EPA Increases Amount of Renewable Fuel To Be Blended Into Gasoline (arstechnica.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Last week the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced its final renewable fuel standards for 2017, requiring that fuel suppliers blend an additional 1.2 billion gallons of renewable fuel into U.S. gas and diesel from 2016 levels. The rule breaks down the requirements to include quotas for cellulosic biofuels, biomass-based diesel, advanced biofuel, and traditional renewable fuel. Reuters points out that the aggressive new biofuel standards will create a dilemma for an incoming Trump administration, given that his campaign courted both the gas and corn industries. While the EPA under the Obama administration has continually increased so-called renewable fuel standards (RFS), the standards were first adopted by a majority-Republican Congress in 2005 and then bolstered in 2007 with a requirement to incorporate 36 billion gallons of renewable fuel into the fuel supply by 2022, barring "a determination that implementation of the program is causing severe economic or environmental harm," as the EPA writes. Some biofuels are controversial not just for oil and gas suppliers but for some wildlife advocates as well. Collin O'Mara, CEO of the National Wildlife Federation, said in a statement that the corn ethanol industry that most stands to benefit from the EPA's expansion of the renewable fuel standards "is responsible for the destruction of millions of acres of wildlife habitat and degradation of water quality." Still, the EPA contends that biofuels made from corn and other regenerating plants offer reductions in overall fuel emissions, if the processes used to make and transport the fuels are included. "Advanced biofuels" will offer "50 percent lifecycle carbon emissions reductions," and their share of the new standards will grow by 700 million gallons in 2017 from 2016 requirements, the EPA says. Cellulosic biofuel will be increased by 81 million gallons and biomass-based diesel will be increased by 100 million gallons. "Non-advanced or 'conventional' renewable fuel" will be increased to 19.28 billion gallons from 18.11 billion gallons in 2016. Conventional renewable fuel "typically refers to ethanol derived from corn starch and must meet a 20 percent lifecycle GHG [greenhouse gas] reduction threshold," according to EPA guidelines. Other kinds of renewable fuels include sugarcane-based ethanol, cellulosic ethanol derived from the stalks, leaves, and cobs leftover from a corn harvest, and compressed natural gas gleaned from wastewater facilities.

Comments

It helps the economy too

[Anonymous Coward]

When it ruins the engines in all the cars made before 2017. How perfectly progressive of them.

Re: It helps the economy too

[Jesus H Rolle]

Increasing corn subsidies to red state farmers is a progressive cause? I mean, it could well be. I'm no expert. Still, it sounds like yet another transfer of wealth from the middle class to the rich.

Re:It helps the economy too

[the_Bionic_lemming]

Actually, it won't ruin many engines. Certainly none built after the late 90's.

Most people don't know that the only difference between an eco-fuel ford car and its non eco-fuel badged - is a software setting.

I used to be one of the people that thought the increased alcohol content would ruin gaskets, hoses, and cylinder walls, but the auto industry has already addressed it years ago.

Also, for around 150 bucks - most cars can be converted to run on ethanol, e-85, or methanol.

Re: It helps the economy too

[MachineShedFred]

Democrats like winning the Iowa Caucus too, especially if they only need to spend more tax money to do it.

Re:It helps the economy too

[the_Bionic_lemming]

Forgot to link this, if I remember the documentary, i'll post the name .

https://www.bellperformance.co...

Re:It helps the economy too

[Rockoon]

I used to be one of the people that thought the increased alcohol content would ruin gaskets, hoses, and cylinder walls, but the auto industry has already addressed it years ago.

So it does do that, just not with your current car, so everything is cool?

Re:It helps the economy too

[bobbied]

Didn't we try that already? Didn't it just make it harder for the poor to keep a car because it took millions of cars off the road that otherwise would have been useable on the cheap for another couple of years?

Re: It helps the economy too

[ShanghaiBill]

Most big progressive programs transfer money from the poor to the rich. Social Security and Medicare are funded with regressive payroll taxes, and most of the benefits go to old people who tend to be richer than average. A poor black man has a life expectancy of about 69 years, so will typically benefit from SS and Medicare for 4 years. A rich white woman will live to be 82, collecting benefits for 17 years. So she gets more than four times the benefits, despite paying in a far smaller portion of her income.

... and the Democrats can't figure out why working class people don't vote for them anymore.

Re:It helps the economy too

[Woldscum]

Outboard boat motors, Chainsaws, String trimmers, Lawn Mowers, ATVs, Jet Skis, Snowmobiles, Motorcycles, etc.... None of them were designed to run on ethanol.

Re:It helps the economy too

[rgbatduke]

Damn skippy. If they are going to do this, they need to start -- start -- 3 to 5 years ahead by requiring ALL small motors to be built so that they can run on ethanol. And bear in mind that there are other problems with ethanol-laced fuel, the biggest one to my own experience being that it sucks water right out of the air and into your fuel tank. Alcohol is hydrophilic. Gasoline is hydrophobic. Put them together and you get the worst of both worlds -- a gas tank that builds up water in the bottom just sitting there in normally humid air.

Then there are the various parts in small motors that dissolve in ethanol.

Could this all be fixed? Sure, I imagine so. Not so sure about how the water issue can be fixed, but at least the engines can be designed not to break if you use ethanol either for timing reasons or because your fuel system turns into sludge while it operates. But they're not. So I'm left having to pay for no-E gasoline at a premium price from one of the few stations that carry it just to mow the lawn, run my chainsaw, run my boat, etc. This isn't just about cars.

Re:It helps the economy too

[LynnwoodRooster]

Wait, a 30% reduction in MPG is what we get when going to E85? So everyone's fuel bills increase 30% and we burn 30% more fuel... And this is good why?

Re:It helps the economy too

[Jarik C-Bol]

Jesus, thats going to take me to like, 1970's mpg.

Re: It helps the economy too

[Type44Q]

You also left out the fuel injectors on modern GDI-equipped vehicles.

Re:It helps the economy too

[b0bby]

I know that carburetted dirt bikes will run fine on ethanol, but you have to be very careful about either completely draining the carb before putting them away for even a few week, or (preferably and) add something like stabil to the gas. The ethanol based gas goes off in a float bowl quickly and you're stuck cleaning the jets.

Re:It helps the economy too

[Jarik C-Bol]

For that stuff, its now worth it to go down to the hardware store, and in the lawn section, they have ethanol-free fuel in cans. they also have pre-blended fuel for trimmers and chainsaws, the stuff that needs the oil mixed fuel. I've used them, and they run much, much better on it than E85.

Re: It helps the economy too

[Type44Q]

Actually, it won't ruin many engines.

Technically, no; only the injectors. Please fuck off??

Re:It helps the economy too

[Anonymous Coward]

Get those clunkers off the road!

How regressive of you - horse fucking poor people like that.

But hey, they're mostly brown and black, so what the fuck to you care?

Re:It helps the economy too

[Mashiki]

Actually, it won't ruin many engines. Certainly none built after the late 90's.

Well you can get additives to add to cars for lead-only engines, and cars that can't use ethanol or methanol. There's a few cars that require methanol blends for fuel during the 90's "we're insane, let's screw around with shit" period. But this is great, my Saturn built in the late 90's still gets around 42-50mpg best I ever got was 62.7mpg, and that was when the car was only a few years old. Real world mileage with the SL and SW series was generally nothing short of amazing. Which wasn't uncommon with those cars, but now we get to spend 30% more and get less fuel, which is of course brilliant.

Re:It helps the economy too

[RightSaidFred99]

Reading your reply, I hear two distinct sounds. Whoosh. Derp.

Re:It helps the economy too

[Ranbot]

Outboard boat motors, Chainsaws, String trimmers, Lawn Mowers, ATVs, Jet Skis, Snowmobiles, Motorcycles, etc.... None of them were designed to run on ethanol.

You can also add storage tanks the list.... like those big underground tanks at your local gas station that can leak gas into soils and groundwater when a seal corrodes from the high ethanol content. To be fair, today's tank systems have leak detection systems that usually identify a leak quickly, so they get fixed/remediated quickly, but since new ethanol [and low-sulfur diesel] requirements the number of incidents with tanks has gone up dramatically nation-wide. Tank owners have been too slow to adapt to the new maintenance requirements, seals, filters, etc. needed to safely hold ethanol blended gas in tanks.

Re:It helps the economy too

[Anonymous Coward]

For that stuff, its now worth it to go down to the hardware store, and in the lawn section, they have ethanol-free fuel in cans. they also have pre-blended fuel for trimmers and chainsaws, the stuff that needs the oil mixed fuel. I've used them, and they run much, much better on it than E85.

Screw that!

I run my cars (pre-1975) and my other gasoline fueled mowers, boat motors, etc on high-octane aviation gasoline (Avgas). Many around here do the same, and more are starting to every year and after every move like this from the EPA clowns. It's far cheaper overall as there's less wear and tear on the engines, gaskets, seals, etc and there's also the very noticeable increases in both mileage and performance.

The more you tighten your grip, EPA, the more gas tanks will slip through your fingers.

Re:It helps the economy too

[reboot246]

That doesn't help my small engines at all. Riding mower, push mower, 2 trimmers, leaf blower, and chainsaw. For the past few years I've been able to find non-ethanol gasoline to use in them. I'm sure that's going to get harder to find.

And don't even start about battery powered yard equipment, not when my yard is bigger than a battery can handle.

Re: It helps the economy too

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, it is just a software setting for an engine to run on ethanol. In order to keep every piece of rubber and plastic from getting eaten away, you need that $150* kit you are taking about.

* Quite a bit more than $150 and then it isn't just plug and play. It requires some hours of labor. Also, injectors that aren't made for ethanol would need to be changed over which is very expensive.

Re:It helps the economy too

[Anonymous Coward]

New cars = higher insurance rate, higher registration fees etc... No thanks.

Re:It helps the economy too

[cryptizard]

No because E85 is about 35% cheaper than gasoline. And, as it says in the article, can have 20-50% fewer emissions per mile over its lifecycle.

Re:It helps the economy too

[Anonymous Coward]

Gas mileage goes down. Pay more money in gas taxes to fill up your tank.

Re:It helps the economy too

[Anonymous Coward]

My car can't run E85, it will ruin the engine.

Re: It helps the economy too

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, fuck this planet we live on!! My motor boat is way more important!

Re:It helps the economy too

[ClickOnThis]

Didn't we try that already? Didn't it just make it harder for the poor to keep a car because it took millions of cars off the road that otherwise would have been useable on the cheap for another couple of years?

Not harder to keep a car, but harder to buy one, because it reduced the secondary market inventory.

Charities also complained about the program, because it diverted cars that otherwise would have been donated to them.

The program had good intentions but got mixed results.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:It helps the economy too

[Anonymous Coward]

It's good because European and Japanese engines won't stand for it, so you'll have no choice but to buy American cars.

Do try to keep up. Expect much, much more of this kind of asshattery.

Re:It helps the economy too

[Anonymous Coward]

This is just NOT TRUE. I have a flex fuel vehicle, and the price is nearly identical, maybe a few CENTS cheaper.

At least in my area, where the stuff is actually being made. Maybe in your area it's 35% cheaper. But maybe your math is bad

$3.00 a gallon * .35 = $1.05
$3.00 - $1.05 = $1.95

Yah right, that is friggin ridiculous. If it was that much cheaper (is my math off?) everyone would be begging for this fuel.... but it isn't.

Re:It helps the economy too

[Mashiki]

You forgot as well, that there's more incidences of "wet" fuel. Since ethanol wants to absorb water, if there's a problem with the tank seal it'll start taking in water from the air and you'll get that in the fuel too. This is a common problem here in Canada especially with the seasonal swings we have where the ground stays warmer for a longer part of the winter season. Around here the frostline is 6ft, and I know of two stations that have had to pull the fill pipes and have them either double insulated or a low-temperature heater added to cut down on the water trip alarms. It's become an issue for a couple of the truck stops that they've moved all their gasoline fuel tanks above ground.

Re:It helps the economy too

[cryptizard]

But it is that cheap some places https://e85prices.com/

Re:It helps the economy too

[ClickOnThis]

BTW, the number of cars that were removed from the streets under the program was about 690,000, not millions.

Re: It helps the economy too

[Anonymous Coward]

Injectors are fine, it's the rubber tubing that gets degraded. Just need to switch them out.

Re:It helps the economy too

[LynnwoodRooster]

Not here in California... It's the same price (of course, we pay about the highest gas prices in the lower 48). And does the emissions per mile factor in the the fact our infrastructure now needs to transport 30% more deliveries of fuel (because it's being consumed 30% faster)?

Re: It helps the economy too

[harvey the nerd]

Blacks have often collected social security benefits much earlier with less contribution. One way I have personally encountered, is age fraud - 10 years added to their age. The other they called "dumb money", disability based on "flunking" an IQ test early on.

Re: It helps the economy too

[ClickOnThis]

You do have a point. (I found your numbers here.)

However, I would like to see whether the rich recoup their contributions to the program in time-adjusted dollars, even allowing for their longer lifespan. I would guess the answer is no, and I'm fine with that BTW.

Also, the tax is progressive not regressive, because those with larger incomes pay more. And while Social Security benefits are based on contribution amounts, Medicare is not.

But the most important thing to address is why poor black males have such a shorter life expectancy than other groups. I suspect it's because of a disproportionate exposure to societal risks (violence, etc.) and that's disturbing.

Re:It helps the economy too

[pjbgravely]

Fortunately in my state we can now buy E0 gas from the pump. Yes it is more expensive but I would hate to have to buy those expensive cans all summer long. My chainsaw on day decided it wouldn't start on E10. Now it starts every time.

Re:It helps the economy too

[currently_awake]

And it takes 1 gallon of oil to make 1 gallon of ethanol, so you're not doing the environment any favours. If you switched to pure ethanol made by solar and wind power (and coal) at least you'd have a fully domestic fuel source.

Re: It helps the economy too

[Anonymous Coward]

The ice age was 12,000 years ago, the temperature rose for about 4,000 years, and has been cooling slowly ever since. It didn't start rising again until just 150 years ago, when we started pumping CO2 into the atmosphere. None of your other wild claims are remotely real either. Whether you're stupid or evil is hard to tell.

Re: It helps the economy too

[ShanghaiBill]

Also, the tax is progressive not regressive

No. It is regressive. Progressive tax does not mean the rich pay more, it means the rich pay more as a percentage of their income.

But the most important thing to address is why poor black males have such a shorter life expectancy than other groups. I suspect it's because of a disproportionate exposure to societal risks (violence, etc.) and that's disturbing.

Counterproductive social programs make all these problems worse. Poor communities not only have shorter lifespans, but also higher birthrates. That means they are, on average, much younger, which means a much smaller proportion of a poor black community will be receiving government checks compared to a rich white community, while more of their income is drained away to pay for those programs.

Re: It helps the economy too

[ClickOnThis]

Fair points, and thanks for them.

Sounds to me that part of the solution would entail making Social Security and Medicare taxes progressive, which they are not, as you point out. Also, raise or eliminate the Social Security wage base limit. There is a slightly progressive adjustment to Medicare taxes for those who make over $200K, but it's only 0.9%.

Re:It helps the economy too

[Anonymous Coward]

Not harder to keep a car, but harder to buy one, because it reduced the secondary market inventory.

I'm glad that I got my car before that program, afterwards we were looking to replace another car but everyone was wanting insane amounts for high mileage vehicles on the used market. Leasing ended up being far cheaper for replacing our second car.

