We are currently in the midst of the worst drought in 70 years and we turn 39% of our corn into a fuel that reduces mileage, hurts engines and has a negative EROEI. This is all done in the name of green energy solutions. The world depends on the U.S. corn crop to keep from starving. The price of ethanol is up 13% YTD. As this drought continues and/or worsens in the coming year, the result will be peasants starving to death in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. That is a fact. As food prices rise, poor peasants cannot afford to eat. The Arab Spring occurred when food prices spiked. Revolution and death will be the result of these ridiculous green Federal Obama mandates. Obama will blather on tomorrow night about green energy and the ignorant masses will nod their heads in agreement. We’re doomed with the idiocracy engulfing this country.
Corn shortage idles 20 ethanol plants
Fuel is plentiful, but long drought could cut supply
By Jim Salter
| Associated Press February 11, 2013
ST. LOUIS — The persistent drought is taking a toll on producers of ethanol, with corn becoming so scarce that 20 ethanol plants have halted production.
The Renewable Fuels Association, a trade group, provided data showing that of the nation’s 211 ethanol plants, 20 have ceased production over the past year, including five in January. Most remain open, with workers performing maintenance-type tasks. But ethanol production probably won’t resume until after 2013 corn is harvested in late August or September.
Industry experts don’t expect a shortage — millions of barrels are stockpiled and the remaining 191 plants are still producing. Still, there is growing concern about what happens if the drought lingers through another corn-growing season.
America’s ethanol industry has taken off in the past decade. Plants in 28 states produce more than 13 billion gallons of ethanol each year, said Geoff Cooper, vice president for research at the association. By comparison, in 2002, the industry produced 2.1 billion gallons. Today, roughly 10 percent of the US gasoline supply is made up of the biofuel.
About 95 percent of US ethanol is made from corn. The National Corn Growers Association estimates 39 percent of the US corn crop is used in ethanol production.
The drought began before planting and never stopped. Even though more acres were planted in 2012 compared to 2011, about 13 percent less corn was harvested.
Cooper said the 20 plants employ roughly 1,000 workers combined, but it wasn’t known how many have been laid off.
The production stoppages are cutting into ethanol production. The 770,000 gallons per day produced in the last full week of January were the fewest since the Energy Information Administration began tracking weekly data in June 2010.
That’s not much of an issue for consumers, at least for now, because there are plenty of stockpiles of ethanol.
A Purdue University agricultural economist, Chris Hurt, said the nation has more than 20 million barrels of ethanol in stock, slightly more than a year ago, largely because Americans are driving less and are driving more fuel-efficient cars. Cooper said, though, that stockpiles are expected to dwindle in the spring and summer.
Officials at the nation’s leading ethanol makers, Archer Daniels Midland and POET, declined to speculate about whether additional plants will close.
Administrator says:
2011 Food Price Spikes Helped Trigger Arab Spring, Researchers Say
by Steve Baragona
Rising costs expected to become more frequent
In a year of protests in the Arab world, high food prices helped to make oppression, corruption and poverty under autocratic leaders even more intolerable.
“Prices are so expensive,” said one protester about Egypt’s leaders. ” What shall we do right now? We have to stay until they are gone and give a chance to others who can satisfy our needs.”
Price spike
The political fires that burned across North Africa, many say, were kindled in Russia last summer. Extreme drought triggered wildfires and destroyed one-third of the country’s wheat harvest. Russia refused to export the rest of its harvest. Markets panicked and food prices shot up.
“Definitely, it is one of the causes of the Arab Spring,” says Shenggen Fan, director-general of the International Food Policy Research Institute.
In 2008, the last time global food prices spiked, Egypt was one of several countries hit by food riots and demonstrations.
Fan believes the return of high prices in 2011 offers some important lessons. “Food price hikes will come more often, and more frequent. So this is the first lesson we learned. Second, food prices obviously will remain very high.”
Food prices will remain high and volatile, Fan says, because demand for food is increasing and supply is not keeping up. This year the world population hit seven billion, with another two billion expected by mid-century. People in emerging economies like China are eating more meat, which requires more animal feed.
