7 ms·

Any legs left in the ethanol initiative? Could be a decent place to direct a glut of supply.

thescriptkiddie 9y ago
According to the chart on e85prices.com, it would appear that ethanol fuel prices are at a 5 year low. I'd be willing to bet that has something to do with low grain prices.
- bluedino 9y ago
  It’s barely cheaper than regular unleaded in my area. Like ten cents if that
  - kurthr 9y ago
    And it has a lower energy density so you'll get significantly lower mileage with E85.(28% less!) Note that winter gas is only about 2% loss. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasoline_gallon_equivalent https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasoline_gallon_equivalent
    - kurthr 9y ago
      Wow, I guess haters gonna hate, because E85 only has 71.94% of the energy of a standard gasoline gallon. Of course Diesel#2 has 114% and biodiesel B100 has only 104% of the equivalent mileage per gallon. They're kind of like a facts... or is it mobile link hate?
rch 9y ago
That's generally seen as a misguided attempt to maintain artificially high grain prices that ultimately yields almost zero benefit to farmers or consumers (serving only the ethanol producers and politicians).
- Brendinooo 9y ago
  I'm not well-educated in this stuff, so feel free to correct me. My understanding is that artificially high grain prices are maintained so that factory farms don't completely run the family farms out of business. Is this correct? If that is correct, and you are okay with artificially leveling the playing field, wouldn't it then make sense to find ways to actually put the product to use?
  - boreas 9y ago
    I don't think that assumption is correct. Why would subsidies help family farms over "factory farms"? In fact, Big Ag is one of the biggest advocates for the entire constellation of Ag subsidies. It's not a good idea to artificially inflate prices. The article mentioned the food riots in third world a decade ago. There are real consequences to this sort of crony capitalism, and in this case very poor people actually can starve when the prices go up. Not to mention that growing crops is incredibly energy intensive, so it turns out that ethanol really isn't good for the environment. In my opinion, terrible policy all around. Edit: made my comment a little less confrontational :)
  - kbutler 9y ago
    If that were correct, they'd limit the size of the subsidy to only the first N bushels of grain. Instead, the large farms get the vast majority of subsidies. http://www.heritage.org/agriculture/report/how-farm-subsidies-harm-taxpayers-consumers-and-farmers-too http://www.heritage.org/agriculture/report/how-farm-subsidie...
- mirimir 9y ago
  Making ethanol from corn isn't a very efficient path. Using the land for PV arrays, and displacing petroleum with electricity instead of ethanol, is much more efficient.
microcolonel 9y ago
It seems to me that it serves no environmental or pragmatic purpose, and may increase the corrosiveness (and decrease the stability) of fuel.
- thescriptkiddie 9y ago
  Please take your pro-oil astroturfing elsewhere.
- nhorob67 9y ago
  Growing one acre of corn takes approximately 8 gallons of diesel fuel (directly) and produces enough corn for 485 gallons of ethanol.
  - mullingitover 9y ago
    I'm curious how much fertilizer is used in that acre, and how much fuel was needed to crack the atmospheric Nitrogen to produce the fertilizer.
    - nhorob67 9y ago
      300 lbs of urea or .65 boe of NG (1 bbl of oil = 20 gallons of gas and 11 gallons of diesel). So let's just say 20 additional gallons of fuel to account for the N Edit: the land would be planted to wheat if not planted to corn. Wheat uses approximately 80% of the N as corn. The land wouldn't sit idle.
  - microcolonel 9y ago
    The direct combustion emissions can be about half in the right powertrain, but ethanol fermentation produces CO₂ on its own, as does the distillation process, as does the machinery involved in cycling and drying (possibly actively, consuming more energy to heat them, or passively, consuming more energy to transport them) the molecular sieves used to separate the azeotrope of H₂0 and ethanol. Furthermore, Ethanol is, gallon for gallon, about half as energy dense as gasoline.

According to the chart on e85prices.com, it would appear that ethanol fuel prices are at a 5 year low. I'd be willing to bet that has something to do with low grain prices.

bluedino 9y ago
It’s barely cheaper than regular unleaded in my area. Like ten cents if that
- kurthr 9y ago
  And it has a lower energy density so you'll get significantly lower mileage with E85.(28% less!) Note that winter gas is only about 2% loss. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasoline_gallon_equivalent https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasoline_gallon_equivalent
  - kurthr 9y ago
    Wow, I guess haters gonna hate, because E85 only has 71.94% of the energy of a standard gasoline gallon. Of course Diesel#2 has 114% and biodiesel B100 has only 104% of the equivalent mileage per gallon. They're kind of like a facts... or is it mobile link hate?

rch 9y ago

That's generally seen as a misguided attempt to maintain artificially high grain prices that ultimately yields almost zero benefit to farmers or consumers (serving only the ethanol producers and politicians).

Brendinooo 9y ago
I'm not well-educated in this stuff, so feel free to correct me. My understanding is that artificially high grain prices are maintained so that factory farms don't completely run the family farms out of business. Is this correct? If that is correct, and you are okay with artificially leveling the playing field, wouldn't it then make sense to find ways to actually put the product to use?
- boreas 9y ago
  I don't think that assumption is correct. Why would subsidies help family farms over "factory farms"? In fact, Big Ag is one of the biggest advocates for the entire constellation of Ag subsidies. It's not a good idea to artificially inflate prices. The article mentioned the food riots in third world a decade ago. There are real consequences to this sort of crony capitalism, and in this case very poor people actually can starve when the prices go up. Not to mention that growing crops is incredibly energy intensive, so it turns out that ethanol really isn't good for the environment. In my opinion, terrible policy all around. Edit: made my comment a little less confrontational :)
- kbutler 9y ago
  If that were correct, they'd limit the size of the subsidy to only the first N bushels of grain. Instead, the large farms get the vast majority of subsidies. http://www.heritage.org/agriculture/report/how-farm-subsidies-harm-taxpayers-consumers-and-farmers-too http://www.heritage.org/agriculture/report/how-farm-subsidie...
mirimir 9y ago
Making ethanol from corn isn't a very efficient path. Using the land for PV arrays, and displacing petroleum with electricity instead of ethanol, is much more efficient.

microcolonel 9y ago

It seems to me that it serves no environmental or pragmatic purpose, and may increase the corrosiveness (and decrease the stability) of fuel.

thescriptkiddie 9y ago
Please take your pro-oil astroturfing elsewhere.
nhorob67 9y ago
Growing one acre of corn takes approximately 8 gallons of diesel fuel (directly) and produces enough corn for 485 gallons of ethanol.
- mullingitover 9y ago
  I'm curious how much fertilizer is used in that acre, and how much fuel was needed to crack the atmospheric Nitrogen to produce the fertilizer.
  - nhorob67 9y ago
    300 lbs of urea or .65 boe of NG (1 bbl of oil = 20 gallons of gas and 11 gallons of diesel). So let's just say 20 additional gallons of fuel to account for the N Edit: the land would be planted to wheat if not planted to corn. Wheat uses approximately 80% of the N as corn. The land wouldn't sit idle.
- microcolonel 9y ago
  The direct combustion emissions can be about half in the right powertrain, but ethanol fermentation produces CO₂ on its own, as does the distillation process, as does the machinery involved in cycling and drying (possibly actively, consuming more energy to heat them, or passively, consuming more energy to transport them) the molecular sieves used to separate the azeotrope of H₂0 and ethanol. Furthermore, Ethanol is, gallon for gallon, about half as energy dense as gasoline.