Re:It helps the economy too

[Woldscum]

Think about Outboard Motors and Snowmobiles. You are literally in a life or death situation. I spent a LONG night in a boat tied up to a offshore oil platform 45 miles offshore in the Gulf of Mexico. The engine fuel line deteriorated and tiny pieces of rubber clogged the carburetor jets.

Re: It helps the economy too

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, because the democrats are responisble for variances in life expectancy.

Re:It helps the economy too

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't care. That's kind of the point, Sherlock.

Re: It helps the economy too

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember those folks working at McDonalds who already don't make enough to cover food, health and monthly expenses? Yeah those. Screw them. Put them on the treadmill and remind them you're on their side....

Re:It helps the economy too

[Woldscum]

How do you buy 200 gallons for a single fill up for a boat? Lots of cans?

Re: It helps the economy too

[Woldscum]

Yea. It's not like it is literally life or death with a boat. Why are different fuels used in aviation?

Re:It helps the economy too

[RhettLivingston]

No because E85 is about 35% cheaper than gasoline.

Only due to the subsidies. Ethanol costs more to produce per unit of energy delivered to the axle than gasoline. This is why we have the subsidies.

If we allow the free market to work and take away all subsidies - including the subsidies and incentives and allowances for not fully cleaning up their messes that we give to the petroleum industry - the electric solution is going to start winning very soon purely on the basis of costs.

Ethanol will be a no-go in the long run. It is simply too inefficient to convert sunlight-per-square-unit-of-land to power-at-the-axle via the grow corn / produce ethanol / combust in engine path. The losses during the various conversions are too great.

Re: It helps the economy too

[Anonymous Coward]

Around here, they started noticing the tanks were leaking back in the 1980s. They've had a taxpayer supported fund since 1990. Of course, that didn't stop them from adding MTBE to the fuel, since they needed something. Even though they hadn't fixed the leaks.

Fortunately, they stopped that, and now we've switched to ethanol instead. Much safer for everybody. Some people even consume ethanol directly. It apparently serves a good purpose for them.

Oh wait, don't tell me you thought leaking gasoline tanks haven't been a probem since forever?

Have I got news for you.

Re: It helps the economy too

[Anonymous Coward]

I just don't get why you did your math LIKE THAT. Wtf is that, common core ?

Re: It helps the economy too

[Anonymous Coward]

Get a smaller yard you cunt?

Re: It helps the economy too

[ShanghaiBill]

Also, raise or eliminate the Social Security wage base limit.

Even better: Get rid of payroll taxes, and switch to a consumption tax. Americans should be rewarded when they work more, invest more, and consume less.

Re:It helps the economy too

[the_Bionic_lemming]

Tell that to Brazil.

You have your choice of fuels at the pump.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

it really is a model to consider.

Re: It helps the economy too

[ShanghaiBill]

Yes, because the democrats are responisble for variances in life expectancy.

The Democrats designed the SS system, and it was specifically designed to discriminate against blacks so that Boll Weevil Democrats would vote for it. Back then, many blacks lived in the South and worked in agriculture, so, while land owning farmers could participate, farm workers paid with wages or sharecropping were excluded from benefits. 80 years later, hourly farm workers are still excluded, and many other provisions give poor people, especially blacks, a raw deal.

It would be really great if voters cared about issues like this, instead of being fixated on email accounts and pussy grabbing.

Re:It helps the economy too

[Xyrus]

Don't worry. With Trump at the helm, the EPA won't last another 9 months.

Re:It helps the economy too

[the_Bionic_lemming]

umm.

No.

http://www.wikihow.com/Make-Et...

Re:It helps the economy too

[Anonymous Coward]

Replace the crappy rubber fuel line with one made of marine grade stainless steel? People try to cheap out on boating as a hobby and then they wonder why their poorly maintained junker boat falls apart in a salt water marine environment.

Re:It helps the economy too

[guises]

It did a bunch of things from improving total fuel efficiency, to reducing emissions, to stimulating a troubled sector of the economy during a recession. It may have also done what you say, I don't know, but it certainly did not "just" anything. It did a lot.

Re: It helps the economy too

[ClickOnThis]

Even better: Get rid of payroll taxes, and switch to a consumption tax. Americans should be rewarded when they work more, invest more, and consume less.

That's even more regressive than the taxes we've been talking about. People with lower incomes tend to spend all of it, so all of it will get taxed. Not so for rich people. So I for one would argue to retain (progressive) payroll taxes.

Re:It helps the economy too

[LaLLi]

Before 2017? Lol, Saab has been E85 compatible probably for 30 years...before Muricans came and ruined the company.

Re:It helps the economy too

[LaLLi]

In Finland a company called ST1 is distilling ethanol from bio waste. They gather it from housing areas and industry. The leftover waste is used for compost. So no oil or edible food is used for ethanol creation.

Re:It helps the economy too

[Anonymous Coward]

For those appliances we use a much better fuel called 'Aspen', it is still made from (the fumes of) crude oil but contains far less of the nasty stuff like benzeen and such. AFAIK It is mandatory for all government operated equipment in the Netherlands. It also lasts for up to 5 years without degradation. For two-stroke it is combined with bio-degradable oil.

And for using battery powered yard equipment: better batteries are developed every day so it is just a matter of time.

Re: It helps the economy too

[Anonymous Coward]

and you think your present stupid health insurance scam is better....

fucking idiots

UK is being convinced to go down your fuckwit privatised model due to fuck wit right wing nut jobs in power...

RIP the NHS, fucked to death by stupid fuckers...

Re:It helps the economy too

[Jarik C-Bol]

I did not notice boat in the list. Obviously, this is not a perfect solution, (watercraft being the outlier) but for a great deal of things, (Lawn equipment) it does work.

Re: It helps the economy too

[Entrope]

It's even better than that. Most taxpayers don't recognize when government is responsible for higher prices they pay due to increased regulations. Politicians can "support the environment" by supporting making food into car/truck fuel, then "support the little guy" by railing against the greedy gas companies who are diluting gasoline with less-efficient, water-hungry bio-ethanol.

Re: It helps the economy too

[Attila Dimedici]

Increasing corn subsidies to red state farmers is a progressive cause? I mean, it could well be. I'm no expert. Still, it sounds like yet another transfer of wealth from the middle class to the rich.

I'm confused, you seem to be expressing skepticism about corn subsidies being a progressive cause and then you go and explain why they ARE a progressive cause (although to be perfectly honest, what makes them a progressive cause is that they move more power to bureaucrats, transferring money from the middle class to the wealthy is merely one of the indications that this is happening).

Re: It helps the economy too

[Anonymous Coward]

What do they make rubber from nowadays? Oh, right, fossil fuels.

Re:It helps the economy too

[mjwx]

Actually, it won't ruin many engines. Certainly none built after the late 90's.

Most people don't know that the only difference between an eco-fuel ford car and its non eco-fuel badged - is a software setting.

I used to be one of the people that thought the increased alcohol content would ruin gaskets, hoses, and cylinder walls, but the auto industry has already addressed it years ago.

Also, for around 150 bucks - most cars can be converted to run on ethanol, e-85, or methanol.

Yep, the big problem with switching from leaded fuels to unleaded fuels then to E10 fuels were the fact that before the 90's, a lot of cars were still built without knock sensors and ECU's that couldn't adjust for variations in detonation temperatures (RON). In fact, many were still using carburetors instead of EFI.

Then the 90's came along and your cheapest Hyundai were fitted with EFI, modern ECU's. so on and so forth.

Re:It helps the economy too

[Anonymous Coward]

Good. Those are always the POS cars that are broken down, over heated, and on fire that cause massive traffic jams every single day.

Re:It helps the economy too

[dcw3]

Here in VA, I'd love to see us get the clunkers off the road, but then we have this stupid annual "Personal Property Tax" on vehicles. So people hold onto them much longer than they should in order to pay lower taxes. My 2012 Dodge just cost me ~$800 for a vehicle with a blue book value in the low 20s.

Re: It helps the economy too

[Anonymous Coward]

Shrug. Mine doesn't care where the electrons come from. Natgas, coal, solar. 120V, 240V...

Re: It helps the economy too

[dcw3]

Wait, is it the greedy gas companies, or the ethanol producers? I always thought it was the corn industry pushing this, but then I haven't done my homework.

Re: It helps the economy too

[Entrope]

Big Oil blends the ethanol in, those fine corn farmers in Iowa are just meeting market demand. There's no political benefit in having it the other way around.

Re:It helps the economy too

[jbengt]

No rationally designed modern underground storage tank will leak gas into the soil from a bad seal.
They are typically double-wall fiberglass tanks with interstitial leak monitoring. Any "seal" that might deteriorate from alcohol would be at the top of the tank, most likely around piping penetrations, but the piping connections themselves would have solid connections without any resilient seals - stainless steel flexible hose would be used where needed to deal with vibration or expansion & contraction. It's much more likely you'll get a gas into the soil from a spill by the tanker truck filling the storage tank or the driver filling up their car.
Water getting into the tank is another story.

Re:It helps the economy too

[NetNed]

Actually there have been numerous studies that have shown damage to valves and valve seats as a result of running ethanol blended fuels, even in vehicles that are supposedly designed to run ethanol E85. When this damage happened it increased the emissions the vehicles put out so any benefit from running straight ethanol or even a blend is totally shot when you consider this and it being 30% less fuel efficient.

Most small engines (weed whip, lawn mowers, leaf blower, outboard motors) have breakdown issue with cheap fuel lines that manufacturers use. These eventually deteriorate totally or enough to block fuel filters and carburetors. What do most do when that happens? Throw it out and get new ones, which adds to waste and again nullifies any benefit gained from the ethanol.

Auto manufacturers actually warned against using gas with ethanol blended in it for car built before 2001, saying it would void warranties, although when they said that most all those vehicles were already out of warranty.

Ethanol also increases the likeliness of water getting in to gas because alcohol can hold more water. With changing conditions it can cause too much water to be held in the alcohol which will cause it to drop out of suspension and turn in to a gooey mess that with glob up fuel systems and cause an engine to cease running.

Bio diesel I think is great, but ethanol, with all it's issues and government subsidies to produce is just an epic failure all the way around.

Re:It helps the economy too

[HideyoshiJP]

I used to be one of the people that thought the increased alcohol content would ruin gaskets, hoses, and cylinder walls, but the auto industry has already addressed it years ago.

Yes, this is mainly going to affect those with vehicles older than say, 15 years or so.

Re:It helps the economy too

[HideyoshiJP]

Real world mileage with the SL and SW series was generally nothing short of amazing.

Yeah, but how was the oil mileage? Ho ho!
*Former SC2 owner

Re: It helps the economy too

[Anonymous Coward]

Newer cars are safer, that reduces many insurance expenses.

Not that they necessarily pass on the savings.

Re: It helps the economy too

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, yes, it does factor in the increase.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOAyoCo3xXA

E85 is that much cleaner.

Re:It helps the economy too

[Wolfrider]

Good points, but this doesn't even address the problems with *motorcycles.* Millions of bikes on the road aren't built to run on anything over *E10.* Along with that, you can't just use Sta-Bil in your gas tank over the winter anymore like you could with 100% regular gasoline.

We need new leadership in the EPA -- the current clown is catering to the ethanol lobby at the expense of the rest of the US!

Re: It helps the economy too

[Anonymous Coward]

No thanks, WA has no state income tax and I like it that way, even as somone that spends 99% of their income on the cost of existing.

Re: It helps the economy too

[Anonymous Coward]

It works fine for me. You can keep your shitty falling apart hospitals and under paid nurses.

Re: It helps the economy too

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, and the overworked inexperienced doctors fresh out of medical school that only know how to do what the text book said. A friend of mine almost died of a heart condition, they all said "can find anything wrong, sending you home" several times, it wasnt until during one of their many visits to hospital an older American doc working at the hospital took an interest and looked into it more. Turned out thet needed an op which was done with-in a week because it was critical. Probably saved their life in the end.

The public health system where they push you out the door as fast as possible. "Nothing wrong, send them home (to die)".

Re: It helps the economy too

[Anonymous Coward]

Fine by me, American cars are now better than Japopean cars.

Re:It helps the economy too

[dcw3]

Diesel used to be cheaper too, until demand increased due to more and more diesel cars became available.

Re: It helps the economy too

[Anonymous Coward]

If we allowed the free market to work we'd still have leaded fuel.

Re: It helps the economy too

[Anonymous Coward]

Even though AvGas is trying to phase out the lead they use in the fuel.

Re: It helps the economy too

[RhettLivingston]

Very true. Ethanol is not an improvement though. The shifting of so much land to non-food or forest application is of serious concern.

Re: It helps the economy too

[dcw3]

Let me wiki(pedia) that for you...

Unlike mogas, which has been formulated since the 1970s to allow the use of platinum-content catalytic converters for pollution reduction, the most commonly used grade of avgas still contains tetraethyllead (TEL), a toxic substance used to prevent engine knocking (detonation), with ongoing experiments aimed at eventually reducing or eliminating the use of TEL in aviation gasoline.

Avgas has a lower and more uniform vapor pressure than automotive gasoline so it remains in the liquid state despite the reduced atmospheric pressure at high altitude, thus preventing vapor lock.[

Automotive gasoline — known as mogas or autogas among aviators — that does not contain ethanol may be used in certified aircraft that have a Supplemental Type Certificate for automotive gasoline...

Re:It helps the economy too

[strikethree]

I used to be one of the people that thought the increased alcohol content would ruin gaskets, hoses, and cylinder walls, but the auto industry has already addressed it years ago.

Perhaps you only keep cars for a decade, which is when auto manufacturers started THINKING about making their fuels lines and gaskets capable of handling ethanol fuels.

For myself, I converted a 1992 Eagle Talon TSI to ethanol (E85) and the E85 eventually ate through the fuel lines and gaskets. It took a few years for them to even sell E85 resistant fuel lines and gaskets.

This law effectively bans any car that is older than a few years old. For example, my 2004 Mercedes Benz E55 AMG will require the entire fuel delivery system to be changed out. This will NOT be cheap. I can afford it, but what I suspect will happen is that hundreds of thousands of vehicles will just stop working reliably once the new fuels start being pumped through them. Very few people will pay to change their fueling systems to be compatible.

Be VERY careful about buying used cars in the semi-near future. That $150 number is for only the most common and basic cars and does not include labor.

Re:It helps the economy too

[interstellarsurfer]

Hi AC - I'm fairly certain the saltwater environment didn't do anything to make that rubber hose come apart. Having a water-absorbing, rubber destroying fuel in a saltwater environment is a stupid proposition, no matter how you try to displace the blame.

Re:It helps the economy too

[interstellarsurfer]

It doesn't go 'off''. The ethanol and water separate from the gasoline, unless you shake it up regularly to keep it in solution. Then the water and alcohol start working very effectively to corrode the dissimilar metals in your carb, and degrading your gaskets.

Re:It helps the economy too

[strikethree]

But this is great, my Saturn built in the late 90's still gets around 42-50mpg best I ever got was 62.7mpg, and that was when the car was only a few years old. Real world mileage with the SL and SW series was generally nothing short of amazing.

Very odd. The sticker performance was rated at 36 mpg highway for the 99 Saturn SL1 and yet you managed to get over 60mpg? I have experimented deeply with various driving styles and I have seen some, to me, very amazing numbers. These numbers range up to 20% better than the EPA rating. How did you get over a 50% increase? And, how does your car regularly get over my best successes?

