EPA approves more ethanol in fuel for cars

• tk421

  

  Will someone please reign in this fucking EPA? Good god, this is a terrible idea. The whole ethanol for fuel is a joke. It damages cars, gets lower gas mileage, raises the price of corn thus food prices go up, takes more fuel to truck the ethanol to refineries, etc. etc. The idea of using food to produce fuel is idiotic. The only ones winning with ethanol are the corn producers. Argh, this shit makes me mad.
  
  http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110121/ap_on_re_us/us_epa_ethanol
• I Wear Pants

  How does it damage cars?
• tk421

  

  Engines aren't made to run on ethanol. The U.S. car manufacturers and others have already filed a lawsuit against the EPA about this increase. Good luck to them, but I'm not holding my breathe. Great, we can pay even more for all our our food along with lower MPG and increased gas prices. Sounds like a good idea, thanks government.
  
  http://www.usatoday.com/money/autos/2010-12-20-epa-ethanol-suit_N.htm
• Tobias Fünke

  

  Ethanol from corn = one of the more idiotic ideas of all time.
  
  Ethanol from sugar cane....ehhh might have something.
• tk421

  

  ccrunner609;653340 wrote:get ready to spend double at the grocery. I spend $600+ at the store a month....I cant stand anymore.

  
  
  Agreed. Almost everything we can buy at the grocery store either has corn in it, or involves corn in some way. Grocery prices are going to skyrocket.
• I Wear Pants

  I don't see why we can't just produce ethanol from other plants like other countries do.
• tk421

  

  I Wear Pants;653394 wrote:I don't see why we can't just produce ethanol from other plants like other countries do.

  
  Because that would make sense and be good for the country. This government can't have any of that. I honestly think they do everything they can to make it as tough for citizens as possible.
• majorspark

  

  Only a fool would burn some of his most basic food sources to fuel a piece of machinery. Corn is a vital part our food chain. It fuels our bodies directly when we consume it and indirectly by consuming the byproducts of animals who also need it to fuel their bodies. Dairy products, eggs, chicken, beef, pork, etc. How selfish is it of us to burn a valuable food source while so many in this world starve so that guilt tripped Americans can feel good about driving their Lexus.
• I Wear Pants

  Right, majorspark, because we don't produce enough food...
  
  Oh yeah, we have a ridiculous excess of food production in this country.
• majorspark

  

  I Wear Pants;653463 wrote:Right, majorspark, because we don't produce enough food...
  
  Oh yeah, we have a ridiculous excess of food production in this country.

  
  
  Your right. Lets cut food production. Lets burn a food staple to fuel our engines. Droughts be damned. The 3rd world can suck it. We got plenty of food and the air is cleaner. We saved the polar bear, caribou, whales, and God knows what else. 3rd world enjoy fighting over your fly infested gruel. We are saving the environment by burning corn.
• Tobias Fünke

  

  I Wear Pants;653463 wrote:Right, majorspark, because we don't produce enough food...
  
  Oh yeah, we have a ridiculous excess of food production in this country.

  
  Correct me if I'm wrong, but that's rather irrelevant in terms of supply and price.
• I Wear Pants

  majorspark;653552 wrote:Your right. Lets cut food production. Lets burn a food staple to fuel our engines. Droughts be damned. The 3rd world can suck it. We got plenty of food and the air is cleaner. We saved the polar bear, caribou, whales, and God knows what else. 3rd world enjoy fighting over your fly infested gruel. We are saving the environment by burning corn.

  How are we helping anyone by having excess corn rot in silos and warehouses?
• I Wear Pants

  Tobias Fünke;653624 wrote:Correct me if I'm wrong, but that's rather irrelevant in terms of supply and price.

  Having an excess of a good is irrelevant in the supply and price of a good?
• majorspark

  

  I Wear Pants;653632 wrote:How are we helping anyone by having excess corn rot in silos and warehouses?

