# 10 % Ethanol



## vtrons (Feb 14, 2008)

Why exactly are we burning a 10% mixture of gas and Ethanol?

My 2005 Colorado pickup gets 17 miles per gallon burning gas containing 10% Ethanol. This means it will take 58.82 gallons of fuel to travel 1000 miles.

After each of two tankfulls of the Ethanol-free stuff, the truck produced 20 miles per gallon, meaning it will use 50 gallons to travel the same 1000 miles.

By burning a 10% ethanol mixture, it will cost me more as I will need to buy 8.82 gallons more fuel.

I will have also burned about 2.94 gallons MORE GASOLINE.

Meanwhile the Federal and state governments get to collect additional revenue on the extra gallons of fuel that I bought when I burned the Ethanol.

Has anyone here had the chance to go to Ethanol-free gas, and, what were you're results?

Since I'm going to gripe to my local representatives, and our three reps in Washington, I guess they will probably shut down the Ethanol-free station as fast as possible to avoid the embarassment.


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## bearhunter (Jan 30, 2009)

i've been telling everybody for years that ethanol sucks and is a complete joke. :******: , i see it dissapear soon


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## hunter9494 (Jan 21, 2007)

the ethanol lobby is currently pushing for a 15% rule, instead of the current 10% additive. trouble is, 15% will ruin your engine, unless you have an E-85 system. but that is not being discussed. look it up, just google ethanol and read all about it...it's a fact.


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## jacobsol80 (Aug 12, 2008)

I think that the reduction in mileage is pretty typical. If we hurry maybe we can turn all our crops into ethanol. Who needs to eat anyway. But now that I think of it, maybe the best use for corn is turning it into alcohol. You know, the kind that comes in the square bottle with the black and white label on it!


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## Plainsman (Jul 30, 2003)

I had a 2003 Tahoe that got 18 to 19 with gas, and 15 with ethanol. Remember the government getting on Detroit to produce a vehicle that would get equal mileage with ethanol. Well, now I have a 2007 Yukon that is Flex Fuel E85 compatible, and sure enough it gets 15 miles per gallon with ethanol or gas. Sure did fix that didn't they. 
Now the government is going to cure the problems GM is having. The problem GM was having was the government to begin with. Government is the problem, not the solution.


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## TK33 (Aug 12, 2008)

I have an E85 motor. With E85 my milage goes down quite a bit. If gas is 1.07 cents higher than e85 it is worth it. The difference in the winter is not as bad. Last year the E85 motor was worth it, this year it isn't. I do like having the option. Ethanol is good in the winter because the fuel lines don't freeze. The screw up is no fuel and motor mandates, they just mandated fuel.

We subsidize oil too, mainly with the military. The oil industry is naturally against ethanol but a lot of their information is false or half truth propaganda. Corn based ethanol does not appear to be the answer but if we can blend a more efficient ethanol with domestic or at least continental oil we will be in a lot better shape.

Tre other thing that has gone on too long is the food industry scapegoating ethanol to justify jacking their prices. How no one has looked at this is beyond me. The prices are down and the producers are not gaining anything. It would seem the sec should be looking at them too, they are ripping off consumers more than oil or pharmacutical companies are


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## TK33 (Aug 12, 2008)

Plainsman I think the trouble you and others are having with your government motors vehicles is with the stupid EPA emissions crap. It has gotten so far out of hand that CAT is no longer producing on highway motors. All truck engine manufacturers are having troubles with the particle regeneration (anti smog) systems. It wastes 15 gallons to regen the motor, in other words last year it cost us 60 bucks to clean the particle filter each time per engine, a real brilliant plan.

I heard the auto industry and especially GM was struggling with this

The particle regen is only on diesels. They are having other troubles with gas engines


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## Honker Hunter 1 (Jun 24, 2007)

Yep you think that is bad E85 you lose 35% on milage so it need to be 35% cheaper than regular unleaded to break even.

It also causes more pollution than regular gas but it makes all the libs feel better :eyeroll:


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## Plainsman (Jul 30, 2003)

> Tre other thing that has gone on too long is the food industry scapegoating ethanol to justify jacking their prices. How no one has looked at this is beyond me.


