The Great Ethanol Scam

theodp writes "Over at BusinessWeek, Ed Wallace is creating quite a stir, reporting that not only is ethanol proving to be a dud as a fuel substitute, but there is increasing evidence that it is destroying engines in large numbers. Before lobbyists convince the government to increase the allowable amount of ethanol in fuel to 15%, Wallace suggests it's time to look at ethanol's effect on smog, fuel efficiency, global warming emissions, and food prices. Wallace concedes there will be some winners if the government moves the ethanol mandate to 15% — auto mechanics, for whom he says it will be the dawn of a new golden age."

Comments

Don't blame me,

[Ethanol-fueled]

I just like to drink boooze!

Re:Don't blame me,

[MrNaz]

In Brazil, you can buy your alcohol cheap!

On a more serious note, all this ethanol scare tactics are BS. The problems that ethanol cause with food prices are because the US is using corn as a base source. If they used a more sensible crop like sugar cane it'd be better.

I've been to Brazil, I've seen how well their ethanol infrastructure works. To all you ethanol haters/fear mongers I have only this to say:

It works, bitches.

Re:Don't blame me,

[MrNaz]

"all this ethanol scare tactics are BS"

Holy crap, I'm becoming a real Slashdotter!

Re:Don't blame me,

[mabhatter654]

but the main reason we use corn is that the price of corn is below the cost for the farmer to grow it... and we have square miles of it piled up lying around, that's why it's subsidized. Farmers see ethanol as a way to sell their crop at a PROFIT... imagine that.

The original Model T was designed to run on Ethanol, the idea of Ford was that the farmers could still their own from their own crops. It wasn't until Rockefeller got involved that the political tables turned to oil.. and because of the higher temps of gas engines, they had to use Lead additive as a buffer (which they already knew was poisonous) versus ethanol, which ran cooler but wasn't "flashy".

Re:Don't blame me,

[313373_bot]

In Brazil, ethanol fueled cars reached parity with gasoline-fueled ones still in the 1980's. Brazilian gasoline has about 24% ethanol, and properly designed engines work flawlessly. Nowadays, most cars are flex-fuel, i.e., can take ethanol, gasoline or anything mix of both.

The kind of fear-mongering from TFA = not invented here syndrome + troll.

Re:Don't blame me,

[alberion]

Yeah, I am Brazilian and we have our ethanol program (Pro-alcool) since the 70s. It is true that the Engine needs to be specially prepared to handle ethanol. You can't just put ethanol on a regular gas powered car. In Brazil today, almost all cars run on both Gas and Ethanol. It really does work, and has been working for almost 40 years. Making ethanol out of corn? Newbies!

Re:Don't blame me,

[Anonymous Coward]

In Brazil, ethanol production is a bright star in this world of diminishing petroleum reserves. Alcohol exports reached a record of nearly 1.4 billion gallons last years. Most ethanol is produced from sugar cane. Most sugar cane is cut by hand. It is hard, arduous labour. The "cortadores de cana" (workers) are paid directly based on the quantity of sugar cane they cut - so there is no such thing as holiday pay, sick leave, or coffee breaks. Time not cutting cane is money lost. Now that is the best scenario. Often, slave labour is employed on farms and in sugar cane fields in Brazil. Every month there it seems workers are rescued from another slavery operation. It makes one wonder how much is not discovered. If it is not slavery, it is sugar cane cutters who are paid in drugs. Once addicted to crack cocaine, they'll keep on working for that next fix. Now, the president of Brazil is a very enlightened man, and on the side of the common workers. In fact, his party is called the Workers Party. He is very concerned about the sugar cane cutters - Not at all! One would think the cutters would be the first to benefit from record sugar cane profits, but they are forgotten once they burn themselves out cutting cane. Meanwhile, the big producers get richer off the sweating backs of the workers, and the politicians get richer off the backs of every one. This is what I have heard, anyway. In Brazil, it is best not to say things like this - wiser to post anon.

Re:Don't blame me,

[Zero_DgZ]

The problems with ethanol as a fuel are twofold, though neither problem is insurmountable.

First, ethanol will damage and eventually destroy engines that are not designed to burn it, full stop. It deteriorates rubbers and plastics, notably fuel lines, filters, pumps, etc. but also causes lubrication problems with piston rings, valves, and so forth. Most "late model" cars in the US (the cutoff point for "late model" is sort of nebulous at the moment) are designed to handle up to 15% ethanol content in their fuel. It is a safe bet to assume that any vehicle that does not explicitly state in the manual or marketing literature that it is compatible with higher ethanol concentrations (E85, etc.) is not, in fact, compatible. E85 capability is a huge marketing bullet point these days, and aside from a few very new model vehicles from Chevy and especially Ford, American engines will be damaged by high ethanol concentrations. Full stop. No argument allowed, nor required. Many engines can be converted to run somewhat satisfactorily on ethanol, but most of them do not have a factory conversion and must be converted using third party parts with the usual gamut of quality problems that this often entails. Many, many engines on the road cannot be converted to ethanol at all: Truck engines, high performance engines, bike engines, etc. Also, many older engines ("older" as in 15-20 years, still otherwise perfectly viable vehicles, not to mention all of those even older than that) cannot be converted at all.

On the topic of destroying engines, I can provide experience for a sector nobody's thought much about: Small engines. Lawn mowers, chain saws, weed trimmers, and everything else related. In the small engine shop run by my store, we have seen a marked increase in failures of nearly every fuel related part in the power equipment we service. Fuel lines rotting out within a year of purchase, seals going bad, rings seizing, pistons scoring, and filters clogging. I have personally pulled lawn mower fuel filters from units filled with E15 fuel just packed with fibrous gunk the likes of which I had never seen before the ethanol-laden fuel became popular in my area. I guarantee you that if any piece of gasoline powered equipment runs at all on high-ethanol fuel, it will not do so for long.

The second caveat is that ethanol has lousy energy density compared to gasoline. You get less heat and less energy out of ethanol per gallon than gasoline, and there's no way around it. Converted vehicles will get reduced mileage on ethanol as compared to gasoline. Ethanol-only vehicles will have to have larger tanks or just suffer with less range per tank than comparable gasoline vehicles. If ethanol prices closely follow gasoline prices, even in the short term, it will become a much more expensive proposition than most people anticipate. Likewise, our "barrels per day" number will not be directly transferable from gasoline to ethanol - A considerably larger amount of ethanol will have to be produced, pumped, shipped, and sold compared to gasoline today. This will incur additional cost and add additional complication.

In time, these problems will be solved. But it's going to cost a lot, and the one thing Americans have been known to get sore about in a hurry is some government type coming along and demanding that they get rid of their stuff/spend money/buy a new lawn mower/mothball their classic car because of the Ethanol Revolution. Under the theoretical argument that the whole country goes ethanol eventually, I predict a LOT of resistance to the idea, rallied under banners of "taking away our freedom," "admonishing tradition," "from my cold, dead fingers," and so forth. Some of which, admittedly, will be justified. (Though I'd doubt regular old gasoline will go away any time soon, or indeed at all until we run out of crude oil entirely. Motorheads are die-hard types, many of them are willing to spend lots of money, and someone will crop up to meet that demand. On it goes.)

Re:Don't blame me,

[Anonymous Coward]

I am Brazilian, an engineer and was also an early adopter of the Ethanol technology, having Ethanol cars since 1982. I converted three of my family's cars from Ethanol to Gasoline in 1990 - due to a extreme short supply of Ethanol at that time - when I learn by practicing how different were the cars.

Some information about the Brazilian experience:

- Early on the Brazilian automotive industry realized the alcohol fuel (mostly Ethanol plus some water and other impurities) corroded standard fuel systems. Every part of the fuel system had to be re-engineered, in particular metallic alloys. Note that the players in Brazil at that time were GM, Ford, Volkswagen and Fiat. It strikes me the US automotive industry has not warned consumers about this fact.

- Ethanol packs less energy per mass unit or per volume unit. Nevertheless engines can have higher compression ratios, compensating in part the gross energy deficit by converting more thermal energy into kinetic energy. In fact the addition of Ethanol to gasoline has the positive effect of "elevating its octane index". Pretty much as lead additives used in the past. Overall, similar models prepared to burn alcohol were quicker but they also spent more fuel per mile - other conditions being the same. Which was mostly perceived as a nice trade-off. So in the shot term you will have an engine with less pre-detonation.

