Is the end of Ethanol approaching?

Let's hope this passes, http://www.greencarreports.com/news/109 ... ef=Default

I sure hope so, crops are not meant to be used as fuel :!:

Jean

I too, hope so....but this whole ethanol thing was more for the benefit of Monsanto and Con-Agra, than for any green benefit. Therefore, if it happens, we have to look for the ulterior motive .... Perhaps the re-think of ethanol is spurred because China is in the market for several million tons of food corn.

Slick

How is it that Brazil is using full ethanol fuel, and not having all these problems ??
Even if their jungle is rapidly disappearing....

It's latitude, in Brazil sugar cane grows like a weed and there's more sugar in it than in corn, so they get more ethanol out it. As for gumming up, it does it there too. Back when, Henry Ford looked at the logistics of fuel and thought all cars should run on alcohol, with a still on every farm, John D. Rockefeller and other prohibitionists wanted gasoline. Gasoline, all things considered, is the denser, safer, fuel. Rockefeller won.

If you look at the strength of the farm lobbies in the Corn Belt states, you'll realize that ethanol is here to stay. Politicians wooing Iowa voters are graded with an "ethanol-friendky" litmus test.

If you watch closely, a lot of investors and banks and capital venturers and fund managers are getting out of coal and petroleum.
Ethanol may survive yet...

I bloody hope not, try using the ethanol crap they are selling here, totally destroys inlet valves in no time.

Inlet valves ? Stainless type ??
Makes you wonder what additives are in there as well.....

What does it actually do to the valves ?

It takes right environment and crop to make ethanol semi work well with Brazil being the example to look at most but sure ain't from corn. Direct ehtanal fuel cells would make me a road boozer. Coal-tar-petoleum is here to stay indefinitely but seems some the founding families don't need any its extra dirty money anymore to get on with their show.

It is an ecologic and human atrocity.

Using precious farmland to grow fuel instead of food - running up the price of food, using even more of the precious Agalla Aquifer of the American Mid-West to irrigate it, pulling marginal farmland out of rest that could feed range cattle, and using CO2 producing gasoline and diesel to plow and harvest it.

xbacksideslider said:

It is an ecologic and human atrocity.

Using precious farmland to grow fuel instead of food - running up the price of food, using even more of the precious Agalla Aquifer of the American Mid-West to irrigate it, pulling marginal farmland out of rest that could feed range cattle, and using CO2 producing gasoline and diesel to plow and harvest it.

Click to expand...

I'll have to second that. Since ethanol is so corrosive, it has to be hauled in stainless tanker trucks because it would eat holes in a pipeline. Without subsidies, ethanol would already be dead. The single good thing that can be said about it is, it's made here.

What we need is an innocuous solvent which will dissolve large volumes of hydrogen in the same way that acetone does for acetylene.

Ugh, my eclectic 40 yr career over laps directly with everything yoose guys listed and more scope on each issue surrounding the public rational for C02 control to say don't fret or try to educate your children or others as best minds state Earth pasted point of no return from higher life extinction in the mid 80's. Corn is the sharp end of genetic mod organisms stick which gets into the germ lines of other plants and animals, even your vital gut bacteria which incorporate the pesticide genes for ever more. Corn has always been a allergy issue with a lot of people and one reason moonshine has such wild tales associated as allergies are a central nervous system reaction identical to all addictions sex, drugs, gambling over work or cycling, so not only drunk but brain swollen inflamed. This is cause of someone taking one good slug and run immediately into highway to punch out a truck that's too fast and loud. GMO corn drives some folks loo loo and flair up of old pains or new ones to figure out why. We should of had some other forms of power sources long ago than coal/tar/petroleum. I suspect most of us has burn up more than their fair share of fuel and oxygen so part of the problem before we knew with the education and advertising of the times. In America there was a sense through Viet Nam war that if it was not outlawed and govt allowed it to be sold then wasn't that bad for you or the planet.

Brazil got great views women to scenery but its ethonal miracle sucks
http://grist.org/article/2010-04-13-rai ... thanol-mi/

One reason ethanol being cut back is people don't like rip offs
http://www.globalwarming.org/

In the end when we left the garden of Eden as hunter gathers and ice age melted so could settle down to grow stuff with a priest hood to read stars to plant and harvest and hold the keys to the store house its been down hill since. We lucked the Fuk Out to have lived in time gasoline was cheaper than water and lead stiffed detonation. Hey day of P!! and Combats. I really do ask myself if a good day to die before each ride.