Feeding biofuel
But demand for food is just one factor, according to Cornell University economist Chris Barrett. “It’s also the diversion of food and feed to the production of biofuels.”
In the United States, 2011 was the first time more maize went to make ethanol fuel than to feed animals.
Meanwhile, the pace of farm productivity gains has been slowing, Barrett says.
“What we’re seeing right now is the bitter harvest of very poor investments in agriculture research over, really, the last 20 years.”
That means a few bouts of bad weather can cause serious disruptions in world food markets today. And those disruptions are becoming more likely with climate change.
Political realities
Farm ministers from the G20 leading and emerging economies met for the first time this year to discuss the crisis. In 2009, G8 leaders pledged $22 billion to developing-world agriculture. But not much came of the meeting, or the pledge, from countries with financial troubles of their own, Barrett says.
“The political realities of domestic troubles in the major economies are effectively choking off concerted public-sector response right now, which is a real concern.”
But while those domestic troubles continue, so do the forces pushing food prices up, says Fan, of the International Food Policy Research Institute.
“So if we do not invest in agriculture, do not invest in food production, we will continue to see tightening supply. We will continue to see high prices.”
The good news in this is that high prices always encourage farmers to grow more. A record harvest in 2011 is helping to temper food prices in many, though not all, regions of the world.
In Egypt, for example, food prices have continued to rise. Elsewhere, experts do not expect much downward movement in the cost of food. High and volatile food prices are in the forecast for 2012 and beyond.
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11th February 2013 at 1:31 pm
AWD says:
If the rest of the world is depending on this Godless nation for anything, especially food, they are doomed.
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11th February 2013 at 1:51 pm
TPC says:
Hey guys, I have an idea! Lets feed food (already scarce around much of the world) to our CARS!
Them Brazillians can do it, how come we can’t?
Proof that we need to vote out all branches of the government and start over.
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11th February 2013 at 2:05 pm
KaD says:
I’ve felt that Federally mandated ethanol use should be dropped for many years now. The only good part of it is that the corn used is GMO garbage and not really fit for human consumption anyways: http://www.naturalnews.com/038998_GMO_crops_viral_gene_organ_damage.html
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11th February 2013 at 2:34 pm
Eddie says:
“The only good part of it is that the corn used is GMO garbage and not really fit for human consumption anyways”
Yep. What she said.
Brazil makes ethanol from sugar cane , which does not result in a negative EROEI. The way they do it, the EROEI is roughly eight. That’s a sustainable fuel source.
There is a lot of controversy over what the real EROEI is for alcohol in this country. It does not appear to be much over one though, even in the most optimistic studies. To me this doesn’t mean alcohol should be abandoned as a possible fuel…but rather that we need to abandon corn as our biological source and plant some sugar cane instead. But as far as I know, that doesn’t make any money for Monsanto.
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11th February 2013 at 3:04 pm
TPC says:
@KaD – Looks like its the mechanism they use to transfect the crops.
We are about as close to understanding genetics as the ancient greeks were to understanding the combustion engine.
We each have some sort of idea of what should be possible, but all attempts to make it happen are just groping around in the dark.
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11th February 2013 at 3:06 pm
Vektor says:
No, corn for ethanol is the green solution to the true problem. We live in a world that is approaching peak-oil/water/food. What’s the number? 9 billion, 10 billion, 15 billion people? How bad does it have to get? How nasty does the inevitable collapse have to be? Incentives and disincentives matter. If anyone makes accusations, we can proudly claim that we are seeking energy independence using renewable/green energy. Domestic energy and domestic jobs to fix a worldwide problem…genius.
