12-01-2016, 07:13 AM
(12-01-2016, 04:01 AM)kballowe_imp Wrote: WARNING: RANDOM THOUGHTS FOLLOW........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.
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........
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."