Oh, your not the only one. I have noticed most of my life that the food industry like the oil industry uses every excuse they get. They most often blame it on the farmer. Even if the farmer only gets a nickel for a $2 loaf of bread they raise the price 20% if wheat goes up 10%. Who are they kidding, it only means one penny to the farmer.


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## specialpatrolgroup (Jan 16, 2009)

vtrons said:


> Meanwhile the Federal and state governments get to collect additional revenue on the extra gallons of fuel that I bought when I burned the Ethanol.


I would bet with teh amount of $$ the government is using to subsidize ethanol they aren't making any money on the deal, so its a loose loose situation.


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## wiskodie1 (Sep 11, 2006)

Nothing that I know of produces as many man hours of labor as one barrel of crude oil. We are addicted to it and because of it we are at the mercy of OPEC. The ethanol is just a stepping stone in the chain of Alcohols that we will one day be able to use in its stead. you have two choices, buy ethanol gasoline, and support our country, or by straight gasoline and support OPEC. The choice is yours.


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## Plainsman (Jul 30, 2003)

> you have two choices, buy ethanol gasoline, and support our country, or by straight gasoline and support OPEC. The choice is yours.


Your right we have choices, but you have the picture wrong. Since ethanol takes so much energy to produce the choices are: Burn gas and support OPEC, or burn ethanol and support OPEC even more. You have to count the energy used to produce ethanol and gas when you put a gallon of either in your tank. 
OPEC loves the guys burning ethanol. It makes liberals feel all cozy, but the truth is it is currently counter productive. Until we start to produce cellulose ethanol we will simply support OPEC more with than without ethanol.


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## hunt4P&amp;Y (Sep 23, 2004)

Only thing worse then ethonol is Bio Diesel

I damn near had to replace a tank and injectors because MINN orders all sales of Diesel is BIo. That stuff BLOWS!


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## 6162rk (Dec 5, 2004)

i think minnesota passed legislation a few years back where we will be at 20% in the near future. i think the late senator dalls sams was behind it. that should really help out when we get 20% less mileage than we could be getting.


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## wiskodie1 (Sep 11, 2006)

And why do you think OPEC is happy about us making ethanol? Or would be sad for that matter? 10% ethanol in what?......maybe half the gas sold in the US? no sorry they simply don't care, it only equals about a million barrels of crude a day. That's a drop in the bucket to them and I am sure they are more than happy to slow down there wells and increase their life span&#8230;..but that money is a huge boost to alcohol fuels and research, without it we will never make it to the next step in the alcohol chain, cellulose ethanol would be a nice step but in time we will be able to surpass ethanol all together, producing alcohols that are capable or being mixed with gas in mass and shipped via pipeline across the country. This would help reduce the price further and add to higher sales, but the end all result will always be lowered efficiency when compared to straight gas, like I said, there it's any substance that produces as many man hours of labor as crude oil. We already spend enough of our hard earned cash overseas. That one million barrels of crude we are saving everyday is adding a lot of money back into our economy and I am sure you agree that at a time like this we can use every dollar we can get in our economy these days. So enough of the propaganda about ethanol being some sort or liberal feel good idea, it is a needed and necessary step to energy independence in this country, if you don't feel like buying ethanol blended fuels now then don't complain when you are paying 5 bucks a gallon at the pump next year, and find yourself without any alternatives to the situation.
I am not here to argue that ethanol is less efficient, that is a fact. The point that's worth debating is whether or not spending our hard eared cash on it for the purpose of advancement is worth the trouble, and what are the odds it will pay off in the long run.
I think it's worth it, and I believe, to not take this route will be far more devastating on the country in the long run.


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## nickle ditch (Aug 26, 2002)

OPEC, hell the US imports more oil from Saskatchewan, then from Kuwait. Thanks!


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## Plainsman (Jul 30, 2003)

wiskodie1, I don't think you have a grasp of what is happening.

We don't need corn ethanol as a step to cellulose ethanol. We know how to do it. Corn ethanol is a huge agriculture welfare program and liberal feel good program. It is a net loss of energy. What do you not understand about net loss. It takes more crude oil when we use ethanol. Not only that I bet you think it is clean. However, you have to add up the gas and diesel burned to make the ethanol, plus the carbon created when you burn the ethanol itself. If you think we use mostly electricity your wrong, but even if we do there is a coal fired generator spewing carbon into the atmosphere to make "clean" ethanol. No it's not from Garrison Dam and hydro energy, that goes to Minnesota. 
wiskodie, you can not pipe ethanol. Your post indicated a huge amount about ethanol that you are not familiar with.