Re:It helps the economy too

[BubbaJonBoy]

No - there are currently no vehicles certified for 15% and in fact the tool (chainsaws etc), motorcycle and recreational vehicles manufacturers have all said that even the residual in dual source pumps could cause failures.
The EPA's solution? Ban amounts less than 4 gallons from being distributed at the pumps.
Dumbasses every one.
Ethanol degraded fuels are just a bad idea and actually have more impact on emissions and environment.

Re: It helps the economy too

[Anonymous Coward]

They would grow corn anyways, because corn won't grow well in many types of soil, but good old Midwestern black dirt grows it very well. There is always a huge market for corn. Long before ethanol was desirable it got used for seed or more importantly, for feed, in both the animal and human (corn syrup, etc) sense. The only time people who CAN grow corn don't is when the government subsidizes them not to.

Re:It helps the economy too

[Ranbot]

You're right about the double-wall tanks and I glossed over some details in my post above. The problem isn't so much the tank but the parts connected to the tank. Leaks will most likely occur in places like fuel pumps connections or fill ports/spill buckets (which you also point out); and ethanol exacerbates those problem points requiring different parts and maintenance than non-ethanol gas. Ethanol can also cause in-tank fuel inventory monitoring systems to corrode and give bad readings that might not be immediately obvious to the operator, which is important, because fuel monitoring is one way tank owners indirectly detect potential leaks. I'm not making this up... Even the US EPA says tank systems are being corroded by ethanol and low-sulfur diesel : https://www.epa.gov/ust/altern... (ironically, while they mandate more ethanol be added to gasoline)

And yes... ethanol's hydroscopic properties (i.e. pulls water our of the air) is another problem tank owners wrestle with.

Re:It helps the economy too

[HornWumpus]

How much ethanol can you distill off the average Finnish corpse? I bet it's significant.

Re: It helps the economy too

[Anonymous Coward]

How many new drugs and procedures come out of the UK?

Re:It helps the economy too

[Bob the Super Hamste]

Unless you have a collector vehicle running on E-10 isn't an issue. If you do have a collector car you probably know where you can get some non-oxy fuel or you should. The biggest problem with E-10 is in small engines marine engines that see little use where the fuel can absorb moisture out of the atmosphere and if too much is absorbed then the ethanol+water mix separates from the gasoline. Here again you should be running some non-oxy fuel anyway and . I haven't had a problem with any of my equipment that is fuel related ever, wear and age yes but never fuel.

Re:It helps the economy too

[therealbev]

It still works in California, for certain cars. They paid me $1K to crush my 1988 Caddy -- the one that tried to kill me several times and needed at least $3K of functional repair, although it drove just fine more or less. The most I could get from a wrecker (I didn't want to sell it to a private party -- I wasn't kidding about the attempted murders)(I would have liked to know that parts of her were living on in other cars) was $250. I really hated doing it, but money talks.

I hate California.

Re: It helps the economy too

[dcw3]

But doesn't this artificially drive the demand & price of corn up? Thus improving the corn industries profits?

http://www.forbes.com/forbes/w...

Re:It helps the economy too

[drinkypoo]

Most people don't know that the only difference between an eco-fuel ford car and its non eco-fuel badged - is a software setting.

You also need a fuel quality sensor, which determines the ratio of fuels. Non-FFVs don't have the sensor. Same for GM.

Also, for around 150 bucks - most cars can be converted to run on ethanol, e-85, or methanol.

Citation needed.

Re:It helps the economy too

[eric_harris_76]

The program had good intentions but got mixed results.

Hell's pavement! Who could possibly have predicted that?

Anyone with even an elementary understanding of economics. So, yeah, almost nobody in elected office in D.C.

Re: It helps the economy too

[imAck]

This. Having had the pleasure of rebuilding carburetors on a weed whacker and a lawnmower (the chain saw is still in need), thence having to play games with octane and stabilizers, finding ethanol free gas, etc., I'm not a fan of E-anything.

Re:It helps the economy too

[swalve]

That kind of shit happened before ethanol. Ethanol just gets to be the scapegoat.

Re:It helps the economy too

[swalve]

You know what HEET is, right? A bottle of ethanol you put into your gas.

Re:It helps the economy too

[swalve]

Do you really think they haven't thought of that? Also, how is this magical air getting into the tanks? They are sealed, AND gasoline has a vapor pressure higher than atmospheric, so it will always want to evaporate before air wants to sneak in.

Re: It helps the economy too

[swalve]

Fuel injectors made since never? I'm pretty sure ethanol in fuel has been a thing since the fuel injector was mainstreamed.

Re:It helps the economy too

[swalve]

I have some old ass lawn equipment that has always been fed e10. It's all been fine. The 1999 lawn tractor needs its carburetor rebuilt, but what 17 year old carburetor doesn't need to be rebuilt. Chainsaws, trimmers and the rest are either all still running, were stolen or the motors outlived the rest of the machines. My shitty snowblower started on the first pull last month on whatever shit was left in the tank from last year. If ethanol chemically affected seals and whatnot, EVERY machine made from the same materials would fail.

Re:It helps the economy too

[swalve]

Oh stop. If a 2004 can't handle a little ethanol, your beef is with your manufacturer, not ethanol. Ethanol has been in gasoline for decades now. Also, guess what? 25 year old cars have gaskets and fuel lines that fail.

Re:It helps the economy too

[Ranbot]

Do you really think they haven't thought of that? Also, how is this magical air getting into the tanks? They are sealed, AND gasoline has a vapor pressure higher than atmospheric, so it will always want to evaporate before air wants to sneak in.

Your ignorance is showing. Tanks are not as sealed as you might think. All modern tanks have vent pipes, fill ports, ports for monitoring level probes, and a 3-foot wide manhole for workers to enter the tank. Of course tank manufacturers have various gaskets, fittings, and threaded connections at these points, but they are not perfect and tank systems need regular maintenance. Anyone who owns or works around tanks will tell you that tank systems need more maintenance now because of the corrosiveness and hydroscopic abilities of ethanol.

FWIW, I am an environmental consultant of ~16 years experience and have worked around many tank systems. I'm done arguing after this post.

Stepping back some I am not saying concerns about tanks are the only reason we should be against ethanol blended gas. It's just one of many, but most people are not aware of the tank issues.

Re:It helps the economy too

[Rockoon]

Are all cars over 20 years old "collector cars" in your opinion?

Because it seems to me that the vast majority of them are "poor people cars"

Re:It helps the economy too

[Bob the Super Hamste]

There are very few 20+ year old vehicles on the road, and even then in 1996 E-10 was common and vehicles were designed to run on it. Going back further having driven a number of really crappy American vehicles from the 80s even those ran fine on E-10, the oldest of which were made in '85. So given that at this point those vehicles which when I had them ran just fine on E-10 would now be 31 years old it isn't an issue. The few vehicles I see from the mid 80s now tend to not be beaters but instead are collector vehicles and are well kept despite being poorly made ugly fucking boxes on tires. Going back farther to the 70s and earlier now you are clearly in the collector car realm. That said from time to time you do find a running older vehicle from the early 80s and 70s for cheap but they don't run well. Much like a buddy who bought a '67 rambler for $250 in like 02 or 03 that burned oil, had bad springs, and had a bad PCV system so moisture would build up in the crank case, lots of rust and dents, and the interior what pretty shot. It ran but not well. He drove it for 9 months regularly until the engine wore out so much it could barely move under its own power and even then he sold it for $500.

Re: It helps the economy too

[Anonymous Coward]

A poor black man has a life expectancy of about 69 years, so will typically benefit from SS and Medicare for 4 years. A rich white woman will live to be 82, collecting benefits for 17 years.

Your numbers are life expectancy at birth, which is not a useful metric when making policy decisions about retirement (war on drugs and other public policy is another discussion). At 65, a black male can expect to live another 16 years, a white male 18, and a white female 20. Not saying the structure of SS is fair and equitable, but it's not as bad as you make it out to be.

Re: It helps the economy too

[the_Bionic_lemming]

No. You don't.

And everyone's fuel mileage goes down.

[MachineShedFred]

A bigger percentage of less energy-dense material per unit volume means more volume gets burned to create the same amount of energy. Add to that the amount of energy needed to create the ethanol, and does this actually make any difference whatsoever? Could it possibly actually make more total overall emissions?

Re:And everyone's fuel mileage goes down.

[OhFelgercarb!]

The bored bureaucrats at the EPA need to feel useful. They create regulations that will later require more regulations to regulate further what has already been regulated.

Re:And everyone's fuel mileage goes down.

[queazocotal]

The total amount of fossil fuels needed to produce one gallon of ethanol is (counting everything, like fertiliser, cultivation, water provision, ...) is quite close indeed to one gallon. Increasing the amount of renewables without specifying total efficiency is simply and purely a subsidy giveaway to farmers and with only negative consequences to the environment.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p... - chinese paper.

Re:And everyone's fuel mileage goes down.

[Anonymous Coward]

The reduced fuel economy means you need to purchase more fuel, which means you pay more in taxes.

Re:And everyone's fuel mileage goes down.

[zugmeister]

Ethanol made from corn is good. It's what engines crave.
Stop looking at the big picture, it messes with the black and white that makes up the world.

Re:And everyone's fuel mileage goes down.

[cryptizard]

They did specify total efficiency, did you not read the summary? It says 20-50% reduction in lifecycle emissions, which include production and transportation of the fuel as well as burning it.

Re:And everyone's fuel mileage goes down.

[umghhh]

It gets really funny when you take into account the impact has been made by clearing forest to make up for lost production capacity of food stuffs now when we produce all this bio gasoline. It may just be that indeed the Chinese were right all along - the only way to limit damage is contraception. The other population control measures are all human but usually in conflict with valid laws.

Re:And everyone's fuel mileage goes down.

[losfromla]

If that part of the mandate is true and enforced (including all "externalities") then it forces no ethanol to be used as none of it meets that target when costs of production as listed by queazocotal are included.

Re:And everyone's fuel mileage goes down.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ethanol The Engine Mutilator!
It's What Cars Crave!

Re:And everyone's fuel mileage goes down.

[ShanghaiBill]

The bored bureaucrats at the EPA need to feel useful.

Ethanol subsides are not something dreamed up by the EPA.
They are mandated by Congress.

Re:And everyone's fuel mileage goes down.

[Anonymous Coward]

That paper is from 2006. 10 years ago.

Ethanol production technology has a advanced quite a bit since then, so those numbers do not reflect reality.

Try again.

Re:And everyone's fuel mileage goes down.

[ShanghaiBill]

To understand the politics of ethanol, you only need to answer two questions.
1. Which state benefits the most from corn subsidies?
2. Which state holds the first presidential caucuses?
This explains everything.

Re:And everyone's fuel mileage goes down.

[BronsCon]

They are mandated by Congress...

... in response to lobbying by...

Re:And everyone's fuel mileage goes down.

[BronsCon]

Citation in the form of a more current source? No? Okay, then.

Re:And everyone's fuel mileage goes down.

[Anonymous Coward]

.... corn?

Re:And everyone's fuel mileage goes down.

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, this is a brilliant plan. Sell more gallons to generate more revenue for distributors as well as road taxes.

Ethanol does not ship via pipeline due to its corrosive properties.
Do you really want that in your engine? If not, you can get rid of it with some patience.

Re:And everyone's fuel mileage goes down.

[radarskiy]

"The total amount of fossil fuels needed to produce one gallon of ethanol is (counting everything, like fertiliser, cultivation, water provision, ...) is quite close indeed to one gallon"

Energy balance is 1.3 for corn ethanol specifically. Sugarcane ethanol, OTOH, is at 8 which is comparable to new oil discoveries.

Re:And everyone's fuel mileage goes down.

[Anonymous Coward]

Can we stop saying "farmers". Yes these are crops, grown on land, but these industries have as much in common with farmers as Apple has in common with George's BBQ in that both are businesses. Jim Bob growing 40 acres of cranberries is a far cry from Megaconglomerate Inc growing 40,000 acres of them. And just like with Apple and George, Jim Bob ain't getting shit for a subsidy while M Inc is getting billions.

Its just another corporate subsidy aka businesses that don't need more money being given money while those that do need it get jack shit.

Re:And everyone's fuel mileage goes down.

[Hognoxious]

Did you even read the link? It says corn-based fuel ethanol.

It certainly isn't the case for all ethanol. Brazil was using ethanol back when they neither had oil nor the money to pay for it.

Re:And everyone's fuel mileage goes down.

[mikeiver1]

Fear not intrepid fellow abuser of the environment, president elect Fuckwit will repeal the EPA and all the rules they have passed over the last few years, if not decades! I remember the smog of the 70's in Los Angeles and it was fucking horrible. I suspect that with the throttles being opened to the big oil companies and the repeal of rules holding the car makers at bay that we will see a significant up tick in smog in urban areas that have large car populations and limited public transportation. But that will take a decade to start to be felt and of course it will be all the fault of the democrats after 8 years of the Fuckwit and the cool aid drinking nut job screwing your children's future into oblivion and getting orders of magnitude richer along the way.

Re:And everyone's fuel mileage goes down.

[OhFelgercarb!]

They are mandated by Congress.

That's 100 percent right. Congress passes a law that mandates Ethanol in gasoline. The EPA takes off with that and regulates it narrowly in the beginning. But over time and before we know it, the EPA has regulated the living crap out of all aspects of it. Sorta like the Clean Water Act passed in 1972 that gave the EPA authority to define rules and regulate "navigable waterways" - meaning rivers and territorial seas. The EPA took off with that and now we wind up with regulations that cover ditches and dry land that may have water on it after it rains. How in the flippin' hell are those navigable. Oh the EPA gets to decide what the term "navigable" means. See how it works.

Re:And everyone's fuel mileage goes down.

[Ranbot]

.... and food prices go up if the ethanol supply is coming from a crop (e.g. corn, soybeans, sugar cane, etc.).

Re:And everyone's fuel mileage goes down.

[Ranbot]

This guy gets it.

Re: And everyone's fuel mileage goes down.

[MachineShedFred]

That's pretty interesting. I assume you meant 0.8 in your post above.

Isn't there still a massive import tariff on sugar cane, mostly to make corn ethanol and corn syrup more competitive in the "free" market?

Sounds like Congress is fucking the dog yet again...

Re:And everyone's fuel mileage goes down.

[BronsCon]

Actually, the EPA. Corn growers lobby the EPA, the EPA lobbies Congress, Congress enacts subsidies.

Re:And everyone's fuel mileage goes down.

[ShanghaiBill]

... in response to lobbying by...

Corn subsidies are not a result of lobbying, they are a result of electoral politics. They primarily benefit sparsely populated red states which have disproportionate power in the Senate. No red state senator can possibly get elected by supporting a free market for farm products. Blue state senators are happy to cave in, because it doesn't really cost all that much, and they can horse-trade the subsidies by tacking them on as an amendment to other bills. Also, corn subsidies benefit some blue states too, such as Illinois.

Re:And everyone's fuel mileage goes down.

[Ichijo]

Let's compare apples and apples: how much fossil fuel does it take to produce a gallon of gasoline from scratch like we do for ethanol?

Re: And everyone's fuel mileage goes down.

[Anonymous Coward]

Who says you need to ship it? You can produce your own ethanol legally in your backyard.
http://www.microfueler.com/products.html

Re:And everyone's fuel mileage goes down.

[Anonymous Coward]

... which include production ...

"... corn-based fuel ethanol has no obvious reduction of carbon emissions than gasoline ... "

The article even admits, it's only efficient if fewer resources are used growing the corn. So that will upset the fertilizer industry. Diluting petrol products made sense when the point was not wasting unsold corn but soon everyone wanted a guaranteed profit and the US government obliged with tax-breaks for ethanol manufacture and use. It would have been smarter to pay the costs of processing the unsold corn. This is why small government doesn't work.

