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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
You are in the Ethanol - E85 FlexFuel Forum. Your Host is pf_flyer
Pf Flyer I am so glad you know how to make a graph. If you do not understand market drivers behind this dont just look at a picture and blame it on Ethanol. There are so many other factors that caused corn to increase by $2 a bushel. First off Brazil has not had the weather that they would like down there, Europe and Australia have had terrible droughts which has increased the feed use for corn due to the fact that wheat touched $20 and steered feeders away from wheat and into more corn. If you want to talk about inflation influencing food prices you are terribly un informed if you think oil has nothing to do with this. Oil has directly impacted fertilizer prices, chemical prices, seed prices, and most other farm inputs. Ethanol has helped the demand side of the picture but the crude market had had MUCH more impact on the consumer side. Think about a loaf of bread, the farmer's share is less than the cost of the wrapper. Ya know what factors the cost of that wrapper, YEP OIL!!!!!!! Gagrice my lil no-minded friend, the ethanol mandate has been around before 2007. Also the blenders credit for ethanol has been decreased by 6 cents a gallon. Ethanol also brings down the price of gas to the consumer by 10-15%, if you have any idea where to even check the price of ethanol, you will see it is trading in the mid 2.40's range while RBOB gas is 3.12-3.15. Gagrice also you complain about the POOR consumers. You know what, the increase in crude prices since 2001 is equivalent to a 45% increase in the income tax. Hmmm, I wonder what is really putting the pinch on. You people simply amaze me that you are so un-informed, gotta love that California crowd
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Also my little friend Gagrice, Soybeans are NOT being driven by bio-diesel. It is again major weather concerns in the South African region along with record LOW carry-out numbers that the US is currently experiencing. As the price of crude climbs, the bushels of beans used for Bio-Diesel increases greatly, since it makes Bio-Diesel that much more competitive. If you people really want commodity prices to go down, Oil is going to be the main commodity to recess into a much lower trading range, if that doesnt happen, Higher commodity prices will be here to stay for the time being. Put some market driven thinking to work in your arguments people!
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Replying to: nascar57 (May 14, 2008 4:39 pm) Yes it has. The energy bill of 2005. I think you really need to do more research before you set yourself up as an authority on a subject. Take a look at when oil took a rocket ride up. It was under $40 per barrel when the ethanol mandate went into affect. You are right the increased demand on diesel and fossil fuel based fertilizers have an affect on oil prices. So does the government thinking they can bully the oil producers by making fuel from corn. Just how much corn have you raised on your farm. I raised a lot and it was not worth the diesel used to plant and harvest it from 1976-1980. Not to mention the interest on seed and fertilizer at 20%. So I do know what farming is all about and I feel for the farmers. The ones that were run out of business in the late 1970s by Mega Ag corporations. The same ones that are reaping a windfall profit at the tax payers expense. When you move out of your utopian ethanol cocoon maybe you will see the real inconvenient truth about corn ethanol. Oil rise from 2005 ethanol mandate: http://zfacts.com/p/196.html |
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Replying to: nascar57 (May 14, 2008 4:44 pm) 
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For those that think ethanol use in automobiles is a recent development. It was the fuel of choice in the beginning of the automobile age. Just so you know I am not against ethanol. Just ethanol made from important food stocks. The first cars back in the late 1800s ran primarily on alcohol. It was the only reliable, combustible fuel that was available. Oil had already been discovered, but it had a completely different use at that time; it was used for heating and lighting homes. So the part that they couldn’t use for heating and lighting — the stuff that wanted to explode and nobody wanted to put in an oil lamp — they threw away. John D. Rockefeller did some experimentation and found out that, although it didn’t do such a good job, it would run a car, too. And he started selling it at dirt-cheap prices in the cities, where he had his oil distribution business. So gasoline was an industrial waste by product that was marketed as an alternative to the standard fuel, which was alcohol. The big proponent of alcohol in cars was Henry Ford. He thought that alcohol was the very best fuel for cars — it was clean, it was efficient, and there were a lot more stills in this country than gas stations. So Ford and Rockefeller fought tooth and nail over what was going to be the nation’s fuel supply, until Rockefeller decided not to play fair anymore. Rockefeller gave the Women’s Christian Temperance Union $4 million dollars to lobby Congress with. That would be like $400 million dollars today, and, yes, you can buy Congress for that. And so they passed Prohibition. You probably thought it had something to do with drinking and moral decay. But can you imagine an all-male Congress voting to keep working men from drinking? So for 13 years alcohol went off the market as a fuel, as an industrial product that used to compete with many oil products and for drinking also. After they make everything they call valuable out of oil — plastics, drugs, pesticides, industrial chemicals — everything left over is dumped into the gasoline. So on any given day there are 400 toxic chemicals dumped into gasoline, and those might not necessarily be the same chemicals the next day. It is whatever is left over. So gasoline is the biggest toxic waste disposal system in the world, and its in the open and legal. They enable us to use our cars to spew their toxic waste back into the air. And they make something like $2,500 from a barrel of oil, for the industrial chemicals, and something like $100 a barrel from the gasoline, and they don’t care if they made zero, because they get rid of all their toxic waste.