For example if we burn one million gallons of ethanol it means we need 1.250,000 gallons of gas and diesel to produce it. We are going backwards. I know we have improved, but we still are not breaking even. Then when you understand that ethanol only produces 70% of the energy gas does it's an even bigger loss. Most people that want to continue corn ethanol are in agriculture or the industry and they just don't want the rest of us to rip the government tit from their mouth.


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## wiskodie1 (Sep 11, 2006)

My God Plainsman
You gave me a headache just reading that last post of yours. You should just delete it before someone decides to jump on you about all of your inaccuracies misguided conclusions.

Why do you keep jumping on the liberals about this? I thought it was Bush Jr who kicked this ball off? And why would a republican that was heavily entrenched in the oil industry and best friends with the Sadie royal family (leaders of OPEC) insist on going after alternative fuels? Do you think he did it to make the liberals happy?

I'll give you a do over, please try again, and the next time quote me correctly. The ethanol pipeline crap was a bit much. Also telling someone who happens to be sitting in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico on an oil rig about energy, and how much he doesn't understand could cause you to look very dumb. oh and do try and leave out your idiotic and snide little comments, as a moderator it makes you look very poor.

:eyeroll:


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## Plainsman (Jul 30, 2003)

Well up here the guys said for some reason they could not run ethanol through a pipeline. I forgot the reason they gave me for it, but they work at an ethanol plant. I don't know, maybe they are wrong. Is there anyone else who can shed some light on this?

Sorry if frustration got to me, but ethanol is a loosing proposition when using corn. Never the less, I should not take it out on you. We already know that we can do much better with _Panicum virgatum_. I may not know oil that well, but I do know ethanol.

I jump on liberals because they are the ones who want this so bad. So did Bush and it wasn't smart of him either.

I'm not telling you about oil, but you are sitting in the Gulf of Mexico as you say telling me about ethanol that we produce here in North Dakota (yes I see your from Fargo). I guess it's good for North Dakota, but it's not good for the nation. We need to get away from the corn for ethanol.

The problem with switchgrass (_Panicum virgatum_) is it takes a couple years before enough tons per acre are produced to harvest. I think what we need to do is start a program like CRP and pay the farmer habitat and conservation payments for the first three years. Farmers are not going to go for three years with no income. Once the three years is up production of cellulose should support a decent income for the farmer.

You mentioned that ethanol production would lead us to other alcohols. Do you mean methanol, Isopropanol, what? I'm not familiar with the energy budget related to production or energy released of those alcohols. I doubt they would be a viable competitor of ethanol.


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## seabass (Sep 26, 2002)

Plainsman said:


> It is a net loss of energy. What do you not understand about net loss. It takes more crude oil when we use ethanol. Not only that I bet you think it is clean. However, you have to add up the gas and diesel burned to make the ethanol, plus the carbon created when you burn the ethanol itself. If you think we use mostly electricity your wrong, but even if we do there is a coal fired generator spewing carbon into the atmosphere to make "clean" ethanol. No it's not from Garrison Dam and hydro energy, that goes to Minnesota.
> wiskodie, you can not pipe ethanol. Your post indicated a huge amount about ethanol that you are not familiar with.
> 
> For example if we burn one million gallons of ethanol it means we need 1.250,000 gallons of gas and diesel to produce it. We are going backwards. I know we have improved, but we still are not breaking even. Then when you understand that ethanol only produces 70% of the energy gas does it's an even bigger loss. Most people that want to continue corn ethanol are in agriculture or the industry and they just don't want the rest of us to rip the government tit from their mouth.


Plainsman, honestly... how many times have we gone over this. The production of ethanol _was_ a net loss... more than a decade ago. Over the years it has been fine-tuned. Several years ago they broke the barrier of net loss versus gain. I don't know if you honestly just forget or purposely just spout what you want to believe.

Don't you believe in research? Don't you believe that scientists will continue to make this a better process? Guys like you wrote off the Wright Bros when they were trying to build their first airplane.



