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Lawmakers Out To Kill the Corn-Based Ethanol Mandate
mdsolar tips this report:
"Teams of lawmakers are working hard on bills to cut corn-based ethanol out of the country's biofuel mandate entirely, according to National Journal. It's the latest twist in America's fraught relationship with biofuels, which started in 2005 when Congress first mandated that a certain amount of biofuel be mixed into the country's fuel supply. The Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) was then expanded in 2007, with separate requirements for standard biofuel on the one hand and cellulosic and advanced biofuels on the other. The latter are produced from non-food products like cornstalks, agricultural waste, and timber industry cuttings. The RFS originally called for 100 million gallons of cellulosic ethanol in 2010, 250 million in 2011, and 500 million in 2012. Instead, the cellulosic industry failed to get off the ground. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was forced to revise the mandate down to 6.5 million in 2010, and all the way down to zero in 2012. The cellulosic mandate has started to slowly creep back up, and 2014 may be the year when domestic production of cellulosic ethanol finally takes off. But then last month EPA did something else for the first time: it cut down the 2014 mandate for standard biofuel, produced mainly from corn. And now Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-CA) and Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) have teamed up on legislation that would eliminate the standard biofuel mandate entirely."
Maybe this corn used for ethanol can be used for food again?
Or, at the least animal feed, so the price at the grocery store isn't as bad, and farmers/ranchers are not as pinched as before.
Follow the money.
Aside from the obvious food price implication, you have land price implications. This would be deflationary for any corn-based food product. At the grocery store the Congress giveth, and the Fed taketh away? Then you've got all the knock-on effects in any company that deals with corn as either a purchaser or supplier.
There's little ghg impact to eliminating corn ethanol. It's so energy intensive to produce and there are big impacts from indirect land use change. The climate change champion in me says yawn. Cellulosic is much more exciting.
Congress mandated technology that doesn't exist and it didn't magically materialize?
Full disclosure: I know people who own a large, politically-connected cellulosic ethanol company and am roughly familiar with the challenges of scaling the technology. It's coming, some day; these things are hard.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
It makes sense.
It stops the dicksucking of the corn industry.
Two things the govt wants no part of.
Altho its a debate which they like more... Sucking the corn growers dick. Or doing things for nonsense reasons...
the fuel mix we have been using is crap it turned out ethanol mixed with gas is actually worse then pure gas it also causes rust in metal gas tanks if not kept full.
Probably a good thing. Using corn or other edible crops has been linked to rising food prices that have been painful in the third world, the US, and Europe.
Record Food Prices Linked to Biofuels
How biofuels contribute to the food crisis
Biofuel rule puts turkey farmers in fret over corn costs
EU votes on crucial cap on biofuels made from food crops
There are other ways to do it.
'Biofuel from non-food crops within 15 years'
U.S. to Pay Farmers for Non-Food Crops for Biofuels, Vilsack Says
Quest for cheap, nonfood biofuel starts with a brewery
Of course it may not be popular is some states.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
GrumpyCatGood.jpg
"I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it." : Dogbert
Diesel engines are twice as efficient at extracting energy from fuel as are gas engines. The US should do what Europe has done and basically fully embrace diesel fueled vehicles for their efficiency.
No, you won't be breaking any 0-60 records, which might make it difficult for the MURKA! FUCK YEAH! crowd to accept, but when you can drive from Bakersfield to Baltimore on 100 gallons of diesel, it's worthy of serious consideration.
I am dismayed that this administration is so openly hostile towards diesel technology when it would seem to be a very simple, very clean, very cheap, and very easy solution both in the short and long term. You can buy a Jetta TDI cheap and get 55mpg on the highway. That beats the snot out of any Hybrid in overall cost.
All with all other agribusiness subsidies.
It's not a proper function of government, and not a federal government power enumerated in the Constitution.
Every dime "invested" in ethanol from corn/soy should be redirected into battery technology.
If we could put a minor hybrid assist in every car that provides say 5 miles on electric, it would improve efficiency for at least all the idle time at stoplights and such.
Get a decent transmission/battery for school buses, mail trucks, and other constantly running vehicles and knock off an additional chunk of wasted fuel.