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11th February 2013 at 5:00 pm
JIMSKI says:
This is not the only green crime i see in the world. When I watch my 1.5 hours of TV a week I am amazed at the amount of loot that has gone into saving every damn thing with fur in California. There was a special on PBS where they have a huge seal resource center where they save seals. This thing looks well funded and well staffed with everyone having that not quite right look of the truly clueless. The amount of money wasted on some damn swimming fish eating bag of fur could save thousands of children a year. Same with PETA. Truly a sin to send PETA one fucking dime before every child is safe, warm, and has a full belly
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11th February 2013 at 5:19 pm
efarmer says:
Once again, yes, 39% of the corn goes to supply the ethanol plants. Once again you completely, and I would say conveniently to make your point, ignore the fact that the byproduct of the distilling process is a high protein feed source, highly sought after. China buys gobs of it.
Yes we are using 39% of the corn crop for ethanol. But you completely, and once again conveniently, ignore the fact that next year we will grow 60% MORE CORN THAN WE GREW 10 YEARS AGO!!
But, you have your mind made up, so who gives a shit. EF
Hot debate. What do you think?
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11th February 2013 at 5:28 pm
Anonymous says:
@ef – DDGS are good, but I wouldn’t say they can replace the lost corn.
Corn based ethanol is a no no, its all about the cellulosic baby. We just need to figure out the right way to extract the sugars.
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11th February 2013 at 5:44 pm
TPC says:
The above was me.
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11th February 2013 at 5:45 pm
Eddie says:
“Growing corn, which from a biological perspective had always been a process of capturing sunlight to turn into food, has in no small measure become a process of converting fossil fuels into food.”
― Michael Pollan, The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
“In America, foods as diverse as Gatorade, Ring Dings, and hamburgers have their beginning with corn. Indeed, huge factories transform its kernels into an almost unimaginable array of compounds. To illustrate how pervasive corn’s influence is, Pollan gives us the example of the chicken nugget, which he says “piles corn upon corn: what chicken it contains consists of corn” (because the chickens are corn-fed), as does “the modified corn starch that glues the thing together, the corn flour in the batter that coats it, and the corn oil in which it gets fried. Much less obviously, the leavenings and lecithin, the mono-, di-, and triglycerides, the attractive golden coloring, and even the citric acid that keeps the nugget ‘fresh’ can all be derived from corn.”
So dominant has this giant grass become that of the 45,000-odd items in American supermarkets, more than one quarter contain corn. Disposable diapers, trash bags, toothpaste, charcoal briquettes, matches, batteries, and even the shine on the covers of magazines all contain corn. In America, all meat is also ultimately corn: chickens, turkeys, pigs, and even cows (which would be far healthier and happier eating grass) are forced into eating corn, as are, increasingly, carnivores such as salmon.
If you doubt the ubiquity of corn you can take a chemical test. It turns out that corn has a peculiar carbon structure which can be traced in everything that consumes it. Compare a hair sample from an American and a tortilla-eating Mexican and you’ll discover that the American contains a far larger proportion of corn-type carbon. “We North Americans look like corn chips with legs,” says one of the researchers who conducts such tests.
You might argue that there’s nothing wrong with eating such a corn-rich diet. But you are what you eat, and Pollan provides much graphic evidence that the American way of eating spreads illness, waste, and ecological devastation across the globe. As its title suggests, his book follows the makings–from farm to plate–of four very different meals. The first is a pure product of the industrial complex that feeds most of us–a McDonald’s meal eaten in a car. Next he examines an organic meal, then a meal prepared from ingredients grown on an ingenious farm called Polyface in the Shenandoah Valley. Finally Pollan relates the making of a meal made almost entirely of ingredients he himself harvests from the suburbs and hills of northern California, where he lives.
Pollan’s research into the origins of the McDonald’s meal takes him to the farm of George Naylor in Greene County, Iowa. Like his neighbors, George is slowly going broke growing corn for what he calls the “military-industrial complex,” and he is only able to stay on the land because of a salary earned away from the farm by his wife. You don’t have to look far to find the cause of this, for the more corn George grows, the faster he goes broke. That’s because in order to grow more corn you need more expensive fertilizer, special seed stock, and machinery, which farmers can ill afford. Yet because they often need the big paycheck, and because they are urged to do so by industry reps and government agencies, corn farmers continue to grow larger and larger crops. They all hope for a good price for corn, but because so much is being produced, improvements in the price never seem to arrive. Iowa State University estimates that it costs $2.50 to grow a bushel of Iowa corn, but when Pollan visited in October 2005 the grain elevators were paying farmers $1.45. The only reason the system survives is that the federal government gives farmers substantial subsidies. Federal payments “account for nearly half the income of the average Iowa corn farmer, and represent roughly a quarter of the $19 billion US taxpayers spend each year on payments to farmers.”
