The Minnesota Senate has passed a bill that would double the amount of ethanol in gasoline sold in Minnesota. The current requirement is ten percent. The bill boosts that requirement to 20 percent by the year 2012. Senator Dallas Sams of Staples, the bill's sponsor, say higher ethanol content would help the state decrease its reliance on foreign oil. He says it would also mean an economic boost for the state's 14 ethanol plants, most of which are in rural Minnesota. Opponents including car manufacturers say that most automobiles are not equipped to process that much ethanol. The Senate passed the bill 54-to-12. Governor Pawlenty is a supporter, and a House committee is set to review its own version of the bill Tuesday.
I've been keeping an eye on the news on this issue as well. Guess we'll all be riding some sort of electric hybrid cars/truck/suv soon. I say we bring down the house!
yar time to start watching what goes into my car. they had better be required to label it as 20% or else alot of poepl will have dead cars. hmm if my car dies could i sue the gas station for seeling crappy gas and make them buy me a new engine? if all else fails gotta start driving on race gas(like what 110 or 111 octane). they cant sneak any ethanol into that stuff.
This bill is gay. Hopefully there'll be more support on our side to this battle. Car dealers can't sell cars with pinging/knocking motors. Maybe they will do what they did with non-oxygenated fuel: have seperate gas pumps for customers to choose to pump with. Some with 20%, some with 10%, and one with 0%. They could label the crappy stuff "earth friendly" to try to make it popular to the public so there's some demand for that crap. Pardon my french.
we actaully discussed this same topic in my econ class today. supposedly the bare min mixture to run on is 85/15 gas/ethanol. maybe its a deal with car dealerships to sell boat loads of new cars. cause all the old ones croak
If the corn farmers don't have enough business, they need to just find a new thing to do. This is NOT driven by environmental concerns.. but they like to say it is. It's about corn growers getting more at the cost of performance of our cars. You know that you actually get worse mileage the more ethanol you run? (in addition to less power) Bastages.
Ethanol is just a roundabout way for government to subsidize farmers. The propaganda is that ethanol is fuel from a renewable resource--corn, homemade right here in MN. What they don't say is that the process to make ethanol results in a huge net loss of energy. Ethanol is just alcohol--it is made in the same way you'd make a white spirit grain alcohol like vodka...through fermentation and distillation. This requires a tremendous amount of heat and this heat comes from coal or natural gas. The ethanol production, without government subsidies, is not economically viable. Basically what this bill does is it flushes money down the toilet with the public carrying the burden on their backs.
Well, the biggest thing is not that the cars won't run with 20% methanol in them, its just that nobody is sure how the car itself can handle the 20% methanol mix. Just like running e85, any car can run on e85, but its the car (i.e. o-rings, seals, gaskets, rubber hoses, etc) that can't handle the extra methanol. I wonder if the gov has some friends or family that work with methanol or grow corn?? Russ
<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by TabulaRasa Ethanol is just a roundabout way for government to subsidize farmers. The propaganda is that ethanol is fuel from a renewable resource--corn, homemade right here in MN. What they don't say is that the process to make ethanol results in a huge net loss of energy. Ethanol is just alcohol--it is made in the same way you'd make a white spirit grain alcohol like vodka...through fermentation and distillation. This requires a tremendous amount of heat and this heat comes from coal or natural gas. The ethanol production, without government subsidies, is not economically viable. Basically what this bill does is it flushes money down the toilet with the public carrying the burden on their backs. <hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote"> Crossposted from other list, credits to David Hinrichs for research --- From: Economic Issues with Ethanol by David Coltrain, Extension Assistant, Department of Agricultural Economics, kansas Cooperative Development Center, Kansas State University. Presented at the Risk and Profit Conference, Kansas State U. Aug., 2001 p. 2 "A concern with ethanol production in the past has been the belief that more total energy is used to produce ethanol than the amount of energy available in ethanol. A report from the USDA Economic Research Service Office of Energy shows this concern is unfounded and concludes that the net energy value of corn has a positive enrgy ratio of 1.24 due to technological advances in ethanol conversion and increased efficiency in farm production" But actually from the gov report... (http://www.ethanol.org/EthanolNewsSpecial1.28.05.htm) The 2001 Net Energy Balance of Corn-Ethanol (Preliminary) from the USDA In the abstract is says: "This report estimates the net energy balance of corn ethanol utilizing the latest survey of U.S. corn producers and the 2001 U.S. survey of ethanol plants. The major objectives of this report are to improve the quality of data and methodology used in the estimation... The study results suggest that corn ethanol is energy efficient, as indicated by an energy output/input ratio of 1.67. From the American Coalition for Ethanol (granted an organization with a vested interest) (http://ethanol.org) The energy balance of ethanol --Ethanol has a positive energy balance, meaning the ethanol yields more energy than it takes to produce it. It is an efficient fuel made through an efficient process. ---Research studies from a variety of sources have found ethanol to have a positive net energy balance. The most recent, by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, shows that ethanol provides an average net energy gain of at least 67%. ---One faulty, outdated study shows ethanol's net energy balance to be negative. That research uses fundamentally flawed, decades old data that is not valid considering today's efficiencies in agriculture and in ethanol production. About the milage issue I couldn't find much in this literature. I did find some other gov. reports that compared vehicles using reg. unleaded vs. E85 (85% ethanol) where milage was significantly less. All auto manufactures that sell cars in the US warrantee their cars with 10% Ethanol use. (AC for Ethanol) I didn't find 20% mentioned. The same page did mention this level of Ethanol was safe to use in all motorcycles, it did not mention 20%. Another balanced look comes from Outside online.... http://outside.away.com/outside/features/200309/200309_fuels_ethanol.html --- I still don't want more ethanol in my car, but at least it's not just a subsidy.
