Al Gore "Ethanol a Mistake"
 

Thanks alot for all the problems!! May have been posted before.

Al Gore: Votes, not science, led me to back corn ethanol
Earlier support of 'first generation ethanol' was about his presidential bid
Then Democratic presidential hopeful Al Gore chats with farmers in Perry, Iowa, on Jan. 21, 2000.Reuters
updated 11/22/2010 1:29:57 PM ET 2010-11-22T18:29:57
-ATHENS, Greece — In a mea culpa of sorts, former Vice President Al Gore on Monday said he made a mistake in supporting corn-based ethanol while he was in office, admitting he was more interested in farm votes for his presidential run than what was best for the environment.
Like most politicians in the late 1990s, Gore supported huge subsidies for ethanol made from corn — a decision that was later blamed for higher food prices.
Total U.S. ethanol subsidies reached $7.7 billion last year, according to the International Energy Industry, and many of those tax credits will soon be up for renewal.

"It is not a good policy to have these massive subsidies for first generation ethanol," said Gore, speaking at a green energy business conference in Athens, Greece. First generation ethanol refers to the most basic, but also most energy intensive, process of converting corn to ethanol for use in vehicle engines.

"First generation ethanol I think was a mistake. The energy conversion ratios are at best very small," he said, referring to how much energy is produced in the process.

The U.S. ethanol industry will consume about 41 percent of the U.S. corn crop this year, or 15 percent of the global corn crop, according to Goldman Sachs analysts.

Gore explained his own support for the original program on his presidential ambitions.
"One of the reasons I made that mistake is that I paid particular attention to the farmers in my home state of Tennessee, and I had a certain fondness for the farmers in the state of Iowa because I was about to run for president" in 2000.
A food-versus-fuel debate erupted in 2008, in the wake of record food prices, where the biofuel industry was criticized for helping stoke food prices.

Gore said a range of factors had contributed to that food price crisis, including drought in Australia, but said there was no doubt biofuels have an effect.

"The size, the percentage of corn particularly, which is now being (used for) first generation ethanol definitely has an impact on food prices.

"The competition with food prices is real."

Gore said he instead supports so-called second generation technologies that do not compete with food — using farm waste or non-food sources like switchgrass to make ethanol.

"I do think second and third generation that don't compete with food prices will play an increasing role, certainly with aviation fuels," he added.

Gore added did that he did not expect a U.S. clean energy or climate bill for "at least two years" following the mid-term elections that saw Republicans increase their presence.

Copyright 2010 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.

Well, ya!

This whole goddamned ethanol issue just infuriates me! It's preposterous to even contemplate using ethanol as a fuel, yet alone mandate it.

This should truly illustrate to everyone how idiotic our environmental advocates and politicians are!!!!!!

Facts:

Regular gasoline yields 115,500 BTU's of potential energy.
Ethanol yields 76,000 BTU's of potential energy.
That's 33% LESS!!!

That means that:
E10 lowers mileage by 3.4%, and
E15 lowers mileage by 5.1%

And it would take 1.52 gallons of ethanol to drive the same distance as you could on 1.0 gallon of gasoline!

Wow!!!!!

And if that's not bad enough, consider that it costs more to produce a gallon of ethanol than it's worth, and it requires more energy to produce ethanol that it will ever yield!!

Where's the sense in that? There is none! Welcome to the U.S. government.


Between fertilizer, pesticide, farm equipment fuel, irrigation, electricity and bulk transport, it requires about 81,000 BTU's of energy to simply grow the corn.

The energy economics get worse at the processing plants, where the grain is crushed and fermented. As many as three distillation steps are needed to separate the 8 percent ethanol from the 92 percent water. Additional treatment and energy are required to produce the 99.8 percent pure ethanol for mixing with gasoline. This all amounts to an additional 50,000 BTU's of energy per gallon of ethanol.

131,000 BTU's of energy in to get 76,000 BTU's out.

BRILLIANT!!!!!!!


An acre of U.S. corn yields about 7,110 pounds of corn for processing into 328 gallons of ethanol.

But planting, growing and harvesting that much corn requires about 140 gallons of fossil fuels and costs $385 per acre. Thus, even before corn is converted to ethanol, the feedstock costs $1.05 per gallon of ethanol.