Not only is the industrial corn production system destroying farm families, it is destroying the farms themselves. The soil on Naylor’s farm is beautifully rich and two feet thick. What you can’t see, Pollan tells us, is the soil that’s no longer there. Originally there was four feet of soil, but intensive crop growing has destroyed half of that natural bounty. Only corn diseases, debt, and the wind (which has increased markedly since fences and trees were torn down to make way for more corn) seem to be prospering in the bleak Iowa landscape described by Pollan.
In order to follow the food chain, Pollan buys a steer–a nameless creature bearing only the number 534–and follows it from the Blair Ranch in South Dakota, where it was born, to the feedlot where it is fattened for slaughter. Despite its having been branded and castrated at the Blair Ranch, Pollan thinks that No. 534 might look back at its time there as the “good old days,” for its life on the feedlot is grim indeed.
Cows have not evolved to feed on corn. Nor are they suited to living in crowded conditions while standing up to their ankles in feces. In the feedlot, however, they have little choice. The corn diet induces indigestion, which must be treated with repeated courses of antibiotics, and the cows seem to be miserable or vacant a lot of the time. They are subjected to this regime because it makes them grow fast, and in times past they were even fed the offal from other slaughtered cows, which is how mad cow disease came into the food supply.
Pollan describes a Karmic cycle in which the poor health of the feedlotted cows is visited on their consumers. Because they are not allowed to eat grass, their meat is higher in dangerous fats and lower in good ones than that of cows leading a more natural life. And the abattoirs where they are slaughtered need to be absolutely fastidious about hygiene, because bacteria on their skins thrive in the crowded, fecal conditions, and could easily contaminate their meat. Despite all of this, grain-fed beef has a cachet in America, where it is preferred by many for its alleged tenderness. I’m often offered it with pride, even by up-market restaurants that don’t seem interested in serving meat from cows that have lived their life on the range. Having read Pollan’s book, I’m now ordering buffalo.
Corn of course is used for many purposes apart from feeding factory-farmed chickens, cattle, and pigs. High-fructose corn syrup, for example, has replaced sugar in many processed food and beverages, and is now, according to Pollan, “the most valuable food product refined from corn, accounting for 530 million bushels every year.” But in trying to track down how such products are made, Pollan hits a dead end. The big corn millers–Cargill and Archer Daniels Midland–won’t let him into their factories, so he wasn’t allowed to see how the corn products Americans consume are the result of complicated chemical processing”
—Tim Flannery, in a book review of The Omnivore’s Dilemma, from the NY Times, June 2007
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11th February 2013 at 5:59 pm
crazyivan says:
DO NOT FUCK WITH MOTHER NATURE!
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11th February 2013 at 7:04 pm
crazyivan says:
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11th February 2013 at 7:05 pm
crazyivan says:
damn it all.
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11th February 2013 at 7:09 pm
Administrator says:
Let’s see. Our production is lower than it was in 2004. Worldwide demand has soared. And our exports are plunging. YES – converting corn to ethanol is a stupid idea.
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11th February 2013 at 7:12 pm
efarmer says:
I can understand you “feel” it’s wrong to use 5 billion bushels of corn for ethanol. I am curious what you would do with the 7 billion bushels left over next year if you axe ethanol. EF
Hot debate. What do you think?
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11th February 2013 at 9:22 pm
Administrator says:
In 2008 we exported 12 billion bushels. Last year we exported less than 6 million bushels. If there was a REAL demand for ethanol driven by the market and not GOVERNMENT MANDATES, then corn would go to ethanol production. Are you arguing for government mandates to force people to use ethanol?
The world would buy the 7 billion bushels of corn.
