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End the Ethanol Rip-Off

nytimes.com

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Re: End the Ethanol Rip-Off

#11

Post by guscost »

pedalpete wrote: post #5
guscost wrote: post #2

I'm surprised and happy to see this in the Times. It's a good idea to avoid ethanol gas, on principle if for no other reason. Processing edible food to burn in your car (with all the implied market consequences) is kinda crazy. Here's a good resource if you're looking for ethanol-free gas in the US and Canada: http://pure-gas.org

I've always wondered about this argument in an environment suffering from an obesity epidemic, often blamed on another corn product, high-fructose corn syrup. Having lived in many different countries, the cost of food in the US is incredibly low. I assume (and have heard) this is mostly a result of subsidies to farmers. All the while, US exports of 'corn based products', which I assume is also corn, has continued to…

This is an important point, American farm output is strongly manipulated by other subsidies and regulations. But I don't think there's any reason to believe that rising domestic corn prices would not have an effect on the larger domestic and foreign food markets, or that the effect would be good.

Re: End the Ethanol Rip-Off

#12

Post by lutorm »

jschwartzi wrote: post #8

Does anyone know what the relative cost of MTBE is vs. ethanol? One of the reasons ethanol is added to gasoline is to increase the octane rating. We used to use MTBE instead. I'm curious if the argument against ethanol continues to bear out when considering alternative octane boosters.

Well, MTBE was phased out because of groundwater contamination. If you include cleanup costs, I doubt it would be cheaper than ethanol.

Re: End the Ethanol Rip-Off

#13

Post by Spooky23 »

jschwartzi wrote: post #8

Does anyone know what the relative cost of MTBE is vs. ethanol? One of the reasons ethanol is added to gasoline is to increase the octane rating. We used to use MTBE instead. I'm curious if the argument against ethanol continues to bear out when considering alternative octane boosters.

Depends on how you define cost. MTBE infiltrates groundwater very easily, and cleaning up contaminated sites is ridiculously expensive.

Re: End the Ethanol Rip-Off

#14

Post by lutorm »

guscost wrote: post #2

I'm surprised and happy to see this in the Times. It's a good idea to avoid ethanol gas, on principle if for no other reason. Processing edible food to burn in your car (with all the implied market consequences) is kinda crazy. Here's a good resource if you're looking for ethanol-free gas in the US and Canada: http://pure-gas.org

The majority of corn produced in the United States is used for cattle feed (and the rest for things like HFCS.) If you think it's crazy to burn edible food in a car, it's about as crazy to use it to fuel cow metabolism. You could feed way more people if you ate the corn, but as it turns out, U.S. industrial corn production is pretty much for anything but eating.

Re: End the Ethanol Rip-Off

#16

Post by mrbabbage »

Further reading for the interested:

- "All studies indicated that current corn ethanol technologies are much less petroleum-intensive than gasoline but have greenhouse gas emissions similar to those of gasoline. However, many important environmental effects of biofuel production are poorly understood. New metrics that measure specific resource inputs are developed, but further research into environmental metrics is needed. Nonetheless, it is already clear that large-scale use of ethanol for fuel will almost certainly require cellulosic technology. " http://www.sciencemag.org/content/311/5760/506

- "[Prior] analyses have failed to count the carbon emissions that occur as farmers worldwide respond to higher prices and convert forest and grassland to new cropland to replace the grain (or cropland) diverted to biofuels. By using a worldwide agricultural model to estimate emissions from land-use change, we found that corn-based ethanol, instead of producing a 20% savings, nearly doubles greenhouse emissions over 30 years and increases greenhouse gases for 167 years. " http://www.whrc.org/resources/publications/pdf/Searchingeret...

This second citation is key. Most of my friends who aren't studying this stuff all the time aren't aware of the critical role land use changes (e.g. deforestation) plays in global carbon emissions, and biofuel's perturbation of international food markets tends to accelerate these deleterious trends.

Re: End the Ethanol Rip-Off

#17

Post by analog31 »

lutorm wrote: post #14
guscost wrote: post #2

I'm surprised and happy to see this in the Times. It's a good idea to avoid ethanol gas, on principle if for no other reason. Processing edible food to burn in your car (with all the implied market consequences) is kinda crazy. Here's a good resource if you're looking for ethanol-free gas in the US and Canada: http://pure-gas.org

The majority of corn produced in the United States is used for cattle feed (and the rest for things like HFCS.) If you think it's crazy to burn edible food in a car, it's about as crazy to use it to fuel cow metabolism. You could feed way more people if you ate the corn, but as it turns out, U.S. industrial corn production is pretty much for anything but eating.

Not to mention the greenhouse footprint of cattle farming. You can't really feed more people -- at least in the US -- because we already consume food in quantities that are arguably toxic. But you could turn the corn fields over to other kinds of crops.

Disclaimer: I eat meat, maybe 1/4 to 1/2 pound a week.

Re: End the Ethanol Rip-Off

#18

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

soylentcola wrote: post #6
guscost wrote: post #2

I'm surprised and happy to see this in the Times. It's a good idea to avoid ethanol gas, on principle if for no other reason. Processing edible food to burn in your car (with all the implied market consequences) is kinda crazy. Here's a good resource if you're looking for ethanol-free gas in the US and Canada: http://pure-gas.org

Not to mention that it's essentially impossible to find non-ethanol fuel nearby to put in my motorcycle. It's not exactly the best thing for carbureted engines. I understand that I'm in the minority and I wouldn't expect an otherwise sensible policy to change on behalf of people who commute on motorcycles and scooters but I wouldn't complain if it became easier to avoid.

Not good for plastic gas tanks either.

Re: End the Ethanol Rip-Off

#19

Post by maratd »

lutorm wrote: post #14
guscost wrote: post #2

I'm surprised and happy to see this in the Times. It's a good idea to avoid ethanol gas, on principle if for no other reason. Processing edible food to burn in your car (with all the implied market consequences) is kinda crazy. Here's a good resource if you're looking for ethanol-free gas in the US and Canada: http://pure-gas.org

The majority of corn produced in the United States is used for cattle feed (and the rest for things like HFCS.) If you think it's crazy to burn edible food in a car, it's about as crazy to use it to fuel cow metabolism. You could feed way more people if you ate the corn, but as it turns out, U.S. industrial corn production is pretty much for anything but eating.

> You could feed way more people if you ate the corn

We're already eating too much corn, no thank you. If you check the label on the packaged goods you buy, corn is pretty much in all of them in one form or another.

We should grow less corn, let the cows eat grass, and have people eat people food (which might occasionally include a corn on the cob).

Re: End the Ethanol Rip-Off

#20

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

post_break wrote: post #15

As someone who runs E85 because it's essentially race gas for about $1.25 a gallon, I'm conflicted.

Which gets you what exactly? You can do racy things with an engine running on 87 octane with the two wheeled varieties more than capable of satisfying any speed lust.
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