- Sugarcane is damn efficient in converting solar energy into sugar. Moreover most sugarcane crops are be located in tropical (by definition) ares. Compare the solar power received in Latitude 36 with Latitude 23. The US Ethanol energy output is double handicapped, both by a low quality crop (for the purpose of producing alcohol) and by a lot less solar power.

- Ethanol fuel generates different pollutants. In particular it generates aldehydes. There is smog after all, although of a different quality.

Besides, the fuel consumption in Brazil is a fraction of the US. There are less cars there and they tend to be a lot smaller - and more economical. The Brazilian Ethanol program success cannot not be remotely considered to be a model for the US. The US have other energy sources that make a lot more sense, such as coal and natural gas.

I have believed the US Ethanol program is a lot wishful thinking fueled by quite questionable agendas. As the article says.

 

Re:Don't blame me,

[lintocs]

Of course, the Model-T had no plastics to contend with. I sincerely doubt the veracity of some of the assertions of this article. The 10% ethanol that's currently in gasoline has no appreciable impact on fuel economy, and the alcohol content dries the fuel, which is helpful in damp/cool climates to offset condensation. I think we all know ethanol from corn is a money loser. The "net energy loss" argument is spurious, however. Charging a battery is a net energy loser, but is anyone suggesting batteries are a bad idea? We need a portable form of energy for the internal combustion engine, and we have to pay a "tax" in order to change the state of that energy from something we have to something we need. Brazil runs all of their cars (a lot of old vehicles, I might add) on 100% ethanol. The problem here is finite-life engineering; Parts, like plastic fuel pumps, that are designed to fail after the warranty runs out (5-8 years). Detroit used to rely on rust to make people buy new cars (remember the 70s?), but people quickly realized that a paint + patch was cheaper than replacing the car, as long as it was mechanically sound, and no-one pays a dealer to do that. Now they charge you 900$ for 6$ worth of plastic...

Re:Don't blame me,

[matt20102]

Of course, to do this today a farmer would need to file applications with the government for the 'right' to distill fuel for his own use from his own crops. To distill alcohol for personal use without a fuel permit or to, gasp! drink it , would be a federal offense.

Re:Don't blame me,

[Anonymous Coward]

"Brazil runs all of their cars (a lot of old vehicles, I might add) on 100% ethanol."

*Cough* Bullshit *Cough*

According to Wikipedia:

There are no longer any light vehicles in Brazil running on pure gasoline. Since 1976 the government made it mandatory to blend anhydrous ethanol with gasoline, fluctuating between 10% to 22%.[12] and requiring just a minor adjustment on regular gasoline motors. In 1993 the mandatory blend was fixed by law at 22% anhydrous ethanol (E22) by volume in the entire country, but with leeway to the Executive to set different percentages of ethanol within pre-established boundaries. In 2003 these limits were set at a minimum of 20% and a maximum of 25%.[13] Since July 1st, 2007 the mandatory blend is 25% of anhydrous ethanol and 75% gasoline or E25 blend.[14]

Re:Don't blame me,

[donaldm]

Thank god the "bio-oil" craze didn't take off, where they tried to fuel cars with canola seed oil. The whole car smelled like you dumped week old McDonald fries in the trunk.

You are joking right, bio diesel is much more viable than alcohol. Actually diesel bio or fossil is cheaper and more economic to produce than petrol even with ethanol added. When you look at haulage trucks you normally see diesel and if the price of diesel goes up then haulage costs go up and so does the cost of living. Why would haulage use diesel? Well there are numerous reasons and the best are it's cheaper to run and the engine is very very reliable.

I run a diesel car and I get better fuel economy and produce less green house gases than the equivalent petrol engine. Smell? what smell, noise? what noise. Surprisingly even though the power of my engine is much lower than it's petrol equivalent it torque is so much higher that I have to be careful not to spin my wheels when I take off and this usually surprises many people when I out accelerate them by 3 to 4 car lengths in a 60 kph (35 mph) zone (no I don't exceed this although the pissed of driver does just to overtake me) without really trying. Of course a direct shift gear box does help.

Re:Don't blame me,

[tgd]

You're sort of right -- I assume you're peripherally involved with the use of E85 in the hot rod community, but haven't done it yourself.

From experience, its a pain in the balls to convert an engine to run on it. You lose a lot of horsepower, and you have to basically replace all the fuel lines, rejet the carb (if you can use the carb at all -- E85 is corrosive to aluminum, too).

Where it becomes interesting is when you build a new motor -- you can run a higher compression without having to run 100+ octane fuel, on smaller engines you can turbocharge with higher boost, but you have to do one of the two to get around the fact that you're producing a lot less power.

And you'll never EVER produce more power than gasoline with Ethanol. You can build an engine to burn more of it at a higher compression than you can with standard gasoline, but gallon for gallon you simply can't get more power with it. Gearheads prefer it to 100, or 110 octane because its not $7/gallon, so even if they burn 50-100% more of it, they still come out ahead.

Re:Don't blame me,

[Markspark]

yeah, and you got it completely backwards, what he says is that all cars run on some degree of ethanol mixed gasoline, but some cars run on pure ethanol. Nowhere does the wiki article refute his claim.

Re:Don't blame me,

[BubbaDave]

E10 indeed drops mileage 5 to 10%, and you are MORE prone to having water problems in the fuel system, as moisture can come into your system via the fuel (in solution in the alcohol).

Not to mention that any engine with an open loop control system (mowers, weedwackers, 90% of all motorcycles) will have their fuel mixture leaned out (the more ethanol, the more fuel-rich the mixture needs to be). This need for a richer mixture is what drives the mileage decrease.

This causes poor running, overheating, stalling, and on engines that are already running excessively lean from the factory to meet emissions requirements there is a real risk of engine damage.

I lived the transition from E0 to E10 back in connecticut, so not only does thermodynamics say there is a mileage loss, so does experience.

Dave

Ethanol is just stupid

[cyberspittle]

Instead of using corn (worse than sugar cane), soy beans and bio diesel would be beter. I always thought that diesel engines get better mileage.

Re:Ethanol is just stupid

[gringofrijolero]

Yes, it is stupid. But it's very well connected politically. Like always, it's about bringing home the bacon. The farmers thought they had a winner.

Re:Ethanol is just stupid

[WheelDweller]

Engines with super-refined fuel always get worse gas mileage.

See, the crude oil is heated in a stack; the tar-like parts stay at the bottom, the lighter fuels find their way up. The thicker stuff at the bottom is MUCH more densely packed with energy- that's where the diesel is. It's 'cruder' (notice it almost doesn't WANT to burn) but it actually carries nore BTU-power per drop. Refine it more, to where it almost wants to burn when ya touch it, and it won't have so much power anymore.

Oil is neat stuff; you might find the Discovery Channel's "Modern Marvels: Oil" episode to be an eye-opener.

And BTW: Rush Limbaugh has been noticing this same thing with ethanol. It's messing up the corn market and Mt Dew now has "Throwback" to make use of the now-cheaper cane sugar as an alternative.

Isn't life wonderful when we just let the government do things? :

Re:Ethanol is just stupid

[sreid]

love to mod you up on the diesel rant but no mod points.. btw using corn will affect Fritos prices so not a good idea

Re:Ethanol is just stupid

[gringofrijolero]

You can extract ethanol from bacon?

Dunno.. But you might do better to extract and burn the grease. Porcine liposuction will be the next big thing.

Re:Ethanol is just stupid

[blahplusplus]

"Isn't life wonderful when we just let the government do things? :"

Just because the government makes mistakes does not mean the free market doesn't, there's plenty of mistakes both of them make and I wish the anti-government types would realize just how many free market failurs there out out there.

Nothing is perfect, the idea that there is some ideal perfect system or ideology is bullshit.

Re:Ethanol is just stupid

[digitalunity]

Refined corn sugars(LFCS, HFCS) were only ever cheaper because of tariffs on cane sugar, FYI.

