Tier 1 Gasoline

Langwilliams

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I don't have a dog in the fight for or against ethanol. But the statement that producing ethanol yields a net energy loss is false and nothing in article supports it being true.
I thought the article from Cornell was pretty convincing. The positives for ethanol in small percentages is it helps clean internal parts an adds octane. In E85 form it's like high octane racing fuel but a lot less efficient, requiring 20-25% more to achieve the same yield an in seasonal vehicles it goes bad fast.


It's being subsidized for a reason.....most likely it takes more energy to produce than it delivers.
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BassRanger

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I thought the article from Cornell was pretty convincing. The positives for ethanol in small percentages is it helps clean internal parts an adds octane. In E85 form it's like high octane racing fuel but a lot less efficient, requiring 20-25% more to achieve the same yield an in seasonal vehicles it goes bad fast.


It's being subsidized for a reason.....most likely it takes more energy to produce than it delivers.
A recent careful study by Cornell University’s David Pimentel and the University of California at Berkeley’s Tad Patzek added up all the energy consumption that goes into ethanol production. They took account of the energy it takes to build and run tractors. They added in the energy embodied in the other inputs and irrigation. They parsed out how much is used at the ethanol plant. Putting it all together, they found that it takes 29 percent more energy to make ethanol from corn than is contained in the ethanol itself.
While Hassett admits that “some other authors have disputed these findings,” he says “they invariably come up with more favorable calculations by excluding some of the costs.”

Well, actually, not so. Professors Pimentel and Patzek have published several studies on this subject, and these have been thoroughly and repeatedly debunked in the scientific literature, in government reports from the Department of Energy and Department of Agriculture, in congressional testimony, and elsewhere. (Much of this information is collected on the website of the Department of Energy’s Alternative Fuels Data Center.) Reputable scientists have publicly called the work of Pimentel and Patzek “shoddy,” “unconvincing,” and lacking in basic scientific transparency. The most recent dissection of their claims, appearing in the journal Science in January 2006, found that their results depended upon “some input data that are old and unrepresentative of current [ethanol-production] processes, or so poorly documented that their quality cannot be evaluated.”

One of the most harsh, clear, and forceful critiques of the Pimentel-Patzek studies has come from Bruce E. Dale, a professor of chemical engineering at Michigan State University. Among the many errors Dale has identified is that Pimentel’s work uses figures for corn yields that are too low, and figures for the amount of energy required to produce ethanol that are too high, all because they are seriously outdated. Dale also found that Pimentel’s work has wrongly assumed that all corn is irrigated when only about 15 percent of it is (resulting in exaggerated energy costs for the irrigation of ethanol-producing corn), and that Pimentel failed to assign any energy credit for the animal feed produced as a byproduct of ethanol production. Not only does Professor Dale argue that the energy balance for producing ethanol is significantly positive, but he has also pointed out that the balance of liquid fuel is enormously favorable: more than six gallons of ethanol are produced for every gallon of gasoline or diesel fuel expended in the process. That is a much more relevant metric for ethanol policy, as Dale explained in a 2005 debate with Patzek and Pimentel hosted by the National Corn Growers Association: “We do not need energy per se; we need the services energy provides…. The U.S. has lots of coal and natural gas, but they don’t work in the gas tank. They have the wrong energy quality.”

Source
https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/addicted-to-bad-data
 
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BassRanger

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Also gas, coal, and oil are also subsidized.
 

BassRanger

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Not nearly as much as green energy
Considering the country is trying to move more toward renewable energy, it makes sense put more funding towards that wouldn't you think? Once again I'm not for or against ethanol as a fuel, there's just too much misinformation floating around about it.
 


Big Blue

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In any calculation as complicated as this one there will always be required assumptions. Many of those assumptions will be made to support the viewpoint of the person(s) doing the calculation. Not all factors will have hard verifiable numbers. Those numbers will always be questioned by people with opposing viewpoints.

I personally believe this is an argument that will never be won by any side. Because it affects so many people in so many different ways.
 

Langwilliams

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Considering the country is trying to move more toward renewable energy, it makes sense put more funding towards that wouldn't you think? Once again I'm not for or against ethanol as a fuel, there's just too much misinformation floating around about it.
You can't force a move to technology that isn't available or practical yet. When the tech is available, reliable an affordable it will happen without a push from big government because it will be self sustaining. I couldn't go all electric if I wanted to, my condo building parking doesn't/ can't support 220 charge stations. Millions in multi unit buildings or deal with street parking can't either.
 