Bitter pills red white or blue. Hundreds of square miles of mono crops is a type of Geo-engineering.

http://www.geoengineeringwatch.org/clim ... no-return/

All available data from the ground paints a very dark horizon for life on planet Earth. Mathematically speaking, on the current trajectory we have no chance. The fact that this is so hard to accept for most people does not negate the reality itself.

Click to expand...

https://www.google.com/search?q=chemtra ... d=0CB0QsAQ

hobot said:

Hundreds of square miles of mono crops is a type of Geo-engineering.

Click to expand...

If you consider all types of crops, that would be millions of square miles ?

Buy real estate in Antarctica now - beat the rush...

http://www.rationalo...the-planet.aspx

Very interesting video, says that increased CO2 greens the planet while increased agricultural productivity reduces land under the plow, while fossil fuels reduce deforestation.

Link isn't complete, so doesn't lead anywhere.

Having seen similar non-scientific discussions previously, would comment that hereabouts the ag scientists are scurrying to find or breed crop plants that can handle cooler/higher temps and more/less rainfall - by no means certain that current species can handle anything much different in more extreme climates, from experiments already done.

Same goes for tree species, fish species, bugs, butterflies, birds, etc etc etc, seems many things alive have a very narrow range of conditions they are adapted to. Cool climate trees here are already noted as heading for higher altitudes = they know when things are not right. And cool temp fish are heading for lower latitudes, the oceans iz warming.

But then this whole atmosphere/climate thing is one giant experiment with our planet, and no-one has any real idea where/what this will lead to.
If it goes badly wrong, as seems possible long term, maybe cockroaches really will inherit and rule the earth....

It also goes without saying that actually doing anything about any of this is going to require some serious lifestyle changes,
and none of the established players seem interested in doing much of anything about any of this.
So it is interesting that China is taking some serious and large steps, will they become the masters of the new technologies,
and build a futuristic and stronger economy out of it ??

Accurate summary Rohan according to the scope I've trying to keep up with. We just don't know all the factors nor even their priority except water dominates it all. Every month another significant factor found - verified that none of the 'puter models accounted for that more taxes and restrictions based on. One of the most depressing TV episodes I ever saw was Star Trek realizing wrap drive use decayed the fabric of space time the local solar system life depended on and was non linear additive over time - so end of going where no man ought too. My mood yoyo's on each new report. Saw one finding way more open ocean sea life small to large than expected a couple months ago then this week read its because the warmer ocean and other reasons has lowered oxygen in the deeps so most life having to concentrate in upper few hundred meters. The found this out watching deep dive Marlin and Swordfish not hunting very deep. Solar ain't much better if including side effects to produce. Hydro dams silt up and age dangerously. Wind so far needs govt help and too variable too often to use efficiency. Vapor fuels and geo thermal's driling fracting and pumping pressure causes many quakes. Tidal and wave energy may work out for some places. Nuclear is predictably the end of higher life forms. A few are now selling small fission reactors with famous companies buying them but ain't read of it spreading much for a few seasons now. Zero point vacuum free energy ain't working out well yet and not enough pyschotronics to nullify the bad faster than produced. Ain't holding my breath for E.T.'s or Divine help in time. There's a fiction story of a fella sneaking out of city with illegal gasoline to play with a vintage cycle his grand dad had.

One wild thing I've read is that going by the known ice age cycles we are a few 1000 yrs past due one so its possible that man's C02 has indefinitely delayed another one. Rohan this fella agrees with you too.

Dr. Patrick Moore co-founder, chair, and chief scientist of Greenspirit Strategies,
Why I am a Climate Change Skeptic
http://news.heartland.org/newspaper-art ... ge-skeptic

hobot said:

Rohan this fella agrees with you too.

Click to expand...

You misrepresent me.
He and I would deeply disagree.

Hand this over to younger minds on the planet, since its their future,
and see how much action happens, rather than near total inaction currently.
Poking your head in the sand is a rather short term fix....