> you have two choices, buy ethanol gasoline, and support our country, or by straight gasoline and support OPEC. The choice is yours.


Right on...


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## Plainsman (Jul 30, 2003)

> I don't know if you honestly just forget or purposely just spout what you want to believe.


I guess I honestly forgot. Your going to have to bring me up to speed ----again I guess. I claim old timers. 

Where did they improve the process. Not in hours per gallon on the farm equipment, or the trucks shipping the equipment. Not in the production of fertilizers. I'm guessing your talking about the process once the corn reaches the ethanol plant. Have they met a net gain considering all these things.

In any event it's still subsidized like crazy. Seabass, don't you think the money going to subsidize corn ethanol would be better used starting a farm program that would encourage ethanol from cellulose.

If it needs to be subsidized are we really helping America or simply ripping of the American taxpayer? I don't think you can have both.


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## TK33 (Aug 12, 2008)

The problem with bio diesel is that once again the cart was put before the horse. There are not good enough filters for it so the gummy crap is hard on injectors, namely plugging them and burning them up. I don't know what it would have done to the tank unless it gummed up in the grooves, they could just pull it and steam it and you would be on the road.

ETHANOL PIPELINE-
It would need to be stainless pipe, and very thick walled to even have a chance at working. Junk gets stuck in the backwelds and form bacteria and then the ethanol is no good. Once again messing up fuel filters and causing other problems. Ethanol can be hard on pipe therefore a pipeline is not the best option.

A lot of ethanol plants have been built to be retro-fitted to be used for something else, mainly soybean plants or switchgrass ethanol. I don't think we should give it up but it has got to change fast.

A lot of anti-ethanol info doesn't account for selling the DGS for cattle feed, selling the CO2 to the oil companies (there is a company called CO2 transport that brings CO2 from ethanol plants to be used in drilling new wells), use far fetched input costs to produce corn and ethanol, and the like. Also the ethanol has to have 10% (or something) gas added to it before it leaves the plant otherwise it would fall under the jurisdiction of the ATF because it would only need to be refined a little more to be booze.

We have spent trillions defending our oil interests so investing in ethanol and other domestic energy plans to get us more like Brazil is a good thing. Then we could put up a wall around the entire middle east and let them have at it


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## TK33 (Aug 12, 2008)

seabass said:


> Plainsman said:
> 
> 
> > It is a net loss of energy. What do you not understand about net loss. It takes more crude oil when we use ethanol. Not only that I bet you think it is clean. However, you have to add up the gas and diesel burned to make the ethanol, plus the carbon created when you burn the ethanol itself. If you think we use mostly electricity your wrong, but even if we do there is a coal fired generator spewing carbon into the atmosphere to make "clean" ethanol. No it's not from Garrison Dam and hydro energy, that goes to Minnesota.
> ...


Seabass is also correct on this, I forgot to mention that above. Anti-ethanol propaganda uses production rates from the mid 90's. Like 4 bushels of corn to make one gallon of ethanol. The exact amount now is proprietary info to each design engineering firm, but I have heard it is like 1 to 1.3 bushels of corn per gallon.

The main reason a lot of these plants failed was because they had a bad system, which is an engineering failure or the plants got burned hedging on corn prices. That is what burned the Hankinson Plant.


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## seabass (Sep 26, 2002)

Plainsman said:


> > I don't know if you honestly just forget or purposely just spout what you want to believe.
> 
> 
> I guess I honestly forgot. Your going to have to bring me up to speed ----again I guess. I claim old timers.
> ...


A National Academy of Sciences paper a few years back calculated everything (and there have been a lot of subsequent papers since then). The tractors driving to plow the field through harvest, including nitrogen inputs, etc, as well as trucking the corn to the ethanol plant... everything was taken into consideration -- and there was a net gain. Biodiesel is much better than ethanol, considering all inputs. I'm not saying it's the panacea for America's fuel needs, but it's not as bad as you are describing. I truly believe we can make it better with continued research and development.

I don't think we are ripping off the American taxpayer. I think it is an investment in our future. I don't want to go off on a tangent here, but I really doubt we would have gone to Iraq if there wasn't any oil there. So, if you want to compare the amount of money spent on that war to help secure our oil interests there, then I think subsidizing fuel that we can grow in our own back yard is a big win for everyone.


