Ethanol was wrong? You don't say!

[p m]

From NY Times article today:

There, Mr. Gore reflected on his early optimism for the potential of corn-based ethanol to help clean up the nation?s fuel sector ? and the disappointment he now feels over its shortcomings:

I feel the disappointment personally because, as vice president of the United States in 1994, I cast the tie-breaking vote in favor of moving forward with a large national commitment to ethanol. In 1978, as a young congressman from a farming district in Middle Tennessee, I organized and hosted a daylong workshop on what was then called ?gasohol? for 5,000 constituents, mostly farmers, eager to be a part of the national effort then under way to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. Throughout my 16 years in the House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate, I was a persistent advocate of helping farmers to earn income from the production of alcohol fuels for cars and trucks. ?

In practice, however, the results over the last several years have convinced many analysts that producing first generation ethanol from corn is a mistake.

 

[Ballah06]

Hello support of gov't officials for special interest groups.... and the benefits in return in the form of election/re-election funds....

 

[I HATE PONIES]

We just had a local power plant shut down after they decided to swith to bio-fuel. We also had about 6 new corn based etho plants lose their gov. funding. They have closed before they were completed. Luckily all the farmers grew a lot of extra corn for the plants that never existed.

Looks like the new subsidies to pay the corn farmers plus the lost money in trying to start the plants plus the lost jobs plus the higher food cost will be less than just paying $3.00 a gallon for gas. Hard to believe really.

 

[az_max]

I believe it was a mistake as well, but I hope they learned something from it and can make strides in producing synthetic gasoline in the future.
Truthfully, bio-diesel from algae seems to make the most sense. It's not a food source, doesn't take crops from livestock or humans and has shown a liking for CO2 which we could use to our advantage around high pollution areas.

 

[KyleT]

problem is that even though ethanol is a more efficient fuel, it is not efficient being mixed in gasoline.

ethanol makes 24% more BTUs than the energy consumed to make it, this is a super liberal estimate by the USDA.

I believe that the issue is not ethanol or whatever, but the EPA failing to recognize the problem. they are engineering solutions and creating problems to fit them...
Energy credits are a stupid thing. and so is charging a car manufacture (like volkswagen or mercedes) an absurd amount of money to make their diesel "clean"... anywhere from 2500-7500 per car is added because of the cost of epa certs. it is a minimum of $200000 just to start the testing procedure on a single engine.

 

[pdxrovermech]

I swear I've lost 3 mpgs ever since they went to that 10% ethanol crap around here. I dont see how that can be more efficient.

 

[knewsom]

From NY Times article today:

There, Mr. Gore reflected on his early optimism for the potential of corn-based ethanol to help clean up the nation?s fuel sector ? and the disappointment he now feels over its shortcomings:

I feel the disappointment personally because, as vice president of the United States in 1994, I cast the tie-breaking vote in favor of moving forward with a large national commitment to ethanol. In 1978, as a young congressman from a farming district in Middle Tennessee, I organized and hosted a daylong workshop on what was then called ?gasohol? for 5,000 constituents, mostly farmers, eager to be a part of the national effort then under way to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. Throughout my 16 years in the House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate, I was a persistent advocate of helping farmers to earn income from the production of alcohol fuels for cars and trucks. ?

In practice, however, the results over the last several years have convinced many analysts that producing first generation ethanol from corn is a mistake.

Takes a big man to admit when he was wrong about something, especially something he spent so much time and effort promoting.

az_max: I think actually cyano-bacteria are going to prove to be a little better than algae, since you don't have to separate the produced oils from the organic matter substrate... I have high hopes for this technology, and if anyone knows which companies are investing in it, please inform me - I'd love to buy some stock.

 

[Mike_Rupp]

He's not just a big man, he's huge.

I wonder if he will finally eat crow and admit that this whole global warming crap is nothing more than redistribution of wealth on a worldwide scale?

 

[p m]

He's not just a big man, he's huge.

I wonder if he will finally eat crow and admit that this whole global warming crap is nothing more than redistribution of wealth on a worldwide scale?

That is exactly my thought.

 

[jhmover]

He's not just a big man, he's huge.

I wonder if he will finally eat crow and admit that this whole global warming crap is nothing more than redistribution of wealth on a worldwide scale?

You mean like this crook did?

 

[Mike_Rupp]

bad link

 

[jhmover]

Try this one.

 

[p m]

Try this one.

niiiiice....

 

[LRflip]

I swear I've lost 3 mpgs ever since they went to that 10% ethanol crap around here. I dont see how that can be more efficient.

I didn't think there was 10% ethanol in 93 Octane gas...

And, you should be using 93 so it shouldn't be an issue.

I could be wrong.

 

[knewsom]

I didn't think there was 10% ethanol in 93 Octane gas...

And, you should be using 93 so it shouldn't be an issue.

I could be wrong.

There is. I can't seem to get away from the stuff.

 

[thequickervicar]

Yup. It's in everything now. Eats through my brand-new Honda engines' fuel lines before we ever fire them up. Also made my Husaberg dump its fuel load in my basement. Looks like I'll need to switch it over to AVGAS from now on.

 

[DiscoS2]

I swear I've lost 3 mpgs ever since they went to that 10% ethanol crap around here. I dont see how that can be more efficient.

That's because Ethanol has less BTU per gallon (~84,000 BTU/gal) than does untainted gasoline (~120,000 BTU/gal)

 

[Leslie]

Not been keeping up here, so playing catch-up:

A) I, too, wondered if Al would be willing to admit such about Global Warming

B) At the saw shop before the holiday, I asked what they were seeing w/ ethanol, which they said wasn't good, so, I asked 'em if they had a recommended place to get gas since a few around are still advertising no-ethanol... they said, doesn't make a difference, after the first of the year, they'll all be required to have ethanol, they suggested using a stabilizer, but, to expect to go through engines more often. Gack.