The Great Ethanol Scam

[Chuck]

Don't let anybody mislead you: The new push to get a 15% ethanol mandate out of Washington is simply to restore profitability to a failed industry, while destroying engines

Ed Wallace - Business Week - May. 14, 2009

As Ed asks in the article: Where's the logic? Absolutely none - except those looking out for #1, namely the ethanol industry -- Ed.

"Does the average citizen understand what this means? In from 10 to 20 years this country will be dependent entirely upon outside sources for a supply of liquid fuels … paying out vast sums yearly in order to obtain supplies of crude oil from Mexico, Russia, and Persia."—Yale Professor Harold Hibbert, ethanol promoter, 1925

More than one major transportation-based industry in America besides Detroit is on the ropes. For the fourth time in our history the ethanol industry has come undone and is quickly failing nationally. Of course it's one thing when Detroit collapsed with the economy; after all, that is a truly free-market enterprise and the economy hasn't been good. But the fact that the ethanol industry is going bankrupt, when the only reason we use this additive is a massive government mandate, is outrageous at best.

Then again, the ethanol lobby and refiners have a solution to ethanol's failure in America: Hire retired General Wesley Clark as your point man and lobby the government to increase the amount of ethanol in our fuel to 15%. The problems with that proposition are real—unlike ethanol's… [Read More]

[basjoos]

All of this ethanol contamination of our gasoline stocks makes diesel look better and better. No ethanol crap and a much longer shelf life. I am also glad that I live in a state that requires ethanol labeling on the pumps, so I know what I'm getting and don't have to play Russian roulette with the ethanol content of my gas.

I was reading in Progressive Farmer that about a third of the acreage that used to grow rice and cotton in Louisiana has been switched to corn in recent years because of its greater profits. So the ethanol mandate leads to higher costs for your rice and clothing. And they are very close to releasing new strains of drought resistant corn that will allow corn agriculture in dryer parts of the Great Plains in regions that have traditionally been too dry for corn and have usually grown wheat. So there goes the cost of flour and bread. I am so glad that I produce most of my own food on my land and so am mostly exempt from rising food costs, but most people don't have that option.

[Taliesin]

Originally Posted by basjoos

I am also glad that I live in a state that requires ethanol labeling on the pumps, so I know what I'm getting and don't have to play Russian roulette with the ethanol content of my gas...

I don't have to play Russian roulette either. In this state I KNOW I am getting E10. Labelled ot not, it's E10.

[Chuck]

Anyone wonder why people SCREAM about hybrids falling apart when you can ruin an E85 simply by using straight ethanol per this article?

[phoebeisis]

Hmmm, the pumps at my Shell station-New Orleans suburb- never mention ethanol-I wonder if they are required to? Maybe the sudden drop in Prius FE is due to ethanol?

Of course, it got 58 mpg when I did my 30 mile RT to UNO, so maybe it is just my wife and son who are "guilty" -hope they/she doesn't lean over my shoulder and read this!

Speaking of food-anyone know of a good way to kill those flea beetles that are shredding my tomato plant leaves? I recently(after the fact of course)put a powder with a bacteria Bacillus something in it-supposed to kill crawling bugs, but leave bees etc alone?

Thanks,
Charlie
PS-Yes, the tomato question is out of place-I'll delete if necessary. Saw some farmers, figured they would know. Tomatoes were over $2/lb last year.
PPS- Yes corn for fuel is a HUGE scam. I had no idea Louisiana was growing commercial corn-we aren't the corn belt.Heck, why not just grow sugar cane for fuel-screw corn.
Charlie

[Chuck]

Originally Posted by Article

At City Garage in Euless, Tex., for example, the first of numerous future customers brought in an automobile whose fuel pump was shot. A quick diagnosis determined that that particular car had close to 18% ethanol in the fuel. For that unlucky owner, the repairs came to nearly $900 (cheaper than most). The ethanol fun was just beginning.

Originally Posted by Article

in December he filled up his E85 Flex Fuel Chevy Suburban at the Exxon station in Ovilla, just south of Dallas. His Suburban died on the spot, because even an E85-equipped vehicle will not run on the 100% pure ethanol that Exxon station was pumping that day. In that case it was not Exxon's fault but a mistake at the distribution center, and Exxon paid

[pdk]

Originally Posted by basjoos

I was reading in Progressive Farmer that about a third of the acreage that used to grow rice and cotton in Louisiana has been switched to corn in recent years because of its greater profits. So the ethanol mandate leads to higher costs for your rice and clothing. And they are very close to releasing new strains of drought resistant corn that will allow corn agriculture in dryer parts of the Great Plains in regions that have traditionally been too dry for corn and have usually grown wheat. So there goes the cost of flour and bread. I am so glad that I produce most of my own food on my land and so am mostly exempt from rising food costs, but most people don't have that option.

Can you possibly link to a source on this? I think it would be a fascinating read.

[Indigo]

E10 did a quick job killing off my old 2003 HCH

[PaleMelanesian]

Originally Posted by phoebeisis

Yes corn for fuel is a HUGE scam. I had no idea Louisiana was growing commercial corn-we aren't the corn belt.Heck, why not just grow sugar cane for fuel-screw corn.
Charlie

Totally agreed. Some of the country's limited cane-growing land being used for corn instead? That's just @!%$#@$!@#!@$#$#@.

[booferama]

The documentary King Corn is an interesting resource. Two friends at Harvard or Yale (I can't remember at the moment) realized their great-grandfathers both farmed in the same small county in Iowa, so the two friends go there to see what it takes to grow an acre of corn.

Turns out, in the early 1970s Richard Nixon's Agriculture Secretary changed US policy from paying midwest farmers to underproduce to overproduce. As a result, farms that grew diversely died out; it paid to produce corn that would go uneaten.

(Feel free to correct me if I'm misremembering any of this.)