Ethanol/FFV a scam?

[HudsonValleyTitan]

Originally Posted by Jim Padget

Ethanol is not a band-aid, it is a flat out scam, a government funded rip-off boondoggle. Ethanol sucks up water, you can’t stop it. Just look at the ingredients on a bottle of Heet gas line anti-freeze. Sucking up water is what ethanol does best. Everything comes to you through a pipeline; the tank truck just brings it the last 50 miles or so. Ethanol can’t go through a pipeline at all, because the water that it carries along with it will cut the 30-year life span of a pipeline in half, plus it doubles the maintenance. This is why they are talking about building ethanol plants every 500 miles. The existing infrastructure cannot be retrofitted. If you factor in the fuel that it takes to produce the corn, (not to mention much of the fertilizer and insecticide comes from? That’s right, petroleum) then get the corn (or what ever) to the ethanol plant, then truck the ethanol all the way to your local Quick Trip. It takes well over 3 gallons of petroleum to get one gallon of ethanol into your tank. Capturing cow farts would make more sense.

Hey....LMAO...I like how this guy thinks! "boondoggle"?? ROFL...I hadda look that one up!

[TallTexan]

Send all the ethenol to California and other tree hugger states and let them burn it. They have stopped us from drilling additional oil wells and building more refineries, so let them reap what they sow. We have known for a long time that one day the rag heads of the world would end up blackmailing us with oil and we did nothing about it. We have some vital supplies the rest of the world needs and we need to set some high prices on them. How about 5k for a bag of flour? Maybe we see if we can walk longer than they can do without food. As a last resort , we just take over Venezula and sell more Citco gas.

[HudsonValleyTitan]

Originally Posted by TallTexan

Send all the ethenol to California and other tree hugger states and let them burn it. They have stopped us from drilling additional oil wells and building more refineries, so let them reap what they sow. We have known for a long time that one day the rag heads of the world would end up blackmailing us with oil and we did nothing about it. We have some vital supplies the rest of the world needs and we need to set some high prices on them. How about 5k for a bag of flour? Maybe we see if we can walk longer than they can do without food. As a last resort , we just take over Venezula and sell more Citco gas.

[cargun]

I have never noticed a difference in fuel economy between 10% ethanol and straight gasoline. If you use ethanol, even 5% blends, never let it sit around for more than 3 months. It will absorb water and corrode everything in the fuel system.

Between my dad and myself we have 3 vehicles that have way over 100k on them, most of that burning 10% ethanol, never had an issue with any of them.

Government cars in Iowa have been running E85 for over a decade. But widespread use of ethanol is new, so not a lot of development has been done on producing it. I can guarantee that in a few years it will make more sense than it does now. Just like hybrid and electric cars. But just like other alternative energy sources it shows enough potential that it's worth developing.

And DoD is far from a farce. It's not going to make enough of a difference for someone to notice unless they have an identical non DoD vehicle to compare to. But the fuel savings is >5% in most applications and that is a huge deal for the manufacturers. They will pay good money to get a couple tenths of a percent better fuel economy. If a vehicle needs 30hp to move it down the road it's more efficient to produce 30hp with 4cyl than with 8. With just 4cyl pumping the throttle has to open more to produce the same horsepower which means reduced pumping losses. While still not as good as a throttleless engine (like a diesel) it's definitely better than 8 cyl's loafing along with a barely cracked throttle wasting several HP just pulling air in.

[daptech]

Keep in mind that ethanol producers get a 51 cent per gallon
subsidy from the Federal Government ...........& there is a
54 cent per gallon tariff on cheaper imported ethanol.
Also, the auto manufacturers get a fuel credit on their
CAFE number for each FFV produced even though very
few FFV's are using E85. So, the fuel credits allow
the manufacturers to sell more gas hogs.
There is a saying that E85 got it's name because
it is 85% politics.

[MuskyHunter]

Ethanol Shares Slide Further

Ethanol stocks dropped with the broader market following weak earnings reports from two producers and a bleak outlook from Goldman Sachs.

Low ethanol prices and high corn costs have hurt the sector's profitability. Pacific Ethanol Inc. on Friday posted a surprisingly large third-quarter loss. VeraSun Energy Corp. last week said third-quarter profit fell more than 75 percent, despite higher revenue.

Although a glut has led to lower prices, some analysts and investors wonder why some ethanol companies are still pursuing expansion plans.

"Incredibly, all three companies we cover -- Aventine Renewable Energy, Pacific Ethanol, and VeraSun Energy -- are sticking with long-standing aggressive growth plans, even in the face of significant negative free cash flow and weak ethanol crush spreads," Goldman Sachs analyst Arjun Murti said in a research note.

Source:

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/071119/energ...ndup.html?.v=1