Agriculture secretary wants 15% ethanol blend

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When Gas was $4 a gallon the Ethanol producers made HUGE investments into expanding their production capability. Now those investments have become losses. I can only imagine the haggling and lobbying behind this decision.
 
Let's see. diesel or ethanol? ethanol or natural gas? ethanol or hydrogen? ethanol or electric? ethanol or FOOD? oh and doesn't it cost more energy to produce ethanol than it creates? I haven't studied ethanol that much, am I missing something here?
 
Originally Posted By: SuperDave456
When Gas was $4 a gallon the Ethanol producers made HUGE investments into expanding their production capability.


And their lobbying efforts. Yank their subsidies and let them sink or swim on their own.
 
Originally Posted By: XS650
Originally Posted By: SuperDave456
When Gas was $4 a gallon the Ethanol producers made HUGE investments into expanding their production capability.


And their lobbying efforts. Yank their subsidies and let them sink or swim on their own.


They would sink like an anchor. I grew up on a small Illinois grain farm. The ethanol boom put me through undergrad and now grad school. My parents knew the ethanol boom was a bad thing overall. It artificially inflated prices at the elevators when we sold grain, which put me through school. Now, it is back lashing with high feed prices and high grocery prices. We all know that. The subsidies my parents can get would SPIN your head. If you thought welfare families had the system worked over, the American farmer has it MADE. (They will NEVER, EVER tell you that but they do, believe me!) But, every farmer has a vote, just like welfare families. So, we shall see how this beast fares. (I bet it lives... w/ gov't support! )
 
04SE, I have a friend that grew up as an Iowa farm boy, then became an AF pilot, then worked in industry until he retired.

His stories of the farm welfare system will make your socks roll up and down.

It's not just the taxpayers money that is getting scarfed up at the trough, it's all the dumb things (for the country) that farmers have to do to get that money that is the bigger problem.
 
It would be nice if they would sell 30 or 40% mixes. All my fuel injected cars love the stuff. I can re-jet my bike the work fine on a mix like that; I played with mixing E85 some last year with good success in the bike.
 
Brazil seems to do well on 25% alcohol fuel and it's not only made from corn. It's just that the media wants us to think corn is the only option. With the cost of a bag of seed corn over 200$, rent on an acre of land 180 plus, fertizer/herbicide 100 plus and some for equipment, labor & harvest. Most farmers don't make much without the subsidies that are basically mandated by the government anyway. If I remember correctly the most dangerous words you can ever here are "Hi, I'm with the government and I'm here to help you!"
 
Originally Posted By: KW
It would be nice if they would sell 30 or 40% mixes. All my fuel injected cars love the stuff. I can re-jet my bike the work fine on a mix like that; I played with mixing E85 some last year with good success in the bike.


Just curious, what bike? I notice a definite drop in performance in my sport-oriented bikes when moving from straight gas to E10.
No E-love here.
 
they will have to come up with a conversion kit for every car out there.

this is so stupid. i hate ethanol-enriched gasoline. [censored] lobbyists can go to [censored].
 
actually, let me rephrase, i hate ethanol-enriched gasoline in its current mode of production/usage. uses massive amounts of farmland to produce, drives up the cost of food, and burns up quicker in my engine. maybe if they could go a little further with the technology it would be better but until then it sucks for the average road car.
 
Every winter when we switch to 10% ethanol winter mix, I loose 2 MPG in both of my cars. I HATE ethanol in fuel.
Most of those subsidies do not even go to small farms, but to huge farming corporations.

My in-laws live next to a turkey hatchery and a corn field in Iowa, so I heard a lot of stories about subsidies. With Iowa Presidential caucuses being so important, handouts will never go away.
 
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The corn they use to make ethanol is not the same corn we eat. Food prices went up the same reason everything else went up: gas was $5 a gallon.
 
Originally Posted By: swalve
The corn they use to make ethanol is not the same corn we eat. Food prices went up the same reason everything else went up: gas was $5 a gallon.

Does it use different land as well?
 
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