With fossil fuels, the cost of finding and extracting one oil reserve is spread over millions of barrels. With ethanol, the cost of one farm growing the corn is spread over a few thousand barrels of a less energy-rich fuel. It's difficult to argue that ethanol is cost effective.

There's also the problem that equipment designed to use oil and ethanol has a far shorter working life than oil-based equipment alone. This is why there's been little incentive to increase the amount of ethanol in blended fuel. Blended fuel results in increased waste that has not been included in the life-cycle costs.

Re:And everyone's fuel mileage goes down.

[Anonymous Coward]

A bigger percentage of less energy-dense material per unit volume means more volume gets burned to create the same amount of energy. Add to that the amount of energy needed to create the ethanol, and does this actually make any difference whatsoever? Could it possibly actually make more total overall emissions?

That's not what worries me. What does is most modern automobiles can not handle fuel with more than 10% ethanol without causing damage to the fuel system and engine. There are roughly 260 million passenger cars on the highway in the US with only about 17 million being "flex fuel" capable (about 6%).

Re: And everyone's fuel mileage goes down.

[Anonymous Coward]

Oil refinery median FOEB/barrel is about 0.6 million BTU/barrel of crude, so about 8% of the energy in the crude gets used to refine it. Solomon puts out studies every other year but I'm too lazy to find you a link. Crude and products over pipeline are negligible as far as energy cost, while movement by rail is terrible (and orders of magnitude more dangerous). Can't speak for upstream costs though.

Re:And everyone's fuel mileage goes down.

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps, but it still runs like crap and ruins engines. It would make far more sense, to just increase the tax on gas and let consumers figure out how to make reductions rather than putting such crap in the fuel that then requires other additives to cope with.

Re:And everyone's fuel mileage goes down.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm literally shaking right now. He's literally Hitler and he's literally going to send his rightwing deathsquads after you and your wife's son.

Re:And everyone's fuel mileage goes down.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's like demanding that I squeeze 40% more blood from a stone. There are no bio renewables methods that we can do what they've asked. Not if you're measuring all the externalities and other unintended consequences. How's that old water table doing in the mid west? Nice while it lasted, it's a damn shame that we'll absolutely ruin it with producing more corn ethanol. Those fucking retards.they are ruining the actual environment with this greenwashin bullshit.

Re:And everyone's fuel mileage goes down.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ethanol made from corn is good. It's what engines crave.
Stop looking at the big picture, it messes with the black and white that makes up the world.

Ethanol replaced MTBE as an additive, which I think was a good thing. That being said, if its not a clear net win, I wouldn't go beyond what is useful there. Grow something else. Perhaps something with a better rate of return as a renewable, or hell, if we must subsidize it, lets make sure that fresh vegetables are available everywhere..

Re:And everyone's fuel mileage goes down.

[Anonymous Coward]

This is your car: <cut to egg photo>

This is your car ON ETHANOL: <cut to egg being cracked and placed into frying pan full of bacon grease>

Any Questions?

Re:And everyone's fuel mileage goes down.

[LaLLi]

Emissions from ethanol are much lower than gasoline. The problem with US is that they produce corn (food) to create ethanol with bad efficiency. They should be using biowaste (lots of that in most western countries) to distill the ethanol. That way it's a double win for enviroment. Bio waste gets collected, recycled as fuel and composted after ethanol process. Finnish ST1 is a good example on how to do it.

Re:And everyone's fuel mileage goes down.

[Anonymous Coward]

Besides the obvious fact you do not know what you are talking about, you are ignoring the state EPAs, which do most of the effective work on reducing measurable pollution. The Fed EPA does little more than pass asinine regulations like this one, block clean coal power plants, and take years to decide a pipeline is more environmentally sound than trucking fuel. Hopefully the Federal EPA will be downsized, or wiped out altogether.

Re:And everyone's fuel mileage goes down.

[Anonymous Coward]

My, my...

You need this... DESPERATELY!

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Vagisil-Maximum-Strength-Cream-1oz.-2-pack/10982705

Rub it all over yourself...

It's supposed to help IRRITATED TWAHTS!

Re:And everyone's fuel mileage goes down.

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a poison pill. This is a big win for midwest corn farmers, a big loss for anyone else. If Trump rolls it back, the dems will say he is hurting farmers. If he keeps it, every pays more at the pump. If it was economical to do this, it wouldn't need a low requiring it.

Re: And everyone's fuel mileage goes down.

[Anonymous Coward]

I think 8 was meant. Using sugar cane, it takes 1 gallon of ethanol to make 8. That figure probably came from here

Re:And everyone's fuel mileage goes down.

[Anonymous Coward]

Totally agree. Ethanol completely fouls up the engines in my boats and my other two stroke equipment. I understand cars use more gas on average then pleasure crafts. If you're going to force the ethanol on motorists. Give also the option for pure gasoline. Like they do with "off-road" diesel.

Re:And everyone's fuel mileage goes down.

[strikethree]

I remember the smog of the 70's in Los Angeles and it was fucking horrible.

Even in the 90s, the sky could be a steel grey without any clouds. Go out east to Hemet and watch the smog rolling out of the Los Angeles basin and into the San Bernadino mountains. Yes, this is orders of magnitude better than the 70s but Los Angeles air is still atrocious.

I recall sitting atop Mount Soledad (San Diego area) for hours one day reading A Thousand and One Nights. I could see baby clouds being formed as the warm sea air was lifted up and cooled. The fresh air was awesome... and then I headed back into San Diego. As soon as I hit the 5 (I5), I could "smell" (feel?) the diesel and other emissions which my senses had hidden from me because it was always there. I was grossed out knowing that I was breathing that shit.

For it to get any worse than it is (was, circa 2004) would be a tragedy. :(

Re:And everyone's fuel mileage goes down.

[Anonymous Coward]

How is this nonsensical rambling modded as insightful? What Trump can—and can't—do all by himself on climate

Re:And everyone's fuel mileage goes down.

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree, that is the POLITICS. But what about the science? This is Slashdot. That's what's important here. Will adding more renewable/recycled fuels into the virgin fuel accomplish the goal of reducing carbon emissions, dependence on foreign sources, etc? If the numbers and science work out, I cannot understand why a supposedly educated rational thinker (what us slashdotters think we are) would be against this. IIRC you are one of the conservatives who usually hates everything the EPA does.

Re:And everyone's fuel mileage goes down.

[mikeiver1]

Speaking of a person that knows nothing. The terms "Clean" and "Coal" are in fact mutually exclusive in every manner. This is nothing more than a public disinformation campaign by the coal industry to try to fool the "Uneducated" into thinking that it can be burnt in a manner that is not harmful to the environment and the populations down wind of the smoke stacks. We will not mention the slag settling ponds will we...

Re:And everyone's fuel mileage goes down.

[mikeiver1]

Pretty sure that the republicans are gonna fall in line and do what Pres. elect FuckWit wants if it benefits their benefactors. And it will. I am more than happy to watch the guy back out of every pledge he made to the uneducated people that put the post turtle where he and "he who drinks the cool aid" are soon to be shortly. And he is presently. The ones he will push hard for are going to be bad for the poor and the middle class all the while moving more wealth into the hands of the top 3% or so. After four years you will be wondering how you could have voted for them and yet you will be so stupid that you will return to you place of shame and repeat past mistakes. Best part is that you will feel the pain but your kids will be the ones to pay a far greater toll than you could have imagined.

Re:And everyone's fuel mileage goes down.

[swalve]

It's higher octane so you can run higher compression.

Re:And everyone's fuel mileage goes down.

[MachineShedFred]

Except that an engine is going to run the compression stroke it is designed for. Adding a high octane fuel doesn't magically change the compression ratio of the engine. And, more octane only means it is more resistant to pre-detonation under compression - it doesn't mean there is any more or less energy available in the fuel, it just prevents high compression engines from "pinging". The one exception is if the engine is so old and filled with carbon deposits that it is over-compressing and pinging, in which case the octane boost will prevent the pre-detonation from being over-compressed.

This is why turbo and supercharged engines need to run premium - they are designed to use higher compression. People putting premium in naturally aspirated engines that don't require it just don't like money, or have been completely misled by marketing that tries to equate octane to "running cleaner".

At least Trump may actually do some good

[roman_mir]

Hopefully Trump does a couple of good things as well, maybe actually getting Peter Thiel into SCOTUS, killing the EPA, reducing taxes (I am 100% for elimination of the IRS, Federal reserve bank and pretty much everything government does) but we'll see.

His ideas are conflicting, on the one hand he supposedly wants to reduce income and wealth taxes, which is good, on the other hand he wants to keep spending money on welfare and other government programs, which is bad and inconsistent with his supposed position to ensure that the Fed stops manipulating interest rates.

Bond interest is already somewhat up this year and even since Trump won on the 8th of November (and will likely win in December too). But he needs to choose a position at some point, will he reduce/eliminate income taxes? Will he eliminate the Fed and maybe IRS? (hopefully but unlikely) . Will he reduce taxes while increasing spending, then he will have to keep the Fed and let it do what it actually wants to do, which is print more money and try and keep interest rate as low as possible.

Too much conflict is in all of this, very little of it has any consistency, there are no real position, I don't really expect much, but can we at least get Thiel into SCOTUS?

Re:At least Trump may actually do some good

[skids]

Bond interest is already somewhat up this year

While for personal reasons I am all for higher bond rates, higher bond rates due to concerns over the country's credit rating are not a good thing. It's better if the rates are high because private bond interest rates are also high and providing competition.

Anyway, any work done to reduce the country's carbon footprint will be undone by Trump simply because he sets so many pairs of his own pants on fire.

Re:At least Trump may actually do some good

[cryptizard]

His proposed tax plan pretty much only reduces taxes for the super rich. The high end of the brackets will have up to 7% decreased marginal rate, while low and middle income families will see somewhere between .5-1% decreased rate unless you are a single parent or have more than two children as a couple, then you could actually pay more taxes. Also if you are a single person with no children making between about $120k-190k you will pay more taxes.

Re:At least Trump may actually do some good

[MightyMartian]

You strike me as the kind of person who probably believes the Articles of Confederation where a better constitution than the US Constitution.

But yes, completely destroying the Federal Government and allowing polluters and emitters free reign will just be such a boon to America. Yeah, lots of people will die from environmental poisoning, and climate change will increase its pace, costing everyone huge amounts of money in everything from higher food costs to much higher insurance premiums, but all that really counts is that your ideology wins some sort of weird hypothetical political war.

Re: At least Trump may actually do some good

[Jesus H Rolle]

killing the EPA

American pollution was bad enough that rivers were catching fire. That's why the EPA was created.

Want to depoliticize the EPA? More power to you. Want to destroy it? That just makes you a shitty human being.

Re:At least Trump may actually do some good

[boristdog]

You are either young, stupid or a troll. Possibly all three.

I lived before the EPA and the clean air and water acts. I lived near many refineries and factories back in the 60's and 70's. The toxic crap that poured from the smokestacks and drain pipes of these places was horrible. Have you ever seen bright yellow toxic sludge draining directly into a bay? It is not pretty, especially with all the dead sea life floating in it. Cancer rates were astounding, respiratory illnesses were through the roof back in those days.

So you want to kill the EPA. Go ahead. I no longer live near those places, but you should move there and enjoy what you want. Raise your kids there! It's what your heroes want.

Idiot.

Re:At least Trump may actually do some good

[DogDude]

Said it better than I could.

Re:At least Trump may actually do some good

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyway, any work done to reduce the country's carbon footprint will be undone by Trump simply because the cult of AGW is nothing but a wealth-transfer scheme and needlessly increases costs across the board for everything, impacts the poorest the most and the fastest, and will be responsible for some of the old/disabled/poor people that are discovered to have frozen to death each winter.

FTFY

HTH

HAND

Re:At least Trump may actually do some good

[losfromla]

I agree, roman_mir is a moron.

Re:At least Trump may actually do some good

[0100010001010011]

killing the EPA,

I too look forward to burning rivers.

Re:At least Trump may actually do some good

[Anonymous Coward]

But yes, completely destroying the Federal Government and allowing polluters and emitters free reign will just be such a boon to America.

Why must opposition to a particular way of doing it mean destroying the federal government?
I find it highly unlikely that anyone involved in the Constitutional Convention would have thought it appropriate for the executive branch of the federal government to make a regulation requiring people to buy a certain percentage of their fuel from specific businesses in specific (politically chosen) states.

Re:At least Trump may actually do some good

[whoever57]

His proposed tax plan pretty much only reduces taxes for the super rich.

Plenty of middle-class people will see their taxes increase. I am looking forward to the squealing of the Trump voters as they realize that they are paying for the ultra-wealthy to get a tax cut.

Re: At least Trump may actually do some good

[OhPlz]

Did the EPA prevent the situation in Flint with their water supply?
Did the EPA prevent the BP disaster in the Gulf?

I remember after the first blended gas was sold seeing nearly everyone's old lawnmowers out with the trash because it ruined their engines to the point where it wasn't worth trying to repair them. Same thing with diesel and some pickup truck engines, the blended diesel was shown to reduce the life of the engine, but no attention was paid to that. I have a hard time believing that junking all that hardware and replacing it is better for the environment than sticking with what we had. It seems likely that electric vehicles will eventually replace fuel powered engines, so why not encourage that transition rather than screwing the formulation of gas even more? Decisions like this undermine the value of the EPA in the minds of many.

Re:At least Trump may actually do some good

[whoever57]

You are either young, stupid or a troll. Possibly all three.

He is at least two out of those three, which is why he is in "Foes" list.

Re:At least Trump may actually do some good

[smooth wombat]

Considering Republican Chief Justice John Roberts has said it's appropriate for the executive branch of the federal government to make a regulation requiring people to hand over their money to a private company whether they want to or not, I think we're well beyond anything in the Constitutional Convention.

Re:At least Trump may actually do some good

[MightyMartian]

Did you read the parent's post?

Hopefully Trump does a couple of good things as well, maybe actually getting Peter Thiel into SCOTUS, killing the EPA, reducing taxes (I am 100% for elimination of the IRS, Federal reserve bank and pretty much everything government does) but we'll see.

Roman_mir isn't merely debating how the Government should go about its business, or what it should or shouldn't do as per environmental or energy policy. He's basically arguing that he wants eliminating pretty much everything government does. So I'd say it's pretty damned fair to say he's opposed to the US Constitution as set out by the Framers, hence my observation that something like the Articles of Confederation would be more to his liking.

Re:At least Trump may actually do some good

[MightyMartian]

Many of these people have been happily voting in Republicans for years, if not decades, thus being party to their incomes being redirected to the wealthiest, so how could they meaningfully object now?

Re:At least Trump may actually do some good

[BronsCon]

I'm not... I hate loud squealing noises. Like the ones Hillary supporters are making right now.

Damn. I mean, really, they all suck.

Re:At least Trump may actually do some good

[roman_mir]

I disagree with your reading of my comment, I would prefer if the government could actually stick to the Constitution and only do the very little bit that it allows the government to do. AFAIC there shouldn't be a Federal reserve bank, which is a political ploy to monetise Treasury debt. There shouldn't be any form of business regulations, any form of government involvement in labour, business, health care, insurance, education, energy, transportation, communications.

What I see as a *legitimate* role of government defined in the Constitution is protection of the borders from invasion, however given how the government behaved over the last 100+ years at this point I think it cannot even be trusted with that simple enough role.