Re:Ethanol is just stupid

[Hadlock]

Ethanol is a politician's dream agenda item. Especially if you are running for, or plan to run for president. Why? What state has the first presidential caucus, potentially the most important point in the presidential race*? I'll give you a hint: they grow corn
 
Ethanol is the great green hoax of politics. It's clearly not the best solution, but by god, it will help you hugely when it comes time to run for president. The price of corn has what? Almost doubled? Since we forced Americans to use 15% corn fuel (ethanol) in our gas for cars and trucks. Now that the flyover states are entitled to all this extra money coming their way, do you think any politician would ever dare take that away from them, effectively removing them forever from presidential candidacy. That's like admitting you're openly gay or like to club baby seals in political circles.
 
*selecting insane, hunting moose from a helicopter female governors as VPs exempted

Re:Ethanol is just stupid

[Werkhaus]

Dunno.. But you might do better to extract and burn the grease. Porcine liposuction will be the next big thing.

There is a massive environmental downside to this. The exhaust fumes will smell of frying bacon and as a result, city centers will be awash with drool.

Re:Ethanol is just stupid

[Ralph Spoilsport]

Isn't life wonderful when we just let the government do things? :

Umm, the American Ethanol Debacle is not a product of government, as much as it is a product of government corrupted by private interests, in this case the mid-western corn lobby.

Corn Ethanol in general is an OK fuel, if you use it within a short distance of where it was made. It's Energy Return On Energy Invested (EROEI) is so low that you end up burning up all your energy profit transporting it. IIRC, it has an EROEI of (at best) 1.5 to 2. Many studies show it has a negative EROEI. (Pimentel et al)

Other forms of ethanol require technologies that don't exist yet (algae etc.) or massive amounts of land to be cleared for energy crops (viz sugar, soybeans) that would better be used FEEDING PEOPLE rather than schlepping fat suburbanites in their SUVs three blocks to go pick up a pack of smokes and some beer.

Ethanol IS a scam.

And not even a very smart one.

RS

Re:Ethanol is just stupid

[prisoner-of-enigma]

Just because the government makes mistakes does not mean the free market doesn't, there's plenty of mistakes both of them make and I wish the anti-government types would realize just how many free market failurs there out out there.

The problem with your reasoning is that when a free-market entity produces an inferior product, service, or solution, it will eventually fail. This is actually a good thing, as it weeds out (most of) the idiots, making room for others with better ideas to flourish. There is no permanent winner, as even today's top of the heap must innovate and compete or risk being dethroned tomorrow. Even Microsoft, for all its seeming omnipotence and monopolistic behavior, would have failed long ago had it not finally gotten off its duff to address -- however imperfectly -- things like Linux, OS/2, WordPerfect, Lotus 1-2-3, and so forth. It's not perfect, and such "market evolutionary pressure" doesn't always happen quickly, but if left alone (i.e. free of government interference) it will always self-correct and product a superior situation.

Government, on the other hand, has no such failsafe. Inefficient, ineffective, insufficient programs are the norm, not the exception. Why? Government is the only state-sanctioned monopoly that can have no real competition, short of a voter revolution. If government fails to make its budget, it does not go bankrupt, it merely raises taxes until the numbers meet up again. Or prints money and waits for hyperinflation to effectively shrink a multi-trillion dollar debt while utterly destroying the life savings of its citizens. Or both, as we're eagerly doing today under Obamanomics. But short of going belly up entirely and leaving people in anarchy, government never has to worry about going out of business. It just has to worry about getting 51% of the voters to force the other 49% to pay more taxes to support them. And unlike a free market, government can legally use force to make you participate in their shoddy products and Ponzi schemes like Social Security. Free markets must convince you to voluntarily consume their products instead of a competitor's.

Re:Ethanol is just stupid

[Afforess]

I wish the anti-government types would realize just how many free market failurs there out out there.

The free market's whole point is to kill failures, so no doubt there is many. The parent's point was when the government leads a "helping" hand to failures that it only hurts consumers in the end.

Re:Ethanol is just stupid

[Afforess]

Umm, the American Ethanol Debacle is not a product of government

Sure it is, the only reason the industry had a chance was because of big government subsidies. It was always a money loser, but the government saved them.

Re:Ethanol is just stupid

[The_Quinn]

the American Ethanol Debacle is not a product of government, as much as it is a product of government corrupted by private interests, in this case the mid-western corn lobby.

The way to avoid government corruption by private interests is to have a complete separation of state and economics, just as - and for the same reason - as the separation of church and state.

Re:Ethanol is just stupid

[alchemist68]

I remember reading quite some time ago that some cars, specifically with turbochargers, and the right computer programming can reap some benefit of using alcohol. Saab, where most if not all of their cars are turbo charged, in the last few years has a smart computer that can tell what type of fuel being burned and adjusts the boost accordingly. Don't know if the extra boost required to reap the benefits of EtOH causes more wear and tear, but I would suspect so. Diesel and bio-diesel are better alternatives to gasoline, especially since diesel is made differently now. The Volkswagon Jetta with a 4-cylinder turbo diesel (2.0L) can accelerate as fast as a V6 and it doesn't produce all of the black exhaust that diesels of yesteryear did. Diesel engines are more expensive to build because of the high heat and torque they produce.

I think the American auto industry needs to wake up and start engineering its vehicles for the highest mileage possible by using diesel and hybrid and stop reducing the amount of plastic and sound insulation in cars. It's easy to reduce weight by cutting plastic and sound insulation, which leads to interiors falling apart prematurely and driving the public to foreign vehicles.

I own a 1999 Saab 93 and really like the car - low maintenance, but service is expensive. Also, it's not rusting anywhere. Recently Yahoo recommended Saab and Volvo as excellent cars to own long-term because, well, they last a long time and are built well. YouTube has a few videos of some suped-up Saabs in drag races. One, is a recent All-Wheel Drive 2000-year body style that fries all 4 tires most spectacularly - and it's done with a 4-cylinder turbocharged engine.

Re:Ethanol is just stupid

[Darkness404]

I don't have to pay for the free market's mistakes. If a company creates a horrible product I don't have to buy it, I don't have to support that company. Whenever the government creates a product thats horrible I still have to pay for it even if I don't use it.

The free market is perfect in the fact that everyone gets what they deserve*. If I feel like releasing a product no one wants, fine, but then I go broke. If I don't feel like doing anything but eating potato chips thats fine, I just will soon be making friends with Bob the three fingered hobo out on the street. If I make a groundbreaking invention I can sell it and make a bunch of money.

There really are no flaws for the average person in the free market economy. So long as the government protects from fraud and force, everyone gets what they deserve. Its fair.

Re:Ethanol is just stupid

[sortius_nod]

Actually, no, using any food crop for fuel is a bad idea. This ensures that the 3rd world are always starving by removing food crops for consumption and replacing them with crops that go into rich 1st world nations' cars.

Case in point, I recently visited south western Thailand, while flying into the area and driving around you notice that there are NO rice fields, vegetable patches, or even grazing land for animals. It has all been converted into palm plantations for bio fuels. The palms are unable to be used for food due to being bred purely for the oils - no fruit, nothing.

On top of this, the amount of workers drops to almost 0 when running a palm oil farm - you only need workers at harvest and planting time which can be up to 5 years between. You do not need anyone to tend to the plantation at all during the growing cycle. So you end up with one person/family owning and profiting from the land while the rest of the village/region starve and/or live in poverty.

I am an environmentalist myself, but I will never agree with ANY bio fuels being used. This doesn't solve the issue at hand, which isn't the supply of fossil fuels, but the effect of any combustion fuels. Driving the price of food up in under developed nations to satisfy your own desire to feel warm and gooey inside is inexcusable.

Re:Ethanol is just stupid

[MillionthMonkey]

The problem with your reasoning is that when a free-market entity produces an inferior product, service, or solution, it will eventually fail.

Like the private health insurance industry, which works so well that half the American public wants to replace it with socialism.

Re:Ethanol is just stupid

[10101001 10101001]

The problem with your reasoning is that when a free-market entity produces an inferior product, service, or solution, it will eventually fail.

People, good or bad, eventually die. Companies, good or bad, eventually bankrupt. Governments, good or bad, eventually collapse. In the mean time, murderers run free, inferior (potentially lethal) products reign, and corrupt governments loot the pulic. It is idealistic to believe that free markets are some magically solution to the ills of any field. People are not always rational, they lack perfect information, and even rationality (as part of game theory) isn't reasonable, at times, to one's own self-interest. Simply put, free markets can't exist with humans, and they don't really want them; they want a magical panacea that fulfills various contradictions. Such a thing obviously can't exist. But, mixed markets do at least approach the ideals of the vast majority of people. Not everyone truly understands the free market concept well enough to know that, though.