My mom says I'm cool.
I think in the last few years they mandated that all diesel fuel (at least for on-road vehicles) be of the low sulfur variety. Prior to that we had high sulfur diesel which wasn't much good for the newfangled diesel engines that you see now becoming available in Audis and BMWs, but existed in Europe.
I'd like to see a Chevy Volt with a diesel instead of the gas engine.
Nice link - no really, I like that. I like to hear ALL sides of an argument. Because ...
It gives me more ammunition to strike back at all sides for their stupidity and shortsightedness...
Dear sir,
It wasn't "Thanks to Al Gore". I wish there was a single person to blame and to crucify - but there isn't.
It is a flaw in our agricultural subsidies program.
When ANYTHING become political, it gets corrupted.
Farmers are encouraged to grow more to get more subsidies that ends up lowering the price of their crops - then they MUST grow more to cover their expenses to get more subsidies to get more money to cover the lower revenues from the lower prices of their crops and then get more subsidies to get more money that pushes down ever more .. and on and on and on ...
And yet, the grain people get richer.
All these government subsidies for corn and whatever end up in the pockets of Monsanto and Cargill and a few others.
Farm subsides and their "green" fuel subsidies are corrupt and help no one but the connected billionaires.
That ethanol laced fuel fouled more plugs and plugged my carb than I can count on my dirt bikes. I will be glad to see it go.
Thou shalt not use tools thou does not understand, lest they rise up and smite thee
This just seemed like a good place for this meme.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
This NEVER made sense environmentally, economically or technically.
Technically, we hit the "blend wall" at about 10%. Above that amount, gasoline engines start to have issues with Ethanol. Rubber seals, hoses and plastic parts in fuel systems start having reduced lifespan. Above 10% some engines start having other internal issues. Gas mileage is reduced because Ethanol has a lower energy density. Ethanol is a water magnet, it mixes with water easily and is hard to keep "dry" so rusting and corrosion becomes more common in fuel systems.
Environmentally, the production of ethanol doesn't really reduce emissions of C02 when you count the whole process of growing, harvesting, storing, transporting, processing into ethanol, transporting, blending and transporting the product again. It was at best a wash. Then when you consider how much more fertilizer, pesticides and tilling add to the environmental impact it clearly becomes a negative.
Economically, the case is even worse. The whole process of producing ethanol is both labor and capital expensive. It is obviously more expensive as a motor fuel. Then when you consider what has happened to food prices as corn (a base part of much of what we eat as well as feed for animals we use for food) prices have gone up.
But what about or dependance on foreign Oil imports? It helped, but was it worth it? T Boon Pickens has the answer to that. He thinks that we are stupid to convert food into fuel when we could be using abundant Natural Gas for a motor fuel. Converting gasoline engines to use natural gas is not that hard (albeit harder than 10% Ethanol) it works great with reduced range due to energy density. Refueling times can be comparable to gasoline and a large distribution network already exists in much of the nation.
It's time. Do away with this mistake.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Change the Volt to a Hybrid VW TDI and I would run down to the dealership right now screaming "TAKE MY MONEY!"
"I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
Technically diesel would be a great match with how the Volt engine is operated (steady at the optimal RPM). But given diesel prices nowadays, is it still a win over gasoline in miles per dollar?
AFAIK, this bill would only end the mandate. It would not end subsidies for corn ethanol production. Lots of ethanol would still be used for fuel because with subsidies ethanol is often competitive.
In his new book "Full Planet, Empty Plates: The New Geopolitics of Food Scarcity" Lester Brown writes: "Between 2005 and 2011, the grain used to produce fuel for cars climbed from 41 million to 127 million tons—nearly a third of the U.S. grain harvest. (See Figure 4–1.) The United States is trying to replace oil fields with corn fields to meet part of its automotive fuel needs. The massive diversion of grain to fuel cars has helped drive up food prices, leaving low-income consumers everywhere to suffer some of the most severe food price inflation in history. As of mid-2012, world wheat, corn, and soybean prices were roughly double their historical levels."