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## Plainsman (Jul 30, 2003)

Thanks seabass, I often do forget these things.

If it is a net gain now I have no problem with it. I do have a problem if it is heavily subsidised. Things should make it or break on their own merits. In the beginning I can see help as things are developed.

Seabass, don't you think we should move on to a product that would come close to 7/1 returns on energy input. As I understand that is the calculated return on cellulose (_Panicum virgatum _specifically). It just appears a terrible waste to continue with corn.
The great thing about cellulose is it could be raised on those previous CRP acres which if highly erodible should never be used for grain production. That way we have energy without depleting our food supply. 
Seabass, who did those studies that showed corn was now a net gain of energy. It's so different that what I currently hear about corn ethanol. Some of the recent things I have read still call it a net loss. Was this done by independent research, or parties with an interest in the outcome?


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## seabass (Sep 26, 2002)

Plainsman said:


> Thanks seabass, I often do forget these things.
> 
> If it is a net gain now I have no problem with it. I do have a problem if it is heavily subsidised. Things should make it or break on their own merits. In the beginning I can see help as things are developed.
> 
> ...


Studies were done by various universities and published in good peer-reviewed journals. Good journals will also have the authors submit where funding came from to make sure there was no financial conflict of interest. The key is the peer-reviewers, who tend to be overly critical when it comes to their peers. I wouldn't have brought up the studies if there was an interest in the outcome. No, these studies were financed by the national science foundation or other big-league research resources. If you start to show bias, good luck getting any more funding and good luck getting it published (in a good journal).

I think cellulose-based ethanol is another great tool. I think all these should be looked at and researched. Sure, it would be great if they do not have to subsidiezed and I hope that someday we get there. But in the meantime, I think it is a taxpayer investment to help get our presence OUT of the middle east. That's worth a lot. Like TK said, let them have their oil.


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## Plainsman (Jul 30, 2003)

> The key is the peer-reviewers


I agree. Sometimes I think they manufacture problems where none exist because their job is to tear it apart if it has fault.

Not to drag this out, but now you have my curiosity up. Was this based on gallon in vs. gallon out, or unit of energy in vs. unit of energy out? I ask because what I read says that a gallon of ethanol has about 70% of the energy contained in a gallon of gas. Compared to diesel it's even less, but I don't remember the percentage.

Right now I am finding conflicting information on ethanol. Are you finding the same thing. Some of those are clearly biased being funded by energy or agriculture. I don't have the access to literature I once had, or at least not right at my fingertips. What outlet do you think currently publishes the best research?


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## seabass (Sep 26, 2002)

I will try to take a quick look to find some papers. I have saved those papers on another computer for exactly this sort of situation, but of course I am not at that computer now! Plainsman, instead of searching on google for these things, try google scholar to limit yourself to journal articles. You will have access to abstracts if nothing else.

I cannot remember off the top of my head what the %efficiency was on corn. I remember biodiesel was better though. When I get more time, I will search out that paper and/or others.

A quick search at PNAS and I find things like this below. This is why we need to continue research on growing our own fuel:

We report engineering Thermoanaerobacterium saccharolyticum,
a thermophilic anaerobic bacterium that ferments xylan and biomass-
derived sugars, to produce ethanol at high yield. Knockout of
genes involved in organic acid formation (acetate kinase, phosphate
acetyltransferase, and L-lactate dehydrogenase) resulted in
a strain able to produce ethanol as the only detectable organic
product and substantial changes in electron flow relative to the
wild type. Ethanol formation in the engineered strain (ALK2)
utilizes pyruvate:ferredoxin oxidoreductase with electrons transferred
from ferredoxin to NAD(P), a pathway different from that in
previously described microbes with a homoethanol fermentation.
The homoethanologenic phenotype was stable for >150 generations
in continuous culture. The growth rate of strain ALK2 was
similar to the wild-type strain, with a reduction in cell yield
proportional to the decreased ATP availability resulting from
acetate kinase inactivation. Glucose and xylose are co-utilized and
utilization of mannose and arabinose commences before glucose
and xylose are exhausted. Using strain ALK2 in simultaneous
hydrolysis and fermentation experiments at 50°C allows a 2.5-fold
reduction in cellulase loading compared with using Saccharomyces
cerevisiae at 37°C. The maximum ethanol titer produced by strain
ALK2, 37 g/liter, is the highest reported thus far for a thermophilic
anaerobe, although further improvements are desired and likely
possible. Our results extend the frontier of metabolic engineering
in thermophilic hosts, have the potential to significantly lower the
cost of cellulosic ethanol production, and support the feasibility of
further cost reductions through engineering a diversity of host
organisms.


