(12-02-2016, 07:38 AM)ChipBeck_imp Wrote: [ -> ] (12-01-2016, 07:13 AM)Ulvetanna_imp Wrote: [ -> ] (12-01-2016, 04:01 AM)kballowe_imp Wrote: [ -> ]WARNING: RANDOM THOUGHTS FOLLOW........
It appears that Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) provides huge quantities of "grain neutral ethyl alcohol" to the "spirits" industries. Vodka bottlers, in particular - since (by law) vodka is 40% alcohol and 60% water.
Blended whisky bottlers also buy large quantities of their ethyl alcohol.
Most of the rice crop in the USA goes into beer production.
Brazil grows a lot of sugarcane. What to do with all that sugarcane? I KNOW !!! Let's mandate 25% alcohol in the gasoline mix.
I'm thinking that Brazil pioneered a lot of the research and technology for materials that play well with alcohol.
Next random thought, please........
You think right. That is exactly what happened. Brazil started this bandwagon, whose time has come and gone. With oil reserves burgeoning (that's a journalist word) and prices tanking (another journo pun), no one needs more ethanol for IC fuel.
On the other hand, Cameron's suggestion that using that extra corn for ethanol instead of for food raises food prices is absurd in the extreme. A preposterous leap.
There is no "extra" corn. Corn syrup was foisted onto the market by corn growers some decades back, as a replacement for sugar. The corn industry, like any industry, is always seeking new markets. Nothing wrong with that. If ethanol can be a market, so be it. But we don't need ethanol any longer, with fossil fuels plentiful and ever-greater efficiencies in cars and trucks.
I own two E85 "Flex-fuel" vehicles and have never put a drop of E85 in either. It's impossible to find; it would cost me a tank of fuel to visit the nearest Flexfuel station, and it's less efficient and more costly. Why would I do something like seek E85 under those circumstances? It would be stupid.
But, this article did get me thinking my Sym Wolf Classic 150 probably doesn't like ethanol much. Could be wrong, I don't know what kind of fuel they use in Taiwan. It may be just fine. E10 should be np.
As a final word, I think KC is imbibing of the finer spirits at times, perhaps just prior to writing this piece. Maybe?
The thing is, he covers no new ground, none at all. Nick Ienatsch's article was very helpful, KC's, not so much. Not at all, really.
(12-01-2016, 05:57 AM)CB4ME_imp Wrote: [ -> ]Recent political shifts may end the threat of E15 gas at least as a national mandate.
Ya think?!
Probably put the whole concept away for good. Now KC can feel good about more cornmeal for the poor people. "Let them eat cornbread, I say."
Gentlemen,
I've been a gas and oil dealer for decades for Chevron, ARCO, and Shell as well as one of the largest independent E-85 dealers in Arizona and I completely disagree with the above statement. Far from being absurd in the extreme Kevin's opinion is shared by top management at major oil companies and by me. Good grief man, America is the worlds bread basket and the largest producer of grains for export to other areas of the world. We pass a stupid law mandating the use of corn to make our gasoline less efficient, a mandate that uses up 40% of all the corn grown in this country. Corn prices are much higher as a result and the price of many food staples in the underdeveloped world doubles and triples in some areas. An extreme hardship for people who spend 80+% if their income just to feed themselves. This isn't an opinion, it's a verifiable fact. Do you think the laws of supply and demand that determine prices wont respond to a mandate that swallows such a massive share of U.S. farm production? Ethanol is bad for everybody who isn't a farmer worldwide. It unquestionably raises food prices and Kevin Cameron is right on. A little more thorough research on anybodies part will lead them to the same conclusion. Cheers.
Chip
Gentlemen,
I've been a gas and oil dealer for decades for Chevron, ARCO, and Shell as well as one of the largest independent E-85 dealers in Arizona and I completely disagree with the above statement. Far from being absurd in the extreme Kevin's opinion is shared by top management at major oil companies and by me. Good grief man, America is the worlds bread basket and the largest producer of grains for export to other areas of the world. We pass a stupid law mandating the use of corn to make our gasoline less efficient, a mandate that uses up 40% of all the corn grown in this country. Corn prices are much higher as a result and the price of many food staples in the underdeveloped world doubles and triples in some areas. An extreme hardship for people who spend 80+% if their income just to feed themselves. This isn't an opinion, it's a verifiable fact. Do you think the laws of supply and demand that determine prices wont respond to a mandate that swallows such a massive share of U.S. farm production? Ethanol is bad for everybody who isn't a farmer worldwide. It unquestionably raises food prices and Kevin Cameron is right on. A little more thorough research on anybodies part will lead them to the same conclusion. Cheers.
Chip Just for the record, I think ethanol as a fuel is fine in its place. Adding it to gasoline to create an environmental blend, no, I disagree with that policy.
But the moral argument is only suggested by Cameron at the very end of the editorial. And he himself presents not the slightest shred of evidence that would convince anyone. It is one thing to propose something, and another to cite sources and references to support that proposition. Today it is easy to say "Google it!" which is the lazy writer's solution, but what do we find on Google? Propaganda? Half-truths? Solid, reliable sources are there but citations would have been very helpful.
Most of Cameron's article seems to be weighted toward the concerns of manufacturers in selecting the proper components, or consumers in avoiding ethanol-rated trouble. It is only in the few last paragraphs where he becomes political. Starving people in third-world countries are easy to use as a rationale for doing just about anything, or changing just about any policy. That is why when I see this used by Mr. Cameron, I raise an eyebrow.
However, all that said, farming, like oil and gas production, is a complicated business. I was in that line for while myself. Oil and gas are in some respect at odds with farming, even at loggerheads in some cases.
I personally found it interesting that anyone in the motorsports journalism line would reach for the moral high ground in recommending the discontinuation of ethanol as a fuel additive because it causes people to starve. It is a strange and unexpected argument from that corner.
I myself would like to see fuels reduced to "E-Zero" and get back to 100 percent gasoline but, like any other top-tier issue (this is big-time energy and politics) it's going to take some time to sort out.
What is going to need to happen is that ethanol -- like wind and solar -- is going to prove a failure as a method of renewable energy, and then the programs, like so many farming subsidies and other agricultural policies long-defunct, will simply fade away.
All that said, this is exactly why I continue to look forward to Mr. Cameron's work, sketchy, non-commital, and esoteric though it may be.
It stimulates discussion.
Here are some decent resources to begin a bit of research, for what they may be worth.
[url=http://www.investopedia.com/articles/markets/111715/debunking-biofuels-do-they-really-raise-food-prices.asp]Debunking Biofuels: Do They Really Raise Food Prices?
[url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol_fuel]Ethanol as fuel
[url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol_fuel_in_Brazil]Ethanol fuel in Brazil