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11th February 2013 at 9:34 pm
fool on the hill says:
PETA……………..Add RD to make a new word PETARD
Look it up!
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11th February 2013 at 9:38 pm
efarmer says:
I’ll promise to not make up statistics if you don’t. This from the USDA.
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11th February 2013 at 9:43 pm
efarmer says:
If the world cannot afford to buy 6 billion bushels, how will they afford 13 billion???
Mark my words, the world will be awash in corn in a year. High corn prices have killed demand from ethanol and livestock and exports. You’ll have all the field corn, rather inedible by the way, that you can eat.
Prolly should retire real soon.
EF
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11th February 2013 at 9:49 pm
Administrator says:
That’s the exact chart I already posted. We are producing less corn than we did in 2004. Can you read a fucking chart?
We didn’t export the corn because we needed it in the U.S.
The world wants as much corn as it can get.
You did not answer my question. DO YOU SUPPORT GOVERNMENT MANDATES THAT FORCE PEOPLE TO USE ETHANOL?
Pretty simple question. Your answer will reveal much.
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11th February 2013 at 9:56 pm
Administrator says:
Who will possibly buy our corn? LOL.
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11th February 2013 at 10:07 pm
SSS says:
efarmer
I’ll admit that I’m not following your argument about corn and ethanol and tend to agree with Admin’s viewpoint. Could you please explain further.
Setting aside the world food supply factor, which is the most important consideration, do you find any merit in the charge that ethanol is DAMAGING to internal combustion engines? I find the evidence compelling that the use of ethanol in gasoline is physically damaging. Do you?
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11th February 2013 at 10:09 pm
Administrator says:
Ridiculous government mandated ethanol production.
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11th February 2013 at 10:10 pm
efarmer says:
As I have stated before and will repeat here, there is no need for a mandate and I wish they would drop it because if they would ethanol use may actually rise. There have been several articles on this, I don’t have them right now.
So in answer to your question, no.
EF
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11th February 2013 at 10:12 pm
SSS says:
efarmer
Admin gets really grumpy sometimes. Here’s what his grandchildren may face.
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11th February 2013 at 10:14 pm
efarmer says:
SSS,
I was going to address that and decided I was too tired, but since you asked.
One of the most common arguments against ethanol is it damages engines. Farmers in the Midwest have used ethanol almost exclusively for many years in cars, tractors, mowers, boats, motorcycles. I have never once heard a story of engine damage due to ethanol.
Have you?? Has anyone on this site? Or is this just some talking point from the petroleum industry? I mean if there is some actual evidence I would LOVE to see it.
EF
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11th February 2013 at 10:18 pm
Administrator says:
A fuel that uses as much energy to produce as it generates and damages engines while reducing gas mileage would be used more if the government didn’t mandate its usage???
That is ridiculous. Why would demand increase?
Woldwide demand for corn has risen for decades. Farmers can sell all of their production without government mandated ethanol production.
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11th February 2013 at 10:19 pm
Administrator says:
It took about two seconds to find an article in Popular Mechanics about ethanol damage to engines. Must be planted by the evil oil companies.
http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/alternative-fuel/biofuels/e15-gasoline-damage-engine
Most people realize that all of us burn gasohol—a mixture of gasoline and alcohol—in our cars. Just about every gallon of gas pumped today contains as much as 10 percent domestically produced ethanol. Gummed-up fuel systems, damaged tanks and phase separation caused by stray moisture infiltrating fuel systems have plagued many consumers since this mixture debuted, and the problems will only get worse if government policy to increase the proportion of ethanol to gasoline is implemented. Don’t get me wrong: Gasoline diluted with ethanol is a perfectly acceptable motor fuel when it’s stored properly, dispensed promptly and burned in vehicles and power equipment designed to handle it. Which, unfortunately, is not always the case.
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11th February 2013 at 10:25 pm
efarmer says:
SSS,
Ha. The guy is passionate, no doubt.
I, like many farmers, are scared. Our cost of production has sky rocked, prices for 2013 crops are plunging and are in some instances below cost of production.