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## seabass (Sep 26, 2002)

Here is one plainsman.

Hill et al. 2006. Environmental, economic, and energetic costs and benefits of biodiesel and ethanol biofuels. PNAS 103:11206-11210.

Again, this paper doesn't describe biofuels as a panacea, but it's a start:



> Negative environmental consequences of fossil fuels and concerns
> about petroleum supplies have spurred the search for renewable
> transportation biofuels. To be a viable alternative, a biofuel should
> provide a net energy gain, have environmental benefits, be economically
> ...


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## seabass (Sep 26, 2002)

Sorry, last one. This paper describes efficiency of switchgrass:



> Perennial herbaceous plants such as switchgrass (Panicum virgatum
> L.) are being evaluated as cellulosic bioenergy crops. Two
> major concerns have been the net energy efficiency and economic
> feasibility of switchgrass and similar crops. All previous energy
> ...


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## wiskodie1 (Sep 11, 2006)

Just so we understand each other. I live in ND, I just happen to work offshore. And I understand Ethanol as well as I understand oil. This conversation is about ENERGY, their use is calculated in BTU and Man hours of labor. As with all energies they have advantages and disadvantages. The overall determining factor in whether an energy type is used is solely basses off of NEED! Does our need outweigh the disadvantages? As you can see, these energy types are in use in this country, so the answer to the above question would be&#8230;..YES.

You cannot pump ethanol down a pipeline! We should make the clear right now. What I said was advancing our technologies to the point where we can surpass ethanol all together moving towards other alcohols that are more user friendly, such as, ones capable of being shipped down a pipeline&#8230;look up bio-butanol(butanol) one of the next steps in alternative fuels, I think you will enjoy the prospects.

I am also in agreement with plainsman that the sooner we get cellulose ethanol online the better, and we are working towards that now. The end of 2007 and all of 2008 was witness to a huge increase in cellulose refineries, but we still have a long way to go in developing our enzyme production plants, and increasing yields.

Bush demanded that all of this happen, at the time corn and sugar cane based ethanol were the only means of producing ethanol at a profitable margin, and that was even slim. The benefit of putting these plants online, is that it is also possible to upgrade them in the future allowing for them to move on towards cellulose ethanol and hopefully past that to other more user friendly alcohol chains in the future. They were a necessary step at the time. They allowed ethanol on the market, pushed manufacturers to develop products such as E85 capable vehicles, and allowed funding for research to advance the technologies.

Now&#8230;..why would Bush do this? Does it make since to have someone like him (of all people) push alternative fuels?


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## buckseye (Dec 8, 2003)

It's all part of a long term energy plan. If we want new ideas they need to come from us. If we need new inventions we must invent them. Long term plan is to make a smooth change in how and what kinds of energy we use. There are great hopes that the current energy scramble will promote new thinking aiding in the invention and application of new energy sources. So get off your lazy ***** and put your thinking hats on, it's up to us to make things better. :beer:


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## seabass (Sep 26, 2002)

Right on. Necessity is the mother of invention, as they say.


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## Plainsman (Jul 30, 2003)

> You cannot pump ethanol down a pipeline! We should make the clear right now. What I said was advancing our technologies to the point where we can surpass ethanol all together moving towards other alcohols that are more user friendly, such as, ones capable of being shipped down a pipeline&#8230;look up bio-butanol(butanol) one of the next steps in alternative fuels, I think you will enjoy the prospects.


Thank you for clearing that up. Also, thank you and seabass for your patience. I noticed on your avitar that you had Fargo listed. Thank you also for a very good post. You clearly do have a grasp of things, but it's hard to tell the people who really know something from those that just think they do. I was going to be a smart *** again but bit my tongue. When you said you were on an oil platform I was going to ask if I plant my *** on the hood of my Cheby will I be a mechanic? Sometimes my frustrations get the best of me, but in the end this turned out wonderful. I think both of you for keeping on me until the rest of us all got good information.

