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  #1  
Old 05-07-2008, 11:31 PM
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Finally an ethanol story that makes sense

Seems that starting in 2009, Oregon is allowing gasoline to be sold without the 10% minimum ethanol currently mandated. It is for use in aviation/marine engines, small gas engines like ATV's and yard equipment, and classic cars.

Not sure how they will segregate it at the pump. Hopefully more easily distributed than red diesel.

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  #2  
Old 05-08-2008, 02:01 AM
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Cspan tonight

'Watching the Democratic house leaders with a plan to "Help" the EPA loose the
10% Ethanol requirement nationwide...'cause burning the corn foodstocks
rather than a renewable like Switchgrass is killing us on food cost increases.

(Also all the damn speculators making billions, whilst the rest of us are F*****)
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  #3  
Old 05-08-2008, 07:47 AM
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Ethanol Strategy Losing Support

Ethanol Strategy Losing Support

Policy Snagged In Clamor Over Price Of Food


By H. JOSEF HEBERT | Associated PressWASHINGTON — - Just months ago, ethanol was the Holy Grail to energy independence and a "green fuel" that would help nudge the country away from climate-changing fossil energy.

Democrats and Republicans cheered its benefits as Congress directed a fivefold increase in ethanol use as a motor fuel. President Bush called it key to his strategy to cut gasoline use by 20 percent by 2010.

But now with skyrocketing food costs — even U.S. senators are complaining about seeing shocking prices at the supermarket — and hunger spreading across the globe, some lawmakers are wondering whether they made a mistake.

"Our enthusiasm for corn ethanol deserves a second look. That's all I'm saying, a second look," Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., said at a House hearing Tuesday where the impact of ethanol on soaring food costs was given a wide airing.

The dramatic reversal has stunned ethanol producers and its supporters in Washington as they have seen their product shift from being an object of praise to one of derision.

Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, one of the Senate's two working farmers and a longtime ethanol booster, finds it hard to believe that ethanol could be "clobbered the way it's being clobbered right now" over the issue of food costs. What does the cost of corn have to do with the price of wheat or rice, he is telling people.

The uproar over ethanol is clearly gaining momentum. The governor of Texas and 26 senators, including the GOP's presumptive presidential nominee, John McCain, are asking the Environmental Protection Agency to cut this year's requirement for 9 billion gallons of corn ethanol in half to ease, they say, food costs. Connecticut Gov. M. Jodi Rell recently asked Congress to temporarily waive the requirement.

Meanwhile, Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., is gathering senators' signatures on a letter opposing any EPA action so that "this attack on ethanol will be blocked," said a statement from Thune's office. "It will be a fight."

Robert Meyers, an EPA deputy assistant administrator, told a House hearing Tuesday that the agency will respond to the request as quickly as possible, but he doubts that anything will be forthcoming for about three months. There's a regulatory process to follow, he said.

But lawmakers, even those who enthusiastically supported the requirement for refiners to ramp up ethanol use to 36 billion gallons a year by 2022 from about 7 billion gallons last year, have begun to have qualms.

"Corn ethanol was presented as an almost Holy Grail solution," said Rep. Mike Doyle, D-Pa. "But I believe its negatives today far outweigh its benefits. ... We need to revisit this ... and back away from the food-to-fuel policy."

Rep. Joe Barton of Texas, the ranking Republican on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said he will introduce a bill to abandon the ethanol requirement passed just before last Christmas and go back to the one Congress enacted in 2005 that would call for a more modest ethanol increase.

But Barton is not so naive as to think his bill has a chance. House Democratic leaders have given no indication of retreating from the ethanol requirement. Still, Barton said, "it's worth putting in."

In fact, most of the squirming over ethanol and food prices appears to many as little more than political posturing with little chance of actual legislation emerging in this crowded election year, when much of Congress often seems to be in a stalemate.

Like soaring gasoline prices, skyrocketing food costs are largely beyond Washington's influence. And ethanol's powerful farm lobby still has considerable clout.

"The ink has hardly dried on this new law when the clamoring began ... for congressional intervention," Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, said Tuesday of the ethanol uproar.

But Dingell made it clear that he has no intention of making any significant changes in the production requirements passed in December as part of a broader energy bill, saying such a move "would be unwise and could lead to unintended consequences."

Still, congressional unease about the food-for-fuel debate is showing itself in a number of places.

