Ethanol Strategy Losing Support

Democrats and Republicans cheered its benefits as Congress directed a fivefold increase in ethanol use as a motor fuel.

[Big Oil Lobby at Work]

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Looks like history is once again showing that the powerful oil lobbyists always get their way when it comes to destroying any form of competition from alternative forms of energy.

This is a disgrace.

[Angry Voter]

Food transportation costs are the main culprit. Oil @ 122 and high gasoline taxes. No one said it was going to be easy to become independant. Compare the US with Brazil. Is their a sugar shortage in Brazil and are people rioting over more expensive candy? Ethanol is part of a much larger solution. No one is arguing it's the only solution. No matter what feedstock we use for fuel, it's going to be an expensive proposition in the early stages. Liberals just don't understand.

[OH BOY]

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Big Oil Lobby at Work wrote:

Looks like history is once again showing that the powerful oil lobbyists always get their way when it comes to destroying any form of competition from alternative forms of energy.
This is a disgrace.

I don't think the oil companies are to worried about ethanol.The 8 billion dollar ethanol subsidy will produce the equivalent of two days worth of gasoline in the US. WIPEEIA

[Gerry]

Corn ethanol is the dumbest idea.

>not enough corn to produce ethanol
>takes three times the water to make ethanol
>it is corrosive and you need to use trucks not pipes
>it is corrosive and may wear out your engine sooner
>less fuel efficiency
>takes just as much fuel to make ethanol, so you gain nothing
>this is a money grab for the farm lobby and AMD
>this will not make a dent into the oil we get from the Middle East
>prices will go up in the strores
>will not be able to feed the world
>too much planting ruins the soil
>depriving the planting of other crops

[Johnboy]

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We as a nation need to understand the FACTS. We consume 3.5 billion barrels of gasoline annually in the US. Ethanol contains 70% of the energy in gasoline per gallon. The ethanol yield per acre of corn is only 328 gallons, thus to replace our current gasoline consumption with ethanol, we would require 762 million acres of land growing only corn. This equated to 1/3 of the total US land area including Alaska.

One other little fact is it takes more energy to produce a gallon of ethanlol than it yields. A lose lose proposition.

So much for burning food. What will the Washington wizards think of next?

[true american]

mission accomplished

[Liberal no more]

It's hard for liberals to admit they made a mistake. They clearly made a mistake here. The amount of Ethanol used in gasoline has to be severely reduced, or eliminated.

[Gerry]

Liberal no more wrote:

It's hard for liberals to admit they made a mistake. They clearly made a mistake here. The amount of Ethanol used in gasoline has to be severely reduced, or eliminated.

This is also supported by Bush and is also in the state of the union message.

[Agnes Moorehead]

And the R senators & congress critters who represent the corn basket were for it too! Both sides were for ethanol, for different reasons. It's going to take a while for everyone to figure it out,(after alot of pain and wasted $), but keeping all our cars & trucks on the road is not viable in the future. We need to get real and expand alternate transportation for goods & people. Now. Today.

And get rid of all Big Ag subsidies! Free market? Bah.

[Alfred E Newman Esq]

Big Oil Lobby at Work wrote:

Looks like history is once again showing that the powerful oil lobbyists always get their way when it comes to destroying any form of competition from alternative forms of energy.
This is a disgrace.

It's fools like you that allow our elected fools, both D&R, to jump on the anthropogenic G.W., err, climate change hip parade,in addition to pandering to their bio-fuel farmer voters. As a result, we now have created a mess of food for fuel, that is causing food shortages and starvation. But you feel good about yourself, and that's what's important. I'm so sick of sheep like you who fall for the "blame big oil" canard. Big oil is not the problem, nor is big coal, nor big nuclear. It's radical no growth enviornmentalism that's the problem. Wake the hell up. You've fallen for the biggest lie in modern world history and you're paying the price for it, even if you're too stupid to know it.

[OLE]

I read alot of interresting things over Algea Biofuels, seems interesting if it not a scam. Combined with hybrid microturbine technology, recuperators for commercial use seems to have potential. It seem that tobacco crops are still economicaly viable in Connecticut instead of Raps oil, or in Cuba..It seems Afghanistan still has bumper Opium crops...

[WakeUp]

Johnboy wrote:

We as a nation need to understand the FACTS. We consume 3.5 billion barrels of gasoline annually in the US. Ethanol contains 70% of the energy in gasoline per gallon. The ethanol yield per acre of corn is only 328 gallons, thus to replace our current gasoline consumption with ethanol, we would require 762 million acres of land growing only corn. This equated to 1/3 of the total US land area including Alaska.
One other little fact is it takes more energy to produce a gallon of ethanlol than it yields. A lose lose proposition.
So much for burning food. What will the Washington wizards think of next?

Excellent analysis!! Burning food is clearly not the answer.

Hasn't it been debunked already that oil does not come from fossils? Why do the media continue to call it fossil fuel?

Instead of covering 1/3 of the US with corn, we need to tap our own oil reserves. ANWR alone has enough oil to supply the entire US annual consumption for 30 years. There is more oil off our shores too that we can't touch. We also need to build new refineries. It's been over 30 years since a new one came online.

We could free ourselves from the dependence on foreign oil and not have to stick our nose where it doesn't belong in the Middle East. And our oil money stays here instead of funding another Saudi palace or arms for terrorists.

With the money staying here we could invest heavily in research and development for alternative energy and conservation.

Unfortunately, Big Green will never let any of this happen. That is until the global cooling arrives and exposes climate change as nothing more than a hoax.

