Ethanol sells for 40 cents less than gasoline? Around here gasoline with ethanol in is is 10 cents a gallon more than pure gasoline.
Since I feel that quite a bit of what mantaroc posted is rubbish including the comment about ethanol cleaning out the “crap” that gasoline leaves in your car. Explain that one to me.
I also live in OK (oil you mention) and lest you forget, OK is a farm state. With the corn welfa… uh, subsidy program corn fields have really taken hold around here.
Unfortunately, few farmers will irrigate the corn and OK being normally hot and dry (and in a drought right now) most of the corn goes to waste in the fields.
As I poke this out on the keyboard you should see the corn stalks already burning brown and sagging. Some of this will never even be harvested.
Explain to me how 300 acres of corn (just south of me) being allowed to waste away into molecules is a benefit.
“-You have to consider the source. Oklahoma (oil), Texas (oil) and California (coastal - cheap imports) will have a different opinion than someone from the Midwest (corn).”
Iowa is basically Corn Central, and the Iowa Caucuses are the first event of the presidential election season.
Oh, and California is one of our major oil producing states, with the third largest oilfield in the US.
And what is all this “Big Oil” nonsense? Where is the “Small Oil”?
While I would be in favor of elimination of any oil company subsidies (ditto for corn and (fill in the blank) subisidies also, I’m also of the opinion while doing away with oil company subisidies that the truckload of bureaucratic red tape and legal papers that are involved before the drillers even move the rig onto even one site should be eased up on.
Lord only knows how big the warehouse used to stash the paperwork on a refinery operation is.
To answer your question ok4450. Straight Ethanol sells for $.40 less than gasoline according to the DTN website. By the time you blend it with gas the processing costs vary from state to state. In the midwest E10 sells for $.10 less than regular, E85 significantly less. I’m sorry you have farmers that try and grow corn there. I guess I would try to grow something else with the land. Texases - it isn’t that simple. No one wanted corn for decades. There have been people starving for decades and the surplus of corn didn’t solve it then. The problem is there has been a surge of demand for corn for many reasons. Ethanol is one of them. China & Russia wanting more corn is another. One mans myth is anothers truth. Has everyone resolved the deficit/debt problem yet? Isn’t the deficit a measure of how much we’re overspending vs. what we’re taking in and the debt the total we have overspent (to put it simply).
I said earlier -If we abandon the growth of ethanol, these better methods will never materialize and we will slide back to depending and fighting for foreign oil. The federal goverment made a commitment to the developement of ethanol then reneged. Investors will not push so hard for new methods if the whole industry is not being supported. It’s possible ethanol could be up to 35% of the corn usage but I am confident the building of plants is near it’s peak.
Like also I’ve said a couple times. Before the last few years nobody wanted near the corn capacity we produced. Corn sold for around $2/bushel until 2006. It costs $4.25+/acre to grow corn. Check it on the internet.
As far as feeding those that are starving; isn’t the problem corruption in their own countries? Wouldn’t the best solution be to stop the corruption, develop better farming processes over there? We couldn’t get them the corn or food even if we wanted to. What will happen in the future is that China will not continue to buy corn from us. They will buy a significant amount of land in Africa and develop that region to produce the food they need.
I know everyone has a different perception of facts as they can be manipulated so easily. Sometimes you just have to go with what makes sense. I think everyone would have to agree that our people are killed for over oil in the Mideast. As far as which one burns cleaner, look at the clarity of ethanol vs. gasoline or oil. Which one looks cleaner? What would happen if we spilled 1,000 barrels of ethanol in the Yellowstone River? Drunk fish?
Some points for consideration.
Gasoline with ethanol sells for 10 cents more per gallon around here and most places proudly advertise "NO Ethanol!)
I live in a rural area and stop many times at a country store/gas station halfway into town. This store will not carry Ethanol and their clientele (which consists of many corn farmers) will not put Ethanol into their vehicles. You can pay for the ears of corn but that carp (sic) ain’t a goin’ in my tank, no sirree would be the battle cry.
