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The problem with ethanol I'm told is that the hype is much better than the product. It costs a great deal of water and fuel to harvest the corn, which might be better fed to hogs, then use their methane to power your vehicle.
It's good for Iowa perhaps but perhaps not for the rest of the nation. My old Chevy Pickup gets almost 30 miles to the gallon, has 2-60 air conditioning, and armstrong steering. It doesn't have any of the polution devices we absolutely have to have, yet it tests better than new ones. It has 2-60 air conditioning because when you want air conditioning you roll down two windows and drive 60. Armstrong steering...no power steering. You only need strong arms when you're stopped. Other than that you don't notice the difference. Its a 1952 chevy 1/2 ton 6, best engine I think chevy ever made...ruggged and solid as a rock!
you are right has any body else noticed the prices of corn byproducts and meats going up in price even taco shells went up that is pathetic
I'm a professional chef and I can tell you that everything that has to do with corn (from oil to beef) is taking a big jump in price since this Ethanol frenzy started.
It may have more to do with the increase in oil pricing to transport produce across the country.
To make it short and simple: ethanol has just barely enough energy per pound as a combustion fuel to make it worth producing out of an agricultural crop - IF there's no transportation from where you make it to where you use it. If you have to transport it, it's not worth using. Put simply, it's a bust. That being said, it's a bad path with good intentions behind it. Oh, wait, that had something to do with a hot place at a low elevation...
Anyway, there's some guys in Philly (last I heard) that were doing process research on a high temp/high pressure process for converting organic scrap materials (chicken/beef intestines, from slaughterhouses, plant material etc.) into an oil product almost like fuel oil with methane as a byproduct that can be recycled to run the process. If there's a product/process worth dumping public money into, that's probably it. They can probably make it on their own, though, from what little I've heard. Check it out if you're interested.
Now you are on the right track. Ethanol and biodiesel work only when they can be used locally, and the by-products used as well.
For instance, If I am farming a lot of corn, which I sell to the local ethanol plant, which sells all of its product for local vehicles, the distillers grain wet to the hog operation down the road, which produces methane from the manure, which it sells to the ethanol plant for fuel, and the processed manure from the mathane tanks to me for fertilizer - then my friends, we have a big winner, ecologically and economically.
Ethanol has one more problem not mentioned in the article. In small engines (lawnmowers, snowblowers, etc) where gas can sit for 6 months it will harden and destroy the gaskets and make the engine fail.
Ethanol is BAD, add that to the MTBE that they add to the gas around here and I get 3 Miles to the Gallon Less.
Lets add that up, the Government get tax off every gallon, they cause the gas to be less productive, so they get more taxes. These guys ain't dumb after all. Vote them all out of office!!
IF there's no transportation from where you make it to where you use it. If you have to transport it, it's not worth using.
Maybe the beauty behind it would be that local state farming would benefit instead of just the corporate farming in Iowa.
Seems to me that this article couldn't be better written if the Oil Execs had written it themselves....maybe they did.