Re:Ethanol is just stupid

[artor3]

Yeah, the free market has worked out so well over the past several months. It certainly hasn't had an adverse affect on the entire population of the first world. No-sir-ee.

Newsflash: All society is linked. If someone over there fucks up bad enough, it'll hurt you over here. Shutting you eyes and praying for the invisible hand of the free market won't save you.

Regulation is essential. The ethanol subsidies are idiotic and should end, but making the free market out to be some sort of panacea is childish.

Re:Ethanol is just stupid

[Miseph]

Solution: move to Somalia. Government free since '92.

Best of luck.

Re:Ethanol is just stupid

[duffbeer703]

Can you say, "Amtrak"?

Clueless people always trot out Amtrak as the poster child for government waste. But let's think about this for a second...

Hmm... Amtrak consolidated failing passenger rail companies after...
- The government spent trillions of dollars building a "free" interstate highway system with features like 30,000 bridges that need to be replaced within 35 years of construction. (ie. now)
- Tax policy encouraged and subsidized suburban development at the expense of the cities and close suburbs best served by mass transit
- Local government invested billions to build airports in those suburbs

Amtrak does an amazing job at providing a service giving the funding challenges and the political maze that they have to traverse to continue operating. Amtrak is only an example of "hurting consumers in the long run" in the same sense that the highway system and resulting sprawl is.

Re:Ethanol is just stupid

[HangingChad]

The problem with your reasoning is that when a free-market entity produces an inferior product, service, or solution, it will eventually fail.

Ironic you pick Microsoft as an example. The most non-competitive products in the IT world.

The problem with that argument is that what we have is not a free market. It's series of cartels. That's why we spend more than twice as much on health care as other industrialized countries and get treatment closer to the bottom of the scale. Because there are so many entrenched cartels in the health care industry. It's why we have the worst cellular service outside of Nigeria and why banks and credit card companies still run Washington.

New industries might start out competitive but once they get to a certain size, they start bending the rules in their own favor. Using unfair practices to freeze out competition, getting sweetheart legislation pushed through Congress, buying influence.

You free market preachers are just naive. The only free markets are also fair markets. And if you think what we have today is a fair market, you need to pass the bong. Government is the only entity that has the ability to groom a competitive marketplace. What we have today is what happens when government stops doing that job for 10 years. The rich get richer and there's no accountability for cheating. Economic collapse follows right after.

Inefficient government programs are the truism, not necessarily the reality. With some notable and widely publicized exceptions. But the fact you ignore is that without government, without a referee to control the game, our economic system has a very short lifespan. And yet you keep on with 30 year old economic theory in the face of economic meltdown while your 401K loses 65%. I don't think I want advice on government or managing markets from you.

Re:Ethanol is just stupid

[TarrVetus]

Free markets must convince you to voluntarily consume their products instead of a competitor's.

To paraphrase: Free markets make business ventures. Governments make binding laws.

One is voluntary, and is not legally required to continue. The other will hit you with a fine or send you to a prison if you try to violate it.



The ugliest scenarios are when government starts mingling with, controlling, or becoming business. Then it's just an illusion of free choice in a wrapper with a smiley face. The corruption is not only rampant, but can be buried so deep in the system, itself, that you can't tell what is corruption, and what is the real government, anymore.

Re:Ethanol is just stupid

[dr2chase]

The free market does a piss-poor job of dealing with external costs (those not paid by the consumer), and the government is the appropriate mechanism for connecting the costs back to the people who create them. The problem, in this case, is that the government is imperfect and got more or less hijacked by the farm lobby (and this is hardly the only time this has happened).

A better approach would simply be to impose a GHG tax -- taxes on the various gasses, for the various industries that produce them. According to the work I've read by Pimentel, that would probably kill corn ethanol, because fertilizer would get much more expensive. There's a chance they could thread the needle by using the sugar-depleted byproducts to feed cattle, which would in turn be less gassy, and which would reduce their GHG tax.

For some discussion of food production (which gives some idea of the GHG production of farming corn), see Eschel and Martin, Diet, Energy, and Global Warming

Re:Ethanol is just stupid

[Ralph Spoilsport]

No no no. It was not a money loser, if you're making something of value. But if you're making fuel, it's not super profitable. The corn lobby saw the "good press" the Brazilians were getting with sugar ethanol, and saw an opportunity to buy off the government to fork over huge sums to their pockets.

The U.S. govt is owned and operated by large corporations who are in the process of looting the treasury by insisting on subsidies: corporate welfare. The govt didn't "save" ethanol - the ethanol lobby simply got on the gravy train. Given the political importance of Iowa in presidential elections, and the over-representation of low population rural states in the Senate, (Wyoming gets the same as NY, CA, TX, etc.) and the importance of certain politicians from those states on key committees, the ethanol lobby had an easier time pulling money than a crackhead could stick up a 7-11 for twenty bucks and a bigGulp.

You have it exactly backwards: Govt didn't save the ethanol industry. the ethanol industry simply muscled their way in and grabbed the cash. Government isn't the problem here - it's the LACK of government that's the problem. It's the spinelessness of the Democratic party that's always on its knees blowing their donors, and the corruption of the Republicans doling out billions to their frat brothers.

RS

Re:Ethanol is just stupid

[DrgnDancer]

And in fact when you look at the similarly government subsidized railroad systems in Europe, where the other factors you mention either don't exist or are mitigated by geography, they are largely successful. Free market purists always seem to portray Europe as some sort of example of the failure of limited socialism and mixed markets, but frankly I've never understood this. Germany, France and Britain are all lovely countries with economies just as strong (though obviously not as large) as the US. If I had to pick a place to be rich, I'd totally chose the US, that's true. If I had to pick a place to be poor or middle class though I'd probably pick one of the stronger European economies. Since the vast majority of us are not rich, why should we chose a system that clearly favors the people already most privileged?

Re:Ethanol is just stupid

[DigiShaman]

You have it exactly backwards: Govt didn't save the ethanol industry. the ethanol industry simply muscled their way in and grabbed the cash. Government isn't the problem here - it's the LACK of government that's the problem. It's the spinelessness of the Democratic party that's always on its knees blowing their donors, and the corruption of the Republicans doling out billions to their frat brothers.

Wha, hold on their cowboy!

The government most certainly failed *because* both parties who run it are a bunch of money grubbing grab asses. But you want to know who's really at fault? The voter. Some how in some places, we collectively keep voting these bastards back in office.

Re:Ethanol is just stupid

[bit01]

The problem with your reasoning is that when a free-market entity produces an inferior product, service, or solution, it will eventually fail.

No it won't. If it has the means to compete negatively, by bringing the competition down, rather than positively, by bringing it's own product up, it can easily last indefinitely.

You are implicitly pushing the myth of the "pure free market". That's simply warlordism, might makes right. All functioning, good markets need law, both written and unwritten, to stop all the negative ways that people can compete (e.g. deceptive advertising, monopoly rents, incomplete information, excessive transaction costs, externalities etc.), while still allowing the positive ways that people can compete (e.g. improving product, reducing prices etc.).

Or to put it another way for some things one person, one vote, works better than one dollar, one vote. Both are accountable despite what you claim. And you think tyranny of the majority sucks? Perhaps so but it's better than the only alternative, tyranny of a minority.

---

You communist! Breathing shared air!

Re:Ethanol is just stupid

[Xonstantine]

The difference is, when a government program fails, the solution is never terminating the program, but instead giving the program more money.

Re:Ethanol is just stupid

[bendodge]

Newsflash: Freddy and Fanny are Government-Sponsored Enterprises, not free market entities!

Re:Ethanol is just stupid

[TheLink]

"Third, you just proved his point. Somalia has a significantly higher per capita GDP than four other African countries with governments."

From your link Somalia is fourth from _last_ in estimated GDP (USD600). Zimbabwe is last at about USD200 per capita.

If anarchy only does 3 times better than Mugabe, I don't see how one can responsibly recommend anarchy.

Anyway, anarchy is usually a very temporary state. Anarchy (and violent revolution[1]) in most cases ends up creating dictatorships. In a state where lots of people are being violent to each other (or there's no ruling entity stopping people from doing that), the one who can exert and control the most violence, will rise to the top. It takes a rare person or group to freely relinquish that power once they have it by that means[2].