In total, Ethanol from corn costs about $1.74 per gallon to produce, compared with about 95 cents to produce a gallon of gasoline.

if it weren't for government subsidies no one would dare venture into producing ethanol. It's a $ loser.

It's no wonder that corn farmers and processors burn gasoline in their equipment and not ethanol. They couldn't afford to.

I'm just glad our local FS gas station still carries non-ethanol 87 octane to run in my vehicles. Our marina carries non-ethanol 89 octance. Fug E-10.

Thank God that we live in a open society where fiascos like this cannot survive. There were more than a few people who raised these points from the very start, but the political and press hysteria drowned them out.

Ethanol may reduce our dependence on PETROLEUM, but it is not an efficient energy strategy as it has been executed in the US so far. The Brazilians, who generate ethanol from sugar cane, are figuring it out...

Really? I must have missed the part where ethanol is being pulled from the market, and/or the farm subsidies are terminated.

In fact the current "flavor of the week" is the addition of Urea (Cow urine) to diesel engines starting this year to "clean up" the environment. Anybody sense another farm subsidy in the middle of all this?

I hate politicians.

In my F150 E10 lowers the mileage by closer to 10%. Luckily I can buy non ethanol at FS, like Knot said. And when I am in Missouri most of the 87 octane is still non ethanol.

Instead of contains 10% ethanol, the gas pump should read warning 10% contamination of the fuel.

Ethanol from corn is a total sham. It is a net energy user, that is it takes MORE energy to grow and distill the ethanol than you get out of the fuel itself. Then you get higher food prices by using it. the only positive aspect is it is renewable, you can grow more.

Wannabe

Why is it all the ethanol producing states have the option of non-ethanol fuel but in VA I can't find a non-ethanol station within 80 miles of my home? (and I've been looking!!!)

Ironically enough, the only place in central IL (Bloomington) we have non ethanol is the Farm Services store. Any other station has ethanol. Same for Iowa when I travel through it. Missouri sells 10% in their 89 octane gas, but 87 is still pure petro.

It is not renewable at all. Sure you can re-grow corn but, it takes more energy to convert it to power than the out come yields. That is a depleting energy source. Engineering constantly shows that the best solution is the most direct especially with energy and its consumption. You would be totally amazed at how much energy is lost in a energy analysis of an electric car.

Isn't there an excessive amount of pollution generated in the manufacturing of batteries as well?

I believe that Urea or carbamide used for emissions purposes is synthetic.

Wow, Al Gore let politics win out over science? I for one am shocked. What's next? Will we find out that Global Warming is a sham? Will we find out that spending money we don't have is bad for the economy? Will we find out that bacon is actually good for you?
:lolhit:

Unfortunately, the MANDATED amount of ethanol will increase next year.

Even if tax subsidies are eliminated in the new budget (remains to be seen), it will take a whole new law to eliminate the mandate.

What are to odds of that happening, given all the other burning issues for the new congress?

I'll bet we're stuck with this $hit for a long tome.

Corn is either food, or it's fuel. It can't be both, we can't be trusted. I'm waiting for the next Enron come in and lean us over the counter if we don't wise up soon.

Relax. Don't panic. Science is coming.

Release, European Press:

"Schwartzkraft Engineering and Jayboat OOps Corp. have started a joint venture to rescue the world from the red algae threat and convert the pest into fuel (100 octane) for go-fasts after the Chinese have used this blessing for the mankind for the last centuries for medical treatment and nutrition. The two entrepreneurs are going to get the red danger out of the oceans by forks and will change the grease by three steps into red gold, for sale for a fortune."

More informations later in a couple of minutes.

http://www.ehow.com/about_5513804_red-marine-algae.html

It kills the mileage in my vehicles too. easily 10%, if not more.

I'd say E10 would lower the mileage by 3.4% in a flex fuel vehicle that is designed to accommodate for the fuel blend. In that situation it isn't so bad because it should make a bit more power too.

But... in vehicles that are not flex fuel the engine computer really doesn't know exactly what is going on, what exact blend to use so it does the best it can. that is where you get hosed.

My F150 is flex fuel enabled. It still dings it 10%. I've never run E85 in it, and won't, I hope.