[You are Wrong]

ANWR does NOT have a 30 year supply of oil. People get 30 years from using the estimate that ANWR oil could supply 5% of the US daily consumption for 32 years. If it had to account for 100% of our oil use then ANWR has an estimated 1.5 year supply. Yes, just ONE year. Not exactly enough to satiate our SUV Driving, Gas Guzzling, Car Loving appetite.

[The Public Square]

Big Oil Lobby at Work wrote:

Looks like history is once again showing that the powerful oil lobbyists always get their way when it comes to destroying any form of competition from alternative forms of energy.
This is a disgrace.

Nope. In fact, the entire bio-wheeze is precisely the sort of insider give-away to the "Dwayne A's" and "Bob D's" of this world against which you rightly rail, and also has a rather large business constituency behind it in the form of the agricultural manufacturing and processing industries.

"Bad" (non-cellulosic)ethanol CANNOT be manufactured in a manner which could in any way be described as efficient or competitive. See as evidence the knock on effect on the difference between the global price of corn as raw material for the SUBSIDIZED production of fuel when compared to the global price of the same commodity when priced as a staple and/or secondary foodstuff.

Good riddance.

[Gerry]

You are Wrong wrote:

ANWR does NOT have a 30 year supply of oil. People get 30 years from using the estimate that ANWR oil could supply 5% of the US daily consumption for 32 years. If it had to account for 100% of our oil use then ANWR has an estimated 1.5 year supply. Yes, just ONE year. Not exactly enough to satiate our SUV Driving, Gas Guzzling, Car Loving appetite.

Yes, even the CEO of Shell oil said recently on TV, that he would rather drill off shore.

[ohboy]

Gerry wrote:

<quoted text>
This is also supported by Bush and is also in the state of the union message.

It's all George Bush's fault.The syclone and earth quake probably are to.

[Gerry]

Well, I have seen just about all of the alternatives and the plug-in hybrid is doable today. There is nothing else at this time. I believe with the plug-in hybrid you will reduce the use of gas by half. Here is what I had posted on other sites.

>First you create an energy council. They can cut the red tape and examine future alternatives.
>Second, you need to fix the dollar because we have to compete with other currencies for oil. That will be hard to do.
>Third, you get rid of corn ethanol.
>Fourth, you drill for off shore oil. Only 15% is available at this time.
>Fifth, you pick the two best alternative energies and invest in them.
>Sixth, the last I saw on PBS NOVA the plug in hybrid is the most possible and in fact doable today. You plug your car in at night. The car runs on battery for the first 60 miles and after that gasoline. This would cut out half of the gas we use as most people commute to the store or work on short distances. So if you drive less than 60 miles per day you will never pay for gasoline.
>Seventh, I would give (our government and our tax money,perhaps some oil money) 1 billion dollars to each car company that builds cars in this country. And I would tell them in eight years all cars will be hybrids. The billion dollars will shut them up. This will help get us away from Middle East oil. This will also get the price down with less demand. Other countries will follow and the price of oil will fall further. With the price falling this will help the airlines and anything else that relies on oil.
>Eighth, there are 15 nuclear plants on paper and we also have coal that can be used in FutureGen plants for our electrical grid and the energy council needs to push this fast. But not too fast that you get shoddy workmanship.
>Ninth, the problems include relying on parts for nuclear power from other countries since we don't have those parts. All alternative energies have various problems. All 600 drilling rigs are in use. So at best drilling could only start in 5 years. So with all of this it takes time, even if you start now. That means 5 years, 10 years, 15 years on various aspects of our energy needs.

An assessment will be needed on the amount of copper and other commodities needed in the future for batteries. I have heard other pie in the sky alternatives and there are just too many problems with them, along with supply and demand, pricing, and geopolitical situations.

Now if we could only have a president that knows what he is doing. Unfortunately, the president we have is incompetent.

This is my answer. Even if you start fixing this problem today it would take at least 15 years to see results and frankly I don’t see us lasting 10 years under the present situation, considering the growth of China and other countries.
http://www.news.com/8301-11128_3-9930421-54.h...
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/car/program.html
chapters 5 and 6

[WakeUp]

You are Wrong wrote:

ANWR does NOT have a 30 year supply of oil. People get 30 years from using the estimate that ANWR oil could supply 5% of the US daily consumption for 32 years. If it had to account for 100% of our oil use then ANWR has an estimated 1.5 year supply. Yes, just ONE year. Not exactly enough to satiate our SUV Driving, Gas Guzzling, Car Loving appetite.

I stand corrected, ANWR has an estimated 16 billion barrels. So your estimate of only a 1.5 year supply is clearly wrong.

Here is link to a report saying there is a 100 billion barrel reserve in North Dakota.

http://www.kiplinger.com/businessresource/for...

The point is we have the oil resources here available to us if we would pursue exploration and allow companies to tap it. Brazil just discovered a massive oil field off their coast.

Oil is plentiful and the earth is still making it. It's very likely we will never fully exhaust the world's reserves.

Instead of pursuing policies that artificially inflate the price of oil and increase our dependency from unsavory people, we should increase production here at home.

[BS_as_usual]

If we're gonna use it, buy Brazilian ethanol, they're swimming in it. End the subsidies.

[MJayM]

Gerry wrote:

<quoted text>
This is also supported by Bush and is also in the state of the union message.

Exactly. Bush is too liberal.

He screwed up again by trying to coddle the dimocrats and give them what they wanted.

He did it on education with *hiccup* Ted "Splash" Kennedy, on immigration with his guest worker crap, the minimum wage increase, etc, etc