongruent response.
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Replying to: socala4 (Jun 15, 2006 2:29 pm) Maybe you should post where I have advocated mandating the use of biodiesel. I have said it is a good alternative that gets equal mileage to diesel. It requires a diesel vehicle to use it. That is limiting in itself. Though there are a lot of trucks that wander on the highways of America. I will leave the sale of biodiesel to Bio-Willie. Oh, I have also said and can prove that there are more stations selling biodiesel on the West coast than sell E85. I think you will find my position is the same today as it was two years ago. Corn grown the way ADM and the mega farmers grow it is NOT good for the land. That would also apply to corn oil for cooking and corn flakes for breakfast. Which I do not use knowingly. I read each label in the store before I buy. I love sweet white corn on the cob which I am watching from my office window as I type. I only use natural manure to fertilize the soil. That goes for our citrus trees as well. Any other hollow arguments?
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Replying to: gagrice (Jun 15, 2006 2:40 pm) Walking is a good alternative, too, but if I suggested that exchanging cars for shoe leather was the solution to our energy problems, you'd realize that I've offered you an alternative that makes no sense. So you've opted to be a passionate advocate for a fuel that is produced at extremely low volumes, has almost no distribution and cannot be used in virtually car in America, yet you believe that to be a "good alternative"? That's not an alternative at all if nobody can get it or use it. It may be a possible alternative for the future, and it may have potential, but as of right now, it is a non-issue. |
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(and now for the rest of the coal fired Ethanol plant article) "It just made great economic sense to use coal," says Brad Davis, general manager of the Gold-Eagle Cooperative that manages the Corn LP plant, which is farmer and investor owned. "Clean coal" technology, he adds, helps the Goldfield refinery easily meet pollution limits - and coal power saves millions in fuel costs. With 97 ethanol refineries pumping out some 4 billion gallons of ethanol, the industry expects to double over the next six years by adding another 4.4 billion gallons of capacity per year. Tax breaks as well as concerns about energy security, the environment, and higher gasoline prices are all driving ethanol forward. The Goldfield refinery, and the other four coal-fired ethanol plants under construction are called "dry mill" operations, because of the process they use. The industry has in the past used coal in a few much larger "wet mill" operations that produce ethanol and a raft of other products. But dry mills are the wave of the future, industry experts say. More plants slated for Midwest, West Scores of these new ethanol refineries are expected to be built across the Midwest and West by the end of the decade, and many could soon be burning coal in some form to turn corn into ethanol, industry analysts say."It's very likely that coal will be the fuel of choice for most of these new ethanol plants," says Robert McIlvaine, president of a Northfield, Ill., information services company that has compiled a database of nearly 200 ethanol plants now under construction or in planning and development. |
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By Reuters Published: June 15, 2006, 8:08 AM PDT "Ethanol" Alternative-energy buzz drove ethanol maker VeraSun Energy to a dazzling market debut on Wednesday, but investment strategists are skeptical about the chances to turn a fast buck in an energy form that remains largely a mystery to many Americans. Speaking at the Reuters Investment Outlook Summit in New York, strategists said that if crude oil prices were to slump, the wild bets that investors have put on ethanol's future could breed the kind of pain that stung Wall Street when the Internet bubble burst in 2000. "There's a substantial amount of risk there," said Ed Keon, chief investment strategist at Prudential Equity Group. "There was a time when all kinds of alternative-energy sources looked like the great next thing, and then oil prices came down. It's very hard to say what the investment potential in some of those things will be," he told the summit. Made primarily from corn and sugar cane, ethanol is blended with gasoline, helping to reduce emissions and petroleum usage. Since President George Bush's call for the United States to end its "addiction" to foreign oil in his State of the Union address earlier this year, ethanol, or ethyl alcohol, has become the talk of the market as investors look for new areas to put their cash. Soaring crude oil prices have also helped fuel the buzz, which has sent even smaller ethanol stocks into a frenzy. Year-to-date, shares of California's Pacific Ethanol, which counts Bill Gates, the world's richest man and chairman of Microsoft, among its investors, have more than doubled. Meanwhile shares of Archer Daniels Midland, the largest U.S. ethanol producer ahead of VeraSun, are up 57 percent, compared with a 2.9 percent gain in the shares of Exxon Mobil, the world's largest publicly traded oil company. VeraSun's market debut on Wednesday marked one the year's best-performing initial public offerings, according to analysts. But just as the stocks tied to ethanol have soared sky-high, so would expectations for the companies to deliver real returns. Strategists said ethanol was largely an untried energy form which could spell some disappointment if crude oil prices were to fall back sharply from their current level of about $70 a barrel. And with global commodity prices swinging wildly amid fears about a potential slowdown in economic growth, the risks could prove even greater. "According to some studies, ethanol is very inefficient to produce. It costs you more to produce than you actually get," said Tobias Levkovich, Citigroup's chief U.S. equity strategist. "(Ethanol) gets sexy again when you have higher energy prices. These are hot stories at any point in time. They (become a) fetish, and if I see lots and lots of stories written about it, it scares the heck out of me." Story Copyright © 2006 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. |
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Aylmer gets ethanol plant Thu, June 15, 2006 Facility will be set up with help from the province By LONDON FREE PRESS STAFF AYLMER — Aylmer will become the site of a new ethanol plant, with the help of $14 million from the province. The provincial government announced here this morning it would invest $32 million to help companies build three new ethanol plants to be located in Aylmer, Hensall and Cornwall. The province has also said it will kick in $60 million a year to help operate the three plants, as well as plants in Chatham and Collingwood. The fuel-from-corn facility in Aylmer is the idea of the Integrated Grain Processors Co-operative, a farmers' collective aiming to swing the area economy towards renewable fuels. The provincial funding is part of the $520-million Ontario Ethanol Growth Fund. By 2007, all gasoline sold in Ontario is to have at least five-per-cent ethanol blend, resulting in cleaner emissions. The provincial requirement is particularly welcome in Southwestern Ontario, which is one of Ontario's top corn-producing regions and which also boasts a huge Commercial Alcohols ethanol plant in Chatham. |
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