Either way, my point is that we are now forced to introduce piss (real or synthetic) into diesel engines. Another example of politicians believing they are scientests or engineers. Once these "improvements" are made (catalytic convertors, ethanol, death taxes, Obamacare, etc.)...you can't get rid of the nonsense under any circumstances, it seems.

I believe it!

All things being equal - meaning best case - my numbers are valid. They are purely the mathematical relationship between the two combustible's potential energies.

In the real world there are other factors involved such as varying ECU-driven engine management schemes based on what fuel it senses. I'm not surprised that it's a 10% drop. In some situations it may even be more.

Holy crap! I always used to say that all I needed to do was piss in the tank and my old Isuzu diesel would run..... never thought it would be true!

Tom.....I have heard you called alot of things, but never a cow!!!!!!

Thanks......Jackazz! :lolhit:

if we could just tap into all that methane at our gov't buildings.........

Pelosinol

:drink: You never cease to amaze me with what you come up with.:eekdrop::drink::drink:

Just Think If He Was Pres We'd Of Starved To Death

Back in my engineering college days most of my professors would tell us over & over "there are no free lunches".

The analysis of energy required to obtain ethanol in this thread is spot on and the notion of using ethanol just makes most of us engineers just shake our heads. It seems that our Imperial Federal Government is now capable of bending the laws of both physics and thermodynamics.

Chemists, petroleum engineers, mechanical engineers, et. al. have spent their careers looking for the "holy grail" of fuels. And what we have today that we call gasoline is as close as we can come given the constraints of volume carried in cars, volativity in crashes, operating temperatures, etc. But what the hell do we know??

And don't even get me started on electric vehicles.

Tom

ps: Sorry for not introducing myself and just posting. I've lurked here for almost 3 years.

Great post!!! I knew ethanol was a loser but I never really looked at the energy loss associated with the production.

Al Gore?

Really....

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-w...3b630eb739.jpg

Boehnerfuel

Urea serves a useful function in reducing NOx pollutants from diesel fuel. Urea does this better than the fatally clogging diesel particulate filter and the soot-producing EGR systems. European diesel cars use urea almost exclusively.

I think Chrysler was wrong in rejecting urea and going forward with their dodgy, problematic DPF and EGR systems.

E85 & E98 = More Boost !:coolcowboy:
http://www.theturboforums.com/smf/in...topic=140800.0
Plant more, import less !
Brazil has the right idea.
Convert the farm equipment to run on it also.

What surprises me is that people still talk about corn juice as some form of energy policy.

Question, how do you subsidize the farm industry in direct violation of world trade policies while simultaniously driving UP the price of a bushel of corn?






Answer, call it a fuel for the environment subsidy instead of a farm subsidy.

"We're not growing food on the farm, we're producing fuel".

Pretty damn simple and obvious if you ask me.

I think the technology has advanced since your numbers came out. They currently get 2.7 gal of ethanol out of a bushel of corn with new technology to move that to 3 to 1. ( http://biofuelsdigest.com/bdigest/20...evenue-upside/ ). Aother thing that a lot of people forget is that the process is realy only using the byproduct of feeding corn to cattle.
After making ethanol with a bushel oc corn, what you have left is 2/3 the weight of that bushel in DDGs, dried distillers grain. That can be feed directly to cattle.
I've run e10 in all my vehicles ( by choice) since the early 80s. Except the diesels, they get B20.

I do think straight gas should be available where there is a need for it.

I am also glad to hear I once again disagree with Al Gore.

I thought the DPF was used to reduce soot (particulates) NOx is a gas,and not one you want to breath.

So aren't you talking 2 different things? Maybe we should start a thread on this in the truck section.

Naw Harvey that's Bu$h.

You're right the DPF reduces soot. Urea does what the EGR valve does, reduces NOx.

Good idea for a thread in the truck forum. That way we can keep up with what the truck mfgs are doing in these areas.

The key here will be what he comes up with that is going to be the next thing to save the world. He is trying to make his fortune on this stuff so if nothing else is working he will be touting the next great "Threat to Mankind and the Earth!!!!!!!" in order to maintain his power and income. Listen not to the Goracle, it deceives.....