Re:At least Trump may actually do some good

[DogDude]

So what's your goal? To make the country an absolutely horrible place for people to live in, just because you think that the US Constitution was written by your God and needs to be followed to the letter? What's the point of that, exactly?

Re: At least Trump may actually do some good

[Jesus H Rolle]

You're right about ethanol. The EPA is getting it wrong here, thanks to the farm lobby. Still, the EPA exists for a reason. We need to improve it, not abolish it.

Re:At least Trump may actually do some good

[Hognoxious]

Why would they complain about money being redirected to the wealthy? They're going to be among them when the man stops holding them down.

Re:At least Trump may actually do some good

[rtb61]

To be fair there definitely was one good point, getting rid of the privatised Federal Reserve where those who fund government get government to borrow make believe money from them, literally completely imaginary make believe money and the government has to pay it back with actual real tax payer debt money. Now that should be fraud, not legalised theft by the 1% from the 99%, really is stupendously disgusting stuff and those ass hats have been killing people to keep it the corruption going.

Getting rid of the EPA, meh, most likely nor more that between 10 and 20 million Americans would die as a result in the next say 10 to 20 years, beyond that, likely the entire US society would collapse in a mire of extremely toxic pollution that would take centuries to clean up. As for paying income tax, there is a sound reasonable way to significantly reduce income taxes, make the government the only legal bank and the gap between interest on deposits and interest on loans would pay a huge percentage of income tax (something of course the corrupt banksters would 'violently' oppose, keep in mind they have demonstrated ties to organised crime, drug dealers, arms dealers et al).

Re: At least Trump may actually do some good

[Anonymous Coward]

Our goal is for things to be so unbearable for the liberals that they all kill themselves.

Nice neat solution. Everybody comes out good.

Re:At least Trump may actually do some good

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you suggesting that without the EPA there would be no Clean Air and Clean Water Acts?

If you are then you are clearly young, stupid, a troll, or an idiot.

Re: At least Trump may actually do some good

[Anonymous Coward]

Regulators in the EPA don't know jack shit about engines. Remember the people who when you were in college, you couldn't figure out how they were going to find a job when they graduated? They got jobs with the government.

Re: At least Trump may actually do some good

[roman_mir]

I absolutely honestly could not care less what anybody at all on this planet Earth thinks of me as of a human being. I am absolutely against everything the government is doing today, from EPA to IRS to Federal reserve (supposedly apolitical but in reality doing everything to keep the current administration, any current administration in power so as to stay in power themselves). Does it make me a 'shitty human being' because I want to see all government offices shut down, all laws and all taxes abolished? I don't think so and at the end the only thing that matters is what I think of myself.

Re:At least Trump may actually do some good

[LynnwoodRooster]

Amazing how the United States of America existed for 130+ years without an income tax, and for nearly 200 years without an EPA. Must have been impossible to survive back then! Thank goodness we've seen the massive explosion in Federal Government intrusion and national debt since the mid 60s, why where would we be without that debt increasing at a rate 10 times that of inflation? We'd all be dead! Dead!

Re:At least Trump may actually do some good

[Ksevio]

Just because the IRS takes money from you, doesn't make it a bad organization. You can't just eliminate the departments that make things harder for you. Money spent on the IRS ends up bringing in more money in tax revenue that would be lost. Everyone would still need to pay taxes without the IRS, we'd just end up like Greece where lots of people just weren't paying.

Re:At least Trump may actually do some good

[gtall]

Really? Can Grandma come and live with you? Her meds are a bit expensive, so start saving. While you are at it, start in on that medical research the government won't be doing or funding. We'd all hate to see you die before it's necessary. And please take the unregulated airplanes from now on, if you are lucky you get to see the right wing off the left side of the plane. Come to it, please remove all that damn safety equipment in your car, especially the airbags since you won't be needing them to protect you from that drunk driver aiming his vehicle at your head.

Maybe you'd like to take those pills from Joe's Bean Works and Pharmacology, Inc. You don't need no stinking government regulation and enforcement to keep them pills from destroying your kidneys. Pacemaker, sheesh, you'll never be needing one, and if you do, then any old EE can whack one together in an hour that won't have electrical glitches.

You won't be needing the military to protect you either. Why with Trump being Putin's bitch, you'll be safe...from the Chinese after the next trade war when goods down at Wally World start costing twice as much.

And forget your own social security and medicare, we'll just whack you off at the neck when you reach retirement age...we cannot be supportin' any freeloaders on the government dime. Which will be convenient since it won't have any.

Re:At least Trump may actually do some good

[Anonymous Coward]

Getting rid of the EPA, meh, most likely nor more that between 10 and 20 million Americans would die as a result in the next say 10 to 20 years, beyond that, likely the entire US society would collapse in a mire of extremely toxic pollution that would take centuries to clean up.

So what changed after the creation of the EPA?
Those things weren't happening for the many decades before.

Re:At least Trump may actually do some good

[roman_mir]

Greece ended up where it ended up not because people were not paying taxes but because the amount of spending that was happening with all of the socialist programs was disproportionately higher than the taxes that could be collected, so the difference was borrowed and then the creditors made a margin call.

IRS is an evil organization and the government is an evil institution that completely violates the spirit and the letter of the law (the Constitution) in every way in order to grab power and it has been doing it for over 116 years now at least.

Re:At least Trump may actually do some good

[rahvin112]

Trump can't kill the EPA without an act of Congress, just like the other 99% of things he's promised. And put right down to it there aren't very many congress critters that are going to vote to poison your water and air because they want to keep their jobs.

Re:At least Trump may actually do some good

[roman_mir]

100%, people should be saving for their own retirement and those who are not saving should not expect to use government oppression to steal from the rest of the working population to subsidise their late years. This entire concept is anti-human, it's against every bit of individual freedom to steal from some to subsidise others in any way at all. The medication prices, health care prices, etc., all of this is due to government interference with the free market. There shouldn't be such a thing as SS, Medicare, Medicaid, FDA and the Federal reserve that can push interest rates down while buying bad Treasury debt just to start. There shouldn't be any form of government insurance, all insurance should be private and there shouldn't be any form of income, payroll or wealth related taxes, instead people should be saving on their own (and they do that in actual capitalist countries, like CHINA).

And yes, I don't want to have any government regulations in airplanes, why should there be? AFAIC it's none of government business.

As to military - that was the *only* legitimate government purpose, but today AFAIC it no longer is. The government cannot run military for defence, it's using it for invasion, occupation and enrichment of the most politically connected at the expense of everybody else, those who are paying for it with their economies and with their lives.

AFAIC any old EE should be able to build and sell a pace maker and if you don't like the reviews, don't buy from that person.

Re:At least Trump may actually do some good

[MightyMartian]

Except that wasn't the intent of the Framers, not at all. While certainly they didn't likely conceive of the enlargement of the Federal government on the scale even seen by Lincoln's time, they hardly intended the Constitution to be a dead document that reflected only their views. You can see they had even from the beginning at least some intent for a proactive federal government, as the Interstate Commerce Clause makes pretty clear. And since all the things you don't believe the Federal government should have any role in all can, and very often do, become activity between states, the very document you seem to believe should be interpreted Sola Scriptura gives the Federal government the authority to put regulations in place.

So what you really have here is your own inauthentic view of the Constitution and the proper role of the Federal government, one that, if it really existed at all, was rejected when the Confederacy lost the Battle of Appomattox Court House. But honestly, I doubt even many of the former Confederate politicians would have shared your interpretation of the Constitution, and it is my view that your interpretation is rootless, having no basis in either constitutional jurisprudence or even in the Framer's intentions. They had already had a Federal government of the kind you refer to, the aforementioned Articles of Confederation, and it was a miserable failure.

Re: At least Trump may actually do some good

[Anonymous Coward]

Amazing how the United States of America existed for 130+ years without an income tax,

Yeah, turns out a changing situation lead to a change in taxation. Of course, it isn't like the tariff system or the homesteading system didn't have conflicts. But you won't get new empty lands to sell nor start up protectionism again.

and for nearly 200 years without an EPA. Must have been impossible to survive back then!

Man, if only the Founding Fathers had not been entirely unspecific about the organization of government, you could get rid of the EPA as unconstitutional. Oh wait, you can't, because they did leave such institutional matters up to revision. Course, what really grinds your gears is that everything the EPA does is covered under the constitution too, especially the parts involving interstate conflicts, like most air pollution, for example, and lots of water pollution.

And it's too bad for you that so many international treaties have obligated the US to clean up its act.

Thank goodness we've seen the massive explosion in Federal Government intrusion and national debt since the mid 60s, why where would we be without that debt increasing at a rate 10 times that of inflation? We'd all be dead! Dead!

Sorry that Reagan's explosive military buildup and Bush's rampant tax reduction as well as war spending lead to lots of deficits. But we're not dead at all, and life is pretty good. Heck, we could even cut the deficit in half with only a few changes.

Re:At least Trump may actually do some good

[Anonymous Coward]

People like power. The NSA likes getting your phone metadata. The IRS likes to investigate political opponents. That Cheeto that just got elected is going to have access to a lot of stuff he likes. And they all love the opportunity to give favors to their friends.
No government is a bad thing. Too much government is also a bad thing.
That's why we have a constitution, to define the powers the federal government has. Anything that's not in there, it doesn't get to do.
That's why it really does need to be followed to the letter. That's not about God; it's about humans.

Re: At least Trump may actually do some good

[jmac_the_man]

Just because the IRS takes money from you, doesn't make it a bad organization.

Right, but the IRS specifically (as presently constituted) is a law enforcement agency that targets its political opponents for extra-legal harassment. If we were to fire everyone that worked there and replace them with randomly selected citizens, the nation as a whole would be better off.

Re:At least Trump may actually do some good

[Anonymous Coward]

Not true.

150k? Tax rate drops from 28% to 20%
190k? Tax rate drops from 28% to 25%

Check page four of the embedded PDF.

Re:At least Trump may actually do some good

[bmo]

" The actual enemy is the government and while businesses can create problems, including environmental problems, at least it is possible to fight them in court"

What part of society are courts?

Where are laws made that allow you to sue in court and have the court's findings enforced?

If you think government is the enemy, go look at places where there is ineffective government and no government. They're hellholes. They're places where you either become a warlord or are beholden to a warlord.

Go live in Somalia.

Libertarians are so stupid.

--
BMO

Re: At least Trump may actually do some good

[Ksevio]

Do you have a citation for that or is it just right wing propaganda? Remember when the IRS was searching for Tea Party 501c3's that weren't compliant? Turns out it was doing the same for progressive groups as well.

Re:At least Trump may actually do some good

[avandesande]

What if you were born a couple years ago in Flint Michigan? While the EPA is trying to go after carbon emissions and push pork programs like Ethanol poor people are getting lead tainted water. EPA really could use a sea change in priorities.....

Re:At least Trump may actually do some good

[MightyMartian]

And yet the Constitution does afford the Federal government very wide powers. The IRS and the NSA aren't inherently unconstitutional agencies, even if they have been used in a fashion that many may interpret as unconstitutional. The Federal government has been doing things in ways seen as overreaching, if not outright unconstitutional since nearly the beginning (see the Alien and Sedition Acts). For chrissake, the Slave States seceded from the Union on the argument that Lincoln's election was going to lead to a massive violation of States Rights, and we all know who won that particularly argument, and, I'd argue, paved the way for the modern United States of America.

The Framers never intended that the Federal government be an impotent wart on the testicles that were the States. Quite the opposite, they had seen how an impotent Federal government in the form of the Articles of Confederation was inherently unstable and could have lead to the US flying apart, so they created a constitution that, while recognizing that internally the States did have considerable rights to oversee their own affairs, did not enjoy the sort of absolutist rights "purists" (by which I mean modern revisionists with little interest in anything the Founding FAthers may have intended) seem to believe. The Interstate Commerce Clause grants the Federal government vast powers over everything that crosses state lines (as you will note things like pollution do).

Further, if you read why the Articles of Confederation were such a failure, it was precisely because the Federal government had no power to tax, and relied upon the states, who became notorious rather quickly for not paying up, and it lead to serious currency issues. Then factor in that the idea of a central bank was first proposed by Alexander Hamilton, and the Bank Bill was passed in 1780 for the precise purposes of creating a Federally-controlled national bank to create stability.

What I'm guessing here is you know very little of the history of the UNited States, but have bought into a revisionist view as to what the Framers of the constitution and the earliest iterations of the Federal Government did to actually build a nation capable of not only sustaining itself, but enlarging its territorial and economic powers many times over. The US wouldn't exist as you recognized it if the Federal government didn't possess rather significant powers, including the powers of taxation, of having a central bank, and of being able to monitor and deal with enemies foreign and domestic.

None of that is to say that the Federal government always does right, or that citizens shouldn't demand it abide by the principles laid out in the Constitution. But the Framers were wise enough to create a series of checks and balances. They may not always work, or at least not work perfectly, but the US has endured civil and global wars with its system of government, to become the wealthiest and most powerful polity that has ever existed.

Re:At least Trump may actually do some good

[Ksevio]

A major problem in Greece was the Tax evasion. It's a bit complex, but budgets have TWO sides: spending and revenue. The spending part was reasonable given what the revenue side should have been, but without people paying their fair share, it was unbalanced.

Now back to the IRS. It's literally in the constitution that the government can collect taxes and there needs to be some department to do that. Sure you may have the fantasy that you don't need the government and could do fine paying in gold or bullets or whatever, but the government provides many services that are helpful to the population.

Re: At least Trump may actually do some good

[MightyMartian]

This message brought to by American Nazis for Trump. Tune in next week when AC Nazi describes how to build your own Zyklon B delivery system, to get rid of Liberals and people with Jewish-sounding names.

Re:At least Trump may actually do some good

[cryptizard]

That's the old one from his campaign last year. There is a new one from a few weeks ago. http://www.npr.org/2016/11/13/...

Re:At least Trump may actually do some good

[Namarrgon]

So your solution to corporate pollution is rescind all the regulations that currently prevent them, disband the organisation that enforces those regulations, wait until after the newly-unrestrained corporations have inevitably polluted everything nearby - then hope some nearby affected citizen is willing & and able to fight them in the civil courts (hopefully with sufficient legal resources to match the corporate legal team), then winning convincingly enough to a) stop them polluting, b) force them to clean everything all up & fully compensate any affected parties (possibly for decades to come - assuming they don't go bankrupt beforehand), and c) recover all legal costs on top of all that. Then go through the whole process again the next time some random company decides it's cheaper to pollute.

Re:At least Trump may actually do some good

[Anonymous Coward]

As much as i'd live to tear down your post, or even place you in the world you think would work so well (To see if you can live out the week) i feel like this pretty much sums it up.

AFAIC any old EE should be able to build and sell a pace maker and if you don't like the reviews, don't buy from that person.

The review was stellar, but unfortunately the user never quite got to finish it, something about chest pain?

Re:At least Trump may actually do some good

[110010001000]

They won't ever realize it. People are stupid.

Re: At least Trump may actually do some good

[Anonymous Coward]

Citation for you (though to be honest probably not what you were looking for)

Wikipedia - Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration:

The IRS used inappropriate criteria that identified for review Tea Party and other organizations applying for tax-exempt status based upon their names or policy positions instead of indications of potential political campaign intervention. Ineffective management: 1) allowed inappropriate criteria to be developed and stay in place for more than 18 months, 2) resulted in substantial delays in processing certain applications, and 3) allowed unnecessary information requests to be issued. Although the processing of some applications with potential significant political campaign intervention was started soon after receipt, no work was completed on the majority of these applications for 13 months.... For the 296 total political campaign intervention applications [reviewed in the audit] as of December 17, 2012, 108 had been approved, 28 were withdrawn by the applicant, none had been denied, and 160 were open from 206 to 1,138 calendar days (some for more than three years and crossing two election cycles).... Many organizations received requests for additional information from the IRS that included unnecessary, burdensome questions (e.g., lists of past and future donors).