Seabass, if I forget this again, just post a link to this thread.


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## seabass (Sep 26, 2002)

Plainsman, I have to be told things about 5 times on average before I truly remember. Just ask my wife :-?


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## Plainsman (Jul 30, 2003)

Seabass it looks like we should start moving towards more diesel vehicles. I have been thinking that for the past five or six years. A friend has a Volkswagen diesel that gets 50 mpg. I hear Volkswagen is bringing some new vehicles to the United States this August. I hope it's true. Their is some controversy between their tests and independent tests over the difference of their sedan and if it gets 72 mpg or just 58 mpg. I think I could live with just 58 mpg.
I think I will look at them if it does happen. I have a two year old Yukon with very low miles, but it would cost me $18,000 to trade for a new lesser vehicle. I would feel foolish having three vehicles, but if this new $58 mpg vehicle is only going to cost $20,000 I think it would be economically wise to just purchase one outright and keep the Yukon. Maybe I'll drive it a dozen times a year when the snow is deep.


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## seabass (Sep 26, 2002)

Great idea... I once just about bought a diesel VW rabbit that got something like 55 mpg.

If they can handle starting in our winters, then I'm all for it.

By the way, my parents run a decent size farm and buy a few transport loads of biodiesel every year and really like it. There is often a need to replace fuel filters in the beginning though, which can be a chore and often happens at a badtime. They don't run with it in the winter though.


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## wiskodie1 (Sep 11, 2006)

I might be wrong about this part, worth looking into, but I believe that Diesel is a byproduct of gasoline, if the story I heard was true, the diesel engine was developed as a means for the oil companies to sell what was at that time a waste product. If that's true, then there is less diesel produced then gasoline. so if there is a huge jump in diesel auto sales, diesel could go through the roof in price. Also worth noting, Diesel is heavily used by industry, and they will always have first dibs on the product if it runs short. On a good note&#8230;.bio-diesel is far closer to diesel in BTU combustion power then ethanol is to gasoline.

Nice to see you acting civil again plainsman, I always enjoy a good even keeled debate on subjects of interest. Didn't mean to get your blood boiling earlier, you know how easy it is to take these posts out of context, and with so much to say people tend to cut corners on their post expecting others to understand there meaning&#8230;..myself included.


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## hunt4P&amp;Y (Sep 23, 2004)

wiskodie1 said:


> I might be wrong about this part, worth looking into, but I believe that Diesel is a byproduct of gasoline, if the story I heard was true, the diesel engine was developed as a means for the oil companies to sell what was at that time a waste product. If that's true, then there is less diesel produced then gasoline. so if there is a huge jump in diesel auto sales, diesel could go through the roof in price. Also worth noting, Diesel is heavily used by industry, and they will always have first dibs on the product if it runs short. On a good note&#8230;.bio-diesel is far closer to diesel in BTU combustion power then ethanol is to gasoline.


Diesel costs like a third compared to gas to produce. Way less time into it, not nearly the amount of refining, or chemicals. So it doesn't really make sense why it costs the same or more...

As for Bio diesel yes it is close in combustion and so on... however it gels up easier, it will start to grow into fungus and other green **** in your tank. It just doesn't make sense in this area of the world. Doesn't run as well in cold temps! It will gel up way easier then #1 that isn't Bio


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## wiskodie1 (Sep 11, 2006)

My guess would be "supply and demand" our demand is outstripping our supply and the price goes up. If it is a byproduct of gasoline then it would be an unstable commodity, dependent on gasoline production, and there would be less of it and it would be more prone to price volatility then gasoline, even a small stress on demand could result in huge price swings. Then add to that the need for diesel in our industrial sectors, they would be willing to keep the price higher than needed as a deterrence just to guarantee themselves a ready supply of it.


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## TK33 (Aug 12, 2008)

P&Y-
Diesel has gone up due partly to the govt forcing a lower sulfer fuel. Costs more to refine. The refineries also had to add on to the process.

When rudolph diesel invented his motor he ran it on something like a heavy vegtable oil. That was before electronic injection and turbos. We will get something sooner than later


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