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Hybrid Vehicles Ethanol - E85 FlexFuel The Inconvenient Truth About Ethanol
921 messages, Last post on Oct 07, 2009 at 10:53 AM
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Our voracious appetite for CORN and the massive amounts of chemical fertilizer Corn requires, is having expanding repercussions. Wednesday April 30, 3:35 pm ET By KEITH BRADSHER and ANDREW MARTIN XUAN CANH, Vietnam — Truong Thi Nha stands just four and a half feet tall. Her three grown children tower over her, just as many young people in this village outside Hanoi dwarf their parents. The biggest reason the children are so robust: fertilizer. Ms. Nha, her face weathered beyond its 51 years, said her growth was stunted by a childhood of hunger and malnutrition. Just a few decades ago, crop yields here were far lower and diets much worse. Then the widespread use of inexpensive chemical fertilizer, coupled with market reforms, helped power an agricultural explosion here that had already occurred in other parts of the world. Yields of rice and corn rose, and diets grew richer. Now those gains are threatened in many countries by spot shortages and soaring prices for fertilizer, the most essential ingredient of modern agriculture. Some kinds of fertilizer have nearly tripled in price in the last year, keeping farmers from buying all they need. That is one of many factors contributing to a rise in food prices that, according to the United Nations’ World Food Program, threatens to push tens of millions of poor people into malnutrition. The demand for fertilizer has been driven by a confluence of events, including population growth, shrinking world grain stocks and the appetite for corn and palm oil to make biofuel. |
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Replying to: jkinzel (Apr 29, 2008 7:03 pm) Well if you can add, Nascar57 is actually GAINING 5%. If national avergage price of gas is $3.60, he is saving almost 30%. And if he is really losng 25%, which I doubt highly (my OEM FFV 2008 F150 V8 loses 20%), then he is AHEAD. Most vehicles lose 1-2 mpg. If you have a high mpg vehicle, like 25 mpg, the % of mpg loss is more than made up in the price difference. There's a calculator on E85Prices.com to figure it out ...if you need one.
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Replying to: sirlena (Apr 30, 2008 11:31 am) I read this article today, which, by the way, I'm very skeptical of it's claims. cheap, homemade ethanol For the sake of argument let's say that this product/company is legit. If you're someone that is really pro-ethanol then you'd be saying this is great. If your really pro farmer then you might see this as somewhat of a threat and have to adjust your position.
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Replying to: tpe (Apr 30, 2008 2:08 pm) If it's such a money maker, why not do it in a big plant, instead of hundreds of small, less-efficient units? Can cars even run on E100? Would the feds let you make hundreds/thousands of gallons of 'moonshine' in your basement? What's the delevered price of this supposed inedible sugar? If it's even $0.10/pound, and you're paying $0.25/gallon for power, it'll take you years to pay off th $10,000 price tag.
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Replying to: texases (Apr 30, 2008 2:39 pm)
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Replying to: sirlena (Apr 30, 2008 11:31 am) WHY, and I have asked this question before with no response. Why do we not put the effort we are putting into ethanol that nets a loss in MPG into bio-diesel that nets a gain in MPG? |
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Replying to: jkinzel (Apr 30, 2008 5:09 pm) That is the question I have asked since the day they passed the stupid mandate forcing all Americans to waste their gas money on Ethanol. My anecdotal evidence is via mileage on my Hybrid PU truck and my Sequoia. With the Shell E10 they sell us in CA I get 15 to 16 MPG in our Sequoia. When I drive to AZ and use the gas over there without E10, as it is available, I consistently get 17-18 MPG. That may not seem like much. When you consider the E10 laced gas is CA costs more than the non E10 in AZ it is a double whammy. My GMC hybrid PU was even more radical. I rarely got over 16 MPG in CA. On a trip to NM we averaged over 19 MPG and got as much as 22 MPG with REAL unleaded and not that ethanol laced crap we get here in CA. If the average driver realized that CA gas is costing them over a dollar per gallon extra to add ethanol. That takes into consideration the lower mileage, up to 28% with my Hybrid PU truck. We would have an uprising against Congress and their buddies at ADM that keep them fed at the Lobby trough. |
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Replying to: jkinzel (Apr 30, 2008 5:09 pm) I think it is primarily due to the fact that, other than commercial, there aren't many diesel vehicles in this country. Europe is the opposite. They aren't wasting much effort producing ethanol but are producing a significant amount of bio-diesel primarily from canola and soybeans. Other parts of the world are producing biodiesel from oil palms. This tree seems to produce the most biodiesel per acre. However I'm not sure it can be grown in the US but I know that you can grow canola and soybeans throughout large portions of the US. Now you can get more gallons of ethanol per acre than biodiesel from canola or soybeans but when you factor in that you are getting less energy per gallon it becomes somewhat of a wash. BTW, biodiesel won't give you quite the mileage of regular diesel but it will be more than unleaded gasoline so obviously much more than ethanol.
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Replying to: tpe (May 01, 2008 5:11 am)
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Biodiesel really isnt the answer here either boys! Your super smart EPA has implemented such tough emission controls on diesel engines that they are no longer achieving acceptable fuel mileage. Last year all engines had to meet the Tier 2 requirements with Tier 3 coming soon in 2010. New Dodge and Chevrolet diesel pickups now get roughly 15-16 mpg with the ultra low sulfur diesel which is fetching 4.40 a gallon up here. Biodiesel does NOT pencil out right now with the cost of soybean oil and canola oil. You boys out west better watch the damn commodity markets and understand what biodiesel is made from before you talk. None of you have answered my point I made before about how the price of oil is affecting food prices compared to actual commodity prices. Very interesting in that you dont hear about that, its really BS. Bitching and moaning about tortilla prices when ya dont even think about other factors. Interesting fact for you to ponder, in a loaf of bread, the plastic wrapper costs more than the wheat that is actually in the bread. Think about that, start bitching about oil companies not building refineries, thats where the blame should be put.
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