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Post 02 Feb 2011, 12:09 pm

You can't make this up. Most of us out here understand corn subsidies are bad on numerous fronts. Many of us understand that using food as energy is dumb. Many of us understand that ethanol is an energy and money loser, but not those incredibly clever folks at the EPA.

WASHINGTON — Nearly two-thirds of cars on the road could have more corn-based ethanol in their fuel tanks under an Environmental Protection Agency decision Friday.

The agency said that 15 percent ethanol blended with gasoline is safe for cars and light-duty trucks manufactured between 2001 and 2006, expanding an October decision that the higher blend is safe for cars built since 2007.The maximum gasoline blend has been 10 percent ethanol. , , ,


It's bad for cars. It's bad for the economy. It's bad for the food supply around the world. It's bad energy policy, but that won't stop the government!

Rather than furthering his goal to make America “the first country to have a million electric vehicles on the road by 2015,” however, Obama’s focus on biofuels as the way “to break our dependence on oil” would have the opposite effect if it means sending billions more taxpayers dollars to corn country to finance ethanol infrastructure, Cox said. “Building an ethanol infrastructure at taxpayer’s expense will just lock us further into the past rather than lead us to tomorrow’s energy future,” added Cox, who heads EWG’s Ames, Iowa, office.
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Post 02 Feb 2011, 1:37 pm

But it SOUNDS so nice!
Forget the economic reality, it's all about using the right buzz words. Obama will spin it into something we all know it isn't. And even the liberals know it's a bad idea, any Redscape liberals willing to back him on this? (i so hope so, this "plan" is so easy to pick apart all the problems associated with it, it really is all about buzz words ONLY)
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Post 02 Feb 2011, 4:36 pm

Something has to be done to keep up subsidies for US sugar producers...
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Post 02 Feb 2011, 5:53 pm

Even Al Gore has come out against ethanol subsidies. Ironically, Newt Gingrich is an ethanol supporter. I believe he has a lobbying contract.
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Post 03 Feb 2011, 9:44 am

Turning food into energy is great! Especially for animals and people. Of course when you consume too much food and use too little energy, we get fat. :wink:

Yeah, ethanol subsidies are dumb like most subsides. Sugar being one of the dumbest (which is actually a very high import tariff, which allows domestic producers to charge much higher prices than the world markets and keep the difference. Same difference.)

People have poured a huge amount of money into the production of ethanol, and the lobby is very strong. The lobby for doing the opposite, not so much. So if you're to point a finger here, it's at congress, for their mandate for increased ethanol use. It seems that the EPA is setting rules so that the country can achieve that mandate.

I do find what they're doing in Brazil very interesting. There, they have been able to make ethanol into a fuel of choice that makes economic sense. I don't know a huge amount about it, but apparently they have been able to make ethanol from non-food plant matter (e.g. by-products of sugar cane production), and the leading export market for their ethanol? The US, where else?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol_fuel_in_Brazil
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Post 03 Feb 2011, 10:03 am

Ray Jay wrote:Even Al Gore has come out against ethanol subsidies. Ironically, Newt Gingrich is an ethanol supporter. I believe he has a lobbying contract.


I don't know about a contract, but this WSJ response to Gingrich's whining eliminates any thoughts I might have about Newt as President.

Mr. Gingrich was particularly troubled by our January 22 editorial about food inflation, "Amber Waves of Ethanol," saying that we "at least ought to use facts that are accurate." For the record, we cited figures from the Agriculture Department showing that four of every 10 rows of corn now go to ethanol, up from about one of 10 a decade ago.

A Gingrich spokesman said that what his boss meant to say is that this redistribution has a "negligible" effect on global food costs, especially compared to "higher fuel and energy prices and rampant speculation in the commodities markets." . . .

Yet today this now-mature industry enjoys far more than cash handouts, including tariffs on foreign competitors and a mandate to buy its product. Supporters are always inventing new reasons for these dispensations, like carbon benefits (nonexistent, according to the greens and most scientific evidence) and replacing foreign oil (imports are up). An historian of Mr. Gingrich's distinction surely knows all that. . .

So along comes Mr. Gingrich to offer his support for Mr. Obama's brand of green-energy welfare, undermining House Republicans in the process. In his Iowa speak-power-to-truth lecture, he even suggested that the government should mandate that all new cars in the U.S. be flex-fuel vehicles—meaning those that can run on an ethanol-gas mix as high as 85%—as if King Corn were in any danger of being deposed.

Yet there are currently dozens of flex-fuel models on the market, and auto makers already get a benefit if they sell them, via the prior fuel-economy mandates that did so much to devastate Detroit. The problem is consumers rarely want to pay more for flex-fuel cars when they get 25% to 30% fewer miles per gallon with E85, according to Energy Department data.


So, stick a fork in Gingrich.

However, that's a bit of a sidebar, isn't it? It's the EPA that's ramming MORE ethanol our way, not Gingrich.