Small engine shops are also seeing a lot of problems with Ethanol and at the moment I’ve got an older classic car suffering from it. This car got a carb rebuild, new fuel lines, etc and 4 gallons of fresh gas (Ethanol in it and unknown to me at the time I added it.)
Four months later, not even a hint of a start. Funny smell from the carb led to the gas cap which produced a house paint smell, and now I’ve got to repeat the process again after I took the top off the carburetor and saw the muck in there.
As to fertilizer, the water here is already chock full of nitrates anyway. Most of it is not even potable and it’s all blamed on field run-off.
Maybe older classic cars will have a problem with it…
But we’ve been mandated to have Ethanol here in NH and MA for years…there hasn’t been an increase in car problems or small engine problems because of it. ALL gas-stations MUST have it…I wonder why other parts of the country are seeing problems when areas like NH and MA aren’t.
I’m not sure what the impact of fertilizer is in the gulf? Worse than BP? Is it fertilizer or manure? I think that’s a bigger problem. I’ll have to look into it. I have a 1979 camaro, I wouldn’t put ethanol in it. Some of the internal parts are not designed to handle it. We still need to keep non-ethanol options. Are you saying you let your car sit for 4 months? That’s probably the gasoline turning to varnish. It does that when it sits for a while whether there’s ethanol in it or not. We put stabil in the gas when an engine sits all winter. Seafoam cleans it out pretty good. I don’t think I said to subsidize it, I meant support it by using it instead of relying on foreign oil or from a government standpoint don’t say we’re behind it 100% then say the opposite a short time later. It sends a mixed signal and keeps it from growing.
I own a rural convenience store and proudly sell gas with no ethanol in it. My cost for the conventional gas is a dime more (per gallon) than gas with ethanol in it. Ethanol is a huge subsidy nightmare that helps no one. The gas with ethanol in it hurts all vehicles (worse fuel economy than conventional gas, problems with fuel filters clogging, and fuel pumps have a hard time with gas with ethanol, not to even begin on the damage it does to small engines) and I find that people are becoming more educated about it. Conventional gas (with no ethanol) is becoming harder to get and the subsidies are not helping when it comes to trying to purchase conventional gas since the economy is in such bad shape. I cannot understand why the government continues to support ethanol subsidies (other than to line their pockets and those of their lobby’s.
As a side note, I was speaking to a delivery man for the gas company I get my product from. I found it funny that when the mandate to put ethanol into gas came up conventional (87 octane) gas was used and then mixed with ethanol to the ratio that needed to be made. As that practice went along the gas companies figured out the consumer was getting more than 87 octane (since the ethanol is higher). Because of this the gas companies now use an even lower octane gas and mix it with ethanol to produce 87 octane. So it seems consumers are the ones “out in the cold” since they are paying for an inferior product that hurts their vehicles in most cases.
“As a side note, I was speaking to a delivery man for the gas company I get my product from. I found it funny that when the mandate to put ethanol into gas came up conventional (87 octane) gas was used and then mixed with ethanol to the ratio that needed to be made. As that practice went along the gas companies figured out the consumer was getting more than 87 octane (since the ethanol is higher). Because of this the gas companies now use an even lower octane gas and mix it with ethanol to produce 87 octane. So it seems consumers are the ones “out in the cold” since they are paying for an inferior product that hurts their vehicles in most cases.”
Lower octane gasoline is not inferior to high test unless it is substituted in a high compression engine. Higher octane prevents early ignition when compression is high. It does not help in a lower compression engine.
Randommail, non-ethanol gas isn;t available in my area but I wanted to let you know that if it were I’d g;adly pay the extra $.10/gal. Keep up the good work.
I’m surrounded by corn yet our CO-OP sells pure gas and more of it than anything else.Tennessee is one of the few States that mandates that 100% gas shall be offered for sale.It always stays 8 cents above their ethanol blend but it’s worth it.Without the subsidy from the government how much would we actually pay for the blended fuel?
For more information on the problem with ethanol, and biofuels in general, take a look at the August Scientific American. On page 59 you’ll find an article “The False Promise of Biofuels” that pretty well summarizes all the problems described here. Just a bad idea.