He is pessimistic about cellulosic ethanol: "The unfortunate reality is that the road to this ambitious cellulosic biofuel goal is littered with bankrupt firms that tried and failed to develop a process that would produce an economically viable fuel. Despite having the advantage of not being directly part of the food supply, cellulosic ethanol has strong intrinsic characteristics that put it at a basic disadvantage compared with grain ethanol, so it may never become economically viable." http://www.earthpolicy.org/books/fpep/fpepch4
Much better to spend government resources finding a way to convert my grass clippings to ethanol.
It simply isn't fair to create any additional linkages outside unavoidable energy cost of producing food to the energy markets.
The only good use case I know of was that E85 was a high octane fuel for racers. You still had to upgrade pumps, injectors, fuel lines and adjust the tune significantly but you could run a lot of timing which helped make horsepower.
First we mangle the Constitution with prohibition, grow an organized crime culture then repeal it. Now we lay down a mandate and then back peddle. It's like we are getting thrown across the shoulders of a gin-soaked barroom queen all the time.
Biofuel from food crops (food crops being things like corn, sugar beets, etc);
Bad idea as it takes up arable land and the food produced is not going into the food supply causing food price increases.
Biofuel from non-food crops (non-food crops being things like hay, trees, etc that are planted and harvested)
If this uses land that could produce food then it is no better than using food crops as less food enters the food chain.
If it uses land that is unsuitable for growing food than it is very good. Care must be taken to limit the amount of upkeep such as watering and fertilizing. A good example of this is a bamboo farm in rocky ground. One could even fertilize it with sewage plant waste for an additional boost.
Buifuels from waste;
This is the best option as in many cases,such as corn stalks and cobs (corn removed), energy has been spent to creating it and it is good to get it back. It also does not divert resources from feeding people. The issue is that most waste is cellulose and we haven't cracked that problem yet. Maybe if we de-emphasize food crop biofuels some of the research money going into optimizing that process will go into cellulose biofuels research.
Switchgrass, Sugar Cane, and Hemp all provide more sustainable, easier-to-convert alternatives to creating ethanol, which, even with the subsidy, was more expensive per mile to operate vehicles with when made using corn.
These alternatives cost about 30% less to convert and are easier to grow.
High-sulfur diesel is great for all engines, even modern ones. But it's not good for catalysts, and that's why it's gone now. It's more expensive to add other lubricity agents, but that's what they've done. Biodiesel has more lubricity, but gels in cold weather. Then there's green diesel, which needs lubricity agents again. You could cut it 10% with biodiesel, though, and it would be a pretty much ideal carbon-neutral fuel (if the cracking energy came from someplace carbon-neutral.)
Sadly, they changed the oil, too. Now it's hard to find oil for the old engines. The old oil ruins catalysts. The new oil sucks. My engines are old, there's no catalyst on my truck or my car. They want Delo 400, but all I can find is Delo 400LE. I could get Rotella T Synthetic for the same price, but putting synthetic in an old engine is a recipe for environmental harm.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Really, does anything compete in terms of miles per dollar against a shitbox car with a 1.xL gas engine? They all seem to get well over 40 MPG, but who wants to drive one? They've got the comfort and appeal of a cardboard box.
I'm not sure I'd want to own a Volt myself (or any hybrid, really), but I find the Volt most appealing of all the hybrid and electric cars because it is so flexible, even though the gas-only mileage is only 35 MPG (which is still pretty good). I'd bet with the right diesel engine it would be even better.
I think if you don't get lazy and plug it in every night you might not even use the gas engine very often. Even though I drive a lot for work, there are a lot of days where I don't drive more than 35 miles round-trip and I could simply use it as a pure electric vehicle, especially on weekends.
There's no doubt that the Tesla is the coolest of all of them, but the fact that you NEED to plug it in seems like an issue, and it doesn't charge effectively at 120v.
lets turn all that ethanol producing infrastructure in to booze making infrastructure, that should keep the cost of booze down, and the liquor stores well stocked
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
US diesel fuel has been "low sulfur" (500 PPM) for quite a while now. Recently -- and by "recently" I mean since 2006, not "a few years" -- the US switched from "low sulfur" to "ultra-low sulfur" (15 PPM).
