Ethanol / gasoline mix

Let's hope industry and the government accurately understand the economics of cel-ethanol before they shove us taxpayers into another bottomless pit of subsidies & tax breaks.

Good read on who's going broke on corn-ethanol:

Last night, I enjoyed my ethanol in a glass of Cabernet to accompany a NY strip steak (fattened on California sugar beets). Corn makes for a better steak but it's hard to find corn-fed now-a-days!

Somehow I think the 'greenies' are going to complicate my life with an extra recycling bin. A bin for 'non-cellulose green' and another for 'cellulose rich green.' (I wonder how much extra diesel will be spent to run the extra truck to collect this stuff.)

-- pj

Understand? I think we'd be fooling ourselves if we believed the hairy legged tree huggers actually thought out the consequences and side effects of their demands. Heck take a look at the messes California gets themselves into with "their" insistence on requiring "over the top" regulations. Electricity(prices), water(shortages), fuel((MTBE), the list just keeps getting longer.

On the other hand, burning and otherwise using petroleum the past hundred years or so has made the world a perfect paradise. Let's keep right on going.

AJM '93 Ruby coupe, 6 sp (both tops)

Well at least oil is a known screwup.

Ethanol from corn seems to be screwing things up in a new way which isn't any better. Somehow affecting hunger. You think folks will get pissed if they have $5 gasoline, wait until they are hungry or paying $5.00 for a can of corn or $20/lb for hamberger because the corn to feed the cows is too expensive.

So now we are being screwed by oil and by ethanol.

What's next? Biomass sourced ethanol sounds better but it is a long time off. The corn farmers will fight it tooth and nail.

Vito

Pure myth, learn some facts

I read one article that states that this is a concern: Make fuel or feed people. I will continue to read.

...Water -- you have it right -- just like Atlanta. We're protecting a fish few people have ever seen. I'm being paid a buck a square-foot to tear out my lawn. ...Electricity -- Nah, We suckered into a 'free market system.' Then Cheney's FPC turned that into a nightmare, ruling that Enron was honest. The current Calif. ISO is light years ahead of what other regions have. Calif's anti-nukes are coming around. We've got six reactors to replace and more to build. We'll be OK. ...MTBE -- Yup, you got it right. We shot ourselves in the foot on that one. Should have shutdown the gas stations with leaky tanks. The sob-sisters & hand-wringers failed to get tough and kick-butt when it was needed. ...Air Quality -- Federal EPA Regulations, policing and fines drive most of our decisions. Our county can *fail* on a beautiful clear day if a single monitor is bad (that's usually in Alpine, CA.)

-- pj

Bob I wrote: