Let's talk about Ethanol

[Tweed]

So I've been reading the good, the bad and the ugly about Ethanol on the internet. I was wondering what DUers think of Ethanol and if we have any experts in the house.

So far I think it is great as long as ADM is not controlling it all.

[Jack_DeLeon]

1. I dont know much about ethanol, but I like biodiesel...

just the fact that you can run diesel trucks and whatnot off of vegtable oil is cool.

[Tweed]

4. Bio-diesel? Hmmmm

More research to do I guess. Do you have any sources you would recommend?

[Jack_DeLeon]

8. wikipedia, it also has some other links.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bio-diesel

Apparently the first diesel engines were invented with the idea of them being powered by peanut oil.

However the reason biofuels never saw widespread use was because of the oil boom, the fuel that became known as diesel was so much cheaper.

[GumboYaYa]

22. I've been doing a lot of research on biodiesel lately.

Biodiesel is normally produced through a transesterification reaction of a natural oil triglyceride (animal fat or vegetable oil) with a short-chain alcohol (typically methanol) in the presence of a catalyst (usually sodium or potassium hydroxide). The resulting products are three mono alkyl esters (biodiesel) and glycerine. The biodiesel process is a chemical reaction that must go essentially to completion and all other components must be removed (i.e. catalyst, methanol) in order to produce biodiesel fuel that will meet the ASTM D6751 specifications.

You can actually produce biodiesel at your home from recycled restaurant oils with some effort. There are mixing and cleaning systems for residential use that run between $1,500 to $3,000. In some areas people are forming collectives to share the cost and labor to produce biodiesel.

[4morewars]

2. Don't forget Bio-Diesel

These may not solve all our problems, but it's a start.

[LosinIt]

3. It's bad for you, stick to marijuana

tee hee

[NuttyFluffers]

18. ha ha ha, thinking something similar!

ethanol tastes great in a margarita. and i love them in cosmos too. with a orange slice and cherry on top.

careful though, drink too much and you can get sick. and if it isn't made right you can suffer blindness.

[DustMolecule]

5. I was HOPING someone would bring this up!

(sorry, other than 'knowing' that ethanol in gasoline is bad for seals and such in an automobile, I don't know anything about the issue). :shrug:

If you have any links to provide for us newbies on ethanol, would be appreciated. :-)

What/who is ADM???

[madrchsod]

9. older cars with certain compounds

do have problem with seals and hoses. newer cars do not have this problem

[Tweed]

10. here's a PRO-ethanol link

http://www.ethanol.org/

ADM= Archer Daniels Midland: a huge corporation that controls much of the agriculture world and receives TONS of corporate welfare. They operate a couple of Ethanol plants around the country. Including one in my state, Illinois.

[madrchsod]

12. soybeans-

worlds largest soybean processor. Decatur, IL. huge republican money machine. donated a bronze statue of Ronny Reagan to his boyhood home in Dixon IL. got in big trouble several years ago in a price fixing scandal. typical re-thug corporation

[4morewars]

13. Archer Daniels Midland

A multi-national corporation that behaves like most of the other multi-national corporations. A big Agri-bussiness. Their primary source of income is things made from grain, like ethanol or bio-diesel.

[DustMolecule]

14. Oh, this is very rich.....quick search found this near the top of the pile

Executive Summary

The Archer Daniels Midland Corporation (ADM) has been the most prominent recipient of corporate welfare in recent U.S. history. ADM and its chairman Dwayne Andreas have lavishly fertilized both political parties with millions of dollars in handouts and in return have reaped billion-dollar windfalls from taxpayers and consumers. Thanks to federal protection of the domestic sugar industry, ethanol subsidies, subsidized grain exports, and various other programs, ADM has cost the American economy billions of dollars since 1980 and has indirectly cost Americans tens of billions of dollars in higher prices and higher taxes over that same period. At least 43 percent of ADM's annual profits are from products heavily subsidized or protected by the American government. Moreover, every $1 of profits earned by ADM's corn sweetener operation costs consumers $10, and every $1 of profits earned by its ethanol operation costs taxpayers $30

One of the most politically charged debates in Washington revolves around business subsidies known as "corporate welfare." A number of policy organizations have published studies examining the corporate welfare phenomenon: what qualifies as corporate welfare, how much it costs taxpayers, and how much it damages the economy. This study examines the dynamics of corporate welfare somewhat differently by investigating ADM as a classic case study of how those subsidies are obtained, how the welfare state encourages such "rent seeking," and how such practices fundamentally corrupt the political life of a nation. Congress's expressed desire to foster a free marketplace cannot be taken seriously until ADM's corporate hand is removed from the federal till.