One of the few bright spots, odd as it may be, is that the germination from last years drought seed is horrible and there may simply not be enough quality seed to grow all the corn Jim needs. that would put a floor under prices.
Perhaps the golden age of agriculture has come to our own fiscal cliff.
EF
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11th February 2013 at 10:25 pm
Zarathustra says:
May I chime in?
“Corn ethanol is extremely dirty,” Michal Rosenoer, biofuels manager for Friends of the Earth, said in heralding the tax credit’s demise. “It leads to more climate pollution than conventional gasoline, and it causes deforestation as well as agricultural runoff that pollutes our water.”
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11th February 2013 at 10:28 pm
efarmer says:
Actually yes, that study on E 15 was done by the American Petroleum Institute.
Jim, has your car ever had engine problems from ethanol? Do you personally know anyone? Or are you reading oil industry propaganda?
EF
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11th February 2013 at 10:29 pm
Administrator says:
SSS has learned to always agree with Admin.
He is still recovering from the Joe Paterno ass kicking he received two years ago.
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11th February 2013 at 10:34 pm
Administrator says:
I know my mileage drops by 10% in the winter.
Do you deny that ethanol reduces gas mileage too?
Let ethanol stand by itself in the marketplace and it will crash.
No one would put it in their cars without the government forcing us to do so.
Please tell me why usage would go higher without government mandates. I can’t wait to hear the facts.
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11th February 2013 at 10:39 pm
Zarathustra says:
Shouldn’t you be in bed?
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11th February 2013 at 10:39 pm
Administrator says:
The pope and Paterno have me fired up today.
I’m almost ready to turn in.
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11th February 2013 at 10:42 pm
efarmer says:
Wow, I got yelled at up above for not answering the question and here you are completely avoiding mine. Do you know anyone who has had engine failure due to ethanol? You don’t, do you.
As I said a few weeks ago, gas is coming in at 94 octane and they NEED the ethanol to raise the octane up to 87 or 89 or whatever you need for your Yugo.
Of fucking course your mileage drops in the winter, how old are you???? Did you really just notice the drop this year?
I’m off to bed.
EF
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11th February 2013 at 10:48 pm
todd says:
EF,
Can you explain how the gas lines on my leaf blower and weed eater pretty much dissolved upon the introduction of ethanol and my auto gas lines won’t?
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11th February 2013 at 11:00 pm
sangell says:
Winter fuel blends ( as formulated by the EPA) have about 10% less BTUs per unit as the summer blend gasoline. I don’t think its the ethanol content either. The EPA is more concerned about chemical compounds that form smog and other pollution issues than mileage. In the summer over urban areas they want more complete combustion which is why, if you can buy your gasoline outside of metropolitan areas affected by EPA ‘designer’ blend formulas it costs about 10 cents a gallon less.
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11th February 2013 at 11:21 pm
IndenturedServant says:
I have a 1986 Toyota 4Runner with 315,000 miles on it and can honestly say that I have encountered absolutely no fuel system problems with it whatsever. Zero, nada, zilch. Damn thing runs like a top.
I doubt that fuel lines are affected all that much because on fuel injected vehicles, the fuel lines are steel and designed for high pressure. Carbureted engines, including mowers, trimmers etc have plastic or rubber fuel lines. I have to admit that the 10 or so carbureted engines I own have never experienced any fuel problems either.
I’m not sure what the differences between various alcohol fuels are but I use 99% isopropanol in all my vehicles twice a year to remove water from the fuel systems. Water in a steel fuel tank will rust it out. Also, when I raced karts for the WKA, we used straight methanol as fuel. All that was required was a bigger carb jet and a little tuning. Engines ran cooler and extremely clean. We never noticed any issues with plastic or rubber fuel system components.
I_S
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11th February 2013 at 1:26 am
AKAnon says:
Ethanol is (under proper conditions) a clean burning fuel. It contains much lower Btus per gallon than gasoline. However, it has a much higher octane rating than ordinary gasoline-which is a good thing. (Octane rating is a subject for another thread. Here I refer to the resistance to detonation, the octane rating(s) labeled on your local gas pump). In the midwest where E85 is prevalent, a bunch of the hot rod types are building high performance street car motors designed for alcohol-i.e., much higher compression ratio and/or boost than pump gas motors. Essentially, it is race-gas octane at pump gas prices (albeit requiring 30+% more fuel in the fuel/air ratio).