Btw, Geojanes, don't we slap an import duty on ethanol to protect the already subsidized US market?

Will someone deliver us from this madness?
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Post 03 Feb 2011, 10:19 am

This really seems to have more to do with Congress than the EPA though. EPA is setting rules to meet policy set by Congress. If you're an interested party and you're going to lobby someone, Congress is the place to go.

Regarding the tariff, from the wikipedia link I posted earlier:
The U.S. currently imposes a tariff on Brazilian ethanol of $USD 0.54 per gallon in order to encourage domestic ethanol production and protect the budding ethanol industry in the United States. Historically, this tariff was intended to offset the 45-cent per gallon blender's federal tax credit that is applied to ethanol no matter its country of origin. Exports of Brazilian ethanol to the U.S. reached a total of US$ 1 billion in 2006, an increase of 1,020% over 2005 (US$ 98 millions), but fell significantly in 2007 due to sharp increases in American ethanol production from maize. A recent study by Iowa State University's Center for Agricultural and Rural Development found that removing the U.S. import tariff would result in less than 5% of the United States’ ethanol being imported from Brazil. Set to expire at the end of 2010, the $USD 0.54 per gallon tariff and $USD 0.45 per gallon blender’s credit have been the subject of contentious debate in Washington,DC with ethanol interest groups and politicians staking positions on both sides of the issue.
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Post 03 Feb 2011, 11:53 am

geojanes wrote:This really seems to have more to do with Congress than the EPA though. EPA is setting rules to meet policy set by Congress. If you're an interested party and you're going to lobby someone, Congress is the place to go.


Well, yes, but (from my first post) the EPA has determined more ethanol use in vehicles is "good":

Nearly two-thirds of cars on the road could have more corn-based ethanol in their fuel tanks under an Environmental Protection Agency decision Friday.


So, Congress is subsidizing its production and the EPA is mandating more of its use. If it weren't so idiotic, I'd call it "synergy."
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Post 03 Feb 2011, 1:21 pm

Mr. Gingrich responds: http://online.wsj.com/public/page/letters.html

Maybe he's not despicable ... perhaps he's just wrong?
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Post 03 Feb 2011, 1:32 pm

Doctor Fate wrote:Well, yes, but (from my first post) the EPA has determined more ethanol use in vehicles is "good""


The article you linked to uses a Wash Post article as a source. That source says:
the EPA has said a congressional mandate for increased ethanol use can't be achieved without allowing higher percentage blends. Congress, driven by a broad coalition of members from farm states, has required refiners to blend 36 billion gallons of biofuels, mostly ethanol, into auto fuel by 2022.


As a matter of practice, an agency of the gov't that is implementing a policy made by congress, will put the best face on it. Congress said the nation had to do this, the EPA is working toward that end, and they are doing it with a smile on their face. As you know, many environmentalists think corn based ethanol is a weak or even counterproductive solution, including many at the EPA, but they can't say anything about that. Congress has spoken. The EPA as an agency of govt is implementing their policy. I say again, if you don't like it, point the fingers at the right people, and that's congress.
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Post 03 Feb 2011, 2:02 pm

Ray Jay wrote:Maybe he's not despicable ... perhaps he's just wrong?


I don't disagree with an "all of the above" energy policy. There is no single solution, or if there is, it is only a single solution at that point in time. Another solution may prove to be better at sometime in the future. All of the above maintains flexibility, responsiveness and adaptability. I think it's hard to argue against it.
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Post 03 Feb 2011, 2:10 pm

The best comment I heard about Ethanol is that it isn't the best solution but is the best solution for now. Basically the premise of the speaker was that Ethanol will work as a transition fuel until the other technologies, i.e. Full Electric and/or Fuel Cell vehichles, become viable as full replacements for the internal combustion engine.

While I agree that a transitionary fuel is needed, I am not so sure Ethanol is the correct one. I lean more towards Compressed Naturl Gas (CNG). While it is still a fossil fuel, from what I have read it is less polluting then gasoline, a little cheaper in the U.S. and isn't tied to a food crop which could be subject to possible drought conditions.
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Post 03 Feb 2011, 2:32 pm

The problem with CNG is that it's hard to deliver and set up the infrastructure. Conversion of existing vehicles is also pretty hard.
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Post 03 Feb 2011, 2:35 pm

maybe a temporary transition fuel is needed, but I would say it will only prolong our dependence on oil. What's that saying, Necessity is the mother of invention? Until it really is needed, only then will we actively search for an answer. The way oil has been climbing, they are making that necessity more and more likely. To lessen demand while still dependent and to do so in a way that causes food prices to soar AND be subject to droughts/flooding it just seems incredibly dumb.
...and why corn? I seem to recall a whole bunch of better sources (hemp springs to mind) but no, corn is the answer?
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Post 03 Feb 2011, 3:01 pm

Corn takes less out of the soil than cane does. Beet is one option as a sugar-crop (and doesn't need hot weather).