In a massive farm bill, for the first time in memory lawmakers recently trimmed the federal tax subsidy for corn ethanol, reducing the tax break from 51 cents to 45 cents a gallon. But at the same time, lawmakers reiterated their support for making ethanol production from cellulosic feedstocks — wood chips, switchgrass, and even garbage — commercially viable. The same farm bill provides $400 million for cellulosic ethanol research and development.

And the rush of hearings into the food-to-fuel issue shows no sign of subsiding. The hearing on Tuesday by an Energy and Commerce subcommittee vied for attention with another hearing into the soaring cost of diesel fuel. The Senate's Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee has scheduled another hearing on food and fuel today.

Will anything come of it?

"Nothing," said Rep. John Shimkus, R-Ill., during a break in Tuesday's session.

Shimkus, whose state has one of the biggest ethanol producers in Archer Daniels Midland Co., supports the mandate and sees heavy reliance on corn as a feedstock only temporary. "It's a bridge [to] cellulosic ethanol, and we can't jettison the present and not get to the future," he said.
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  #4  
Old 05-08-2008, 08:22 AM
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Hemp and Algae are better choices than Corn IMO.
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Old 05-08-2008, 08:28 AM
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Algae, exactly! Why don't they wake up and make some incentives available to companies to fully research and exploit this totally renewable resource that has little to no effect on foodstocks?
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  #6  
Old 05-08-2008, 08:41 AM
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Another illustration of how unintended consequences derail the expected benefits whenever the government involves itself in industry.
Judge them on their intent; never the results.
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  #7  
Old 05-08-2008, 09:15 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by KarTek View Post
Algae, exactly! Why don't they wake up and make some incentives available to companies to fully research and exploit this totally renewable resource that has little to no effect on foodstocks?
http://www.engadget.com/2008/03/17/greenfuel-technologies-signs-deal-to-build-algae-fuel-plant/
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Old 05-08-2008, 08:12 PM
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Anyone for tapioca?

http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/news/stories/200805/s2237311.htm?tab=pacific
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  #9  
Old 05-08-2008, 11:41 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by KarTek View Post
Algae, exactly! Why don't they wake up and make some incentives available to companies to fully research and exploit this totally renewable resource that has little to no effect on foodstocks?
X2 they were researching this 6 years ago at the Aquaculture school I went to for high school.

Corn based ethanol is a joke, the sooner we kill it the better for all.
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  #10  
Old 05-09-2008, 12:11 AM
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Most of you guys missed the point. Its not about where the ethanol came from or how it is made, it is about the negative effects of using the crap in the first place. It is nice to see things get fixed at the political level, it does not happen very often, certainly an injection of common sense is a rare thing to witness.
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  #11  
Old 05-09-2008, 03:59 AM
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Alcohol of any kind in g@soline is a bad idea.

Sooner or later people will try to resurrect Diesahol again....
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  #12  
Old 05-12-2008, 12:48 AM
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Ethanol is Hygroscopic

I have to agree with the last two posters.

Ask anybody in the Marine industry up Hatterasguy's way...They went to blended Ethanol/Gasoline mixes in the Marinas last year.(By State Mandate)
The Ethanol (Alcohol) component of the fuel pulls moisture in the outside air
into the fuel tank through the vent...the Moisture and Ethanol mix/bond and
separate out to the bottom of the tank...So the first sip the engine gets is
a Water/Ethanol mixture...DEATH to two stroke engines!
Also the acidic content of the fuel mixture skyrockets.
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  #13  
Old 05-12-2008, 12:50 AM
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Saw a blurb in the Star that the Germans are rethinking ethanol usage as well.
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  #14  
Old 05-12-2008, 01:34 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by compress ignite View Post
I have to agree with the last two posters.

Ask anybody in the Marine industry up Hatterasguy's way...They went to blended Ethanol/Gasoline mixes in the Marinas last year.(By State Mandate)
The Ethanol (Alcohol) component of the fuel pulls moisture in the outside air
into the fuel tank through the vent...the Moisture and Ethanol mix/bond and
separate out to the bottom of the tank...So the first sip the engine gets is
a Water/Ethanol mixture...DEATH to two stroke engines!
Also the acidic content of the fuel mixture skyrockets.
Actauly in CT at least we switched in 2005/6. Made a heck of a mess, but by now all the problems should be worked through.

Now you leave your danks as empty as possible when you store the boat, seems to work OK.

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