[1] Like those proposed by Marx and friends.

[2] There are lots of people who would give up power, but they're are rarely the sort who'd go get power in the first place by getting lots of people killed.

Re:Ethanol is just stupid

[Lunzo]

First, Whoosh! Second, Free market libertarianism if it ever got into power would set up the government to fail by stripping it of almost all its power to govern. Third, 5th last in the world on GDP still isn't a good place to be. Hardly a convincing argument for free market economics.

Re:Ethanol is just stupid

[Drishmung]

Germany, France and Britain are all lovely countries with economies just as strong (though obviously not as large) as the US.

Except that we need to compare with Europe as a whole, not just the states within the community.

According to Wolfram (this seems the sort of question it works well with), GDP for USA is $13.78T and Europe is $17.95T

Re:Ethanol is just stupid

[ScottBob]

Actually, the U.S. military has switched to burning JP-8, which is somewhere between diesel fuel and kerosene in everything that rolls or flies, from tanks, bulldozers, generators, humvees, and transport trucks to helicopters, cargo aircraft, bombers and jet fighters. Previously, the military used JP-4 in aircraft and no. 2 fuel oil for ground use. JP-4 is a wider "cut" than kerosene, and is similar to naptha or lighter fluid in its consistency and flammability, and can't be used in some diesel engines. One demonstration I remembered seeing when I was in the Army was when a match was thrown in a pan containing JP-4, Whoom! The fuel burst into flame as if it was gasoline, but when a match was thrown in a pan of JP-8, it went out. The reason for the switch was not just for safety, but to simplify logistics- everything drinks from the same tap. JP-8 was the compromise that would burn in any engine, turbine or diesel. JP-8 can also used in heaters. (BTW, most diesel engines will burn civilian Jet-A jet fuel without modification, and with no ill effects.)

Re:Ethanol is just stupid

[anss123]

And that half happens to be the 51% that are being paid for by the 49%.

From what I've heard those 49% are already paying more health care tax than us evil socialist Europeans HA HA HA *Twirls mustache*

Living in Iowa...

[GilliamOS]

It's next to impossible to find a gas station that does not have Ethanol in it's fuel. It doesn't help that two huge ADM plants are with in 90 minutes of where I live. Regardless, there is a single Shell station in the area that has 93 octane V-power that is without ethanol. The cost different of $0.30/gal is offset by the noticeable decrease in fuel consumption, increased power, and smoothing the idle. Yes, my car is tuned to require at least 91 octane.

Re:Living in Iowa...

[ScrewMaster]

I have mentioned this before, but it strikes me as wasteful in modern car engines that the engine is run hot enough to cause the burning of nitrogen.

The greater the thermal differential between the input and output sides of a heat engine, the more energy you can extract from the fuel. Run the engine significantly cooler, and you may decrease some emissions (and increase others) but you'll lose some conversion efficiency.

Average

[olsmeister]

"Does the average citizen understand what this means?" No. Does the average /.er?

Re:Average

[jd]

/.ers are fractal, so the average is undefined.

May be the beginning of the end..

[DavidHumus]

..if this NY Times editorial is a sign of the times: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/24/opinion/24sun2.htm .

Basically, it says that the ethanol lobbyists are fighting back against the EPA attempting to do its job by actually measuring the effects of ethanol as fuel.

Fuel vs Food

[lobiusmoop]

More than anything, this cartoon puts me off the whole ethanol idea. It still creeps me out seeing it again now.

Re:Fuel vs Food

[spydabyte]

But it's not Fuel vs. Food. The corn companies are not taking Corn that can be used for food, and the price of corn is not going up because of the production of Ethanol. Sugar cane, for instance, is being turned much more effectively into Ethanol.

The problem with Ethanol is that it doesn't work. It takes more Oil to produce and distribute Ethanol.

This is a clear case of lobbying on both sides. The scientific facts need to be gathered, which a commenter said above. I would argue that not pushing Ethanol R&D is destroying our chances for alternative fuel sources. Clean coal and clean air is the real solution, but destroying any R&D, even for a temp-solution, is definitely not a solution.

Re:Fuel vs Food

[Xabraxas]

No one thinks the corn they use for ethanol could be used for food instead but the land that it is being grown on could be growing food instead. Subsidies for ethanol brings in more money than growing food. This means there is less food being grown and sold. A lower supply with the same or growing demand is going to drive prices up.

Re:Fuel vs Food

[chimpo13]

People don't starve to death because of lack of food in the world. Yes, that makes no sense. They starve because of lack of infrastructure to get them food.

Local failure means no easy to access food, but warlords and other people out for a buck, hold up food in ports to distribute it at a profit. Without the profit they want, they let it rot at the dock.

Still, the cartoon is good but misleading.

E85

[ensjoeski]

E85 is garbage. Why do you think the government has to subsidize it by about 40 cents per gallon? If it was that good of a fuel, it could stand on its own. Corn / Farm lobby + enviro wackos = total failure.

Re:E85

[DarrenBaker]

E85 is actually a great fuel... For cars designed to run on it. The Koenigsegg CCX, for example, will run at 806 bhp in standard gasoline tune, but when you fill the tank with E85, you get 1018 bhp, no foolin'!

Ethanol is a really high octane fuel, which makes engineers quiver with delight, because they can predict, with much higher certainty than low-octane fuel, when and how much of it will detonate. Perfect for those tight tolerances in highly-strung engines.

Re:E85

[Anonymous Coward]

Honorary mention to the sugar lobby. By blocking sugar imports, a few jobs are saved, and many more are lost as virtually all candy is now manufactured in Canada or Mexico (where sugar is only half as expensive). Other food manufacturers switched to corn syrup, which is subsidized thanks to the farm lobby.

Given the shenanigans that go on in washington DC, I don't know why anyone wants them more involved, in healthcare, banking, wallstreet, automobiles, or anywhere.

Re:E85

[eln]

I don't think the bone of contention with ethanol has anything to do with how good a fuel it is. The issue is what the trade-off is. Because we are using so much corn for ethanol, we have less corn to sell as food, which mean corn prices go up. Increases in food prices, and especially scarcity, tend to hurt the poorest among us first. As a result, we have food shortages where none existed before, and people that were just barely getting by are now starving.

In this month's National Geographic there's a lengthy story on food shortages, particularly how our ever-increasing population already demands more food than we can produce, and the problem is only getting worse. Without a revolution in food producing technology, we could be facing regular and ever more severe famines. Given this, is it really in our best interest to use our food crops to power personal automobiles?

There are better ways to produce energy in a sustainable and environmentally friendly way. Ethanol was an idea that sounded okay at first, but clearly doesn't scale, and we need to stop screwing around with it and put our focus into things that show more promise.

Re:E85

[daemonburrito]

The ad hom aside, I've never met an "enviro wacko" who supported corn ethanol.

In fact, anyone who's given any thought to it at all, and subscribes to the wacko idea that our civilization can't handle environmental upheaval of the scale predicted by real scientists... is against the idea of using our topsoil to power our craptacular personal transport. No "enviro wacko" supports an energy infrastructure that damages topsoil that is already in trouble (guess what black gooey stuff is the raw material for organics re-introduced to soil overworked to sterility?) and probably makes the GHG problem worse. And what functional human being wants to use food resources to power Cadillac Escalades?

In other words, you can't blame those of us who think the biosphere of our planet is required for our continued survival (wacky, right?). However, feel free to blame jingoists who marketed this monstrosity as "energy security".

just tax carbon

[gravesb]

Stop the subsidies, tax carbon to account for externalities, and then let the market decide. The negative effects of biofuels have been on display ever since the Dutch dropped palm oil. Instead of the government pushing this obviously failed product, they should make sure that consumers bear the entire cost of their decisions and let companies develop a way to reduce fossil fuel consumption. And less biofuels means the price of my beer goes down, dammit! Won't someone think of my beer?

it's not ethanol itself

[Knux]

it's not ethanol itself, it's just the way US produce it... none of those arguments would apply to sugar cane. about the engines, brazil is using pure ethanol for quite sometime and it just doesn't destroy the engines the way tfa implies. if it's happening on US, maybe you should take another look at the auto industries.

Re:it's not ethanol itself

[Anonymous Coward]

My car runs on both gas with 15% ethanol and pure ethanol. Our ethanol is made from sugar cane.

