Is E85 really a Con?

[jdogg4]

How is it that we keep loosing farm land. If they plan on going all E85 we don't have enough land to grow the crops needed to make this stuff. That and between loosing land to grow the crops and the Gov. not helping out the farmers and them selling out the land I don't see the whole E85 plan working. Shipping corn in from Can. or over seas isn't going to help us break away from foreign support on fuel issues. Good Idea poor plan and execution of this.

 

[lilredwagn]

The big thing is that yes it burns cleaner, but it also supports American farmers instead of foreign oil and lowers our dependence on said foreign oil.

Only by a hair. Any process with a negative EROEI (energy return on energy invested)raises our dependence on foreign oil. E-85 may or may not have a negative EROI, sepending on who you look to for figures.

The farmers make money yes, but they do so by using chemicals and equipment which all use petroleum in their manufacture or application. The most optimistic figures indicate that the end result is that for every gallon of E-85 someone pumps into their flex-fuel vehicle, a fair portion of oil has been used to produce it.

The people who want you to believe that ethanol is a positive thing would estimate that a little more than half of a gallon of oil goes into every gallon of ethanol.

More conservative (and I don't mean politically) studies have suggested that for every gallon of E-85 you pump out, 1.2 gallons of oil were used to produce it.

It may make for cleaner air (which is not a bad thing), and it may keep farmers fed (which may not be a bad thing), but it will in no way ever make a dent on our demand for petroleum products.

 

[ZomBrady]

Only by a hair. Any process with a negative EROEI raises our dependence on foreign oil. E-85 has a positive EROI, but only barely. The farmers make money yes, but they do so by using chemicals and equipment which all use petroleum in their manufacture or application. End result is that for every gallon of E-85 someone pumps into their flex-fuel vehicle, about 7/10 of a gallon of oil has been used to produce it. It may make for cleaner air (which is not a bad thing), and it may keep farmers fed (which may not be a bad thing), but it will in no way ever make a dent on our demand for petroleum products.

If that was true then how do you explain Brazil's independence from foreign energy suppliers?

 

[lilredwagn]

If that was true then how do you explain Brazil's independence from foreign energy suppliers?

1. As mentioned earlier, Brazil extracts their ethanol from sugar cane, not corn.
Took a quick google and I don't know how the WP stands up as a reliable source, but their editor seems to be ok with the idea that cane ethanol is about 8 times more "efficient" than corn ethanol.
*http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/19/AR2006081900842_2.html I suspect I could find less optimistic numbers, but there is apparently a very large difference between the two crops.

2. Lots of cheap manual labor.
3. Brazil has their own oil reserves.

It's probably worth noting too, as jdogg4 alluded to, that if we converted every piece of farmland in the US - including every acre we use to produce all our other food crops - to corn, we would still fall almost 25% short of being able to produce enough corn to fuel all the vehicles on our roads.

 

[Blaine B.]

Why can't the farm vehicles run on e85?

 

[lilredwagn]

Why can't the farm vehicles run on e85?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EROEI
http://healthandenergy.com/ethanol.htm

 

[motorcityxj]

Hydrogen out of Water? Oh, why should it be so simple? I read somewhere that the Bush admin already took of that loop hole in 2002. Nope, 90% of the hydrogen used in Hydrogen powered cars must be made from a petrol product. Not really suprising as the most efficient way to make Hydrogen it to crack it from a Petro product.

The Bushies also killed the Hybrid program which was looking like it would start paying out. I have been very dissapointed by the hybrids I have seen on the road. Either they are just as efficient as a regular car, or they are little ecco-boxes. Nothing like the 100mpg Escort Wagon the U of WI had for a while (Made and raced by the SAE class) that had a 2cy Kohler for a backup charger. It was truely enjoyable to watch that car autocross on just battery.

Nope, if you want independence from Foreign or, do it the 70's way and brew up some good ol' Ethanol in a still. Mother Earth News did a whole series of articles on this back in the day, complete with plans and vehicle studies.They also worked up studies on how to use the byproducts, methane and mash.
As was pointed out, Brazil has been an alcohol producer for years. They grow sugar cane just for fuel, no side effects that I know of and the mash is used for feed.
Don't back Alcohol? How about Bio-desiel? Automotive desiels have come quite a ways down the evolutionary scale since the VW rabbit of the 80's. The Big trucks use the stuff like crazy and that market alone would help quite a few farmers!

IMO, we need to make the farm ecconomical to run again. By having an additional market for their products, we all benifit and less land will be sold to these land hungry developers.

Ron

its not our job to social engineer. This is america. Whats better for a farmer .... he knows, whats better for a family in the city they hate maybe its buying a home with nice yard, low crime, and low taxes in a new sub. New subs mean affordable housing. From your rant you sound to be more than a little leftist, so i would hope you are all for affordable housing for the middle class and even poor folks. Granted they dont build new homes for poor folks, they build them for upper middle class and middle class and that creates afforable housing for poor folks or lower middle class. Sorry to get off topic but that al gore stop urban sprawl shit drives me NUTZ !!! It does nothing but help people who are already in the real estate market, DOESNT help farmers cash in on their land rich cash poor business, and makes liberal hippies feel all warm and fuzzy inside like they did a great job engineering everyone elses live. Stoping urban sprawl is the wet dream of limosine liberals who dont understand economics or live in the real world.

If people were not hungry for homes the developers wouldnt even be in business much less "land hungry" which you could just as easily call "job creation hungry".

Rant over