  If this is happening we need to figure out a way to get this excess into the food chain and feed the mouths of the hungry. Not fuel our engines.
• tk421

  

  How do we help the environment by lowering MPG and raising the costs of groceries?
• believer

  

  tk421;653785 wrote:How do we help the environment by lowering MPG and raising the costs of groceries?

  We don't. This is all about pretending to make ourselves energy independent and getting something in return for the billions of dollars of subsidies we pay farmers NOT to grow crops. In other words, it's all about votes even at the cost of higher food prices for the average American family.
  
  This is typical and classic nonsensical bullshit from the Feds. And the OC lefties wonder why there's so much anti-Big Government sentiment in this country.
• I Wear Pants

  Well I mean it's traditionally been Republicans who supported farm subsidies. That's somewhat changed of late but still.
• Con_Alma

  I Wear Pants;653635 wrote:Having an excess of a good is irrelevant in the supply and price of a good?

  
  Yes. It's irrelevant when you consider the price is manipulated to do federal subsidies.
• Glory Days

  

  majorspark;653643 wrote:If this is happening we need to figure out a way to get this excess into the food chain and feed the mouths of the hungry. Not fuel our engines.

  
  but arent we tired of being the world's police and big brother helping everyone out? we should worry about whats going on here in the states....
• Belly35

  

  Drill for fucking oil ... creat jobs now and lower the price of crude in the market Become a Oil Market Player America.... we have more oil for the next 125 years ..in that time we should have been able to "Beam me up, Scotty"
• jmog

  I Wear Pants;653302 wrote:How does it damage cars?

  
  Any and all rubber or plastic part in a fuel system of a car not built in the last couple years slowly is dissolved by ethanol where it is not by gasoline. Ethanol is a much stronger solvent for most polymers than gasoline.
• jmog

  My favorite corn to ethanol problem is the fact that in the production of a gallon of ethanol from corn, there is enough natural gas burned to equal the energy/CO2 production of burning a gallon of gasoline.
  
  So you burn a gallon of gasoline (or NG equivalent) to get a gallon of ethanol. However, ethanol has less energy in it than a gallon of gasoline, so you are burning more energy than you get out of ethanol to make ethanol.
  
  Dumbest idea ever for that reason.
  
  Now, sugar cane, trash, etc can all be turned into ethanol just easier than corn and its actually much more efficient than corn.
• I Wear Pants

  Ethanol from corn isn't a good idea and I said that back during the Bush presidency when it was the new "hot" thing to talk about because of that very reason. Sugar cane and other plants and items (trash) are more easily made into ethanol and worth looking at.
• BGFalcons82

  

  jmog;653964 wrote:My favorite corn to ethanol problem is the fact that in the production of a gallon of ethanol from corn, there is enough natural gas burned to equal the energy/CO2 production of burning a gallon of gasoline.
  
  So you burn a gallon of gasoline (or NG equivalent) to get a gallon of ethanol. However, ethanol has less energy in it than a gallon of gasoline, so you are burning more energy than you get out of ethanol to make ethanol.
  
  Dumbest idea ever for that reason.
  
  Now, sugar cane, trash, etc can all be turned into ethanol just easier than corn and its actually much more efficient than corn.

  
  Ditto for cars like the Volt. The amount of electrical energy that needs to be generated to re-charge the batteries in electric cars is much more than it would be for a gasoline engine, and likely more damaging to the atmosphere as coal is not as clean a fuel to burn as gasoline. But, it makes people feel warm, good and green.....and momma earth loves that, doesn't she?
• I Wear Pants

  The Volt is not an electric car. It's a pos.
  
  Real electric cars are certainly more friendly to the environment because we can produce electricity on a much larger scale and more efficiently than most engines can burn gasoline. Especially when you consider the future and that we should have less of a reliance on coal with advances and more investment in solar, wind, tide, piezoelectricity, nuclear, etc.
  
  By real electric cars I mean things like the Tesla Model S.