It used to decrease the life of some parts, engine and others, but now cars manufactured in Brazil simply have parts prepared to deal with the extra strain.

Most extremist arguments are just wrong. This is the case.

Re:it's not ethanol itself

[Anonymous Coward]

Uhmm the REASON it's destroying engines is because of design decisions that work for gasoline that DON'T work for E85. 85% ethanol as far as I've been lead to understand REQUIRES Stainless fuel system/valvetrain parts in order to avoid excessively wearing an engine (in addition to being conductive, something that may not be appreciated in fuel-cooled fuel pumps.) This, along with differing fuel maps is the reason ford/gm had seperate vehicle packages for 'flex fuel' vehicles for so many years, and why even nowadays not all cars can/should be run on it.

It's not simply a matter of being 'inferior' fuel for automobiles, it's a matter of inferior engines being forced to use a fuel they can't handle (much like trying to retrofit a gas engine block for diesel instead of building a much more robust diesel oriented engine from the ground up...)

Sugar cane not corn

[Metapsyborg]

The only thing wrong with ethanol is that big corporate farms are subsidized to make corn ethanol. If the U.S. just allowed the importation of sugar cane ethanol from countries like Brazil, then it would be a great thing.

If you've spent any time in Brazil, you will see that ethanol is just fine for internal combustion engines. They've almost exclusively used ethanol for the last ten years. Now maybe there's an argument about "flex fuel" but that is just a transitional fuel type. Once we can import environmentally and economically friendly sugar cane ethanol it won't be a problem any more.

Re:Sugar cane not corn

[vbraga]

I'm sorry, but your argument is bullshit.

At first, ethanol in Brazilian fuel is nothing more than a subside for northeastern Brazilian farmers, just like it is a subside for US corn farmers. It's not economically friendly. It's a more like a farming sweat shop. Northeastern Brazil is, by far, the country more backwards place. Workers live in substandard conditions and slavery is not really uncommon in poorest places.

At second, it's not environmentally friendly. Sugar cane is burned before being harvest. Particulates and smoke are really bad for neighbor population. Lack of crop rotation impoverishes the soil.

I'm a Brazilian myself and, obviously, new exports are always welcome. But not sugar cane. Let it die. It's just a way for the the country semi feudal elite to keep exploiting poor people, like it's being doing since 1500. Let the soil grow food. It's not a solution. It never was.

Re:Sugar cane not corn

[hagnat]

At first, ethanol in Brazilian fuel is nothing more than a subside for northeastern Brazilian farmers

A picture is worth a thousand words.

Re:Sounds like a crock ...

[DarrenBaker]

It doesn't have to be a linear curve, dude. It could be 30% at 15%, and 50% at 90%.

Not saying anything about the veracity of the article, just sayin'.

Engine damage due to cars that are not prepared

[Lonewolf666]

According to TFA, in many cases fuel lines or fuel pumps have been destroyed by fuel with increased ethanol content.

This seems credible because similar problems are known with biodiesel (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biodiesel#Material_compatibility). But there are materials that can handle the ethanol, they just need to be used in new cars and eventually most cars in existence will have them.

The real question is how large the net energy gain from using ethanol actually is. If TFA's assertion that it is a net energy loser are correct, that would be a far bigger problem.

Ethanol

[Neon Aardvark]

It doesn't matter that bio-ethanol always was so utterly bone-headed from a thermo-dynamic and food-price point of view (and now this as well) - utterly wrong, right from the start, with back of the envelope calculations.

Some people can make vast amounts of money out of it under cover of doing the "right thing" morally (much like the war on drugs), and hence it gets government support.

Re:Sounds like a crock ...

[the_humeister]

The part I loved most about the steaming biased crock of crap that is the article is the comment that E85 (15% Ethanol) means a 30% drop in mileage.

So E0 (100% ethanol) would be a drop of 200% in mileage? Does that mean you fuel with Ethanol and your car goes backwards?

Hate to burst your bubble, but E85 is 85% ethanol. And it's quite apparent that you know nothing of math or energy density. The energy density of ethanol is about 26 MJ/kg whereas the energy density of gasoline is almost twice that at about 45 MJ/kg. So to answer your last quesion, you'd most likely get less than half the mileage out of your car if you used E100 (100% ethanol). BTW E0 is 0% ethanol, ie pure gasoline.

Not news.

[rabiddeity]

Oh, so using a fuel different from the fuel specified by the manufacturer can destroy your engine. I don't think that's news. Ethanol is corrosive to plastic and rubber. If the pumps are spitting out higher than 10% ethanol, the chain of responsibility is pretty damn clear. Sue the gas seller.

Anyone who has done ethanol conversions for internal combustion engines (ICEs) can tell you that the conversion requires replacement of plastic and rubber hoses in the fuel system with stainless braided hose. Obviously if the system isn't originally designed for more than 10% ethanol there will be problems.

But the problem isn't with ethanol per se. While it doesn't contain as much energy per liter as straight gasoline, that never stopped gasoline from taking off in favor of diesel's increased energy per liter. Ethanol makes fuel octane ratings go through the roof, which means you can tune the engine to run leaner under acceleration. Even running under boost you can often run leaner than 12 AFR with E85.

I don't agree with the subsidies from the corn lobby, but attacking ethanol because "it destroys engines which weren't designed to run on ethanol" is frankly a stupid tack.

Makes a decent turbo fuel

[DG]

Actually, the increased effective octane of E85 means that it is much more detonation resistant than pure pump gas. That means you can run a lot more turbo boost than you'd normally be able to get away with on a "street" fuel.

You have to increase injector size quite a bit to offset the lower energy per volume, but with all the extra air crammed into the motor at high boost values, the net result is a metric assload of power from a freely available fuel.

Making 500 HP out of a turbo 2 litre street motor is entirely doable running this fuel. I had to run 118 octane C16 race fuel (at $10 US / gal) to get similar performance.

DG

Alcohol as fuel source.

[Volanin]

Here in Brazil we have been using alcohol as a fuel source for years. When you go to a gas station, it is guaranteed that you will find both a gasoline pump and an alcohol pump. Most cars developed here since 2003 accept both fuels, using an engine technology called FLEX. The only difference is that the alcohol we use is called "Anidro", and it is 99.3% pure, while Ethanol is 96% pure (the rest being mostly water).

Based on this, to subsidize the price of the gasoline here, the government sets an alcohol mandate of 22%. So even if you have a gasoline-only car, you are really using 3/4 gasoline and 1/4 alcohol when you fill the tank. Since the alcohol does attack all parts of the engine that are in contact with it, engines produced for the brazilian market have a special protection layer. And indeed, owners of imported cars here usually fill their tanks with a special "premium" gasoline, that is basically pure and high-octane, to avoid damage. (Guess I don't have to say that gas stations rip you off for that)

I'm a bit skeptical...

[YesIAmAScript]

Not of ethanol, I'm really skeptical of it. It takes so much energy to make, I'm not sure what the point is.

I'm more skeptical of the other things listed. An E85 vehicle typically will run on E100 with no damage. The only real issue is that if you let the engine cool down, it won't start since ethanol won't vaporize properly in a room temperature engine. But it won't cause any damage, and merely putting 100% gas in the tank (assuming there is room, pumping out ethanol if necessary) until the percentage gets high enough to start the engine is all that is needed.

Also, ethanol doesn't reduce "gas mileage" (the words used in the article) 40-60%, it reduces FUEL mileage 40-60% by volume. This is because ethanol contains less energy per gallon. So consumption goes up, but what you really want to measure is energy efficiency, and burning ethanol isn't significantly less energy efficient (note, I'm not speaking of the energy required to make the ethanol, merely the combustion in the engine). So as long as the fuel is priced correctly and you have the space for the ethanol needed, it isn't an efficiency issue.

I do have problems with E10 ("standard gas") more than E85. With E85 at least you know what you're getting into. With E10, we are made to pay regular rates (or even more!) per gallon for the fuel even though it contains 4% less energy than straight gas.

For the record, I'm against a move to E15. We'll end up paying the same amount again (per gallon), while getting another 2% worse economy (per gallon). And it doesn't seem to decrease our dependence on foreign oil, since the corn used to make it is generally grown using nitrogen fertilizers made from petroleum.

