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Originally Posted by ASU2003
Making ethanol, they claim, will help America achieve the elusive goal of "energy security" while helping farmers, reducing oil imports, and stimulating the American economy.
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Empty claims. We can't grow enough corn to make enough ethanol to put a significant dent in the fuel imports. We'd have to import the ethanol as well, thus removing the energy security we're supposedly gaining with it.
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But will ethanol significantly reduce our oil imports?
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No, not until 1) ethanol can be made efficiently and 2) all cars can run reliably on ethanol. Even then, with a 20-30% gas blend (e85 is often closer to 70% in the winter) we're still importing a LOT of oil.
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Will adding more ethanol to our gas tanks lead to further price hikes at the pump?
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It already has. The cost to upgrade the infrastructure to be able to store and pump ethanol, and the cost of making yet another specialty fuel blend, has already driven gas prices up.
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And will it take more energy to produce a gallon of ethanol than it actually contains?
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Yes. Especially since farmers in the midwest are now using ethanol in their vehicles. So right off the top, we have to remove however much ethanol they use to grow the corn. Then we have to factor in transportation costs of getting the corn to the ethanol plant, costs to actually MAKE the ethanol, and costs to transport the ethanol to the gas pumps (this is higher than transporting regular gas because ethanol can't be shipped via pipeline like gas can).
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I can understand why the Republicans like it, it means more money for big business. The Democrats like it because the farmer gets a pay raise from the price of corn going up. Plus both parties like it because it will reduce foreign countries influence over us.
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Well you were right on the first two, but you're a little off base in your third hypothesis. Both parties like ethanol becaue the public has been fooled into thinking it's a good thing. If the public THINKS it's a good thing the politicians will push it so that the public will vote for them.
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I do think something needs to be done, but getting the car makers, filling stations(if they are needed), consumers (don't want to buy girly cars), and the government to switch from gasoline will take the perfect idea it seems like.
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I agree with you that something needs to be done. In my mind it's pretty stupid, however, to rush new fuels to market when they're not ready for it. Look what's happening in Iowa. Lawmakers are trying to get that state to require a 20% ethanol blend in all their gas, even though GM has come out and specifically said that if your car is not a flex-fuel vehicle, any concentration of ethanol higher than 10% will corrode the fuel system. It's insane that Iowa is trying to destroy its citizens cars, but they're doing it because that's what the public wants them to do, and the public wants them to do it because the ethanol industry, in a PR campaign that rivals anything the Republicans or Democrats can do, has managed to convince people that ethanol is a great fuel.
And that's not even going into the fact that ethanol is not the wonderful enviro-fuel it's touted to be. In the first place, one of the chief sources for dangerous poisons and pesticides is a farmer's field. Grow more corn, and you'll need more pesticides, fertilizers, etc. This is bad for the environment. In the second place it's not at all uncommon for ethanol plants to be in violation of already lax EPA pollution standards.
The whole alternative fuels issue is screwed up. Ethanol MIGHT be a viable fuel in the future when we learn how to refine it more efficiently, but today it's simply not ready for prime time.
But we don't want to only blame ethanol. GM and others are also busy making hydrogen cars, because the oil industry (I'll explain in a second) has convinced the public that hydrogen is a great future fuel. Well maybe, but not until we figure out how to get the pure hydrogen without expending more energy than we get from the fuel.
And to explain, the oil industry is behind hydrogen 100% because a good source of hydrogen is methane. Methane is very easy to extract - easier than oil in fact - and it's found in oil wells. Methane is also more expensive than oil. So basically they've got all these pre-drilled methane wells just waiting to be tapped into, and the oil industry stands to make a killing on them.
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On a side note, I'm sure I will see a ton of advertisements for ethanol at the Indy 500 this year. The Indy cars run on it now, so people will see that it can power cars at high speeds.
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Of course it can. Any fuel can make a car go as fast as you want, as long as you design the engine to use the fuel to its fullest. Race cars run on 100 octane or higher gas. E85 is about 105 octane, so that's pretty close to race gas. Race cars can run easilly on that without a performance drop. Most regular cars, however, make the most power using 87-89 octane. Give 'em 105 octane and their power output will drop, and their mileage will suffer. This is confirmed by the ethanol industry. They say it's worth it because E85 costs less per gallon than regular gas does, but they fail to mention the major subsidies/tax breaks that ethanol gets, including the 50 cents/gallon federal blend tax credit.
Long story short? Ethanol is and always has been a huge scam foisted on a gullible public by special interest corn farmers. The industry cannot survive without government subsidies, which it has been enjoying for over 20 years. Unless MAJOR technologial developments happen, it will not help us achieve energy independence, it will not ease the gas prices, and it will not save the planet.
Now don't get me wrong. If those major technological developments happen and ethanol is 1) efficient to make, 2) cheaper than gas and 3) helps protect nature, I'll be wildly behind it. But it's asinine to force it on the public until it reaches that point.