Why are we still using ethanol?

[D2Cat]

I've been buying DDG (dried distillers grain) for $10.60 a hundred. We had a drought during the hay growing season so hay is scarce. Supplement 24-26% protein at these prices makes hay last much longer.

 

[ray66v]

Including packaging. At least some of those foam peanuts are corn based.

I knew a guy who had a business, I saw his his dogs eating the foam peanuts that had hit the floor, when he unpacked some things which were shipped to him.

I thought I was in the twilight zone for a minute, when I saw this.

Then, I found out they were made of corn starch. And, apparently they don't taste too bad. :laughing:

 

[Oldoak]

The world will run out of fossil fuels at some point...
Ethanol is renewable.

Not with all the old fossils we have in Congress.

 

[jeff9366]

Senator Grassley was born in 1933. He is looking only until his next election contest, not to the long term.

I am seventy one years old. I favor candidates in their thirties and forties.

 

[oosik]

ray66V - I can see it now. The big sports jocks sitting watching their favorite sport - popping foam peanuts.

 

[kenmac]

No - kenmac, it's not the scam that worries me. The program of ethanol has gone on long enough that the farmers have bought in. If we opt out now, and EVERYBODY knows we should, a whole lot of farmers could be left holding their bags. There would have to be some other form of subsidy for the farmers. The crying & moaning, whining and weeping would go on forever.

Ethanol is one of the biggest farcical programs ever put on the back of the public. Why not just grind the corn - bag it - sell it to countries that need FOOD. People are starving by the tens of thousands in foreign countries and we are "wheeling" on their potential food supply.

Politics is far worse than a four letter word. It is the very breath of the Devil himself.

I step down...........

but is it my job to ensure someone else keeps their job and prosper ? Is that really what my tax dollars were meant for, To ensure every tom dick and harry continues to be employed ?

Suppose to be a free market, not a tax payer subsided market

 

[Jstpssng]

Technically your tax dollars aren't giving the subsidy. You only pay when you buy fuel.
Still, the results are the same.

 

[Redbug]

The world will run out of fossil fuels at some point...
Ethanol is renewable.

Yes and no about that. It takes diesel to grow corn, harvest it, and get it to the plant. Run out of oil and how do you grow corn? Running an engine on pure renewable ethanol, (corn), would cost more than the product you are making would cost. I guess you could plant corn and harvest it using electric vehicles run on batteries that you would plug into a vast solar array. But then, you would not need to grow corn for gasoline anymore. Just grow it for food. It's a merry go round. We have more oil than we know what to do with and are shipping it overseas right now. Maybe we need to think of ways to make our engines more efficient and less polluting than growing corn to subsidize a section of people.
Texas flood: U.S. oil exports pour into markets worldwide | Reuters

 

[Tomtint]

i have 17 small engines, ethanol has been here for at least 20 years, I have 0 carb issue with any machine. run them out of gas when done and u will never have a issue.

Boy,.....that's convenient...not.....That said., I also have nemerous 2 cycle motors and a few 4 stroke small motors.. Ethanol is like cyanid for them. The past few years when we are done with the 2 stroke motors, I run them dry and restart and run true fuel through them for a couple minutes. Ethanol is absolutely brutal on marine engines. It's virtually impossible to run your boat dry after every use.. and the fuel is demolishing outboard motors. Stop by your local boat yard mechanic and ask him what is going on with all the broken motors... first thing they will say is the fuel.

 

[Redbug]

I might also add that it costs more, (and takes more energy), to make a gallon of alcohol, (from planting, growing, fertilizing, and harvesting, and possibly irrigation of corn), than it does for making a gallon of gas. Ethanol is simply not efficient.
Ethanol fuel from corn faulted as 'unsustainable subsidized food burning' in analysis by Cornell scientist | Cornell Chronicle