The Huffington Post:

“In total, 30 percent of the organizations we identified with the words ‘progress’ or ‘progressive’ in their names were processed as potential political cases. In comparison, our audit found that 100 percent of the tax-exempt applications with Tea Party, Patriots, or 9/12 in their names were processed as potential political cases during the timeframe of our audit.”

Yes they may have looked at 6 progressive organizations, they looked at every one of the conservative groups - 292 to be exact.

Re: At least Trump may actually do some good

[flablader]

It seems likely that electric vehicles will eventually replace fuel powered engines, so why not encourage that transition rather than screwing the formulation of gas even more?

I'm now seriously considering replacing my current vehicle with an electric one because then the EPA regulations won't destroy my engine by changing the fuel formula. Hmm, maybe that's part of what they're thinking... Nah.

Re: At least Trump may actually do some good

[Ksevio]

That report shows the investigation found there was no bias.

Re:At least Trump may actually do some good

[roman_mir]

Greece was a prime example of an impossible system, with the socialists getting everything and expecting that the money just grows on trees I suppose, so exactly as we had it back in the USSR and the exact opposite of the Communist idea 'from each according to his abilities to each according to his needs', the actual formula that ends up happening is this: nobody wants to be the sucker and to work so that others would get the benefit and everybody wants everything he can get his hands on from the State.

The *spending* in Greece was outrageous, with people expecting to be retired in 20 years from the beginning of their work lives, huge pensions, various State controlled benefits, etc. So *of-course* people paid as little taxes as they possibly could (and they were absolutely correct to do so) but the problem is expecting all of this spending by the State and *not* having the tax revenues to back it up. So the difference came from borrowing, and this the exact situation that USA is in today, except that of-course Greece doesn't run the ponzi scam of being the so called 'reserve currency' (without any reserves to back it up)

IRS is completely unconstitutional, the way it collects taxes is a violation of every Constitutional principle, including the government having political prisoners like Irwin Schiff, who spent years in jail because of his fight against the government.

Re:At least Trump may actually do some good

[roman_mir]

What part of society are courts?

- I see private courts, competing with each other as the only legitimate courts that can address the issue of government corruption. I am talking about competition in the court system of-course, which USA used to have believe it or not.

Re:At least Trump may actually do some good

[roman_mir]

Nothing happens in vacuum, all property must be private, there shouldn't be any public property at all, thus all of these issues are really non-issues given that it would be the owner of the property who would have to protect his rights against whatever business that say polluted near the property.

Re:At least Trump may actually do some good

[roman_mir]

The point is getting rid of the collectivist oppression of the individual and I mean to say this: life on this planet without actual individual freedom is not really that important.

Re:At least Trump may actually do some good

[roman_mir]

AFAIC the 'Slave States' had every right to secede from the so called 'union'. Why should the so called 'union' prevent the States from running their land as they see fit exactly? If slavery was actually unacceptable, why would the Constitution be ratified by the anti-slave states in the first place? Maybe that's because slavery was actually a *government policy*, after all the Founders were slave owners.

USA 'flying apart' is not a bug, it should be a feature, so that the Federation would actually give a shit to things that are important to people in different States.

The 'interstate commerce' law has been abused to no end to allow the federal government control over businesses and that goes beyond the powers allocated to that government. Income taxes were not instituted because nobody really had income, people owned land and people imported goods, so the taxes that were Constitutional were direct capitation taxes proportionate to the population of a State and import taxes, excise, duties.

The government, such as it is, abused its powers and imprisoned people for political reasons, people who understood USA Constitution much better than you or I ever would, people who testified in front of USA Congress on the little issue of Nixon defaulting on the gold dollar and predicting the exact outcome that followed over the 45 years since that happened.

While Hamilton did propose a Central Bank, it was not accepted because it was understood that such a bank would violate the money itself. Hamilton was a goddamn counterfeiter and Jefferson understood this well enough and so the Congress did not continue with the bank once the charger expired.

Of-course the second bank was set up and eventually Jackson killed it, but all of these bank shenanigans caused a bank run that for some fucking reason idiots today think was a result of 'free market'. All of the bank runs before and since then were caused by government regulations of the banking system, preventing free market from working.

The Federal reserve was set up in 1913 without permission of monetization of the government debt but of-course in only 4 short years after that the Congress changed the law and allowed the Federal reserve to buy USA Treasury notes, which led to the depression of 1921, which cleared out quickly since the only half decent POTUS USA had in over a century, Warren Harding, didn't interfere with the market clearing that depression, so what followed was known as the 'roaring twenties'.

Then USA government decided to use the Federal bank to buy bad UK debt from France, creating inflation (money printing), with money searching for yield and eventually driving up stock prices, causing a massive bubble that ended up bursting in 1929 and then the pieces of shit known as Hoover and later FDR intervened in a major way, creating what was known as the 'Great Depression' with all of their jobs programs, printing of the money to buy and destroy crops to prevent deflation, etc. SS was set up, minimum wage, the 'great society', pretty much some of the worst ideas in USA history took place then.

USD became the so called 'reserve currency' after the war, at the time this meant that USD was as good as gold (of-course this happened after USA government illegally confiscated gold bullion from people and from banks).

The ever growing government spending from 1950s to 1970s pushed Nixon to default on the gold dollar, when France (again France) decided to make a call on their dollars. The stagflation of 1970s is something that the idiot Keynesian charlattans could not even admit existed, the only thing that stopped that stagflation was Paul Volcker raising interest rates to over 21% in 1981.

The government couldn't stop spending of-course and eventually the interest rates came down, however government spending grew by miles, money printing led to yet another bubble and another recession once that bubble burst in 1987. Then Greenspan decided he wouldn't a

Re:At least Trump may actually do some good

[DogDude]

Oh. my. god.

Re:At least Trump may actually do some good

[fustakrakich]

Have you ever seen bright yellow toxic sludge draining directly into a bay?

No, but we have seen it dumped into a river, well, okay, it was orange, but hey...

Re:At least Trump may actually do some good

[Namarrgon]

And still no remedies could occur until after the damage had already been done. The pure Libertarian creed is no more effective in the real world than the pure Capitalist or pure Communist approaches; there's far too many exploitable corner cases.

Re: At least Trump may actually do some good

[Oligonicella]

Telling people to off themselves is by no means a Republican thing. Just peruse the old climate posts on /. and see for yourself. "Should be tried for treason." Remember that one? Not a Repub.

Re:At least Trump may actually do some good

[roman_mir]

again, nothing happens in vacuum. All property must be private and all private property is the problem/issue/business of the private property owner.

Re:At least Trump may actually do some good

[Anonymous Coward]

> getting Peter Thiel into SCOTUS, killing the EPA,

fuck you. move to Somalia, they have a LIbertarian friendly government. seriously. asshole

Re:At least Trump may actually do some good

[bmo]

>I see private courts, competing with each other as the only legitimate courts that can address the issue of government corruption.

What part of society makes arbitration (private courts) enforceable?

You can have courts without enforcement, but then the losers in court would just give it the middle finger and walk away. The only way this would work is if everyone cooperates voluntarily.

The problem with libertarianism, anarchism, communism, *ism is "if people only behaved the way I told them to, this idea would work."

The famous last words of every tyrant.

The only way I can see is to be practical and try your best at good governance (being fair/not oppressive/solving real problems). That /doesn't/ require a specific ideal to be followed, but it does require some sort of ethics among politicians, and that politicians that violate those ethics be punished.

Which is asking too much. So ... fuckit.

And people wonder why Trump got elected.

--
BMO

Re:At least Trump may actually do some good

[roman_mir]

Why move when the correct changes may just come in the USA? As I said, Trump may do a few correct things (by mistake or by design, whatever), some of them are: killing the EPA, putting Thiel into SCOTUS, etc.

Re:At least Trump may actually do some good

[MightyMartian]

You're so out to lunch, you're not even wrong.

A couple of observations:

1. The slave states did not secede because them thar evil Yankees wanted to end slavery within their borders, they seceded because they were losing the argument that the Western Territory, when it was carved into new states, should have an equal measure of slave states. They did this because within a few decades there would have been enough free states to push through an amendment abolishing slavery. Lincoln himself said that he would have retained slavery to end the Civil War, but would he would not do was allow slavery to be propagated beyond the states that already allowed it.

2. FDR didn't take office until 1933, by which time the depression was nearly four years on.

3. The Depression was caused by a lot of things, including a shitty gold-based currency, which the US wisely walked away. To blame the Federal Reserve alone is absurd.

It's hard to tell why you think you know so much when you don't even know the fundamentals of US history.

Re:At least Trump may actually do some good

[roman_mir]

The only way this would work is if everyone cooperates voluntarily.

- Jesus fucking Christ, no, I do not believe in voluntary cooperation, I only believe in self interest. Self interest. Self interest. Self interest. Self interest. Self interest.

Ok, now that we got that out of the way (repeat just in case once more: Self interest), try to understand this, a normal ancap or a libertarian does not in any way see people as something they are not. We see people for what they are: self interested, narcissistic, selfish, greedy, jealous, often brutal, sometimes murderous, but most importantly: looking for profit or again, self interest.

Do you understand what I am saying? I am saying again and again, people are interested in their own profit, they are driven by that.

Now, given those preconditions can some cooperation be expected? Certainly, you don't want to get shot, so you don't shoot others just for the hell of it. You don't want to be robbed, so you don't rob others (at least not openly). You may rob others, but most people would not be robbing because most people are not interested living in that type of constant stress. However some people will, which is why you absolutely do need private means of protecting yourself, and this includes private police, private insurance, private courts, weapons as well.

You can't have courts without enforcement, thus private enforcement that would work with private courts.

Re:At least Trump may actually do some good

[Attila Dimedici]

Actually, the problems you mentioned were all well on the way to being corrected before Richard Nixon created the EPA. I am agnostic as to whether the EPA was ever necessary (I have seen good arguments on both sides and am not willing to spend the time to research it myself). HOWEVER, the EPA has been guilty of serious overreach in recent years (for example, regulating CO2, but not doing so according to the statute because the economic damage of doing so would result in greater negative environmental consequences than the most optimistic estimate of positive environmental benefits).

Re:At least Trump may actually do some good

[Ksevio]

The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

Guess you were wrong about it being unconstitutional.

Re:At least Trump may actually do some good

[Anonymous Coward]

So your solution to corporate pollution is rescind all the regulations that currently prevent them, disband the organisation that enforces those regulations, wait until after the newly-unrestrained corporations have inevitably polluted everything nearby....

You do realize that often the cost of the fines for polluting are so much lower than the cost of modifying equipment and processes to meet the regulations that the companies just accept the fine as a cost of doing business. And that is the real failing of the EPA. The fines should have been written as a percent of revenue rather than a fixed dollar amount, but no business on earth would allow a regulation like that to exist.

Re: At least Trump may actually do some good

[Anonymous Coward]

AFAIC the 'Slave States' had every right to secede from the so called 'union'.

Including stealing other's property?

Why should the so called 'union' prevent the States from running their land as they see fit exactly?

Because the states can act counter to the interests of the people, and the United States was expressly created to serve the people, not the states.

If slavery was actually unacceptable, why would the Constitution be ratified by the anti-slave states in the first place?

They didn't want to risk being subsumed into the British empire again, so they compromised.

Maybe that's because slavery was actually a *government policy*, after all the Founders were slave owners.

Nope! Less than half were, and most of them acknowledged that slavery was contrary to the interests and policies of the Union. Wealthy individuals, however, benefited from slavery, contrary to the interests of the people, therefore they acted for their own benefit.

Which is why government has to serve the many, not the one.

You'd know this if you weren't brainwashed.

Re:At least Trump may actually do some good

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

You are either young, stupid or a troll. Possibly all three.

I vote for all three, but sheer stupidity could be the simplest answer.

Like you, I lived near some industrial areas in the 60s and 70s, and the lack of environmental regulation caused more damage than most people today could or would believe. Yes, factories emptied their waste products directly into streams and rivers killing everything downstream. The crap that came out of the smokestacks was unreal.

Anyone that's against regulating this kind of thing has got to be, as you said, young, stupid or a troll.

Re:At least Trump may actually do some good

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

I see private courts, competing with each other as the only legitimate courts that can address the issue of government corruption.

Found the libertarian nut job.

Re:At least Trump may actually do some good

[wyHunter]

And tell me - how has income inequality increased in the last 8 years? And the tax burden of the middle class gone up? Considerably.

Re: At least Trump may actually do some good

[Anonymous Coward]

Ethanol is pure poison for a lot of commonly used plastics and polymers.
Ethanol provides approximately 60% of the energy of the gasoline it replaces - meaning your mileage per gallon drops 20% or so.
Ethanol absorbs water from air, causing deterioration of the gas it is added to.

Butanol, on the other hand, does none of those things but requires more elaborate production methods. Bio-butanol has been successfully produced in large quantities, but it can be made with alternative feed sources (sawgrass) which aren't food sources like corn or sugar. Nobody has a vested interest or corner on the available political resources to pursue it as a viable alternative, however.

Re:At least Trump may actually do some good

[roman_mir]

Direct proportionate capitation taxes, excise, import, duty taxes are Constitutional and were implemented from the beginning of the USA.

Income, payroll, dividend, capital gains, property taxes, death (any type of income and wealth taxes) are unconstitutional and are collected illegally.

Re: At least Trump may actually do some good

[Anonymous Coward]

All too many actions are public, thus the problems are inevitable.

Even ones involving property.

Re:At least Trump may actually do some good

[Ksevio]

I take it you've never actually READ the constitution?

The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.

You seem like a real post-truth Trump supporter.

Re:At least Trump may actually do some good

[bmo]

>I only believe in self interest. Self interest. Self interest. Self interest. Self interest. Self interest.

Yeah? So what? People go against their own self-interest all the fucking time. They are also irrational. All the fucking time they are irrational - do I even have to mention "The Madness of Crowds"? Fucking free-market theory /depends on/ everyone acting in their own self-interest - sellers and buyers all. But you know what?

YOU CAN'T HAVE A FREE MARKET UNDER THOSE CONDITIONS BECAUSE THAT'S NOT HOW REAL PEOPLE WORK AND IF YOU TRY TO MAKE THEM WORK THAT WAY, CONGRATULATIONS, YOU ARE THE TYRANT.

And that's the thing - people espousing free-market theory and insist on society working that way ignore human behavior outright and say "things would be just fine if everyone did X." Freemarketism is an "ism" that people "believe in" like you "believe in" - it's not something that can ever exist. It's religion. It's faith. It's a fictional idealized thing that if you believe that it can actually ever happen, you should also believe in frictionless inclined planes in physics, which also don't exist, and in this universe, can't.

>private enforcement

You mean like the fucking Pinkertons during the Carnegie steel strike?

So instead of one tyrant, you want thousands of tyrants. Brilliant.

>you absolutely do need private means of protecting yourself, and this includes private police, private insurance, private courts, weapons as well

This is warlordism. You want warlords, with their own little fiefdoms, probably imagining yourself as one of them.