The problem w/ using ethanol is its affinity for water and its tendency to soften or dissolve plastics and rubbers (i.e., fuel lines, gaskets and o-rings) that gasoline does not affect. Dedicated E85 motors (and, no doubt, the “flex-fuel” production motors) are assembled with gasoline and alcohol-resistant components. This can be a big problem for older, conventional motors running modern alcohol blends.
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11th February 2013 at 1:46 am
printmemoney says:
Efarmer- do you receive subsidies to produce ethanol?
Admin – your intro to this article should lay more blame on Grassley than Obamarama
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11th February 2013 at 7:12 am
Administrator says:
I’ll let JIMSKI chime in about ethanol hurting engines, since it isn’t my area of expertise. It also isn’t yours.
You are the expert in arguing for government mandates when they benefit you.
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11th February 2013 at 7:51 am
efarmer says:
Admin,
What did I say about mandates up above? Having a little trouble reading this morning??? Comprehension problems on Fat Tuesday? Did I not say I would rather drop the mandate??
You are the expert on engines, have stated several times about the engine failures, yet cannot name a single instance.
Make your case, don’t make up a bunch of goofy shit.
EF
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11th February 2013 at 8:26 am
efarmer says:
Print the money,
No. There never have been direct subsidies to produce ethanol. There was a tax credit to ethanol producers that went to the blenders, big oil.
As farmers we get a small payment every year, so small most farmers wonder why they bother. I suspect the feds are scared they will lose control over us and need some carrot and stick. God forbid the government can’t control the food production.
EF
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11th February 2013 at 8:30 am
efarmer says:
Todd,
I see AkAnon addressed your issue.
EF
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11th February 2013 at 8:34 am
Administrator says:
I provided an article link that described the problems. You immediately said it was oil company propaganda even though it was written by a mechanic.
Ethanol is the juice of the Farmer FSA
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11th February 2013 at 8:47 am
Administrator says:
Evading questions seems to be common on this thread. Why would anyone put ethanol in their gas tank unless mandated to by the Federal government?
Sound of crickets.
Does this chart reflect market driven demand or government mandated demand?
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11th February 2013 at 8:53 am
Eddie says:
I’d put ethanol in my tank voluntarily if:
(a) it cost less than gas,or
(b) the EROEI was more positive,or
(c) if gas were not available,or
(d) I could make it myself from locally available biomass at low cost.
At the moment, C& D seem more likely than A or B. In a collapse scenario alcohol could become a very important fuel…right now, not so much. From the get-go I saw alcohol fuel ( from corn) as a special interest driven government boondoggle. My view of that has not changed.
Alcohol can be a very clean fuel. that’s a plus/
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11th February 2013 at 9:16 am
Eddie says:
The one good call that has been made on the whole alcohol front has been the manufacture of flex fuel vehicles. Right now that isn’t so important, but someday it might be much more so.
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11th February 2013 at 9:45 am
Anonymous says:
Two quotes from Admin that contradict himself.
“Ethanol is the juice of the Farmer FSA.”
“Woldwide demand for corn has risen for decades. Farmers can sell all of their production without government mandated ethanol production.”
Which one of your quotes do you think applies today?
EF
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11th February 2013 at 10:00 am
Administrator says:
The quotes are contradictory in no way.
Until last year, farmers were subsidized to convert corn into ethanol. Those are the facts. Ethanol usage is still mandated by the Federal government, thereby providing an automatic market for farmers’ corn.
As you can see from the previous chart, worldwide demand for corn has increased every year for decades. Do farmers have trouble interpreting charts?
The revolutions and social unrest around the globe over the last few years have been spurred by food shortages and rising food prices. That is a fact.
Mandating corn being turned into ethanol drives up the price of food for the rest of the world.