By the way, you know biodiesel? 0 PPM sulfur.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
It's about time. This thing has been an absolute environmental disaster. I've got family in Nebraska that talk but land being plowed up that's not seen a plow since the dustbowl, and because of the dustbowl. My environmentalist sister-in-law working up around Chicago talks about how terrible the extra planting has been for the Mississippi and Gulf. Too many nutrients getting into the water causing problems.
Just stop with the subsidies for this and it will work out fine.
It all starts at 0
So what's news, the OIL lobby pays politicians to shutdown ethanol production as this would cut into their profits.
.. said at a lunch hosted by the American Petroleum Institute, the oil industry's top lobbying group`. ref
'"This issue affects chainsaws and chain restaurants," Rob Green
Yeah, hybrid diesel vehicles would be the epitome of awesomeness (even more so if they are warranted by the manufacturer to run on B50 or higher).
Cellulose is the only way to go
To borrow an old joke: Cellulosic Ethanol is the fuel of the future -- and always will be.
From a chemistry or molecular biology perspective the concept looks great -- similar Hexose sugar units are in Sugar / Starch / Cellulose, so why not use the most abundant and cheapest material? The problem looks different from the perspective of evolutionary biology, however. Naturally occurring Cellulase enzymes, sourced from a wide range of different organisms, have each undergone a long process of optimization through evolutionary history. Yet every enzyme remains extremely slow and inefficient (compared to enzymes that process sugars and starches). Why is that?
I believe the reason is that Cellulose (or rather, the Cellulose-in-Lignin composite matrix that plants use) is the end result of a very long evolutionary arms race between plants and their consumers. It has evolved to be resistant to microbial degradation -- never totally resistant, but just tough enough to ensure no critter gets a free lunch out of digesting it.
Of course, not all Cellulosic Ethanol need be derived from purely microbial techniques; chemical and chemical/biological hybrid processes might break the evolutionary deadlock. Others have suggested engineering the starting material itself, starting with plants designed to produce more easily digestible Cellulose (which brings up the problem of how well they would defend themselves against insects and pathogens). Unfortunately, in each of these alternate solutions, the amount of work needed is enormous, and it is possible we are simply out of time, with regards to the funding for this sort of research.
They all seem to get well over 40 MPG, but who wants to drive one? They've got the comfort and appeal of a cardboard box.
Maybe your aesthetics and your cultural life shouldn't revolve around the vehicle you use for transportation.
Sometimes I wish there was just a band of terrorists out there that blew up car washes.
but simply given the design it's really hard to get good emissions controls on a 2-stroke.
Right now the EPA allows the oil companies to enjoy a 90% (actually now 85%) mandate. There really cannot be a contender against a product that enjoys that level of policy protection. Ethanol, cellulosic ethanol, biodiesel, algal biodiesel, biobutanol, you name it. None can contend if the government says they don't get market access based on cost competitiveness. Look how mad people get if they cannot sell their extra electricity into the grid because the sine wave is not 'pure'. We mostly agree that anyone who is making electricity should be able to sell the excess, but that is not the case with biofuels.
and it is possible we are simply out of time, with regards to the funding for this sort of research.
That seems unlikely. The future is never as bleak as some would have you believe.
There have been a number of developments of late that suggest real progress is being made:
http://about.bnef.com/press-releases/cellulosic-ethanol-heads-for-cost-competitiveness-by-2016/
http://www.forbes.com/sites/christopherhelman/2013/09/04/same-moonshine-different-name-welcome-to-the-age-of-cellulosic-ethanol/
Somewhat dated:
http://www.nrel.gov/continuum/sustainable_transportation/cellulosic_ethanol.cfm
However, its still ethanol.
It may be wiser to take a look at other fuel stretchers as well.
Butanol is being looked at because it is less corrosive and also higher energy density than ethanol, almost approaching that of gasoline. (Exhaust smells like bananas).
Butanol trumps ethanol in several ways: Adding ethanol to gasoline reduces fuel mileage, but butanol packs almost as much energy as gas, meaning fewer fill-ups. Butanol also doesn't damage car engines like ethanol, so more of it can be blended into gas. And because butanol doesn't separate from gasoline in the presence of water, it can be blended right at the refinery, while ethanol has to be shipped separately from gas and blended closer to the filling station.