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Replying to: gagrice (Jun 01, 2008 7:20 am) |
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http://www.greencarcongress.com/2008/05/verenium-commis.html Good old Zymomonas mobilis may save the day. I see that Canada has decided to dip their toe in the alcohol, so to speak, by requiring an E5 mix by 2010. In 2004, Canada used 10.5 billion gallons of gasoline per year. The E5 mix will require about 500 million gallons of ethanol. In 2007 Canada produced 211 million gallons. Canada will need to build 5 to 6 new ethanol plants, if they are not already in the works. Those extra 289 million gallons of ethanol will require about 100 million more bushels of corn. Canada already imports about 43 million bushels a year. The ethanol needed in Canada pales when compared to the 4 billion gallons of U.S. ethanol production coming on line in 2008. Corn will be in high demand. Makes me glad I don't own any livestock that eats corn.  I wonder what happens in 2009 or beyond when there is a problem with corn production. Weather happens. http://www.ethanolrfa.org/industry/statistics/ https://topcropmanager.annexweb.com/content/view/1481/67/ http://www.ethanolrfa.org/industry/outlook/
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Replying to: avalon02wh (Jun 02, 2008 3:08 pm) If Canada is hoping for a quick fix with Corn ethanol, they are in for a big surprise.
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Replying to: gagrice (Jun 02, 2008 4:05 pm) Canadian company nixes Idaho for ethanol plant, picks Saskatchewan May 8, 2008 http://canadianpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5jVhFVIjScxoTrAR8kwpFjTlEZrOg "If Canada is hoping for a quick fix with Corn ethanol, they are in for a big surprise. " The Canadian plants under construction are going to use corn, wheat and canola. http://www.greenfuels.org/lists.php I get a kick out of the spin they are putting on the whole fuels vs. food debate. The idea that you can divert 25% of the corn to fuel and claim it is not contributing very much to the increase in food is nonsense. There are several major drivers for the increased food costs; demand for food, transportation, increased inputs like fertilizer and biofuels. If you go back a few years you will see that I was for a modest amount of ethanol production. The local jobs helped in many mid-western towns. They should have stopped the ethanol mandate at about 5 billion gallons (corn part), however. I've actually stopped buying the E10 (89 octane) fuel. The 10 cent difference does not cover the 3% loss in fuel mileage. The car runs very well on 87. I need to compare my mpg with and without ethanol to see if I can tell what the actual difference is between E10 and plain RUG. So far it looks like it is at least 3%.
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Replying to: avalon02wh (Jun 03, 2008 3:18 am) I think in CA they put 10% ethanol in our regular 87. I know the times I have driven to AZ in both my 05 GMC PU and our Sequoia we would get better mileage with the gas over there that does not say ethanol added. We usually fill at the ARCO in Yuma, AZ. The last trip was in the Sequoia and the trip from home to Yuma we got 15 MPG over the 200 miles, much of it down hill into the desert. From Yuma to Phoenix we got just over 17 MPG driving mostly 75-80 MPH. It has to be the crap E10 gas in CA that kills mileage. That is about a 12% loss in mileage. Same results on the return trip. |
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