--
BMO

Re:At least Trump may actually do some good

[roman_mir]

OMG, I don't have to make anybody do absolutely anything! Free market is literally one single property: absence of government regulations, nothing else.

There is nothing else in the entire concept of free market, all that it is - it's absence of government regulations. WTF do you think it is?

I don't need anybody to do X or Y or Z, the only thing that is required is that people do whatever the fuck they want and there is no government to regulate them, whether in their personal or in their business lives.

Under those conditions the businesses that cater best to the public desires win and that's what 'free market regulations' are - the winnings go to those, who can satisfy the people's desires the best.

As to private police force, I am 100% 100,000,000,000,000% on the side of the private property owner protecting his private property with any form of private force from the attack by a mob. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that.

I am not imagining myself as anything that I am not, I know exactly where I stand and my position never changed on this matter over a number of decades regardless of my personal situation in life.

Re:At least Trump may actually do some good

[roman_mir]

Post-truth Trump supporter, ha? I wrote this back in 2012, this is most of what needs to be said about illegality of the income taxes.

Re:At least Trump may actually do some good

[Ksevio]

Ah so you were post-truth Trump before it was cool? Your argument boils down to "there is no income tax" because "income" is a confusing word but then the constitution literally says "collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived". If that had any actual legal baring, you can be sure it would be brought to the SCOTUS who would likely dismiss it saying "of course income tax counts as 'taxes on income'"

Re:At least Trump may actually do some good

[bmo]

>OMG, I don't have to make anybody do absolutely anything! Free market is literally one single property: absence of government regulations, nothing else.

No it isn't. Go crack open a textbook. Even though I disagree with the Austrian school and the Chicago school, which is where modern "free market" economics comes from, you need to read up on them and their theories. And it's obvious you've never even taken a survey-level macroeconomics course.

>I know exactly where I stand and my position

I know where you stand too, and down that path lies madness for society.

--
BMO

You can thank the agriculture lobby for this.

[thomn8r]

http://www.forbes.com/sites/re...

and when their ethanol

[FudRucker]

starts messing up fuel systems in cars & trucks, then what? they already did that once and had to cut back on the percentage of ethanol put in gasoline,

Re:and when their ethanol

[Anonymous Coward]

starts messing up fuel systems in cars & trucks, then what? they already did that once and had to cut back on the percentage of ethanol put in gasoline,

I've had quite a few loaners and rentals lately that say right on the gas cap to not use fuel with more than 10% ethanol and these were new vehicles in the past couple years.

Re:and when their ethanol

[Anonymous Coward]

starts messing up fuel systems in cars & trucks, then what? they already did that once and had to cut back on the percentage of ethanol put in gasoline,

You'll see problems first in small engines. Lawn tractors, mowers, leaf blowers, motorcycles, etc.

And that's before you even get to 2-strokes. Ethanol will just wreak a 2-stroke. Chainsaws, some dirtbikes, weed-wackers...

But the longest pole in the tent is probably snow mobiles. Dirtbikes and ATVs are mostly 4-stroke now, but most sleds are still 2-stroke, especially mountain sleds. Why? Power to weight. An 800cc 2 cylinder 2-stroke can make more power than a three cylinder 1040cc 4-stroke, while still weighing a lot less. Owners manuals recommend to run high octane (91+), and explicitly warn against fuels with ethanol additives. This is common across the three American makes, with Yamaha (all 4-stroke lineup) the only exception.

Re:and when their ethanol

[Anonymous Coward]

Doesn't this just help the car companies with planned obsolescence? Now they can have someone else to point the finger at.

Re:and when their ethanol

[ndavis]

Second benefit people need new cars and more repairs just more money cycling through the system. /s But yes you are correct which is why I keep putting off buying a new car. I want to wait to see if they change cars to better handle this new fuel mixture.

Re:and when their ethanol

[Anonymous Coward]

That is the broken window fallacy.

Do you still call something a dilemma....

[mark-t]

.... when it's perfectly obvious how the choice will be made?

Given the choice between any two options, Trump will invariably choose the one that generates more revenue. Like *absolutely* invariantly.... he might as well be a computer program with a single if statement and a loop.

Re:Do you still call something a dilemma....

[Anonymous Coward]

Like that moron Trump has any idea what generates more revenue in this case. It is a nearly impossible problem for even really smart researchers to figure out. If they do figure it out, Trump won't believe them anyway because they are scientists. The only good scientists in his opinion are the ones who directly make him money somehow. The rest are all lying.

Re:Do you still call something a dilemma....

[MightyMartian]

He'll pick the option that generates short-term revenue. The costs in the medium and long term of basically allowing all emissions to run amuck with little in the way of federal regulations will be astronomical, but I guess for a 70 year old guy worth billions of dollars, who the fuck cares? His kids will never want for anything, so they can buy fresh spring water and move to nicer climes, so basically selling the future off in return for short term gains probably is a great idea.

Re:Do you still call something a dilemma....

[Anonymous Coward]

So pro biofuel then?

Re:Do you still call something a dilemma....

[mark-t]

Perhaps I should have been more specific.... whichever option *HE* thinks will generate more revenue, which a) means that short term economic benefits only will be considered, certainly none after his presidency is over, and b) a pretty darn high priority is going to be given to whatever gets him the most money, personally.

Re:Do you still call something a dilemma....

[Anonymous Coward]

He'll pick the option that generates short-term revenue.

The short-term is the only term on which we care to permit deliberation by your Great and your Good. Any form of debasement can be rationalized by your "long term" bullshit and we're fed up with it. Figure out how to achieve your aims without shitting on people's liberty and standard of living and you'll have as the support as you deserve. Otherwise fuck off.

Re:Do you still call something a dilemma....

[MightyMartian]

You do understand that the universe doesn't give a flying fuck about your political beliefs, right?

Re: Do you still call something a dilemma....

[Anonymous Coward]

Talking to the mirror, again?

Re:Do you still call something a dilemma....

[Anonymous Coward]

You didn't follow the algorithm closely enough... Costs are irrelevant. The decision is based on revenue, not profit.

Faced with two proposals, one of which costs $50 billion but makes $100 billion return, the other costs $1 trillion and makes $500 billion - i.e. a net loss of half a trillion - Trump will take the second every time.

The reason being, the more money flows through the system, the more he can filter into his own friends and family.

Just look at his friend Putin, he's been doing this for ten years.

Re:Do you still call something a dilemma....

[Anonymous Coward]

I have to get a crystal ball like the one you have.

Great

[Anonymous Coward]

There goes another 5mpg

Welcome to America

[Anonymous Coward]

We burn our food.

Re:Welcome to America

[The-Ixian]

Only when we are not paying attention to the stove...

Clearly we have too much land and too few starving

[bwanagary]

So let me see if I understand the sheer genius of this move: we're going to be legislated into reducing millions of acres of food crops while millions the world over are starving, reduce those millions of food acres to fuel additives and then burn them to increase greenhouse gasses. Brilliant!

Bzzzt! Wrong direction!

[Anonymous Coward]

Ethanol costs more gasoline to make than energy it produces. It decays small engines and breaks things like weedwhackers. It lowers your gas milage. There is no positives at all in ethanol in our gasoline. It should have been banned a long time ago.

Re:Bzzzt! Wrong direction!

[LaLLi]

No positives in ethanol, performance car owners could not disagree more. E85 has much higher octane than gasoline and it has a cooling effect on the engine allowing much higher turbo boost with out risk of premature ignition (knock). So more power with less risk of engine failure. Life is too short to drive a boring car.

Re:Clearly we have too much land and too few starv

[cryptizard]

From the summary: "cellulosic ethanol derived from the stalks, leaves, and cobs leftover from a corn harvest, and compressed natural gas gleaned from wastewater facilities."

Dear EPA....

[Lumpy]

Force gas station to post in HUGE LETTERS the percentage and warnings against using it in cars older than 2003. 15% and higher will cause hell in older cars with shitty ECM's

Re:Dear EPA....

[b0bby]

I just this weekend saw my first 15% pump - it clearly had a warning that you should only use it in 2002 & later vehicles. It was only $1.49 a gallon, so I can see it would tempt some people to give it a try voluntarily.

Re:Dear EPA....

[Anonymous Coward]

> 15% and higher will cause hell

Hell is the right term since it can cause a fire. My 1997 Civic was totaled when it caught fire due to a fuel leak caused by a hole in a fuel line caused by Ethanol. I had two previous leaks I had fixed, but apparently my Honda dealer didn't replace everything they said.

Re:Dear EPA....

[Anonymous Coward]

2002 and later? I've driven 2015 cars that said on the gas cap DO NOT use fuel with more than 10% ethanol.

Re:Clearly we have too much land and too few starv

[losfromla]

You mean the stuff that should be plowed back in or allowed to decompose in place in to become next year's fertilizer?

Bad news for many

[Anonymous Coward]

As this new blend will destroy many older cars this is not a good thing. Anyone whose car cannot handle 15% alcohol, which is in the millions will see their seals being eaten away.

For antique cars this is even more bad news. Besides having to add lead manually to the current fuel, this won't help. Besides, it has been proven that this foolishness is actually adding to the problems when you add in the cost of entire process as well as the loss of food.

Follow the money and the politics and you see that the Democrats simply want to make the Republicans look as if they are anti-environment. As 99% of American's don't read beyond the headline fluff it is so easy to fool them into thinking that this is a good idea.

Re:Bad news for many

[MightyMartian]

Judging by the REpublican President-Elect, is there any reason to think that the Republicans are anything but anti-environment. The man, on the face of it, appears to largely deregulate the energy sector. And what do you think much of that regulation deals with? That's right, pollutants and emissions. For chrissakes, even Reagan understood that regulation was necessary for a clean environment, and it was Nixon who brought the EPA into existence.

HACK

[Anonymous Coward]

its super okay to hire a hacker. Was introduced to jihack11@gmail.com . Dude impressed and feel am forever indebted to him

guh, kids these days

[Thud457]

Yeah, that Richard Nixon was a right fucking PINKO!

BTW, ethanol washes away oil

[oic0]

This stuff is great for your motor...

Re:BTW, ethanol washes away oil

[Anonymous Coward]

Gasoline does the same thing.

Re:BTW, ethanol washes away oil

[LaLLi]

True, but at 15% you won't know the difference. Might as well be using low quality oil. You know there are oils that are ethanol tested? Once you start using E85 the washing effect becomes an issue to deal with, usually meaning that one should check the oil pan after 1000km to see what kind on crap ethanol has removed from your engine and oil channels.

Re:Clearly we have too much land and too few starv

[PopeRatzo]

You mean the stuff that should be plowed back in or allowed to decompose in place in to become next year's fertilizer?

Don't worry. The incoming president will make sure we have plenty of fertilizer.

Re:Clearly we have too much land and too few starv

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't give a fuck about the environment if you're still eating animals after all the evidence of the global impact of the livestock industry.

No dilemma for Trump

[tomhath]

Reuters points out that the aggressive new biofuel standards will create a dilemma for an incoming Trump administration, given that his campaign courted both the gas and corn industries.

There's no dilemma. Corn prices already dropped because the subsidies dried up. He can reverse the the standards as easily as Obama set them.

GMO's and bees

[skoony]

Two thoughts occurred to me.What about the so called concern about GMO's. Certainly most if not all of the new planting will be GMO. Secondly the decline in our bee population has been linked to insecticides.The use in insecticides will increase. I have wondered for some time about insect resistant strains of plants including GMO's also contributing to this decline.It seems to me the decline in bee populations started about the same time as the ethanol requirements started in the same places were corn was replacing other crops. I am not a researcher. just going on recollections just some thoughts. Note; I have nothing personally against GMO's in general..

Re:Clearly we have too much land and too few starv

[Anonymous Coward]

No! Fertilizer's that stuff made out of petroleum.

Biofuels are the stupidest idea ever

[argStyopa]

They're not energy efficient, they're expensive (when you count the subsidies), they lead to excessive levels of pesticide, and amount to nothing more than a stealth subsidy of agriculture.

Brilliant policy, should do more.

Re:Biofuels are the stupidest idea ever

[Anonymous Coward]

I would say there is nothing stealthy about it.

Translation: Here comes E15!

[Anonymous Coward]

These new standards are just a carefully camouflaged attempt to force people to use E15 gasoline with 15% ethanol - despite endless studies showing that the stuff not only destroys engines in far less than 100K miles of driving and despite the fact that drivetrain warranties are NOT honored if you use E15, as the teeny tiny little footnote in your car's owner's manual clearly points out. EPA leftist bureaucrats and lawyers: kill them all. God doesn't NEED to sort them...

Re:Clearly we have too much land and too few starv

[Anonymous Coward]

Kill yourself and everyone you know. Its the only way to save the environment.

Cheaper solution: all electric

[WillAffleckUW]

A far cheaper solution which helps the economy transition from 17th Century fuels like gasoline, ethanol, and benzene is to just buy a plug-in electric car.

Ranges tend to go up to 300 miles.

They work everywhere.

Maintenance is half that of fossil fuel old grandpa cars.

Energy cost for an all electric car is either zero (if you put some solar panels or wind turbines on your roof and have any 2000 or more recent building, which in most cities has to be wired and built to handle these by zoning codes) or 1/10th to 1/20th the cost of fossil fuels.

Adapt.

The world doesn't owe you whale oil and kerosene users anything. Capitalism is heavily subsidizing your buggy whip industries and it's killing life on this planet.

Re:Cheaper solution: all electric

[Anonymous Coward]

Where should I plug my electric car into, my parking space is no where close to my apartment.

Re:Cheaper solution: all electric

[Anonymous Coward]

You going to buy everyone a shiny new electric car?
Oh, what? It's not as simple as that, dang, you really got my hopes up with your genius statement that NOBODY ever thought of before.

On a side note, how's all that electricity generated? We definitely don't have the rare-earth metal panels or concrete tower wind turbines to produce that much juice.

Re:Cheaper solution: all electric

[LaLLi]

How are you going to recharge all the new electric cars? Do you have any idea how much energy would be needed to recharge electric cars is their numbers would increase dramatically...lucky for US Trump is for cheap fossil fuels so recharge that eco car with coal electricity. Liquid fuels are easy to transport and fast way to recharge lots of energy to vehicles.

Re:Cheaper solution: all electric

[bareman]

My next car will be full electric. I've seen how much stupid policy, horrible activity and destruction has been generated by fossil fuel burning in the last couple decades and I refuse to be a party to it any longer.

How about offering a choice?

[Snotnose]

Let us buy blended fuel, or pure fuel for more $$$. I'm gonna guess 90% of the consumers will go with the unblended fuel because it doesn't harm their engines (gearheads), gets better gas mileage (coupon clippers), and realize that ethanol is a major waste of money (anyone with half a brain).

The only reason burning food for fuel is a thing is because Iowa and other farm states ensure they vote early and often in primaries, so those for sale pander as hard as their pandering asses can pander to these 2-3 states. The rest of the country gets the shaft.

Hopefully Trump will break this. I'm hoping the bull in the china shop will break more bad stuff than good stuff.

Re:How about offering a choice?

[tweak13]

For as much as people love to rant about Iowa, we have exactly the situation you want here. I can go to almost any gas station and get regular unleaded without ethanol. It tends to run around 30-40 cents higher than the 10% ethanol blend. I use it for all my lawnmowers/snowblowers/etc. and occasionally put it in my cars when I'm going on a long trip and the better highway mileage might make it worth it.

The vast majority of the time, I do the same thing almost all consumers do which is buy the cheapest gas they can find. 90% of consumers don't give a shit about ethanol, they only see that it's cheap so that's what they use. Personally, when driving in the city I see less than a 1MPG difference so paying the premium for pure gas just isn't worth it.