I still like the idea of flex-fuel, but we need to find better wats to make alternative fuels before they represent a real viable alternative.

Re:Sounds like a crock ...

[chaboud]

Oh, sweet Jesus that's a moronic post.

Let's spell this out:

1. Ethanol damages fuel systems.
2. Our current methods for producing ethanol are not efficiency winners.
3. Ethanol has lower energy density than gasoline.
4. The pro ethanol lobby is unnaturally strong.
5. You are posting at below-average quality ***for slashdot***.

Re:Sounds like a crock ...

[couchslug]

Crock, eh?

Mechanics have been WELL aware of the problems caused by ethanol (particularly in boat, small engine, and commercial engine applications) for many years, but mechanics don't make public policy.

The 30-percent mileage drop appears to be worst-case, but the mechanical and corrosion problems are very real. I don't own a boat, and I can refit my older rides with ethanol-compatible carb (Holley for the trucks and S&S for for the Harleys) kits , but the MILLIONS of people who own engines too complex to easily refit with pumps, lines, seals and injectors will be screwed if the ethanol content goes up.

I'll make enough dough wrenching on the side off this to update my late model vehicles.:P

Example problems:

http://boatingsailing.suite101.com/article.cfm/ethanol_fuel_problems_for_boaters

Re:Sounds like a crock ...

[Killer Orca]

but having thousands of annoyed customers even more pissed off because of the fine print makes little long term economic sense.

Long term economic sense, something that every U.S. automaker has since when now?

Re:Sounds like a crock ...

[pjabardo]

That is not exactly true. The power output of an internal combustion depends not only on the energy content of the fuel but on on other factors as well, such as, *VERY IMPORTANT* compression ratio. The higher the better and ethanol allows the use of considerably higher compression ratios without detonation. It doesn't compensate the lower calorific power of the ethanol (25% less mileage) but for the same engine, ethanol usually has a little higher rated power (it can operate on higher RPMs).

Re:Sounds like a crock ...

[Smallpond]

Since gas is measured and sold by volume, it only makes sense to talk about energy density in those terms. Ethanol is 23.5 MJ/L while 87 octane gas is 34.8. Fuel use of E100 seems to be growing. The most widely documented cases of damage due to use as an additive is when it is added to the driver.

Just give me an electric car

[77Punker]

People in California were driving electric cars every day ten years ago. They were fast, quiet, clean, and reliable. They were also accessible to the everyman, unlike the Tesla roadster.

I don't give a fuck about corn or other combustibles. We could all be driving electric cars today if not for big oil colluding with government regulators.

Give me my electric car!

Re:Just give me an electric car

[CodeBuster]

They were also accessible to the everyman, unlike the Tesla roadster.

I wouldn't go that far. I seem to recall that in Who Killed The Electric Car they mentioned that the EV1 was leased , but NOT sold, for $500-$700 dollars per month which is substantially higher than what "everyman" can afford to pay. If you can afford to pay that much for a lease then you can afford to lease a luxury car such as the BMW, Mercedes-Benz, or Lexus. The "everyman" lease rate is more in the $200-$400 dollar range and generally in the lower part of the range or around $300 per month. Also, look at the owners they interviewed in the movie: Tom Hanks, Mel Gibson, Ed Begley, Jr. (i.e. big money Hollywood actors); hardly the "everyman" you say the car was accessible to.

Dangerous is worse than stupid.

[reporter]

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently released a study indicating that "when the E.P.A.'s scientists counted these indirect effects, corn ethanol emitted more greenhouse gases than gasoline over a 30-year period."

Other types of biofuel may be better than corn, but they have their problems too. According to a shocking report by "Time Magazine", "if the world gets even 10% of its energy from these new kinds of crops, most tropical forests will probably disappear."

Not surprisingly, lobbyists for American agribusiness are angry as hell about the conclusions of the EPA study.

Really, the best way to partially fix this nonsense is to make Iowa (and its corn farmers) the last state to participate in both the Republican primary and the Democratic primary. Due to the importance of Iowa as the first state in the presidential primaries (including caucuses), Iowan agribusiness has a stranglehold on American politics, and its politicians do stupid things (like supporting corn-based ethanol) in order to cater to Iowa.

Also, has anyone noticed that no one has mentioned the #1 reason for the growing energy problem and its associated pollution problem? The #1 reason is overpopulation. If we reduced greenhouse-gas emissions by 3% over 10 years but increased the population by 3% over the same period across all nations, then we effectively accomplished nothing.

Can anyone guess why overpopulation is never mentioned by American politicians? Could the concept of overpopulation be too closely tied to illegal immigration?

Re:Dangerous is worse than stupid.

[maxume]

Aspiration to and the living of Western styles of life are a much bigger problem than over population. America uses much more energy than the 5% of global consumption that would be more reasonable if you want to make population the biggest problem.

That doesn't make population growth a non problem.

Re:Dangerous is worse than stupid.

[daemonburrito]

Can anyone guess why overpopulation is never mentioned by American politicians? Could the concept of overpopulation be too closely tied to illegal immigration?

Way, way off. And scary that you think that way... You should read about the waves of xenophobia throughout the United States' history. This one is not significantly different than the others (Irish, Asians, Germans, etc).

Start here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexico_City_Policy.

It was Ronald Reagan and the Moral Majority people that decided that population policy was off the table ("A billion more consumers for American products"!). In addition, the nativist wing of the Republicans frequently encourages Anglos and other white-skinned people to "out-breed" the "aliens" to preserve America (QuiverFull, anyone?). Most of the evangelical movement subscribes to "dominion theology", which takes the Genesis 1 literally (especially the "be fruitful" bit). That worldview pretty much forbids thinking about environment conservation generally.

Not that it's novel... Breeding wars are common in history, and there's several going on right now.

The primary opposition to population control is religious/nativist, followed by Cold Warriors.

Modern Marvels: Secrets of Oil. Another junk story

[Futurepower(R)]

Is it this? Discovery Channel's "Modern Marvels: Secrets of Oil".

I wonder if someone at Slashdot is taking money to post links to junk articles with hidden agendas. Alcohol is fine for cars. See, for example, Brazil's alcohol cars hit 2 million mark. Cars that use alcohol for fuel are completely reliable. Their exhaust is much better-smelling, too, because the unburnt hydrocarbons are sweet-smelling alcohol.

The article linked by Slashdot discusses problems with the bad design of fuel systems, not problems with engines.

I understand that the main problem with alcohol in the U.S. is that it is made from corn. In Brazil it is made from sugar cane, a more efficient method, and one that fits Brazil's climate.

Re:Sounds like a crock ...

[prisoner-of-enigma]

You are, of course, completely forgetting that unless you drive a race car to work, the compression ratio is set to work with gasoline, not alcohol. And it makes no economic sense for any car company to make a vehicle that runs only on ethanol because of the scarcity of ethanol infrastructure.

Now if you're a tuner, drive a turbocharged car, and don't mind fiddling with programming a waste gate, you can raise your effective compression basically by letting the turbo spin a bit more before opening the waste gate. But I'd posit that there are very few gas-power turbo cars out there right now (most are diesel), and an even smaller number of those care to fool around with tuning for ethanol.

Brazilian Ethanol [Re:Don't blame me]

[Geoffrey.landis]

It's not clear to me that sugar cane is a sustainable crop.

Still, the wikipedia article about Brazilian ethanol from sugar cane is enlightening, although we might not be able to replicate this in the US.

And, in any case, the Brazilian experience does show that the "ethanol ruins engines" canard is not to believed- 95% ethanol apparently doesn't ruin engines in Brazil.

Re:Brazilian Ethanol [Re:Don't blame me]

[poetmatt]

Apparently there is some difficult understanding here; allow me to provide the information that you seemed to neglect.

95% ethanol doesn't ruin cars designed to run it. However, 15% ethanol will ruin cars designed to run 10%.

See the difference here? If we go all ethanol, fine, do it. This wishy washy crap is just horrible and suckling up to the gas needs of countries which hold us by the balls due to gas dependency.

Brazillians seem to have a good climate for cane sugar, some of the US may or may not as well. I am not an agricultural specialist.

Re:Brazilian Ethanol [Re:Don't blame me]

[TiberSeptm]

None of the 4 cars I've owned that have been built in the years 1998, 2000, 2001, and 2004 respectively are built to run on E85. These cars aren't exactly unpopular models as they include 2 corollas, 1 Taurus, and one accord. You are very much wrong if you think that "basically all" US market cars sold in the last decade have been made for E85.