JohnnyO

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Can you cite any data from this century that concludes that ethanol has a negative fuel balance?
Took about 10 seconds to find. Doesn't matter, you won't believe it anyway. Not the first time I've argued with your sort.

https://www.organicconsumers.org/sc...equired-make-ethanol-actually-ethanol-cornell

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/03/050329132436.htm

You still can't get away from the fact that if it wasn't subsidized by the government, i.e. taxpayer dollars, it wouldn't be worth doing on its own.
 

JohnnyO

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Also gas, coal, and oil are also subsidized.
No they're not. Tax-deductible business expenses are not a subsidy.

Considering the country is trying to move more toward renewable energy, it makes sense put more funding towards that wouldn't you think?
No I don't. If something can't survive in the free market then it isn't worth doing and only results in higher prices and higher taxes for the consumer. But that's how the government modifies peoples' behavior, they tax what they don't want you to do and subsidize what they do want you to do. I disagree with that approach.
 

BassRanger

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Took about 10 seconds to find. Doesn't matter, you won't believe it anyway. Not the first time I've argued with your sort.

https://www.organicconsumers.org/sc...equired-make-ethanol-actually-ethanol-cornell

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/03/050329132436.htm

You still can't get away from the fact that if it wasn't subsidized by the government, i.e. taxpayer dollars, it wouldn't be worth doing on its own.
Umm. if you'd scroll up a few inches you'd see that those Cornell studies by Pimentel and Patzek are from 2001, and they've been peer reviewed into the ground. I'm just the sort to believe verifiable science. Once again couldn't care less about ethanol one way or the other as a fuel.
No they're not. Tax-deductible business expenses are not a subsidy.
Perhaps you should look up the definition of subsidy.
 

JohnnyO

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dtech

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Agree that every form of energy in the US is subsided in some way, oil companies for decades have received favorable treatment and still get substantial tax breaks for things like exploration expenses., Congress enacts these laws and they become very difficult to alter/ repeal, but the original primary reason for ethanol as a fuel source was to decrease US dependence on foreign oil sources and we could rely 100% on domestic production to meet oil demands if we choose to , I can't see any compelling reason to continue to mandate the use of ethanol as a fuel source, how effective it is in reducing overall emissions is another topic of debate.
 

D Fresh

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https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2001/08/ethanol-corn-faulted-energy-waster-scientist-says
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesc...al-corn-ethanol-is-of-no-use/?sh=7d24bac967d3

I've never been a fan of ethanol - the US has a surplus of oil from the ground, ethanol has been and continues to be subsidized , a select number of farmers have become very wealthy from it's mandated use and I agree its continued use is largely based on politics, itscontinued use does cost the US consumer hundreds of millions in additional annual fuel cost.

Now the US government does cite studies that show that ethanol is not a negative fuel balance , but the link to the Forbes article cites a number of other considerations - one example is Brazil where use of sugar cane to produce ethanol is a primary driver of extensive clear cutting of the amazon rain forest.

The reasons that once prompted the need for ethanol - primarily to decrease dependence on imported oil have long ceased to exist, in other words if the gov subsidies were removed and ethanol use no longer mandated it likely would not survive in the free market.
Apparently you don't know many car folks.

Out of the roughly 50 dudes I work with there are 6 that are tuned for e85. 4 of which run that tune exclusively.

As long as there are gasoline engines around to modify ethanol will be around. Subsidies or not.

I will agree with you on the principle, but in reality we're not putting the subsidy toothpaste back in the tube.

Besides, the oil and gas industry is heavily subsidized here as well. Why shouldn't our vegetarian fuel be too?
 

CO2Ranger

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If something can't survive in the free market then it isn't worth doing and only results in higher prices and higher taxes for the consumer.
Might want to read up on how heavily US farming is subsidized to this day before making such wide-sweeping statements. The government subsidizes a lot of industries that would be in deep shit otherwise. Notice GM and good old FoMoCo in the top 10 (also Amazon which makes me nauseous):
https://subsidytracker.goodjobsfirst.org/top-100-parents
 

tfisher15

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Might want to read up on how heavily US farming is subsidized to this day before making such wide-sweeping statements. The government subsidizes a lot of industries that would be in deep shit otherwise. Notice GM and good old FoMoCo in the top 10 (also Amazon which makes me nauseous):
https://subsidytracker.goodjobsfirst.org/top-100-parents
Most nations subsidize “strategic industries” to either keep them afloat for the jobs they keep in the country or to take market share from other countries.
China did it for steel production and continues doing it for solar panels. If the U.S. doesn’t stay in that game we’ll lose all leverage in the global market. China’s actions during the pandemic showed us that they will stop shipping product outside their country (in this case PPE) to benefit themselves.
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