<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by jprice If the corn farmers don't have enough business, they need to just find a new thing to do. <hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote"> Thats a very poor way to think about this. Its like telling a homeless person to 'just get a job you bum'. When the situation is more complex than that in both cases. However it's very easy to just say 'get a job ya bum' There are some positive aspects to more ethonal. Less dependance on imported oil. It's a renewable resource. Sale of local corn promotes our state economy. I dont buy the car manufacturers resistance yet. I'll have to research more into it before making that personal judgement. However I did hear testimony of one person on the radio whos been running more than 20% ethinol for a year now in his car with no illeffects reported to date. If people here are TRUELY resistant to this bill; talking about it here isnt going to do much. I email my congresman and senetor for my district often on bills I opose. THAT's how you get results.
I used to have a car with a very tempermental Hitachi ECU. Also bounced between Chicago and MN often. There was a definite, very noticable difference between running Chicago fuel and MN fuel. I also had a 20 gallon tank so I could make the trip and still drive around MN a bit before refueling.
http://www.deh.gov.au/atmosphere/ethanol/publications/biofuels-2004/index.html http://www.deh.gov.au/atmosphere/ethanol/publications/testing-passenger-fleet/index.html Note that the first link contains details about the long term effects of running E20 in a WRX. I haven't read these fully yet, just found the links.
<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by Zola http://www.deh.gov.au/atmosphere/ethanol/publications/biofuels-2004/index.html http://www.deh.gov.au/atmosphere/ethanol/publications/testing-passenger-fleet/index.html Note that the first link contains details about the long term effects of running E20 in a WRX. I haven't read these fully yet, just found the links. <hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote"> This is the most interesting and factual information thus far. Thank you Zola.
Personally I'm not liking what I read in there. Granted the effects weren't totally shocking but they did find a good deal of evidence that the E20 causes more corrosion to a wide variety of vehicle components, not just the fuel system as I initially suspected. I would have preferred to see some data about knock and ignition retard as they indicated they would provide in the literature review. They did see increased EGTs and pre/post cat temps though. Anyway, nothing I read in those reports makes me feel any better about Minnesota transitioning to E20.
I haven't caught up since being in NY the last week or so. I am actualy working on a plant right now to increase production of ethanol and adding corn driers etc etc. A few quick ones. 1) Producing Ethanol is not a net loss. This includes planting watering, harvesting, processing etc etc, but it isn't a great gain either. The plant I am doing emission studies for produces electricity for all the facilities there, feeds the grid (local town) and has product coming out at a good rate. This also includes their wet injection scrubers. From what I understand about ethanol testing reports I read, in HDDV (Heavy duty desil vehicls) it isn't so bad.... But it is a lot of hand waving. A little honda, Subaru, etc burn gas in quite a differnt method, and that is being ignored. http://ntl.bts.gov/card_view.cfm?docid=11056 The theroy is sound for the reduction of emissions, just like MTB's. But like any additive at some point there will be a percentage of Ethonal that is bad. 5, 7, 10 what ever. As far as I can figure out the morons in the goverment are doing the same "if 5 percent is good 20 must be better" thing again. Trust me when I say they don't know what the F they are doing. I have to use emission nubers gather from a group of 4 cars for 98 emision factors...... yeah 4 makes of cars realy make up fleat averages for everyone.... Another little aside.... The Title V permit (air) for the U of M is 10 years behind in being issued..... Back to the Ethanol. A certin percentage is ok in my book (like 5), where the gains outmeet the damage. Just like I don't remove the cats on my car because that insignificant HP gain isn't balanced against the higher emissions. I have heard that the WRX is dam clean even with the cats off. About the Austrailan experiment. If I remember right they didn't put any other additives in, which most US gas manufactures dom, people do to resolve the extra crap in their gas. Simple ending, If I see 10% I definitly move on.... Sorry this is very rambly.
<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by WRXdriver05 Has anyone started a petiton or such that we can sign to combat this law? <hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote"> Do one up! How about one against the gas tax increase they are talking about on capital hill also.