Also, just to clear up the misconceptions about how much Iowans care about farming: 60% of Iowans live in urban areas, only 25% of Iowans have ever farmed anything at any point in their life, and only about 17% are currently employed directly or indirectly in agriculture. The vast majority of Iowans do not give a shit about farming or ethanol.

FAIL

[markdavis]

OMG, they are just determined to destroy as many engines as possible, aren't they? Ethanol has been such an utter failure it is unreal. And yes, I had a motorcycle engine pretty much destroyed due to ethanol. And my current one has constant issues with the gas cap corroding due to ethanol. It attracts water, it gives LOWER miles per gallon, it costs more, it eats up the fuel system in many vehicles, it currently pushes up food prices, actually doesn't reduce dependence on fossil fuels (fertilizer and processing), and on top of it all, it doesn't reduce emissions AT ALL. It has to be one of the worst blunders ever.

FAIL FAIL FAIL

Take the wasted resources from ethanol and please invest that money in battery technology so we can get closer to viable electric vehicles.

Re:FAIL

[Wolfrider]

--I'm with you. But how do we *change* anything at the EPA?

Re:FAIL

[Anonymous Coward]

... it currently pushes up food prices ...

Cash price for corn in my area is currently under 5 cents per pound. I'm not real sure how you could produce food any cheaper. I do agree on the rest of your points.

I, for one, don't want this s@$t in my gasoline.

[TigerPlish]

Why are these people further polluting my gasoline with this crap? Today's cars are designed for 10% ethanol in the gasoline. What's going to happen when they keep polluting the fuel? Broken seals? Broken fuel pumps? Outright degradation of the metals used in the engine?

Fuck congress. Electing Trump was throwing an (figurative) (ethanol-polluted) Molotov Cocktail at the white house, now Congress must be cleansed as well.

Misleading title, y'all

[Anonymous Coward]

It's trivial to arrive at "a determination that implementation of the program is causing severe economic or environmental harm" simply by looking at the devastation caused by corn-for-fuel and the abysmal energy content vs carbon sequestration ROI per kg as compared to native biomass.

There is no conflict here.

Anything I can do with my 96 beater?

[rsilvergun]

or am I just stuck buying a new car? I know, I know, but it took me 8 years to recover from the horror show that was the 2008 economic collapse and my kid just hit college. A new car isn't something I can afford without eating shitty food or working a third job...

Why letters?

[Anonymous Coward]

So instead of "15%" it should say "fifteen percent" or "FIFTEEN PERCENT"?

Re:Try simpler

[hackwrench]

But hey, they're not you, so what do you care?

por qué no los todos?

[Anonymous Coward]

Be more like Australia, keep regular fuel around but allow a subsidised (Or, because this is america, do the opposite and just tax the regular fuel) ethanol blended fuel. I run my new car on e10, but my old MX-5 gets the regular.

Says who

[Anonymous Coward]

"...of one study, published in Science magazine in 2008, by a team headed by Timothy Searchinger, a Princeton University research scholar. Projecting worldwide effects of converting large amounts of U.S. farmland to producing corn for fuel rather than for food, the study said that “we found that corn-based ethanol, instead of producing a 20% savings [the reduction required by law], nearly doubles greenhouse emissions over 30 years and increases greenhouse gases for 167 years.”

screw corn fuel!

[p51d007]

I only stop at stations that say no ethyl in our gas, or whatever. I don't want that crap in my Mustang. Not from a performance/non performance aspect. But more of a I don't want my fuel system ruined! I have a 2011, which does not have any flex fuel, bio fuel crap labels. I ONLY drive my car on the weekends. I have a car given to me by my employer to drive Monday through Friday. In other words, my personal car is a "weekend" car. Living in the midwest, when it rains, snows etc, I DO NOT drive my Mustang. I've driven Mustangs for over 35 years, and they just do NOT like anything really other than sunny days with DRY pavement. In the winter, my car might set for two weeks or more, without being driven. With the nature of the corn gas(alcohol) that loves to ROT the rubber gaskets and what not of fuel systems, I'd rather not have that crap flowing through the fuel lines. "Bio" fuel is nothing more than the corn industry, paying off the EPA, politicians and what not, in a way to JACK UP the price of corn. Also, who the h&ll came up with the brilliant idea of using a FOOD CROP, and not only a food crop, but a STAPLE crop like CORN, as a FUEL. Ask any kid...they would GLADLY give up sugar beets before giving up things like corn on the cob, frosted flakes, 99% of the other corn based cereals, not to mention pop corn. Yeah, the corn for fuel is a different type of corn, but, if the price of that corn pays out more, corporate farms will plant more "fuel" corn that "food" corn. Other countries have used sawgrass, sugar beets and what not, but the corn industry here, has suckered (payed off) those that make the rules, to use corn, instead of something else.

Re: screw corn fuel!

[Anonymous Coward]

Your priorities are so far out of whack it's scary. Mustn't offend Great Leader Mustang.

Re: screw corn fuel!

[Anonymous Coward]

E85 is a terrible product.

Re:I, for one, don't want this s@$t in my gasoline

[guruevi]

The main result is going to be reduced gas mileage and thus increased consumption of oil. This has nothing to do with environments, modern cars can handle suboptimal fuels, it's just very wasteful. Sure your wear and tear will be bigger but that would probably not be noticeable on a large scale.

Economics

[penguinoid]

I'm no expert, but aren't the pure ethanol and pure gasoline worth more separate than mixed?

Re:Economics

[drinkypoo]

I'm no expert, but aren't the pure ethanol and pure gasoline worth more separate than mixed?

fuel prices are a scam, so... no

Its a questionable solution

[Anonymous Coward]

The question poised is why do we replace one fuel for another that has less energy per volume then it replaces? I know many claim bio diesel is equal to fossil diesel but that was said about ethanol in gasoline too. It was found not to be true in energy burned per volume, but also became worse as you include the energy to produce ethanol also. So we actually consume more fuel because it has less energy per volume. I am all for replacing one type for another if its of equal or greater efficiency. But not if its not, and we all know how ethanol has inflated corn costs to consumers in our food chain. This as a whole is not a plus for everyone.

Not sure I understand

[Anonymous Coward]

Is the EPA really saying that they are going to protect the environment by forcing farmers to grow corn so that it can be turned into oil. Is This is more environmentally protective than just taking all the old dead biomass that has already turned into oil by pressure and time. As an evil white old man I don't understand President Obama's reasoning. I guess I'm just a racist.

I

and ethanol pulls water from the air

[Anonymous Coward]

Hah!, As anyone who lives in a humid or cold environment about how much trouble they've had from ethanol drawing water into their tanks. I've had a good inch of water show up at the bottom of a boat tank in that sat for a month in humid weather. What about the cost of servicing engines twice a summer...what about taking my family out in my little boat and having to row back because water was drawn into the fuel bowl in the carburetor (which has an air vent) in just two weeks of sitting. The senators from the corn states say the have "been assured by the companies that there will be no problems with the increased ethanol...."

Re: and ethanol pulls water from the air

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, we should continue to destroy the planet so you can ride around in your stupid boat.

Re: and ethanol pulls water from the air

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank ghod for ethanol. It will save the planet.

Sign me up!

[ckatko]

I, too, believe in feel good measures that have nothing to do with actually improving our world.

There are so many chemistry professors who are pissed at the fool's gold of ethanol. Way back in college, they made us do the well-to-wheel calculations down to the chemical bonds, to prove how shitty it was.

No one seems to mind the fact that ethonal is corn, and corn takes up land that could be used for other crops, which means that ethanol is the freaking reason it costs twice as much to buy a freakin' box of frozen mac-n-cheese that it did in 2005. But screw the lower class, who cares if they can afford to eat, am I right? That's so progressive.

Re:Sign me up!

[ckatko]

But don't take my word for it. Listen to the tons of scientists around the world trying to get people to listen:

http://e360.yale.edu/feature/t...

Re:Sign me up!

[LaLLi]

Sounds like the problem is not ethanol but the way US produces it. Growing edible food to create fuel is the dumbest idea ever. You could make ethanol from almost any bio degradable matter. E85 has been a success in Sweden and Finland. Not sure about rest of europe.

Wealth had nothing to do with constituton

[aepervius]

The wealth of the USA came to be because 1) mostly they got free land for no cost with load and load of resources which were unexploited 2) they were isolated, so some stuff like world war, impacted the US far less than other country on which invasion and bombing was done (and thus needed reconstruction).

Both those factors are what led to the US enormous wealth. Other countries, neither had those opportunities of resource, nor were spared by the war of 1870Ies, 1910ies, 1930ies.

Re:Wealth had nothing to do with constituton

[Attila Dimedici]

Then explain Brazil and Argentina.

Re:Wealth had nothing to do with constituton

[Anonymous Coward]

Brazil, Argentina, and Alaska are arguments for geographical determinism, not against.

Not even all 2003+ vehicles

[Anonymous Coward]

My 2013 Subaru has gigantic warnings in the manual that E15 must absolutely not be used, E10 is the highest ethanol concentration the fuel system and engine can handle.

Send them into the cornfield

[Anonymous Coward]

What this boondoggle has turned into is increase cost of anything corn. So meat of all types goes up as the cost of feed does and the fuel prices go up as the cost of corn go up.

Re:Clearly we have too much land and too few starv

[Anonymous Coward]

while millions the world over are starving

Modern agriculture produces enough to feed everybody. What we don't have is a means (or desire) to redistribute the food to every corner of the world.

What they're not telling you

[JustNiz]

What they're not telling you is that a higher Ethanol mix such as E85 seriously fucks up pre-2011 engines. It eats through plastics and seals commonly used in most production model motors prior to 2011.
If you car is older than 2011, expect way more expensive visits to the repair shop coming your way.

Re:What they're not telling you

[drinkypoo]

What they're not telling you is that a higher Ethanol mix such as E85 seriously fucks up pre-2011 engines. It eats through plastics and seals commonly used in most production model motors prior to 2011.

The problem areas are the flexible lines, fuel pump, and fuel pressure regulator. This stuff is relatively easy to replace on most vehicles. Some, like my Audi, involve some massive PITAs, an especially apt description since the problem areas are in the rear above the fuel tank. Getting it out involves dropping the rear subframe...

Re:What they're not telling you

[JustNiz]

>> The problem areas are the flexible lines, fuel pump, and fuel pressure regulator.

Far more than that. Many gaskets and seals, and even the valve seats (ethanol burns differently causing the valves to face more force, and it can also leave an acidic/corrosive residue that can eat metal, especially valve seats).

Even if it was always easy to physically access/replace those parts on every car (which it often isn't), that still has no connection to it being cheap or even possible. You can bet there are cars out there for which they don't even make an ethanol-safe equivalent component (fuel pump or whatever). Then on cars with ECUs you have to get into whether the ECU can even handle the ignition timing differences that Ethanol causes.

http://www.digitaltrends.com/c...

Re:What they're not telling you

[drinkypoo]

Far more than that. Many gaskets and seals, and even the valve seats (ethanol burns differently causing the valves to face more force, and it can also leave an acidic/corrosive residue that can eat metal, especially valve seats).

Well, good thing for me that I have an Alusil block and stainless steel valves, huh? Not to mention 10.2:1 compression, a stainless fuel rail, a stainless fuel filter... If I just fight my way through the fuel lines, I'm going to be fine. I still think I should install a supercharger, though. In a couple weeks or so I hope to be doing a transmission swap from my donor vehicle into my future driver, and then I'll have a spare engine out for doing the prototyping. Then I just need to find a sweet deal on a caddy supercharger, which is an Eaton with the intake facing the right direction... Or one of those mid-year Mustang superchargers, likewise (but the caddy had an intercooler which I probably need.) More compression and E85 go together like bacon and cheese.

Re:What they're not telling you

[JustNiz]

Don't go with an Eaton SC, they're Rootes-type. You should go with a twin-screw SC (Whipple or my favourite, Kenne-Bell). The advantage is that it compresses the air inside the screw because the rotos have a conical taper. What that means is that its far more efficient and heats the intake air less, all which directly translates into more power.

Re:What they're not telling you

[drinkypoo]

Well, I'm going to go for what I can graft in affordably. Those caddy chargers are only around $600.

Libertarianism is inherently self-defeating

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you know what an alternative word for collectivism is? Government. Competition for the rule of law, and law enforcement, is also known as warfare. The era of tribalism is over, and no one is going to let you undo ten thousand years' worth of history because you think it would be ideologically purer. Even if you could magically call your ideal world into being, it would not last. The power of the collective that you complain about is exactly what makes individualist "governments" non-competitive. This is not a political philosophy, it's a pathology. It is self-serving, rationalized recalcitrance.

Some while ago all of humanity decided that it wasn't okay for people to harm others simply because they were stronger. This could be argued from principle, but ultimately our societies simply work better if that's an absolute principle rather than a conditional one. Shit gets done, people don't kill each other when they feel like it. You're really not going to get a lot of agreement on changing that.

Food shortages and inflation

[Anonymous Coward]

Didn't we try that already? Didn't it just make it harder for the poor to keep a car because it took millions of cars off the road that otherwise would have been useable on the cheap for another couple of years?

The primary (negative) effect last time the US shifted food production to fuel production too quickly was to cause worldwide food shortages and food price inflation.

https://www.theguardian.com/en...

Re:Clearly we have too much land and too few starv

[Thelasko]

So let me see if I understand the sheer genius of this move: we're going to be legislated into reducing millions of acres of food crops while millions the world over are starving, reduce those millions of food acres to fuel additives and then burn them to increase greenhouse gasses. Brilliant!

There is no global food shortage, otherwise everyone would be farming to strike it rich. Most of the world's poor are farmers that aren't competitive. Giving away free food only means their crops are even more worthless. Driving up the price of food means they stand a greater chance of making a profit.

Now this doesn't help the non-agrarian poor, but flooding the market with cheap food doesn't help people with zero money. They need an opportunity to earn a living.

If you want to give something away, give away opportunity. Give away education, or an interest free loan to an entrepreneur. The ancient proverb was on to something. "give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime"

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What no one sees is electricity

[PlaynBass]

For our lack of aristocrats, consumers (moo!) in the USA sure want all of their trappings: Everyone wants the most kingly thing to have: rapid door-to-door conveyance across their realm, at their beck and call. Rapid Transit can not hope to satisfy this deadly fascination with luxury at any cost. What remains to be discussed is how alternatives to the ICE can better provide the energy resources required to feed the real national obsession: an individualized transit experience. The complete transformation to renewable ELECTRICITY-BASED energy systems will not only produce more jobs than ICE-based machines, the machines themselves will be a part of the energy storage possibilities, also including many high-temperature, full-time industrial processes. The whole biofuels from food products industry is not helping in the long run. As usual, the politicians are at least 20 years behind the power curve.

Maybe

[drinkypoo]

It depends on what it is, what it's made of, what kind of computer it has. If it's a GM there may be a flex-fuel version and you might be able to just parts swap your way there. Otherwise it's expensive at best to accommodate E85 in a vehicle not designed for it. A DIY propane swap might actually be cheaper.

The obvious solution is forced induction

[drinkypoo]

When people want to run very much boost in a high-compression engine, they have to switch to E85 because it has a higher octane rating and is more resistant to pre-detonation. So obviously, I'm going to have to put a supercharger on my V8 Audi so that it can make use of the higher-octane fuel. (I think most people should probably opt for turbocharging, but in a V8 the plumbing often gets complicated.)