Even Zebra poop is helping, it yields a particular strain of Clostridium bacteria that can convert nearly any form of cellulose into butanol very efficiently.
Burned by itself, (B100) you might have a 10% mileage penalty. Mixed with gas it might not even impose any significant mileage penalty.
Its been found that the mileage penalty does not exactly vary in lock-step with energy density. (Theoretically ethanol should only see a 2 to 3% mileage penalty, but some claim 10%, especially on older vehicles). But to date, no one has done significant real world testing on Butanol + Gas blends.
Some links to Butanol stories:
http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2013/04/12/the-fuel-that-could-be-the-end-of-ethanol/
http://farmindustrynews.com/blog/bio-butanol-can-be-produced-about-same-cost-ethanol-optinol-reports
http://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/pressroom/newsreleases/2013/april/cost-saving-measure-to-upgrade-ethanol-to-butanol-a-better-alternative-to-gasoline.html
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
I am not sure why, since there is not action stated. We also get baraged by pro-drilling and anti-fracking ads too. They may drilll 10,000 wellls in Colorado next year.
Ethanol is about $1 cheaper than "reformulated gasoline blendstock for oxygen blending," RBOB is also suboctane. Blending ethanol gives the octane boost necessary to meet spec plus octane value.
Big oil profits big time from ethanol, they just won't admit it. Check out Valero who is one of the biggest producers. Corn prices have kept pace with other commodities, and yields have improved to meet the incremental demand created by ethanol production.
The majors won't slow runs to produce full-octane reformulated gasoline, especially when alternative oxygenates are not plentiful enough to meet demand AND are super expensive.
Funny thing about all this is California has its own renewable fuel standard, which uses domestically produced ethanol to meet its objectives.
Butanol trumps ethanol in several ways: Adding ethanol to gasoline reduces fuel mileage, but butanol packs almost as much energy as gas, meaning fewer fill-ups. Butanol also doesn't damage car engines like ethanol, so more of it can be blended into gas. And because butanol doesn't separate from gasoline in the presence of water, it can be blended right at the refinery, while ethanol has to be shipped separately from gas and blended closer to the filling station.
What I wasn't able to find out was how they were going to deal with the lower Octane and the high vapor pressure. These are not trivial matters, and many of the options are a little bit problematic. Whereas the one artical that does address that paints a rosy picture, the vapor pressure of butanol in the summer is a problem.
Otherwise, since we already use butanol in winter mix gasoline, we do know it works. My guess is that the viscosity might make a near 100 percent butanol mixture ( no gasoline is 100 percent anything) require some changes in the injector system.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Bananas. Right. Until you get a little butyric acid formation (which you will), at which point it smells like vomit.
Tuesday:
Obama: The Corn-based ethanol mandate is a wonderful example of government action to help fight global warming and ensure that farmers are able to afford high quality healthcare.
Wednesday:
Fox News decries the mandate as fascist communism and the death of America
Thursday:
Congressional Republicans unanimously vote to kill the mandate.
I stole this Sig
Gore was a representative from Tennessee from 1977-1985. He was a senator representing Tennessee from 1985-1993. He was Vice President from 1993-2001. Corn is not a big part of agriculture in the state.
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
Ethanol contains 10% less energy than gasoline.
If, running on gas, your engine wastes that additional energy, something is wrong with your engine. Something is out of tune, worn, etc. The energy is there, that's basic chemistry and nobody disputes that. You can ask the head of the ethanol marketing aassociation and they'll acknowledge that basic fact. If your car does as badly on gas as it does on ethanol either your engine or your record keeping has a problem.
How is the miracle of cellulose digestion going to happen exactly? Do we really want to evolve organisms that break down cellulose efficiently? The plant world might not appreciate that.
True, it's only 10% ethanol. The specific energy of gas is 46, ethanol is 30, so ethanol has far less energy per pound or kg.
However, ethanol is also heavier, so one liter of gas has 34 MJ of energy and one liter of ethanol 33.2 MJ.
We'd expect an ethanol fueled car to get worse mileage for three reasons. First there's just plain less energy in ethanol.
