We could debate this one all day, I agree its not a great choice but... Pretty much all modern (ie not conducted in the '70s) studies show that ethanol can be produced for far less energy than you get and the leftover residue is still useful partially as feedstock and partially as compost (also as feedstock and then compost ;) ).
For farmers its been a mixed blessing, pre-ethanol corn prices were in the dumper, corn on the open market was selling just slightly above where it had in the '50s. To make money in corn farming was damn near impossible. Today farming corn isn't an idiots game anymore, great for corn farmers, rotten for livestock farmers who buy corn or other feed grains which have also gone up in price as farmers plant more corn. A lot of this problem goes back to our government propping up corn prices (which provides the dreaded high-fructose corn syrup problem) to "save farmers". I guess I'm a wierdo, I figure don't support the farmers, some farmers go out of business, less corn gets farmed, with less supply prices rise, the farmers that are left can make a living, Bob's your uncle problem solved. People get all weird about letting anybody go out of business. Our vet has a fund to save the lives of squirrels that get hit by cars. I don't understand that one at all, its a squirrel for petesake, we've got gazillions of them. We had Buster at the vet last week and she asked me to donate money to save hurt squirrels. I laughed. We need a new vet... -Curt Date: Thu, 17 Apr 2014 14:47:09 -0700 From: G Mann <g2ma...@gmail.com> To: Mercedes Discussion List <mercedes@okiebenz.com> Subject: Re: [MBZ] ULSD now Ethanol Message-ID: <CANTuLYgU2v2GOv0=gqu0ppmkxzgjuwjtu8h-0fhn1empvtp...@mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 In my considered opinion, ethanol addition to gasoline was a truly bad choice driven by not well informed politicians, for the wrong financial reasons. [Sorry to raise politics in this, but without it, this would have never impacted cars] Ethanol is, simply put, poorly made whiskey. It takes more energy to make than it returns in BTU's of heat energy. Mileage per car mile driven / gallon used is less because ethanol has fewer BTU per volume. _______________________________________ http://www.okiebenz.com To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/ To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to: http://mail.okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com All posts are the result of individual contributors and as such, those individuals are responsible for the content of the post. The list owner has no control over the content of the messages of each contributor.