GM has comitted to, by 2012, having it so 50% of the vehicles they sell can accept E85. They haven't reached anywhere near that goal. Honda does not even offer ANY flex fuel vehicles for the US market. The other automakers do, but its still a small minority. Only about 7 million (wikipedia article) out of the what... 100 million or so cars in the US are flex fuel capable.

So it's not even that the "basically all" part of your statement is wrong. It's almost the opposite of the truth. I'd say it's more like "basically none" of the US market cars sold in the last decade are flex fuel vehicles. Only even a minority of those sold this year are.

Re:Brazilian Ethanol [Re:Don't blame me]

[The Grim Reefer2]

Uh, haven't basically all US market cars for the last decade or more been designed for E85?

No, they have not.

I know even my 1998 Windstar had filters and seals that were E85 compatible, it's not like it adds much cost to make a car E85 compatible.

Great, now are your sensors and injectors? What about the EFI computer? Do you know if the fuel tank and lines were also? E85 is more reactive so basically everything that the fuel comes in contact with has to be corrosion resistant. Your EFI computer also has to know to inject more fuel into the cylinders because E85 has a lower energy density than that of regular unleaded.

Heck here is the midwest winter mixes probably go to 15% ethanol already to combat fuel line freezup.

Fuel line freeze up is a diesel only issue. The freezing point of gasoline is around -120 F, possibly as "warm" as -97 at best depending on the the water content. Gasoline has winter and summer blends due to the change in atmospheric pressures and regulation by the EPA to maintain a specified Reid vapor pressure (RVP) for gasoline. If the RVP of a liquid exceeds the atmospheric pressure it will boil. Obviously this would not be a good thing. Since the atmospheric pressure is lower in the summer the RVP must be as well. In the winter the RVP can be higher, which also tends to make gas much cheaper to produce, with a higher RVP, and is why winter gas prices tend to be lower.

Re:Brazilian Ethanol [Re:Don't blame me]

[budgenator]

it's not the gasoline that freezes, it the water that contaminates it. If you drive on a warmer day, air with more moisture is drwan into the fuel system, at night the moisture condenses out of the air and accumilates in the fuel tank and lines, if it below freezing it turns to ice and can easily occlude the fuel line. Having EtOH in the fuel lowers the freezing point of the water-ethanol mixure and solves the problem; many people in cold weather will add dry gas, methanol, to absorb the water.

Re:Brazilian Ethanol [Re:Don't blame me]

[Tubal-Cain]

Uh, haven't basically all US market cars for the last decade or more been designed for E85?

Rebutals from other responders to you post aside, there are still a lot of multi-decade cars on the road. My mom's car is 18 years old, and my brother's is 24.

Re:Brazilian Ethanol [Re:Don't blame me]

[morcego]

I will have to comment on this one, since I enjoyed it.

You are right on your account there. Here in Brazil, when we first started wide scale ethanol use, the first ethanol engines would have trouble pretty soon. Lets say a regular gas engine would require maintenance every 5000Km, an ethanol engine would require maintenance every 2000Km. These are, of course, some wide numbers I took from my head, but they do give a good picture of how things WERE.

These days, all engines here are designed to run a mix of gas and ethanol. They are called Flex (flexible fuel) engines, and you can mix gas and ethanol whatever way you want. Or run on whichever is cheaper at that given station. And engines give no problems at all. Technology evolved a lot in the past 20 years.

I will, however, agree that corn is not a viable solution for producing ethanol, although I can totally understand the reasons USA wants to use it. Corn simply doesn't produce the same quality (energy etc) of ethanol as you get from sugar cane. Then again, I'm not really sure how much of an option sugar cane is for the USA. I do believe there are other options that might be as good as sugar cane, or at least better than corn. Sugar beat maybe ?

One thing that worries me (by looking at the Wikipedia page), is the low Greenhouse-gas savings for corn. While sugar cane based ethanol is listed as having 87-96% savings, corn is listed as 10-20%.

Re:Brazilian Ethanol [Re:Don't blame me]

[Hadlock]

I was under the impression that Tauruses (Taurii?) built after 2002(ish) were all E85, along with the F150, Ranger and a few other "fleet" vehicles that Ford makes. I know the F150 I rented from U-Haul was E85 compatible, and was actually one of the reasons I went with that model - when you have to refill the tank back up to 3/4 full or whatever, especially two years ago when we had $4/gal gas, it was way cheaper to top it off with E85 than it was regular "petrol".

Re:Brazilian Ethanol [Re:Don't blame me]

[drinkypoo]

Brazil has been deforesting to grow food because already-cleared land has been converted to sugar cane production for Ethanol. The Amazon may already be past the point of collapse. Ethanol is a major source of ecological destruction in Brazil.

The big problem with corn is that most corn is grown continuously without crop rotation. That means that not only is it fertilized with oil (so any energy not coming from sunlight is coming from dino juice anyway, and it has a carbon debt) but it also destroys the soil. So it's all bad. Also, many people depend on that corn for food. Making corn fuel feedstocks raises the price of corn for food, because less food corn is produced.

IF you RTFA you'd see that it's not engines being ruined by ethanol, it's fuel pumps and pickup lines. Running alcohol requires a major refit, and many of those vehicles no longer even have their original engines.

Re:Brazilian Ethanol [Re:Don't blame me]

[The_K4]

Yes, but the cars in "the last 10 years or so are designed around at least partial ethanol fuels" mean 10% ethanol. My 2004 vehicle manual specifically says that they fuel should not contain more then 10% ethanol and any more "could cause serious damage to engine components" and that just putting something higher then E10 in the tank would void my warranty on my power train. So if I go to a station like those in the article that's higher (intentionally or accidentally) it could damage my engine because it's not designed for it. If the government raises the percentage to 15% what do I do? Run it an hope I don't get damage? Spend $$$ to upgrade/replace components? Replace the car? Do you consider a 2004 an "older car"?

Re:Now ...

[dr2chase]

You Canucks don't know fat from freedom fries. Obese? We're at 31%, and you polite national-health-plan hockey-playing doofuses aren't even half that. Yee haw, my ass.

(See http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/hea_obe-health-obesity )

The Great Ethanol Scam

[falconwolf]

After reading all the articles linked to, I noticed not one mentioned one part of the scam. Business Week and Chicago Tribune said the ethanol was corn based. However the same amount of land would produce more ethanol if sugarcane was used instead. With the world's largest biofuels program Brazil uses sugarcane. And switchgrass produces even more. Another benefit of using switchgrass to make ethanol is that it will grow on marginal land other crops aren't grown on.

Falcon

free markets and government

[falconwolf]

The free market does a piss-poor job of dealing with external costs (those not paid by the consumer), and the government is the appropriate mechanism for connecting the costs back to the people who create them.

True enough but it's government who's given businesses the power they enjoy. For instance the city of New London, Connecticut used their power of eminent domain to take away people's homes so a business could redevelop the land.

A better approach would simply be to impose a GHG tax -- taxes on the various gasses, for the various industries that produce them.

If you haven't heard of it perhaps you'd be interested in a proposed net zero gas tax. The idea is to raise fuel tax but cut income tax. Then the better your mileage or the less you drive the more in your pocket. If you get a Prius and only drive 100 miles a week, you'll pay less tax. And those who drive their SUVs 200 miles a week will pay more. I was surprised to read this proposal by Charles Krauthammer in the conservative "Weekly Standard"

Falcon

Culturally homogenous?

[jotaeleemeese]

Oh golly.

We have different languages every few hundred of kilometres and people from North, South, and East European descent, who have arrived at different times from different places.

Just Spain recognizes several autonomous entities, with a seizable heritage (800 years) of Arabic culture and, naturally, DNA interchange, the UK is divided in 4 distinctive countries (with 2 recognized languages) and we know the disaster of the former Yugoslavia (where Muslims and Christians could not live together).

What about Sweden, Norway and Finland? Where several groups with different languages mix in each country? (for Linux nuts: Torvalds is not a Finnish last name).

As for Italy, tell a North Italian that they are pretty much like their compatriots in the South and he may reply to you, in German, that he politely chooses to disagree.

I could go on, but I think my point has been made.