Secondly, a 10 gallon tank full of ethanol is heavier and weight is the number one enemy of fuel economy. Accelerating extra weight to 70 MPH
takes more energy. Lastly, the engine was DESIGNED for gas, not for ethanol, so it'll be a little less efficient burning the "wrong" fuel.
Compression ratio is a key factor here - an engine designed for ethanol would need higher compression.
However, with only 10% ethanol, I expect it would be hard to notice much difference. The amount of time you spend at stop lights and
how many times you open the throttle to pass a slower car will cause as much variation, so without testing on a closed track it would be hard
to measure the difference reliably, given it's 90% gas.
I found this comment interesting:
> others with the same engine have made the same observations.
It's entirely possible that that engine, with the tuning settings used in that motorcycle, isn't exactly optimal for gasoline.
Motorcycles in general aren't optimized for fuel consumption. Your GL500 is less streamlined than city bus, as measured by drag coeeficient.
Burning corn in our cars is a terrible idea. This causes the price of corn to rise, which means the poor and hungry people in troubled countries won't be able to afford corn. They probably meant well, but it turned out so wrong.
We need laws that disallow any land used for food crops to ever be used for fuel crops. Also we need laws that disallow food items to be used to make fuel. Corn,rice,potatoes, wheat, grapes and more are used to make ethanol and that drives food prices up severely. This needs to be stopped. Our amber waves of grain should not end up in a gas tank. Planting some bamboo forests would be one way to take some carbon dioxide out of circulation. After bamboo grows for about five years it no longer sequesters carbon dioxide and must be harvested but bamboo is a useful product and has value. Yet we have no nation wide effort to plant bamboo forests.
Yes, but gasoline is used to power many, many other things besides 2-year-old automobiles, and mixing ethanol with it has damaged many billions of dollars of "other" things, including boats, trucks, farm equipment, tools, generators, and on and on and on. This is well documented. Much of this equipment has a 10 to 30 year service life...or would have, if its tanks and fuel systems had not been destoyed by
ethanol. So; where's the "savings" ?
Ethanol in gasoline is one of the biggest hoaxes foisted on the American public in many years. Destruction of fuel systems and engines, especially small gas engines, lower mpg/higher driving costs. Not to mention the diversion of corn away from food and the cultivation of poor quality farmland for more corn. If people want ethanol in their gas, then let the marketplace decide. Label pumps with blends, charge a per gallon price that reflects the market, and let people buy what they prefer.
The main problem is, when we factor in water, fertilizer, production, processing, and shipping, that corn ethanol barely reaches replacement level for energy.
Other cellulosic ethanols have higher energy yields (stored energy per unit) and lower energy inputs, for example: algae, switchgrass, and cane sugar ethanol.
Subsidizing corn ethanol production is like shooting yourself in the foot and then declaring that it's ok to shoot you since you're disabled.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Most US laws seem to be rushed attempts to earn donations/bribes.
If they lobbiests can't keep the cash flowing, the law should be replaced by one that pays more.
Who knows, some public spirited corporation might even finance a law that favored their customers.
And pigs might fly.
--
Ahhh, I see the fuck-up fairy has visited us again.
I work as an IT consultant and frequently have to travel over 100 miles in a day.
The subcompact-type car is just a non-starter for that much driving. The seats alone don't cut it. I need something with a little more creature comfort at a minimum. My Volvo has all wheel drive, which is a real plus in Minnesota winters, too.
Now, if I was driving some standard commute of 20 miles or less, I would consider a Volt or even a Smart for their size and fuel economy.
AFAIK and if my memory doesn't fail, the Corn Ethanol issues was claimed a big success of the Bush administration and it caused quite some stirring internationally.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_Policy_Act_of_2005
The Energy Policy Act of 2005 (Pub.L. 109–58) is a bill passed by the United States Congress on July 29, 2005, and signed into law by President George W. Bush on August 8, 2005
I don't see any reference to Al Gore, SPECTRA or the Evil IPCC (Illuminaty Pokemon Collectors Club)
But you will never know, the powers of ManBearPig are multiple and terrifying!!!
-- 29A the number of the Beast