Historically, burning ethanol in 4 stokes engine was first developped in
the USA at the beginning ot 20th century.
Early days tractors and other farming equipments were powered by 4
strokes ignition engines designed to run on alcohol (ethanol) that was
locally produced from corn...
This quite successful development ended abruptly with enforcement of
prohibition and the carburettors of those engine were transformed to use
gas.
For some of these engines, a special spacer had to be fitted between
cylinder block and heads to reduce compression ratio that was too high
for the low octane gas of these days.
In Europe mecanization of farming came later, without this ethanol period.
Nowadays, there is a little development of "crude vegetable oil" (ie
locally produced colza oil) burnt pure or mixed in diesel oil by farming
equipment diesel engines.
Philippe DEJEAN
Making fuels for use in engines from food products is counterproductive.
Corn is better used to feed people or cattle and pigs. Used oil from
deep fryers as it is a method of recycling. Used directly as new
vegetable oil to produce bio-diesel is dumb. Same thing using corn to
produce ethanol.
The methanol I wrote about is produced from natural gas. Now if more
attention is devoted to producing ethanol from switch grass, camel
grass, or the wood in brush piles that is a byproduct of clear cut
logging you are using products that have minimal other use to produce a
sellable and useful commodity. Brush piles burn in a very dirty manner
and are thus 100% pollution. If they were to be chipped and then used to
make into ethanol the digested leftover product could then be used to
fuel a power plant or for fertilizer. Now the pollution is spread over
more end uses.
Dale Davies
Whether you love or hate ethanol produced from corn is up to you, but
the tree hugger university professors and media from the coasts don’t
have a clue about America's mid section where the bulk of all grain
crops are grown. There are approximately 90 million acres of crop
ground being utilized today to grow corn. This is the same corn acreage
as 1895 (not a typo), granted yields were only 17% of what is achieved
today.
http://www.nass.usda.gov/Publications/Todays_Reports/reports/croptr14.pdf
There are no rainforests that are being destroyed which Pelosi would
know if she would land in Iowa, and most farmers are extremely
conservation minded as they are well aware that if they destroy what
they have they'll be out of business.
Over 90% of the U.S. corn crop is used for NON-HUMAN consumption
which is 10% less than it should be cause it's making us all obese.
There is so much corn that 20% of it is exported, (no one is going
hungry because of a shortage of corn). When the price of corn nearly
tripled in June of
2008 ethanol became the scapegoat. In reality the major petroleum
producers nearly cornered the corn futures market driving the price
through the ceiling in an effort to halt ethanol's growth. At the same
time they pushed fuel prices higher in part to justify raising the price
of the fertilizer they produce for corn farmers that had remained nearly
unchanged for 20 years.
It is interesting to note that the price of gasoline and diesel fuel
made a very quick and steady climb that peaked at the same time in
June/July of 2008. The media delivered the story they were given by the
oil industry and the Grocery Manufacturers Association and went so far
as to blame ethanol for causing the price of gas and diesel fuel to
raise. Most stupid Americans are happy to swallow their daily dose of
news without question so they even believed Hollywood who blamed ethanol
for causing the quadruple rise in popcorn prices at the movies (popcorn
of course is not used for ethanol). The bread industry followed suit
and before long the rise in the price of everything at the grocery store
was because of ethanol courtesy of the GMA and Big Oil. Most people
think that ethanol production devourers corn leaving a void in the food
supply chain.
Actually in most cases only the starch is removed in the dry milling
process of ethanol production leaving 17.4 lbs per bushel of a very high
protein animal feed (distillers grains) that is feed to cattle, hogs &
poultry. There is so much distillers grains available for animal feed
that over 25% of it was exported last year (it might have been the only
thing we sold to China other than our industries).
No one is growing corn just for fuel. The ethanol industry is a
product of the EPA's efforts to eliminate dangerous MTBE. The
politicians saw it as a way to develop alternative energy and help the
struggling U.S. farmer and of course get votes. The oil industry who
always comes out on top has been the beneficiary as they are the
recipient of the subsidies and blenders credits that most taxpayers have
been lead to believe went to farmers and ethanol producers and they
decide how much ethanol gets used since it has to be blended with
gasoline in this country. It was quite amusing that Detroit made such a
media event of the introduction of "Flex Fuel Vehicles" in the U.S. when
in fact they have been selling variable fuel vehicles to Brazil in mass
since the mid 80's and in smaller quantities since the early 70's yet
they can't seem to get them to work as well here.
My dad ran E-85 in his unmodified 1995 Dodge V-8 pickup for 165,000
miles. I agree that the use of "waste" cellulose seems like a good idea,
there's a lot of it, but without an industry to use as a springboard
like corn ethanol, it'll never happen. Like everything our government
touches the ethanol industry included is a regulatory and policy
nightmare with ever changing direction and political idiots making
scientific decisions for special interest groups. Most of the emphasis
of cellulosic ethanol is on enzymes that don’t work and high acid
hydrolysis which destroys most of the sugar produced. Ultra low
multiphase acid hydrolysis is very efficient but it doesn’t meet current
energy department guidelines (which are coauthored by none other than
Abengoa Bioenergy of SPAIN). Abengoa is the leading recipient of federal
funding for their ongoing lack of success in turning cornstalks into
fuel in their York NE plant.
One more thing; Switch grass became an energy crop because Alabama
senator Jeff Sessions made the suggestion to Al Hubbards, economic
adviser to President Bush who searching for a new fuel crop to included
in the state of the union address. Switch grass is a good energy
producing crop if it has adequate rainfall and grows in the right
climate, but the political geniuses in Washington assumed because it is
considered "hardy" that it could achieve maximum yields in places like
Wyoming where even the sagebrush fights to survive and their economic
model included free storage and shipping of a very bulky product that
can't be stored long term without decay or risk of combustion.
So where are we going to grow this miracle grass--on corn ground of
course because we don’t need all of that because there's too much of it,
oh but wait, I thought we had a food versus fuel problem :-), you can
fool most of the people all of the time. BTW if we're are going to do
this, sweet sorghum is a much better alternative (same yields as
Brazilian sugar cane). Yes the ethanol industry has its problems but
it's not a negative impact, the industry might be able to stand on its
own if its competitor wasn’t holding it hostage.
Finally, a large box of Corn Flakes costing $4.32 contains 7 cents of corn.
Danny Petersen-Nebraska
Go Trump!
I am for the lowest cost of fuel and food. I am against the feds
mandating anything.
The market place rules as long as we don't do biz with countries that
don't let their currency float. Floating currency leads to automatic
balance in trade.
If Trump makes it he better by god fix the currency situations. He could
do it with an increasing import tariff until a balance of trade was
achieved.
Start out with 5%. This would pay done the debit in short order as
EVERYTHING is now made in China. What do you want? Cheap goods or a job?
Paul Lamar
Government intervention rarely/never? works and you are correct about
China and our lopsided illogical trade situation with them.
Danny Petersen
Notice none of the other candidates are talking about this.
This is by far the MOST important issue. If we allow this to continue
we will be so weak militarily anybody could invade and you all
will have to convert to Islam or lose your head.
Paul Lamar
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