Introduction

ADM is certainly the nation's most arrogant welfare recipient. And it is one of the few welfare recipients that spend millions of dollars each year advertising on Sunday morning television shows populated and watched by politicians. Chairman Dwayne Andreas's and ADM's success in farming Washington represents the rational result of contemporary government policies that turn elections into "an advanced auction of stolen goods," as H. L. Mencken quipped. Thanks to its multi-million-dollar hustling in Washington, a company that lives and dies on the generosity of the American taxpayer has managed to get itself revered as a great public servant. Although ADM is not the only corporation with its hand out in Washington, it is easily one of the most successful beggars on the block.(1)

Andreas recently told a reporter for Mother Jones, "There isn't one grain of anything in the world that is sold in a free market. Not one! The only place you see a free market is in the speeches of politicians. People who are not in the Midwest do not understand that this is a socialist country."(2) Andreas's comment about "no free markets" is like the old joke about the son who murdered his parents and then asked for the court's mercy because he was an orphan. ADM champions political control over markets and then invokes that control as an excuse for its continued political manipulation. Andreas has exerted his influence in Washington to ensure that the U.S. form of "socialism" resembles 1930s' Italian corporate statism: the government plunders the citizenry for the benefit of politically connected corporations. And, though Andreas does not like to admit it, there are many markets in the world for agricultural products that are not controlled by politicians.

[Maple]

6. Ontario to require 5 per cent ethanol in gas

http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2004/11/25/ethanol-gas-ontario-041125.html

[madrchsod]

7. less miles per gallon

than regular gas. i live in the middle of the northern il cornfields where there are several ethanol plants being developed . most gasoline sold around here contains 10% ethanol

[chaska]

11. I saw this truck at the library just the other day...

and wrote down the web address. This guy makes his own biodiesel right in his own backyard.

http://www.pathtofreedom.com/

[DustMolecule]

15. Lessons in how the 'real world works..."

The Wall Street Journal declared on July 11 that "for more than two decades, Mr. Andreas has reigned as the prince of political influence."(5) The Washington Post described Andreas as "one of the great financial 'switch hitters' of American politics," meaning that ADM will bankroll any politician who supports ethanol or sugar subsidies regardless of political creed or ideological convictions.(6) Andreas has done a masterful job of diversifying his investments by carefully cultivating both Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole and Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle. The New York Times in 1990 called Dole "ADM's staunchest ally on Capitol Hill."(7) The Wall Street Journal likewise recently reported, "In the Senate, Mr. Dole has been the chief promoter of the ethanol subsidy."(8) The Times also noted that "ADM's private plane has flown Dole to Midwest speaking engagements, and for a time ADM sponsored Dole's commentaries over the Mutual Radio Network. The Senator and his wife, Elizabeth Dole, then Secretary of Labor, purchased an apartment from Andreas in 1982 at the Sea View, a Bal Harbour, Florida, hotel in which residents hold shares. They paid $150,000--less than the apartment's market value."(9) Since 1993 Dole has accepted 29 flights on ADM's private planes (Dole reimburses the company for the price of a first-class ticket--far less than the cost of chartering a private plane).(10) After Elizabeth Dole became the head of the Red Cross, Andreas's nonprofit foundation gave $1 million to the Red Cross. Andreas also donated $100,000 to Bob Dole's now defunct Better America Foundation.

[DustMolecule]

16. Silence???

[BlueEyedSon]

17. I have heard that it takes 1 gal of gasoline (or equivalent - in energy

for farm machines, processing & petroleum-based fertilizers) to produce one gallon equivalent of ethanol. In other words, it's a total waste of time.

Some biodiesel links here:

http://www.doomsdayreport.com/links.html

[wuushew]

19. Thats not true

Using corn the total energy return is slighty positive, 1.2-1.4. If we use rapeseed or hemp the net return increases further. Hemp also requires very little fertilizer and grows on marginal land.

If we look at the total energy requirements a negative return is workable as long as you use forms of energy which are abundant or cheap to make up the shortfall. Even if growing ethanol or other bio-fuel is energy negative the usefulness of the internal combustion engine gives performance that is superior to using electrical energy directly in the form of electric cars.

[Squeech]

20. Ethanol is widely used in Brazil

Gas stations there all have three pumps: gasoline, diesel and alcohol.

The overwhelming majority of cars in Brazil are compacts, but there are a lot of them now, even in the favelas. Traffic jams in Rio don't smell as awful as they do here, because of the ethanol as well as the tropical climate :-)

I don't know the source of the ethanol, but I assume they produce their own, because they have long agricultural traditions-- Portugal founded their New World colonies mainly to grow sugar cane. Neither do I know the energy efficiency of their ethanol industry.

Brazil is also one of the few countries developing new oil fields, offshore in the Atlantic.

[offcenter]

21. Presentation by David Blume

debunking misconceptions on ethanol.

http://www.radio4all.net/dl.php/ug230-hour2mix.mp3?file_id=19191&

The first few minutes are at the end of the first hour (minute 57:10 of the recording):
http://www.radio4all.net/dl.php/ug230-hour1mix.mp3?file_id=19190&

Some interesting points:
As stated above, Brazil uses ethanol for 40% of their cars.

Rockefeller funded the temperance league with $4 million to bring about prohibition because early cars ran on alcohol or gasoline. Alcohol was winning because any country farmer had supplies. Gasoline was an unwanted byproduct of the refining process, so Rockefeller cornered the market on industrial waste.

You can buy cars now that run on gas, ethanol or a mixture. They automatically detect the mix.

Farmers can make more money now producing ethanol than they do selling feed crops & the byproduct of the distilling process is more nutritional for cows than corn.

Other crops like sugar beets are actually better for energy production than corn, so farming for energy will naturally lead to polycultural crops.

Ethanol is very clean and car engines last much longer than burning gasoline. The energy invested in producing new engines is huge.