The only thing contradictory is your unwillingness to accept the facts.
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11th February 2013 at 10:13 am
Eddie says:
“Why are the peasants angry? ”
“They have no bread.”
“Let them eat cake”.
—Marie Antoinette
“Let them eat GMO corn.”
—Admin
“Let them die-off as we manufacture world-wide inflation.”
— Ben Bernanke
“Where’s the “arm warhead” button on this drone?”
—Barack Obama
” I hope I can learn to grow real edible food before it’s me starving.”
—-Eddie
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11th February 2013 at 11:06 am
JIMSKI says:
Does ethanol hurt engines? It depends!
Someone brought up an old Toyota product and stated it ran fine. Yes it will run fine in that because it is a very basic engine design. It has a Bosch designed fuel injection system that can not adjust for octane and the O2 switching ( from rich to lean ) is less than 1 time per second. If you ever gassed the tailpipe on that truck ( I have ) you would find it produces about 25 times the pollution as a pre OBD2 vehicle under proper fuel control. That is because it is set up very rich in comparison to newer vehicles. It has the ability to take the alc and fire it off. It will run but at reduced output.
Newer cars are different. Manufacturers are being forced to use a fuel that is changing as the vehicle ages. We are now at e-15 and this is causing fits and in some cases damage to engines because of a lean condition in the cylinders. The lean condition is due to the added oxygen in the fuel stream as well as the reduced density of charge.
Currently we undertake about 25 FLASH PROGRAM EVENTS a month to change the software on vehicles. About 25% are due to fuel concerns. The majority are still idiot engineer repairs. When we flash a vehicle for a fuel concern it reduces spark advance and increases idle speed cold and well as cold dwell timers. In other words the vehicle stays at a higher idle longer due to the remap programming.
have I seen damage from e15? OHELLYES! However I have not seen as many horror stories as you might think. Where the basic fuel parts such as tanks, lines, seals, and gaskets have not really been damaged what we do see is misfire events leading to engine damage. Let me explain.
When a vehicle is running it has the ability ( has? Hell it was mandated ) to be able to tell the driver that there is a situation where continued operation of the vehicle may result in damage to the catalytic converter. These are called misfire events and are logged into your computer. When they get really bad the vehicle under tier2 rules ( 2000 ) must have the ability to shut off the injector to the cylinder that is not performing. This stops fuel flow and you now have a blinking check engine light and a dead hole. The problem is that sometimes the misfire event is actually due to a common event to the whole engine such as a leaking fuel regulator. This extra fuel gets put into the engine in the intake and results in a fuel system that will misfire due to a rich condition on a few cylinders and a lean condition on a few others. As you turn off cylinders this fuel passes through to the converter.
The converter hates this. Not only is it dealing with a liquid that is more cooling than gas ( insert reed vapor pressure lecture here ) but it has 10% more oxygen content than gas. The post oxygen sensor will pick this up and will actually command more fuel load into the motor! We have now destroyed a converter to the tune of 1,000 fiat. Keep driving it and you will break more and more stuff as the engine gets more and more restricted.
I am a member of an online group of Vehicle technicians that post information for use by our members. A brief search of the archives found 11,289 case studies and forum posts of damage from alcohol. A large percentage are from engines not running correctly but if just gas had been used the damage would have been much less.
Our local fuel situation sucks so bad that step 3 on strange drive / running concerns alwats include an alcohol test. We had a Honda in with mismarked E85 and several hi lines with alcohol approaching 30% content from a premium pump.
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11th February 2013 at 12:53 pm
efarmer says:
I’m sorry Jim. I’m beat. I lost my wife, my dad has had several strokes.
I’m not up for this anymore. Love your wife and kids.
EF
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11th February 2013 at 8:27 pm
printmemoney says:
Ef – your posts are an excellent contribution to tbp , I’m sorry this exchange has you down. Who gives a Fuck if you can’t convince people to agree with you?
I’m sorry about the loss of your wife and your father’s struggles . I hope you continue posting as I have always found your insights unique and informative.
Here’s to your health.
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11th February 2013 at 5:53 pm